Women Entrepreneurs Week launches in Armenia

June 8, 2015 By administrator

Women Entrepreneurs Week kicked off in Armenia on Monday. It has been organized by the Armenian Young Women’s Association and the Women Entrepreneurs Network of Armenia.

Armenian National Assembly Deputy Speaker Hermine Naghdalyan said at the opening of the event that they have a good opportunity to communicate, be informed about achievements and changes, as well as raise the problems faced by women entrepreneurs.

Women Entrepreneurs Week has brought together parliamentarians, cabinet members, representatives of NGOs, state agencies, business communities from France, Russia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Monaco, Iran, as well as representatives of the EU, IMF, EBRD and Asian Development Bank.

An international conference, an exhibition and a number of other events will be held within the framework of Women Entrepreneurs Week.

Source: Panorama.am

Sheep Shearing Festival kicks off in Armenia

June 8, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN. – The second Sheep Shearing Festival has kicked off in Armenia’s Syunik Region on Saturday at Halidzor station of TaTever aerial tramway. (photos)

Residents of eight settlements participated in the festival organized by the Tatev Revival Foundation together with the Homeland Development Initiative, Strategic Development Agency, the Armenian News-NEWS.am correspondent reports.

Many tourists, Syunik Governor Surik Khachatryan, Norway’s Honorary Consul in Armenia Timothy Straight, head IDeA foundation Armen Gevorgyan, China’s Ambassador to Armenia Tian Erlong attended the festival.

Turkish President Erdogan’s Triple Defeat

June 7, 2015 By administrator

Voters struck back at the ruling AK Party in parliamentary elections Sunday, depriving it of a majority and likely stopping the president’s latest power grab.

By David A. Graham

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered a painful triple defeat in elections on Sunday.

While Erdogan himself was not on the ballot, his Justice and Development Party (or AKP) lost its hold on parliament. The AKP was still clearly the leading party, garnering around 41 percent of the vote in preliminary returns, but it failed to win an outright majority. A second defeat was that one reason for the AKP’s struggles was a surge by the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP. For the first time, the party—a liberal group whose traditional base is Turkey’s Kurdish minority—crossed the magical 10 percent threshold required to actually earn seats in parliament. It did that in part by campaigning against the president. All that combined to produce what might be most galling of all to Erdogan: It means his hopes at changing the constitution to produce an executive presidency more like the U.S. setup are likely dead.

The presidential position is currently largely ceremonial, though there’s no doubt that Erdogan holds the reins of power. He was, however, officially barred from campaigning during the election. While Erdogan insisted he had benign intentions in seeking the new setup, some observers warned that it would be a step on the way to dictatorship.

It may be that Erdogan simply overreached in the last few years. While he’s Turkey’s most popular and powerful leader in decades, his eagerness to expand his reach alienated voters, particularly urban and secular ones. He embarked on a $615 million white-elephant palace project, imprisoned and intimidated the press and his political opponents, tried to block YouTube and Twitter, and feuded with Fethullah Gulen, a religious leader who’d help bring him to power. Anger boiled over in the streets of Istanbul and elsewhere in 2013, sparked by protests over trying to turn a park in the city into a mall. Meanwhile, the economy sputtered.

Joy as Turkish election result puts pro-Kurdish party into parliament

June 7, 2015 By administrator

Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA

Initial results from Sunday’s election reveal the Peoples’ Democratic party will take 80 of 550 seats

Thousands of jubilant Kurds flooded the streets of Diyarbakir, south east Turkey,on Sunday, setting off fireworks and waving flags as the pro-Kurdish opposition looked likely to enter parliament as a party for the first time.

The Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) said initial results from Sunday’s election showed it would take 80 of 550 seats, a stunning result for a party that pollsters had said would struggle to cross the required 10% threshold.

It also marks a major setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had hoped for a crushing victory for the AK party he founded, allowing it to change the constitution and give him broad executive powers.

Erdogan had repeatedly lashed out at the HDP and its charismatic leader Selahattin Demirtaş before the elections.

“This result shows that this country has had enough. Enough of Erdoğan and his anger,” said Seyran Demir, a 47-year-old housewife who was among the thousands who gathered in the streets around the HDP’s provincial headquarters. “I am so full of joy that I can’t speak properly.”

