Argentine-Armenian businessman, National Hero of Armenia Eduardo Eurnekian will provide 250,000 USD in aid to the government of Armenia for fighting the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), PR manager at the Zvartnots international airport Satenik Hovhannisyan told Armenpress.

Eduardo Eurnekian is one of the wealthiest people in South America. Eduardo Eurnekian, the son of Armenian immigrants to Argentina, first delved into the textiles industry, then the cable TV business in the 1980s. He added to his media portfolio, buying radio stations, newspapers, and a TV channel. In the 1990s, he netted $750 million with the sale of cable TV firm Cablevision, as a wave of privatization brought capital into Argentina. In the late 1990s, he led a consortium that secured a 30-year concession to build and operate Argentina’s airports. Today, he and partners have a portfolio of more than 50 airports in multiple countries with reported revenues of $2 billion, including the first privately operated airports in Brazil. After Argentina’s economic crash in 2001, he bought assets through his Corporacion America, a holding company that owns more than 260,000 acres of land dedicated to crops, cattle and vineyards. It also owns an infrastructure development company, a chip factory called Unitech Blue, a biodiesel production facility, and land in Armenia used for fruit production and wine.

On September 21, 2017 Eduardo Eurnekian has been bestowed with the title of the National Hero of Armenia.

Nora Koloyan-Keuhnelian

The Armenian community has deep links in Egypt going back many centuries.

On the day the Armenian community in Egypt, together with the Western world, celebrated Palm Sunday, head of the community, Primate of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Egypt Bishop Ashod Mnatsaganian, revealed to Ahram Online his community’s donation of EGP 1 million to the state charitable fund Tahya Misr to support the Egyptian government’s efforts in combating the coronavirus pandemic.  

“We owe it to this Holy Land. It is the least we can offer as a helping hand to fight this pandemic in a country that showed a warm attitude towards our nation in the past and continues to do so at present, for which we are grateful,” Mnatsaganian told Ahram Online via telephone immediately after the Holy Mass of Palm Sunday.    The mass was broadcast live on the Facebook page of Egypt’s Armenian Diocese from Cairo’s St Gregory the Illuminator’s Church, for community worshippers to follow with prayers.   Armenians have been present in Egypt since the 8th century CE. Their number increased during the 12th to 16th centuries, and a community was formed in the 19th century after the genocide perpetuated by Ottoman Turks.   ##   On 15 September 1915, four French warships, including the Guichen, and one British naval vessel, transported 4,231 refugees from Musa Ler or Mount Moses — a site of Armenian resistance — to Port Fouad of Port Said, where they lived peacefully in camps until they were able to return to their homes in November 1919.  

As Armenia is the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official state religion, in 301 AD, the Armenian nation is very much attached to its church. Armenians are also keen to preserve their language and culture and expose it to broader sections of Egyptian society and to the whole world. The contributions Armenians have made to Egypt are too numerous to mention.   This is not the first time the community has made such a gesture. In September 2018, while the Egyptian Ministry of Emigration and Expatriate Affairs was celebrating “Egyptian-Armenian Fraternity” in the presence of Armenia’s then Minister of Diaspora Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, the community made a similar donation, EGP 1 million, to the Amiri Main University Hospital in Alexandria.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn has reportedly gone into self-isolation in a luxury Bavarian hotel with 20 of his concubines,

Many of us are struggling to find things to keep us occupied while we’re in coronavirus lockdown – not so the King of Thailand.

It has been reported King Maha Vajiralongkorn –  also known as Rama X – has self-isolated in a hotel in Germany with 20 of his girlfriends.

The 67-year-old is said to have moved his entire harem of concubines into the high end Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Bavaria after he was given permission by authorities.

Bavaria is under lockdown, like the rest of Germany, and the hotel should be closed down along with all the others but it was apparently been given “special permission” to remain open for the king and his bizarre court.

It is not known if the king’s FOUR wives are among the group.

Source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-insane-life-king-20-21781728?utm_source=mirror_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=RoyalNews1&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter

“Give us what you can so that we don’t overwhelm our health care systems over this next week,” Jerome Adams said on “Meet the Press” Sunday.

By Ben Kamisar

WASHINGTON — Surgeon General Jerome Adams Sunday called on U.S. governors who haven’t issued statewide stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of coronavirus to at least “give us a week” of restrictions as health officials warn of an accelerating rate of infections and deaths.

