Archives for May 2020

A DW reporter and his camera operator have been shot at with projectiles by Minneapolis police and threatened with arrest. Reporter Stefan Simons confirmed with “absolute” certainty that the shot was fired by officers behind him as he was preparing to go live on air.

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan is involved in the international arms trade, said Mikael Minasyan, Armenian ex-ambassador to the Vatican.

“2016. There are many fictional and real stories about the April war. But there is one public consensus that unites everyone – the former, current authorities, experts, the public – that the Armenian and Artsakh authorities, despite being ready for hostilities from the military point of view, were unprepared in terms of information.

It means that the Armenian armed forces did not know exactly when, how, and by what forces the enemy will attack. And because of that omission, the previous authorities fired a person who was officially responsible for that omission. I am talking about the former Head of Intelligence Department, Arshak Karapetyan,” he added.

According to him, since Nikol Pashinyan likes to use people, he told Karapetyan that if he wants to become an important person in the new Armenia, he must provide his services, “and General Karapetyan started providing services.”

“On the 23rd of the month, General Arshak Karapetyan secretly went on a business trip to Voronezh,” he added. 

According to him, since there is both a state of emergency in Armenia and Russia, General Karapetyan could not leave Armenia and cross the Russian border for a private visit, “so he went as a state official, and there is nothing about it on the government’s website.”

He went by the secret or verbal order of the Prime Minister, Minasyan noted. 

According to him, “Nikol Pashinyan, who has long used General Karapetyan for special and dark tasks, this time sent him to Voronezh to negotiate with the special services of Russia” to help the PM and his family over the case on smuggled cigarettes, “so that a criminal case is not initiated.”

As Minasyan noted, General Karapetyan’s “mission” did not end there, after which he took action by Pashinyan in Moscow to negotiate with the officials of the Russian defense ministry to cover up the scandal as well.

Minasyan also noted that Nikol Pashinyan has attracted Armenia to the black market for the international arms trade.

According to Minasyan, Pashinyan is ready to do everything for money and power. 

“That’s why he tried to reach an agreement with our two biggest enemies to strengthen and seize power,” he said adding: “Nikol Pashinyan does not respect the Armenian people, does not respect human life.”

Source: news.am

YEREVAN. – As of 11am on Friday, 460 new cases of COVID-19 have been registered in Armenia; this was reported by the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

A total of 8,676 cases of coronavirus were confirmed as of Friday morning.

The total number of tests is 56,042—1,111 in the last day.

In fact, 5,214 people—an increase of 442 in one day—are currently being treated.

According to the latest data, 3,297 people—10 people in the last day—have recovered.

In total, 120 patients—an increase by 7—have died so far.

Another citizen, who was diagnosed with the coronavirus, died of other diseases. The total number of such cases is 45.

Artsakh confirms 2 COVID-19 new cases: Total number is 40

A highly sophisticated criminal enterprise obtained classified documents by making use of a honey trap scheme in the capital city of Ankara, with officers, governors, investigators and other bureaucrats ensnared in its web.

Nordic Monitor tracked the story of an escort woman who had traded sexual favors to gain access to official documents and pass them to her handlers, who then blackmailed her clients with a leak of taped sexual encounters, if necessary. She was one of many women who were tapped by the gang to extract sensitive government data from clients.

Her name is Ferda Berge, 34 years old at the time she was detained by the police in 2012 on multiple charges. Having grown up in a large family of nine children in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mersin, she was married at the young age of 19. She went through a divorce in 2002 after the couple had three children. She moved to Ankara and started working as a waitress in bars. She later started a prostitution business, renting a house to use as a rendezvous location while advertising herself on escort sites.

After a while she was recruited by a gang that set up schemes to obtain classified documents from government officials who were lured by sex. Berge screened her customers to identify whether they would be suitable candidates from whom the gang could acquire information on various branches of government. She took detailed notes on clients’ backgrounds, listed their weaknesses and suggested the best course of action for turning them into assets.

Documents seized from mastermind Bilgin Özkaynak and other suspects in the gang during the execution of search warrants in homes and offices revealed Berge’s secret record, which showed whom she had sex with and what documents or information she managed to obtain from the officials who were targeted.