The crowds brought traffic to a standstill in parts of the city. Elsewhere, people drove through sidestreets hanging out of car windows and waving HDP flags. Men fired pistols into the air, a traditional sign of celebration.

Just two days earlier, bombs tore through a HDP rally in Diyarbakir, killing two and wounding at least 200.

The HDP had looked to reach beyond Turkey’s roughly 20% Kurdish population, attempting to woo centre-left and secular voters disillusioned with Erdoğan.

“The reason the HDP has won this many votes is because it has not excluded any members of this country, unlike our current rulers,” said 25-year-old Siar Senci. “It has embraced all languages, all ethnicities and members of all faiths and promised them freedom.”

The HDP’s entrance into parliament as a party – previously candidates ran as independents to skirt the 10% threshold – could also herald a step forward for the Kurdish peace process.

Injured Kurd when twin bomb blasts hit the HDP’s rally in Diyarbakır on June 5 cast their votes.

June 7, 2015 By administrator

More than 53.7 million Turkish voters head to the polls on June 7 for a crucial parliamentary election. report hurriyetdailynews

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has framed the June 7 election in Turkey as a key hurdle on the path to the powerful presidential system that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to introduce.

However, if the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) crosses the 10 percent election threshold, the number of AKP lawmakers will decrease considerably, making it almost impossible to reach the 330 seats necessary for a constitutional change.

The HDP has faced scores of physical attacks during its campaign. One of its campaign bus drivers, Hamdullah Öğe, was murdered on June 3, and three of its supporters were killed when twin bomb blasts hit its milestone rally in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır on June 5.

Election safety has also been a hot item on the agenda during the campaign ahead of the vote, amid the opposition’s claims that there was fraud in the vote counting process. The government has strictly denied the claim and mobilized a total of 404,000 security personnel to maintain security throughout the day of the election.

Here are the live updates:

6:30 p.m. – 22.2 percent of the votes have been counted so far.

6:20 p.m. – 16 percent of the votes have been counted so far, but the official publication ban on the initial results is continuing.

6:10 p.m. – 10.6 percent of the votes have been counted so far.

6.00 p.m. – According to a consolidated vote tally from Anadolu and Cihan news agencies, 6.6 percent of the votes have been counted so far, but the official publication ban on the initial results is continuing.

5.50 p.m. – During the counting of votes coming from abroad, a group claimed that some ballots were illegally thrown into the garbage at the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, according to private broadcaster CNN Türk. Police have arrived to stop a resulting fist-fight between party officials. “There is no problem at the place where votes from abroad are being counted. Our friends are on duty there. No need to panic,” HDP co-chair Demirtaş has said.

5.45 p.m. – 0.9 percent of the votes have been counted so far, but the official publication ban on the initial results is continuing.

5:00 p.m. – Polls close across Turkey and vote-counting starts at 174,240 ballot boxes.

Click for real-time results shown on a map
4.55 p.m. – A headman in Batman’s Yolveren village was all by lonesome on June 7, as he was the only person to cast a vote at his polling booth because the locality’s other 16 registered voters all now live in Germany. (Click here to read more)

4:50 p.m. – Residents of the Kuşu village in Turkey’s western province of Kütahya have boycotted the elections for a third time since 2011, when the town’s status was reduced to “village” due to a population decrease. (Click here to read more)

4:42 p.m. – Istanbul Gov. Vasip Şahin has confirmed the cars without license plates cannot belong to the police, according to CHP Istanbul provincial head Murat Karayalçın, who spoke with Şahin on the phone.

4:10 p.m. – A Turkish voter in the Aegean province of Manisa stamped himself in the forehead rather than the ballot paper to protest the elections, in which he said he had no faith. (Click here to read more)

ARMENIA-MUSIC The strong Armenian delegation led by Armenian President at Midem 2015, Cannes

June 7, 2015 By administrator

In working visit to France, the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan at the head of a strong delegation was yesterday at Midem-2015 festival in Cannes where Armenian artists featured this year. After the inauguration, the President of Armenia toured the stands of the Midem at the Palais des Festivals where 78 countries participate in this global music event. Armenia is this year’s guest of honor Midem-2015 the presence of the Armenian President and the strong Armenian delegation with many ministers-including Hasmig Boghossian Minister of Culture-was noticed. In this year of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, for his participation in this major musical event, Armenia wanted to mark the occasion and show that the Armenian people lived and created. Besides the passage of Serzh Sargsyan to the genocide memorial in Cannes obeyed this assertion memory and life.

