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Turkey is building a modular military base on the border with Armenia, on Mount Ararat, according to Turkish media, Armenpress reported.
The military base is being built at an altitude of 2,100 meters above sea level, and it will be equipped with modern night vision surveillance technology and autonomous weapon systems.
Turkish media reports said this military base in Turkey is being built “to fight terrorism.”
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan did not participate in the Christmas Mass celebrated in the Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator in Yerevan under the leadership of Catholicos of All Armenians Garek II.
No representative of the government was present at the liturgy. Even President Vahagn Khachaturyan and NA Speaker Alen Simonyan were not present. It seems that these authorities, all indiscriminately, are against the Armenian Apostolic Church.
It should be noted that it is the third year that the authorities have not participated in the Christmas service, which is an obvious attitude towards the Apostolic Church, the Catholicos of All Armenians, and faith in general.
If in 2021, the former spokesman of the Prime Minister, Mane Gevorgyan, stated that Pashinyan does not participate in liturgies because he is infected, today the ruling elite claims that they did not receive any invitation and that is why they do not participate.
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During the October 21- November 5, 2022 visit to the DESY research center in Zeuthen, Germany, Armenian scientists from the Cosmic Ray Division (CRD),
Yerevan Physics Institute reassembled the SEVAN (Space Environment Viewing and Analysis Network) detector. They prepared the Armenian-designed instrument for installation at Zugspitze Mountain in the Bavarian Alps, the highest summit of Germany. Modification of SEVAN, the so-called SEVAN-light instrument, is supported by new electronics, which was tuned and tested during the visit. New electronics will allow not only count rates of electrons, gamma rays, muons, and neutrons to be measured but also their energy spectra. Currently SEVAN is operated in the experimental hall on the first floor of the main building in Zeuthen, waiting to measure changes in the energy spectra during Forbush Decreases (FDs, a significant depletion of the particle flux due to fierce solar bursts). Also, the high-voltages and energy thresholds of the 3 channels of the SEVAN detector currently located at DESY, Hamburg, were fine-tuned.
Many species of elementary particles are created in the terrestrial atmosphere by high-energy protons and fully-stripped nuclei accelerated by galactic and extragalactic sources and by the sun. The sun is a tremendously variable object, capable of modulating the fluxes of the Galactic cosmic rays and sending intense fluxes of Solar Cosmic Rays in the earth’s direction. Because of the sun’s proximity, the effects of the changing fluxes can have a major influence on the earth, including climate, safety, and other areas. SEVAN carefully detects these fluxes, recovers energy spectra, and issues alerts on dangerous consequences of space and terrestrial weather, as well as on radiation doses and very strong electric fields, which occur periodically during thunderstorms. Solar, Astroparticle, and Atmospheric physics are synergistically connected and need to exchange data for the explanation of particle bursts and for revealing the influence of solar flares, violent explosions in the galaxy and beyond, as well as the influence of the atmospheric electric fields on the fluxes of secondary cosmic rays registered on the earth’s surface.
The SEVAN network aims to improve fundamental research on particle acceleration in the vicinity of the sun, space weather effects, high-energy physics in the atmosphere, and lightning physics. SEVAN units measure fluxes of most species of secondary cosmic rays, thus being a powerful integrated device for the exploration of solar and atmospheric modulation effects. The SEVAN modules are operating at the Aragats Space Environmental Center (ASEC) in Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia. The synergy of all areas of high-energy physics will open new areas of research for better understanding and developing physics of the geo-space. Geophysical research is becoming more and more important in the coming decades of rapidly rising natural disasters.
Source: Joseph Dagdigian Harvard, MA
Although the past two years – but especially the last weeks – have been a period of immense crises and pain for our nation living in Armenia, Artsakh, and all across the Diaspora, hope, and determination never diminished in our collective consciousness.
Today, more than ever, the children of the Armenian Nation must come together in mutual respect and a spirit of collaboration in the name of our collective goals, and in the service of our Motherland and freedom-loving Artsakh.
The Pan-Armenian Council of Western USA has been engaged in various measures and action plans to appeal to the United States government officials, as well as international organizations, promoting the just demands for the safety of our Motherland and Artsakh. We understand that it is not always that our voice yields the intended results, however, our hope, vigilance, and determination remain unshaken.
We call upon all our compatriots to remain united – as one soul and one body – so that we can effectively and successfully serve our Homeland and its interests. Our lives cannot be deemed to be in a normal course, as long as our brothers and sisters live continuously anxiety within the borders of our Motherland.
The advent of the New Year and Christmas place an additional moral obligation on all of us to give meaning to our lives in the spirit of service, especially in the memory of our martyred soldiers who fought most valiantly to protect our Nation and the interests of our people.
In these coming days, we shall keep you informed of specific steps initiated by the Pan-Armenian Council of Western USA, all aiming to promote our national goals and demands, as well as the security of our Homeland.