In the house she used to meet with clients, police found 12 CDs and one 320 GB hard drive during the execution of a search and seizure warrant. An examination of the CDs and hard drive revealed that she possessed Turkish military documents including ones stamped secret on subjects such as counterterrorism and organized crime. The gendarme’s organizational chart as well as the names, photos and task assignments of dozens of law enforcement officers are included in the list of documents.

The expert report on the examination of CDs and a hard drive seized from the house used by a prostitute to meet with her clients:

ByAgence France-Presse,

The coronavirus pandemic could widen inequalities in the United States, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned Friday, as government data showed consumer spending plunging by a record amount.

The world’s largest economy is in dire shape with more than 40 million layoffs since lockdowns were imposed in mid-March to stop the spread of COVID-19.

And with low-wage services workers bearing the brunt of the job losses, Powell warned the pandemic could be “a great increaser of inequality.”

“The pandemic is falling on those least able to bear its burdens,” he said in a videoconference.

“Everything we do is focused on creating an environment in which those people will have their best chance to keep their job, or get a new job, or maybe go back to their old job if they’ve been furloughed,” he said.

The unemployment rate skyrocketed from near-historic lows just before the pandemic hit to 14.7 percent in April, and Commerce Department data released Friday showed personal consumption plunging by a record 13.6 percent in the first full month of nationwide lockdowns.

Prices also dropped by 0.5 percent, the biggest drop in more than five years, according to the monthly personal income and outlays report, as the mass layoffs slowed consumption.

– Rising pessimism –

A separate survey showed consumers are becoming more pessimistic about the prospects for the post-pandemic recovery, yet another indicator of economic damage in addition to the more than 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus.

“Household spending will likely continue to be impacted going forward by a more cautious attitude by consumers as job losses continue to mount,” Rubeela Farooqi of High Frequency Economics said.

“However, we think April likely marked the bottom and activity could be less weak in May and June.”

Fueling the $1.89 trillion drop in consumption were decreases in spending on food and accommodation as people stopped traveling and going out.

And that drop sent the personal savings rate soaring by 33 percent with shoppers holding on to $6.15 trillion — money that could perhaps be unleashed to aid the economy’s recovery or stashed for hard times ahead.

Income took an incongruent turn, shooting up by 10.5 percent in April, but that spike was caused by the government’s massive $2.2 trillion CARES Act which boosted unemployment benefits and included direct payments to all Americans, including children.

When those payments are excluded along with other government social benefits, income actually fell 6.3 percent, which Harvard University economist Jason Furman said would be the largest decline ever.

And he warned on Twitter that if Congress fails to extend the expanded unemployment payments beyond their expiration in the coming weeks, “these numbers will turn ugly in August.”

The National Center of Chamber Music will live a stream a concert by Armenian State Chamber Choir dedicated to the 150th birth anniversary of prominent Armenian composer, musicologist Komitas. The artistic director is Robert Mlkeyan. 

To note, the 150th anniversary of Komitas was marked in 2019.

President Donald Trump’s administration is contemplating using active-duty U.S. troops in an attempt to quell the protests in Minneapolis, the Associated Press reported early Saturday morning.

As unrest spread across dozens of American cities on Friday, the Pentagon took the rare step of ordering the Army to put several active-duty U.S. military police units on the ready to deploy to Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd sparked the widespread protests,” the AP reported.

“Soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York have been ordered to be ready to deploy within four hours if called, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders. Soldiers in Fort Carson, in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas have been told to be ready within 24 hours. The people did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations,” the AP explained.

Trump asked for the options.

“The get-ready orders were sent verbally on Friday, after President Donald Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options to help quell the unrest in Minneapolis after protests descended into looting and arson in some parts of the city,” the Associated Press explained.

1968 was one of the most tumultuous years in American history. Cities across the country burned after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Robert Kennedy was gunned down a few months later. There was a lot of crime, and widespread unrest in response to the seemingly endless war in Vietnam. A bloody police riot marred the Democratic National Convention.

That was the year Richard Nixon unveiled his “Southern Strategy,” pivoting to a law and order message against liberal Democrat Hubert Humphrey, whom he painted as soft on crime and someone who coddled those dirty hippies. The campaign carried racial undertones that weren’t exactly subtle, but were sufficiently implicit to distinguish him from third party candidate George Wallace, the fiery Dixiecrat who had gained national notoriety for his staunch opposition to black civil rights.

n 2016, historian Josh Zeitz wrote that, “by focusing incessantly on racially coded issues like crime and urban unrest, Nixon signaled to white voters that he offered a respectable alternative to Wallace.”