Krikor Amirzayan

The Guardian: Europe’s leaders should boycott Azerbaijan’s mini-Olympics

June 6, 2015 By administrator

Armenian News – NEWS.am presents the abridged version of the article by Jules Boykoff published in the British newspaper The Guardian:

“As Azerbaijan prepares to host the first ever European Games, the backdrop is a crackdown. From 12 June, Baku will host a mini-Olympics for top athletes from the 50 member nations of the European Olympic Committees. By selecting Azerbaijan – a state that openly crushes dissent and censors journalism – European sport chiefs have magnified the Olympic movement’s worst elements: high-priced gigantism, censorship and political repression. In doing so, they give Azerbaijan’s autocratic president Ilham Aliyev precisely what he craves: favourable publicity on the world stage.

Father-son duo Heydar and Ilham Aliyev have ruled Azerbaijan since 1993. Soon after the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Heydar Aliyev consolidated power, overseeing the “bloodiest phase” of the clash with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh disputed territory and facing perennial allegations of political corruption and ballot-box stuffing. The Brezhnev appointee turned western-friendly strongman yielded the presidency to his son Ilham Aliyev in 2003. It has been a dynasty that is devastating for anyone venting dissent.

Baku 2015 comes with opulence and shimmer, but behind the glitzy scrim, it’s not pretty. Targeted political repression is rampant. As games preparations rev up, around 80 political prisoners languish in Azerbaijani prisons. Many more rights activists and journalists have suffered harassment, travel bans and threats.

Team GB is sending to Baku its largest delegation of athletes since the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, but the most influential Briton on hand will be Simon Clegg. Clegg is the former head of the British Olympic Association who’s currently ramping up pro-Azerbaijan propaganda as the Baku 2015 organising committee chief operating officer. He’s the two-legged embodiment of Upton Sinclair’s maxim that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

European leaders have been far too willing to tolerate Aliyev’s intolerance. But it’s not too late to take a principled stand. European governments should send a message by boycotting the European Games. This would deprive Aliyev of grin-and-grip photo-ops, the golden grist of tyranny. Enough of the obsequious backslappery. The repression in Baku slices mightily against the spirit of the Olympic charter. Now is not the time for selective morality.”

Tamar Kaprelian wins Eurovision’s Next Top Model 2015

June 5, 2015 By administrator

Tamar Kaprelian — one-sixth of Armenia’s Genealogy at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 — has won Wiwibloggs’ search for Eurovision’s Next Top Model 2015.

After collecting more than 140,000 votes in the semi finals and final, finally a winner was announced.

In a video Tamar thanks her fans for their support, and reminds that her new EP “Yours to Keep” is available on iTunes now.

Germany’s Merkel, Gauck refuse to visit Baku over political prisoners

June 5, 2015 By administrator

German leadership and government members will not attend the opening ceremony of the European Games in Baku on June 12. The cancellation is caused by a protest against the fact that there are over 100 political prisoners in Azerbaijan, including opposition activists, journalists and human rights defenders, Panorama.am reports citing German newspaper DerTagesspiegel.

According to the article published at DerTagesspiegel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t be travelling to Baku. The Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière who supervises sports sector has also turned down the trip, with Joachim Gauck, the President of Germany to stay in Berlin on June 12.

DerTagesspiegel further notes that the Azeri ruling regime has recently intensified the crackdowns. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders said that the laters are relentlessly prosecuted and repressed in Azerbaijan. “During President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Berlin in February, Merkel said that she disagreed with Ilham Aliyev regarding the human rights situation in the country,” the author of the article Claudia von Salzen notes.

She further says that there are over 100 opposition activists, journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijani jail. Well-known activist Rasul Jafarov, who tried to draw attention to human rights situation his country ahead of the European Games, is among them.