PAN ARMENIAN COUNCIL OF WESTERN USA
Singer Sona Shahgeldyan was robbed in Yerevan. This is reported by shamshyan.com.
According to the website, on December 31, Sona Shahgeldyan alerted the operational control center of the RA Police and reported that on the same day, between 01:30 and 13:00, an unknown person or persons attacked V. In the yard of one of the buildings on Hambardzumyan Street, they broke the door window of his Nissan car and stole the money from the salon. Criminal proceedings were initiated in the Investigative Committee regarding the incident. The amount of stolen money is revealed.
Also, Shooting at the rest house of YSU University in Tsaghkadzor, Kotayk marz. the suspect is the brother of the director of the “Experience Center” of the RA Ministry of Justice, who is also the director of the said rest house According to SHAMSHYAN.com, on January 1, an emergency occurred in Kotayk region. Today, on January 5, the Tsaghkadzor police department received operational information that a shot was fired in the administrative building of the “university” rest house listed on the balance sheet of the Yerevan State University at 39 Tanzaghbyur street in Tsaghkadzor city.
Members of Parliament of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), led by the Speaker of Parliament Arthur Tovmasyan, appealed to the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries – Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron to take concrete actions in the direction of either opening the Lachin Corridor or launching the Stepanakert airport.
STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 5, ARTSAKHPRESS: “The only road connecting Artsakh with Armenia and the outside world continues to be closed for already 25 days. The Artsakh issue was the only conflict where all OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries had almost the same position.
By and large, the people of Artsakh, who are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, are in need of not only targeted statements, but I believe that there is the need to take practical and visible steps in this direction. Seriously-ill patients don’t have access to necessary medication and health services, Artsakh is deprived of essential supplies such as baby food and other goods.
We are calling upon the civilized world, particularly the Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries, to take concrete actions in the direction of either opening the corridor or launching an air bridge – launching the Stepanakert airport, which would allow to somewhat avoid the alarming humanitarian crisis in Artsakh during the winter,” the Artsakh Speaker of Parliament said in a letter.
By Michael Rubin,
Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh is now entering its fourth week. Grocery store and pharmacy shelves in the capital Stepanakert now lie bare.
Azerbaijani diplomats initially denied any blockade. Baku’s narrative boils down to the claim that the entirety of Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijani, therefore Armenian residents must either depart or depend on Azerbaijani largesse. Armenians argue both that they have the right to self-determination in Nagorno-Karabakh, and that Azerbaijan’s eliminationist rhetoric makes any dependence upon Baku’s goodwill suicidal. Navigating this dispute was the basis of the decades-long Minsk Group process that collapsed in the last months of the Trump administration. Regardless of perspective, the fact that Azerbaijan uses starvation as collective punishment to advance its interests is undeniable.
History will not be kind to the Biden administration if it allows the situation to continue.
Certainly, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has agency and bears ultimate responsibility. However, U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken cannot deny accountability.
After all, even after Azerbaijan launched its military attack on Armenian communities in Nagorno-Karabakh, Blinken greenlighted continued military aid to Azerbaijan in defiance of Congress and U.S. law.
Biden states “diplomacy is back” as a mantra, but when he signals there is no consequence for defying him, diplomacy loses any meaning.
Neither Biden nor Blinken appear to care much about diplomacy in the region. In his first briefing of the year, State Department spokesman Ned Price shirked responsibility. “It is not for us to prescribe what a comprehensive solution to this conflict looks like,” he stated. “That is the hard work that the parties themselves will have to do.”
Nor is both-siderism an excuse. In September 2022, Cornell University released a study using satellite imagery that showed “near-total erasure of Armenian heritage sites” in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. In a Senate hearing two months later, Amb. Philip Reeker, the State Department’s senior advisor for Caucasus negotiations, acknowledged under questioning that he had seen numerous videos of Azerbaijani forces summarily executing Armenian prisoners.
Neither Reeker nor Karen Donfried, assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, could explain why, in Senator Bob Menendez’s words, the United States “has done nothing to verify the videos and the evidence of cluster munitions, of white phosphorus, which are illegal.”
Such a performance harkens back to the failure of both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his senior aides’ inability to explain why they did not bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz, even when they knew about the atrocities conducted there. Apologists might say that against the backdrop of World War II, other targets took precedence. In the Caucasus now, however, no such argument could hold, given the power differential between the United States on one hand, and Azerbaijan and Turkey on the other. Blinken has many tools at his disposal. Ending the waiver of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act is only the first among them.
The moral deficiency of current Biden policy extends to Samantha Power. The USAID administrator based her career on her castigation, in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Problem from Hell, of U.S. unwillingness to prevent genocide. She dealt extensively with the legacy of Raphael Lemkin – a Polish lawyer who coined the term genocide, and the founding father of the Genocide Convention – and fully embraced his work. She details at length how among Lemkin’s greatest influences was the early 20th century Armenian Genocide. To sit aside, remain silent, and refuse to assist the Armenian population when it faces starvation, will permanently stain her legacy and stunt her ambition to one day herself become secretary of State.