When asked for his message to those governors who have not yet issued such drastic orders, Adams called on them to follow the administration’s guidelines, which include measures like avoiding social gatherings and discretionary travel.

“The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, it’s going to be our 9/11 moment, it’s going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives. And we really need to understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other side, everyone needs to do their part,” he said during an interview on “Meet the Press.”

“Ninety percent of Americans are doing their part, even in the states where they haven’t had a shelter-in-place. But If you can’t give us 30 days, governors, give us a week, give us what you can so that we don’t overwhelm our health care systems over this next week, and then let’s reassess.”

Adams stopped short of calling for a national stay-at-home order, adding that “governors are rightly protective of their ability to determine what’s best for their citizens” and that it’s up to the experts to give governors “the science to make the best recommendations.” But he said that the best way to fight the spread of the virus is to over prepare.

“We are always telling people we would rather prevent disease than treat disease. I tell people we aren’t going to treat or supply our way out of this problem, there is no magic bullet or magic cure. It’s good old fashioned public health and prevention,” Adams said.

(Berlin) – Armenia’s parliament on March 31, 2020 passed amendments giving the authorities very broad surveillance powers to use cellphone data for tracking coronavirus cases, Human Rights Watch said today. The amendments impose restrictions on the right to privacy and allow the authorities access to confidential medical information related to people exposed to the virus.

As of April 2, Armenia had 663 identified cases of COVID-19. The government declared a state of emergency from March 16 to April 14, imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 26, and took other measures to contain the spread of the virus.

“The Armenian government is facing a public health emergency, and technology has an important role to play in communicating public health messages and promoting access to health care,” said Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But at the same time, the authorities need to address the ways that using mass surveillance undermines rights.”

Parliament adopted the law on March 31 after voting it down earlier that day.

The law requires telecommunications companies to provide the authorities with phone records for all of their customers, including phone numbers and the location, time, and date of their calls and text messages. The authorities would use that data to identify, isolate or put in self-isolation, and monitor anyone infected with COVID-19 or those who had been in close contact with infected people. The authorities would obtain information by obliging health care providers to report data to the authorities on “people tested, infected, persons having disease symptoms, persons treated in hospitals or persons who had contacts with the patient”

The government says that the law would allow the authorities to collect only phone records, and that they will not have access to the content of customers’ private communications. But such information can contain sensitive and revealing insights about an individual’s identity, location, behavior, associations, and activities, Human Rights Watch said.

While restrictions on the right to privacy to contain the pandemic may be permissible, the government must ensure that such restrictions are lawful, necessary, and proportionate.

The law requires the destruction of call records and other obtained data after the state of emergency ends. However, the government should also consider imposing strict limits on the collection of phone records, the purposes for which they are used or aggregated, and the agencies or officials that may access such information. People should also be made aware when their data has been collected.

The government should also establish stringent security protocols that minimize the risk of data breaches and protect people’s digital safety, Human Rights Watch said.

If the state of emergency persists over a prolonged period, the government should regularly review whether phone records that are no longer relevant should be destroyed. Activists criticized the bill for not being necessary and effective to prevent the virus’s spread.

Armenia’s Ombudsperson has also expressed concerns that the law lacks adequate human rights guarantees. 

Armenia’s constitution protects the right to privacy of telecommunications and medical information. International law, including the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, also protect against arbitrary or unlawful interference in “privacy, family, home or correspondence.” Armenia is a party to both, but deposited derogations, or exceptions, on March 20, after it declared the state of emergency.

“Armenia’s authorities have been respecting COVID-19 patients’ privacy rights thus far,” Gogia said. “But, so they do not undermine the trust that is needed for an effective public health response, they should explain how they will continue to do so and ensure that these digital surveillance measures are strictly in line with long-established human rights safeguards.”

The Kansas governor isn’t alone in making a political statement with a stay-at-home order.

By Susan Milligan

Kansas wants people to stay home during the novel coronavirus pandemic – except if they are going to church, buying or selling guns or running a childcare center.

An executive order issued by Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, says that “in these challenging times” the state “will do whatever it can to avoid immediate dangers to the health, safety and welfare of Kansans,” while also ensuring that “essential functions not be interrupted.”

In Kansas’s case, that means letting people go to church (despite federal guidelines urging “social distancing,” a policy the Trump administration on Sunday extended to April 30) and buying guns.