The newspaper points that the Chancellor, the Minister of the Interior and the President normally attend events of such level.

According to Turan agency, another influential German outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine reported that the German athletes urged for the release of the political prisoners in Azerbaijan. By this, they supported the call of the Council of Europe Commissioner Nils Muižnieks, UN special rapporteur Michel Forst, and OSCE special representative Dunja Mijatović.

The author of the article, Christoph Becker, notes that Christian Schreiber from the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) told the newspaper that respect for the fundamental human rights and the right for criticism is vital. “We join UN envoy’s call on all the countries to respect those rights,” he stressed.

According to the article, Michael Vesper from DOSB also endorsed UN rapporteur’s call.

In June, Azerbaijan will host the first ever European Games, with Formula 1 Grand Prixto be held in 2016. According to the international rights groups, the Azerbaijani authorities have intensified the crackdowns against the dissidents so that nothing can overshadow the two huge sport events to be hosted. The European Games will cost several billion dollars. Demolition of a large number of houses started in 2014 in Baku in the framework of the preparatory works for the Games.

Panorama.am. Germany leadership not to attend European Games in Baku, and athletes call for Azerbaijani political prisoners’ release

The MIDEM musical festival opens in Cannes France.

June 5, 2015 By administrator

June 5 to 8, this French city will be filled with Armenian music. Armenia is participating in the festival as an honored guest.

At a press conference at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Armenia’s Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan presented the program of Armenia’s participation in the festival.

“It was important for us to be present at this festival as an honored guest. I think you all know that this year is symbolic for Armenia. We are commemorating the Armenian Genocide. This is an opportunity to recall our tragedy and demand recognition and condemnation of last century’s first genocide. It is a question of principle for us to be present here and introduce ourselves to the world not as a victim, but as strong and talented Armenians that survived genocide and revived,” Ms Poghosyan said.

“The purpose of our participation is to show the audience and experts Armenian voices,” Ruben Tonikyan, Director of the ProArt company said as he presented the program.

Armenia is presenting its concept “Armenian elements of music” at the festival. The pomegranate with four different colors representing earth, air, water and fire is the symbol of the festival.

“This year is a special year for us – a year marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. We have formulated certain symbols for this year. There are four of them: our memory, gratitude to our supporters, international struggle for admission of the Armenian Genocide by the perpetrator-state and, finally, the concept of revival. I think this concept of revival is the slogan of our participation in the MIDEM festival. We are displaying our musical culture, which has been preserved and re-created since the Armenian Genocide. We marching toward the future with this culture,” Ms Poghosyan said.

“We are living in a country where we feel the government’s support. We have a State Youth Orchestra, which means we have young musicians and our government is supporting them,” Sergey Smbatyan, Art Director of the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia, told the reporters.

Cannes, which is hosting numerous tourists, is adorned with the colors of the Armenian national flag, with billboards reading ‘Armenia is an honored country’ in the streets. The front billboard of the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès is dedicated to Armenia.

Armenia is participating in the MIDEM festival with the sponsorship of the State Commission for Coordination for Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide centenary, Armenia’s Ministry of Culture and Tashir Group company.

Different Armenian compositions – classical music, jazz, rock – will be performed at concert halls and on open-air stages. Lectures will be delivered on Armenian culture and Armenian folk instruments, composer Komitas, as well as on compositions by world-famous composers who were inspired by Armenia.

The jazz band Katuner (Cats), Acoustic Colors quartet, ‘Mikael Voskanyan & friends’ ethnic jazz band, Dorians rock band, and Ambassador traditional music group will perform at the opening evening at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes.

The Hover state chamber choir will give a concert at the Evangelical Church in Cannes, on June 6.

The State Youth Orchestra of Armenia will give a concert with the well-known cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan’s participation at the Debussy hall, on June 7.

MIDEM will pay tribute to the great Armenian composer Komitas on the 80th anniversary of his death.

The InterContinental Carlton Cannes hotel will host an exhibition of paintings by Tigran Dzitoghtsyan and designer Vahan Khachatryan.

Armenian cuisine will be presented at the festival as well.