Campaigning throughout the upper South, he endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in public schools, but also assured white voters that he felt it was wrong for the federal government to “force a local community to carry out what a federal administrator or bureaucrat may think is best for that local community.” Even the conservative Wall Street Journal criticized Nixon’s “harsh and strident efforts to capitalize on deep-seated discontent and frustration. This is the Richard Nixon who tells a whistle-stop rally in Deshler, Ohio that in the 45 minutes since his train left Lima, one murder, two rapes and 45 major crimes of violence had occurred in this country—and that ‘Hubert Humphrey defends the policies under which we have seen crime rise to this point.’”

It worked. Nixon won 14 more states than two his rivals combined. Four years later, in 1972–and 18 months after four protestors were shot down by National Guard troops at Kent State University–he won every state except Massachusetts. Republicans have, to varying degrees, employed that strategy ever since.

It’s easy to forget that the 2016 Republican National Convention opened with the theme, “Make America Safe Again.” Trump’s campaign echoed Nixon’s, as he claimed that he spoke for the “forgotten men and women” of America and would stand tall against Mexican rapists and the forces of “political correctness.” It was all about leveraging white Americans’ cultural grievances and anxiety about globalization and demographic change.

With his late-night tweets calling the people out protesting the police slaying of another unarmed black man in Minneapolis “thugs” and warning that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” it’s a safe bet that Trump will attempt to use today’s unrest to deflect from his utter failure to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

There are three good reasons to think it won’t work.

First, Nixon was taciturn, serious and experienced. As Josh Zeitz wrote, he “walked a thin line between statesmanship and demagoguery,” which is something that Trump, who has no discipline whatsoever and is the antithesis of a statesman, is incapable of doing. Nixon was able to pitch himself as a stabilizing force–a rock in a sea of chaos; Trump is himself an agent of chaos. A majority of Americans think he’s racist and uniquely divisive. Those yearning for stability and a return to “normalcy,” have an alternative in Joe Biden, a veteran moderate Democrat who’s served in government for decades and tends to speak in soothing tones. Biden’s leading Trump by a mile among voters who dislike both candidates.

Second, it didn’t work in 2016. Not only did he lose the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots, but the data show that he almost certainly would have lost the Electoral College as well if not for former FBI Director James Comey announcing that he was reopening the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails 11 days before the vote.

It also didn’t help his party in the 2018 midterms, when Trump spent months railing about an “invasion” by a caravan of refugees making their way north to the United States through Mexico.

Finally, it’s simply the case that nothing seems to move the needle on Trump’s popularity with the public, or lack thereof. Opinions are set. He ended 2019 with a 42.6 percent approval rating in FiveThirtyEight’s average, and today–after 100,000 mostly avoidable deaths, 40 million lost jobs and a couple of stock market sell-offs–that number stands at 42.6 percent

Ultimately, Trump’s Nixonian pitch appeals to his hardcore base–the approximately 25 percent of voters who hold a “very favorable” view of his performance. It’s safe to assume that they celebrated his talk of shooting “thugs.” But there’s no reason to think it will resonate beyond MAGA nation, and every reason to believe it turns off more Americans than it energizes.

