David Babayan, who was dismissed Wednesday from the position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and was appointed the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, made a respective post on Facebook.

“Changes in the government are an objective process. After all, you can’t hold the same position all your life. That is why it is important to treat everything calmly, which is especially true for real statesmen. I continue my work, this does not affect the work of the Foreign Ministry, my devotion, and my spirit is unshakable, do not even think about it.

Any changes should be aimed at improving work efficiency. I’ve always talked about it, never talked behind anyone’s back. Yes, changes are needed, but it must be done in such a way that the main focus is on professionals and patriots.

Recently, one of my acquaintances told me that he had to sell his personal car in parts so that it would not fall into the hands of law enforcement officers.

I don’t know much about legal nuances, but it turns out that now the patrol service workers can stop and impound the car of a person who owes money to the bank. The work of confiscation will be done not by patrols, but by enforcers, but that is not the main thing, the person will be deprived of the car.

My friend said that this car was his only means of living, he worked in a delivery service, delivered food and supported his family of five. Now he can’t anymore, because he took a loan from the bank a few years ago, he didn’t pay that debt, and now the car can be taken away from him for that debt. In order to avoid such a prospect, he decided to dismantle the car and sell it in parts. engine, body, wheels, transmission and other parts. If he dismantles the car and sells it in parts, the patrols will not be able to stop the car, and the enforcement officers will not be able to take it away from him. The car will be searched, but not found.

I thought that this was a private case, but my acquaintance opened a Facebook page where there were many announcements. people are forced to dismantle their cars to prevent them from falling into the hands of enforcement officers. It is better to sell in parts, to get some money, than to hand over the last property to bailiffs and the bank. He has no idea what he will do after selling the car, but he has two options. either he will rent a car from someone else and continue doing the same thing, or he will go to Russia. Says. “Now you can get to Russia with 100,000 drams, if you have some money for accommodation and living, I will think of the rest on the spot. One thing is that there is nothing to do here either.”

During the last four and a half years, the Armenian government has done everything to ensure that the common man has no chance to live in Armenia. The legislation of the country has been imperceptibly but consistently transformed in such a way that it serves the banks and their owners, and those who took loans from the banks become slaves, without any rights or protection. I have already had occasion to say once that the head of the introduction of banking slavery is Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, who is busy serving the interests of the banking system. Thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of people have taken loans from banks under inhuman conditions and are unable to repay them. They are deprived of state protection, and now the banks take from them what they can, only to return their property. Let’s not be surprised if it turns out that tomorrow Mher Grigoryan will pass a law in the parliament.

It seems that the state of Armenia itself should have protected its citizens from banks, because if there are no citizens, there is no state. But that principle does not and cannot work in Armenia. In no normal country is it possible to imagine that a journalist can become the prime minister and a banker the deputy prime minister. How is it possible for the state to trust people who, due to their specialization, cannot have state thinking and practices? 

The journalist and editor is a populist by nature and is interested in the purely external effect, while bankers are known for their morbid addiction to money. Neither journalists nor bankers create anything in their lives, in the course of their activities, they live as parasites, exploiting what others have created and stealing their share from that creation. It is normal when these people are in their place and engage in their special activities. one with journalism and the other with banking. But they become a scourge for the public, and a mine for quick action laid in the foundations of the state, when they appear in the state administration system, and in our case, at the head of that system. Because one is busy constantly organizing shows, and the other is tearing the skin of citizens. 

As a result of this, many citizens of Armenia are already fleeing the country, not because of good life or safety reasons, but because it becomes impossible to live in Armenia and even survive. Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan recently complained that there is a shortage of workers in the service sector. That lack will constantly increase, because in many countries of the world slavery is simply prohibited, and in Armenia laws have not yet been adopted to sharply limit free movement. If Kerobyan wants to correct this situation, he can pass a law under the auspices of Pashinyan and Grigoryan, which will prohibit those who owe even a thousand drams to banks to leave Armenia and be freed from slavery. Undoubtedly, such a law will be easily passed, and those in the slavery of banking will have no way to escape. This is not a fantasy at all.