U.S. officials may sidestep responsibility by arguing that Nagorno-Karabakh is far away and that Washington has no ability to help. This is false. Not only does the United States have financial leverage over Azerbaijan, but the United States could also provide immediate relief by providing meals and other supplies from the Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey.
Think tank warriors on Pennsylvania Avenue may deny that any blockade exists, but why should the State Department not send diplomats to Lachin to observe for themselves? Genocide thrives in the dark. It does not proceed so smoothly when a light is shined upon it. Biden and Blinken must stop extinguishing the like.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” (AEI Press, 2019); “Kurdistan Rising” (AEI Press, 2016); “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter Books, 2014); and “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave, 2005).
Written ByMichael Rubin
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?” (AEI Press, 2019); “Kurdistan Rising” (AEI Press, 2016); “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter Books, 2014); and “Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos” (Palgrave, 2005).
Mayor Bass for joining me in communicating to President Biden the urgent need for U.S. leadership to lift the blockade and bring humanitarian relief to the people of Artsakh.
The ruling Civil Contract Party had three tasks when it came to power in Armenia: to hand over Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to Azerbaijan, to strengthen anti-Russian sentiments in Armenia by achieving the withdrawal of the Russian military base in the country, and to make a geopolitical change towards the West. Political technologist Armen Badalyan told this at a press conference Tuesday.
“The first attempt to hand over Artsakh took place in the 2020 war, but Russian troops were able to stop it. They [i.e., the Armenian authorities] have achieved certain things regarding anti-Russian sentiments [in Armenia]. The authorities are successful in this regard; and if it remains this way, the trend will continue. The issue of [new] geopolitical orientation [of Armenia] is becoming noticeable in the last few months. The statements of Armenia’s officials are qualified as a provocation, anti-Russian even at the level of the spokesperson of the Russian president. The anti-Russian sentiment is being strengthened [in Armenia] especially when Russia has not succeeded in its problem with Ukraine,” said Badalyan.
In his opinion, Azerbaijan actually understands well that if Armenia gives up Artsakh, then Russia will not give it up because Russia already has two factors in Artsakh: peacekeeping forces, and Artsakh Minister of State—and Russian Armenian—Ruben Vardanyan.
“After some time, it is possible that the military sphere will be completely removed from the control of [Artsakh President] Arayik Harutyunyan and given to Ruben Vardanyan. That is, Russia wants to completely pull out the military sphere of Artsakh from the control of Armenia, and that is why Azerbaijan demands the removal of Ruben Vardanyan. They understand that Ruben Vardanyan gives people there [in Artsakh] hope that Russia will do something. Ukraine’s resources are almost exhausted. And there are calculations that Russia will achieve great success and, in that case, you will not even try to remove that type of Russia from the Caucasus. That’s why the actions are so accelerated now,” said Badalyan.
The political technologist notes that the current Azerbaijani blockade of Artsakh and the intensification of anti-Russian sentiment by Armenia’s authorities coincided. It had never happen that the authorities criticized in the holiday message, and this is another destination in the line.
“Artsakh cannot remain under a blockade for months; the road [i.e., the Lachin corridor linking Artsakh to Armenia] must be [re]opened somehow. It cannot remain closed for a long time because it harms not only the residents of Artsakh, but there is also the issue of [Russian] peacekeepers. After all, the peacekeepers in Artsakh need weapons, ammunition, food, necessary logistical things which they are deprived of [now],” Badalyan emphasized.
YEREVAN, January 3. /ARKA/. Azerbaijan will not show goodwill and will not unblock the Lachin corridor, said the chairman of the Human Development Center Tevan Poghosyan in an interview with the “Special Opinion” program of “The Novosti-Armenia news agency’s YouTube channel.
According to him, Armenia should get ready to open the corridor, which is the sole road linking Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) on its own.
The sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia has been blocked since December 12 by groups of Azerbaijanis, described by Azerbaijani state media as environmental activists protesting against illegal mining in the area.
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of seeking to cause a humanitarian collapse in Nagorno-Karabakh and force its residents to leave their homes. On December 13-16 Azerbaijan also cut off gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, pumped from Armenia.
Due to the blockade, there is a shortage of medications, fuel as well as food and other essentials,”
“We have two scenarios: either to create a strong tool of global pressure on Azerbaijan to make it feel the pain on its own skin and remove its ‘environmentalists’ (who blocked the road)… Or we should remember what we had done in 1992, when we had opened the road ourselves,” Tevan Poghosyan said.
He noted that this scenario should be discussed every day and ‘we should prepare for it in order to implement it in one day.’ -0-