By Mihran Toumajan Washington, D.C. – The Armenian Assembly of America joins the Hovanessian family and Armenians the world over in mourning the loss of distinguished physician, community leader, and philanthropist Dr. Raffy Hovanessian, who passed away on May 27, 2020 at the age of 81. Dr. Raffy’s beloved wife of 55 years, Vicki Shoghag Hovanessian, shared the following moving tribute to her husband, courtesy of the Armenian Radio Hour of New Jersey: “It is with a heavy heart that I share with you the sad news of the passing of our beloved Raffy. He passed away peacefully tonight surrounded by his family. I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for your love, respect, and support throughout his life, especially during the last seven years of his heroic battle. You all have a special place in his heart. Please remember him in the happy memories we all shared throughout the years.” The son of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Arakel and Dirouhie Hovanessian, Raffy spent his formative years in Aleppo, where he attended grade school and college. Inspired by his mother, a nurse and midwife, and the teachings of renowned physician, theologian, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Raffy earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1958 and a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1962 from the American University of Beirut (AUB). While in medical school at AUB, he specialized in internal medicine and gastroenterology. In 1965, Raffy married his soulmate, Vicki Shoghag, in a wedding in Beirut officiated by Dr. Hovanessian’s lifelong friend, the Very Rev. Fr. Karekin Sarkissian. Decades later, Hayr Karekin would be elected Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin I.  Shortly after their union, Dr. Raffy and Vicki settled in the United States, where he continued his medical education in New Jersey and later at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Notably, during the most intense period of the Vietnam War, Dr. Hovanessian was drafted in the United States Army, earned the rank of Major, and served as Chief of the Ireland Army Community Hospital in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he focused on treating fellow service members afflicted with infectious diseases of the stomach and colon. The hospital is named in honor of the 23rd U.S. Army Surgeon General, Major General Merritte Weber Ireland, who served in that capacity between 1918 and 1931. Blessed with the birth of their three children – Armen, Ani, and Aileen – the Hovanessians settled in Northwest Indiana near Chicago, where Dr. Raffy established a successful private medical practice, while Vicki became a leading curator and collector of contemporary art. A Fellow Trustee and member of the Board of Directors of the Armenian Assembly of America (1986-1988), Dr. Raffy Hovanessian served with grace and humility. His commitment to faith and family was remarkable. His insights and work with the Assembly’s government affairs and grassroots initiatives were impactful and deeply appreciated. Dr. Raffy championed quality programming for Armenian youth, including the Terjenian-Thomas Assembly Internship Program in Washington, DC of which his son, Dr. Armen Hovanessian is an alumnus (’89). With his genuine and earnest efforts at encouraging camaraderie and unity among Armenian institutions – both clerical and lay – Dr. Raffy Hovanessian embodied the essence and mission of the Armenian Assembly. Dr. Hovanessian was a man of action and service. For two decades, he served as a Diocesan Delegate of his local parish, Saints Joachim & Anne Armenian Apostolic Church of Palos Heights, Illinois, a church to which he and Vicki contributed tremendously for over four decades. He served as Vice Chair and Delegate at the National Ecclesiastical Assembly in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin for the election of Catholicoi in 1995 and 1999. He served on the Diocesan Council of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America and on the boards of directors of St. Nersess Armenian Seminary and the Armenian Church Endowment Fund, in addition to serving as a member of the Diocesan Board of Trustees. Dr. Hovanessian was also active with and contributed to several educational, professional, and philanthropic organizations, including the American University of Armenia, Armenian American Health Professionals Organization, Armenian General Benevolent Union, Armenian Missionary Association of America, Fund for Armenian Relief, Knights of Vartan, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research.  Dr. Hovanessian devoted considerable time and efforts towards improving the quality of health care for his brothers and sisters living in Armenia, Javakhk, and Artsakh. A deserving recipient of awards and commendations, spanning several decades, by Armenian and non-Armenian organizations, Dr. Hovanessian inspired fellow physicians, as well as fellow Armenians, to live a life of dedicated service, piety, and philanthropy – all for the greater good. During the 112th Diocesan Assembly in New York City in 2014, the Eastern Diocese named Dr. Raffy Hovanessian as its “Armenian Church Member of the Year.” Significantly, the inspirational story of Dr. Hovanessian’s personal and professional life was entered into the Congressional Record in February 1994 by his good friend, U.S. Congressman Peter J. Visclosky, whose 1st Congressional District represents constituents based in Northwest Indiana. “We deeply mourn the passing of Dr. Raffy Hovanessian as a loss to the entire Armenian-American community and Armenians around the world, and everyone whose lives he touched. His constant positivism, willingness to help others, and wonderful smile will never be forgotten. He was truly a gifted individual and inspiring member of the Assembly’s Board. He was generous with his services to his fellow Armenians and a doctor whose skills at healing made him an admired physician among friends and professionals. We were lucky to have him, and the Assembly shares the pain of his accomplished and loving wife Vicki Shoghag, their devoted children and grandchildren, family members and friends,” stated Armenian Assembly Co-Chairs Anthony Barsamian and Van Krikorian.