Avetis Babajanyan

The work in the agricultural lands belonging to Sarushen village in the Askeran region of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has stopped. Village head Karen Gasparyan informed about this in an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“We left the fields, we stopped the work because they [i.e., the Azerbaijani soldiers] opened fire in the direction of the tractor driver. There was no damage, everything is normal,” Gasparyan said.

The head of Sarushen village added that the Azerbaijani side has been shooting often in recent days.

To note, at around 11am on Monday as well, the Azerbaijani side had opened fire toward the Artsakh civilians working in the same place, thus violating the ceasefire.

Some workers allegedly accepted thousands of dollars in bribes

By Kirsten Grind, Robert McMillan,

Over the past year, Meta Platforms have fired or punished more than two dozen employees and contractors accused of giving attackers unauthorized access to Facebook and Instagram accounts, in some cases for bribes amounting to thousands of dollars. The Wall Street Journal learned about this from sources familiar with the situation and from documents that came into their possession.

According to the publication, all of the fired employees were using Facebook’s internal Online Operations tool, which they refer to among themselves as Oops. This tool provides the ability to restore access to the account of users who have forgotten their logins and passwords or have become victims of hacking.

The corporation has strict regulations limiting the range of people who can get help from Oops: these are family members of Meta employees, close friends, business partners of the company and public figures. However, any of them need to fill out the appropriate form each time to use the tool.

It recently emerged that the number of calls to Oops increased from 28,270 tasks in 2017 to 50,270 in 2020. This fact caught management’s attention and initiated an investigation, which also revealed that some former employees and contractors of the company retained access to Oops even after they left Meta.

One of the employees fired because of the scandal was Reva Mandelowitz, who worked as a security contractor. She was fired in February after being accused of receiving thousands of dollars in bitcoins for dropping several user accounts for malicious users. WSJ reporters were able to talk to her, but she called all the accusations false. She said she requested 20 account resets for her close ones, and an unknown attacker forced her to ask for more.

Meta had problems even before this scandal. Amid serious financial problems, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to lay off 11,000 people, about 13% of the corporation’s employees. According to the media, this is the largest reduction in the corporation’s history.

Horizon Worlds, the company’s flagship metaverse creation project, is not living up to developers’ expectations and the money invested in it. According to media reports, since 2019, $36 billion has already been invested in research and development related to the meta universe. Since the beginning of last year, $15 billion has been invested in Reality Labs. However, today the metaverse is empty, because the number of active users of Horizon Worlds per month does not reach 200,000 people: only 9% of metaverse worlds have at least 50 visitors a day.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/meta-employees-security-guards-fired-for-hijacking-user-accounts-11668697213?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Harut Sassounian

Throughout their long history, Armenians have always expected that some foreign power would rescue them from their enemies. Over the centuries, they hoped for assistance from the Romans, Byzantines, Russians, French, Americans, and now Iranians. But, no one has ever come to save them. One would think that after such a long string of disappointments, Armenians would finally learn the lesson that no one will rescue them. They need to save themselves.

Given such unrealistic expectations, Armenians keep going from one potential rescuer to another, attempting to find anyone that would assist them. No one helped save the Armenians when Ottoman Turkey was committing genocide against them; no one saved them when the survivors returned to Cilicia only to be attacked and killed by Ataturk’s armies; no one helped them in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Azeris were massacring Armenians in Artsakh; and no one helped Armenians when Azeris with the support of Jihadist terrorists, Israel and Turkey conquered most of Artsakh, killing and maiming thousands of Armenian soldiers and civilians.

After all of these disappointing experiences, Armenians were hoping that Russia would step in and save Artsakh. When that didn’t happen, Armenians loudly complained that Russia had betrayed them. Armenians kept demanding that the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) protect Armenia from repeated Azeri encroachments on its borders.

Armenians don’t seem to understand that each nation’s priority is to defend its own national interest, not that of Armenia. No one is obliged to help Armenia, even when a treaty of mutual defense is signed, which is viewed as a mere “piece of paper.” Rather than abandoning their unrealistic expectations, Armenians have now turned to France and the United States hoping they would come to their rescue!

It is encouraging that in recent months Armenia signed contracts with India to purchase a large number of missiles and artillery. Finally, the Armenian Government is realizing that it needs to defend the country rather than rely on the mercy of others.

Last week, Armenians around the world were elated that the French Senate adopted a pro-Armenian resolution. However, Armenians should neither exaggerate nor minimize the significance of this resolution. The French Armenian community has carried out commendable lobbying activities for many years to create such a sympathetic atmosphere about Armenians and Armenia. That is the main reason why this resolution was adopted by the French Senate with a near-unanimous vote of 295 in favor and one against.

The comprehensive French resolution strongly condemned Azerbaijan’s invasion of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia and demanded:

— The immediate withdrawal of Azeri forces from Armenia;

— The release of all Armenian prisoners of war held by Baku since the 2020 war;

— The preservation of Armenian cultural and religious monuments;

— That the French government with the United Nations Security Council refer Azerbaijan’s aggression to the International Criminal Court;

— That France sanction Azerbaijan, seize the assets of its leaders, and place an embargo on the importation of Azeri oil and gas;

— The establishment of a French humanitarian office in Artsakh;

— The strengthening of the defense capability of Armenia;

— The deployment of an interposition force under the aegis of the international community;

— The recognition of the Nagorno Karabagh (Artsakh) Republic;

— That France ensure Azerbaijan engages in peaceful negotiation with Armenia to establish a lasting peace.

Azerbaijan reacted harshly and condemned the French Senate for adopting this resolution. By taking counter-measures, Azerbaijan risks disrupting its diplomatic and economic relations with France. However, for this non-binding resolution to have any effect, it must be adopted by the French National Assembly and backed by the President and Government of France.

Armenians need to have a cool-headed assessment of the French Senate resolution. They should not expect France to save Artsakh or Armenia. They need to continue developing Armenia’s military so they can defend the country’s borders, while welcoming the assistance of any country, without having any unrealistic expectations. Remember that the French Senate and Parliament adopted resolutions after the 2020 war, urging the French government to recognize the Artsakh Republic, which did not materialize. This is not surprising as Armenia itself does not recognize the independence of Artsakh. To avoid further disappointments, Armenians need to view the French Senate resolution as an important moral and diplomatic support, but not a military one.

Another message of support for Armenia and Artsakh came this week when 120 prominent celebrities and intellectuals issued a joint statement in the French “Le Figaro Magazine,” including Claudia Cardinale, Gerard Chaliand, Costa-Gavras, Alain Delon, Bernard-Henri Levy, Yves Ternon, etc. They wrote: “More than a century after the perpetration of the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman leaders in 1915, the same people are once again victims of two authoritarian regimes which, in Baku as in Ankara, provoke inter-ethnic hatred to endow their unchallenged power with a bloody new trophy….”

It is now up to the Armenian Government and Armenians around the world to see to it that the French Senate resolution and the statement of the 120 celebrities are used to provide additional support for Armenians in Armenia and Artsakh.

Azerbaijani and Israeli Defense Ministers Zakir Hasanov and Benny Gantz discussed the prospects of military-technical cooperation between Baku and Tel Aviv during a telephone conversation,

In the course of the conversation the sides exchanged views on the prospects of bilateral military-technical cooperation, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

Gantz noted that Azerbaijani-Israeli relations are based on friendship and mutual trust and expressed gratitude for the decision to open Azerbaijani Embassy in Tel Aviv.

We should have two ways: a process of normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, including the issues related to the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan, Karabakh, from the perspective of rights and security,” President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated this.

“Yesterday I had a telephone conversation with the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. We also talked about that. We clearly understand that there should be two ways, they should not be mixed together. However, Armenia’s statements are very contradictory.

They say that they recognize our territory and sovereignty. They not only say it, but also sign it in Prague and Sochi. It means the sovereignty of our entire territory. We all understand what sovereignty is. At the same time, they want to include issues related to the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan in the peace agreement. It will not happen,” Aliyev emphasized.