That’s Kansas, which has fewer than 3 million people but 6 million registered firearms, according to USAFacts. More than 7 in 10 Kansans attend religious services, and 37% go weekly, according to the Pew Research Center. But it also reflects the political environment for Kelly, who won an astonishing victory in the conservative state in 2018, says Nathaniel Birkhead, a political science professor at Kansas State University.

“Laura Kelly is in an unusually difficult position. She’s a Democratic woman governor of Kansas,” where President Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 20 percentage points, Birkhead says.

“She has less leeway to operate than if she were a Republican. She’s working very hard to maintain a kind of friendly image toward Republicans. This was to send a signal, as much as anything else.”

Officials in Kansas’s largest counties have already issued their own, more restrictive guidelines, and many churches have suspended services for the duration of the crisis – meaning the exception might be less relevant, he says. “Kelly can afford to do that (offer the exemptions) while still delivering the goals she has” to limit the spread of the virus in the state, he adds.

Kansas’s policy reflects a hodgepodge of restrictions by states, where rules reflect not just the rate of infection in the state but the culture of the local residents. Several states have explicitly protected gun sales – a move backed up by an updated, nonbinding advisory by the Department of Homeland Security Friday declaring “workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors and shooting ranges” to be part of the nation’s “essential infrastructure.”

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-03-30/how-guns-and-church-services-became-essential-business-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic?src=usn_thereport

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited the Yerablur military cemetery on April 2to pay tribute to the memory of the fallen soldiers of the 2016 April War and the Artsakh Liberation War.

Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan was accompanying the PM on the visit.

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the four-day heavy offfensives along the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Line of Contact.

The armed clashes began in the early hours of April 2, 2016 after the Azerbaijani troops fired Armenian defense positions along the frontline, provoking large-scale confrontations with the Defense Army of Nagorno-Kkarabakh. Heavier clashes were reported in the southern and north-eastern directions targeting the towns of Hadrut and Marakert.

Azerbaijan’s military used all the available arms supplies in its arsenal.

The military aggression continued also in the early morning hours of April 3 after the adversary opened fire from rocket artilleries and armoured vehicles. In an official statement later the same day, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense announced a “unilateral ceasefire”, but the military actions continued in the subsequent hours, keeping the civilians of Martakert under fire. 

In the late night hours of April 3 and the early hours of April 4, Azerbaijan kept shelling the frontline positions and civilian settlements along the Line of Contact. On the night of April 5, the adversary released fire from the heavy multiple rocket-launcher BM-30 Smerch.

A subsequent ceasefire, concluded at 12:00pm on April 5, continued until the next day. On the night of April 7, the Azerbaijani troops launched a commando raid against north-eastern frontline positions (Talish) but were pushed backed shortly afterwards, suffering a loss.

Leaders around the world have passed emergency decrees and legislation expanding their reach during the pandemic. Will they ever relinquish them?

Armenia in ‘Democratic backsliding’: Opposition MP Naira Zohrabyan blasts Pashinyan emergency bill on determining citizens’ location via cell phone

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has authorized his country’s internal security agency to track citizens using a secret trove of cellphone data developed for counterterrorism. By tracing people’s movements, the government can punish those who defy isolation orders with up to six months in prison.

LONDON — In Hungary, the prime minister can now rule by decree. In Britain, ministers have what a critic called “eye-watering” power to detain people and close borders. Israel’s prime minister has shut down courts and begun an intrusive surveillance of citizens. Chile has sent the military to public squares once occupied by protesters. Bolivia has postponed elections.

As the coronavirus pandemic brings the world to a juddering halt and anxious citizens demand action, leaders across the globe are invoking executive powers and seizing virtually dictatorial authority with scant resistance.

Governments and rights groups agree that these extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. States need new powers to shut their borders, enforce quarantines and track infected people. Many of these actions are protected under international rules, constitutional lawyers say.

But critics say some governments are using the public health crisis as cover to seize new powers that have little to do with the outbreak, with few safeguards to ensure that their new authority will not be abused.

The laws are taking swift hold across a broad range of political systems — in authoritarian states like Jordan, faltering democracies like Hungary, and traditional democracies like Britain. And there are few sunset provisions to ensure that the powers will be rescinded once the threat passes.

“We could have a parallel epidemic of authoritarian and repressive measures following close if not on the heels of a health epidemic,” said Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights.

As the new laws broaden state surveillance, allow governments to detain people indefinitely and infringe on freedoms of assembly and expression, they could also shape civic life, politics and economies for decades to come.

The pandemic is already redefining norms. Invasive surveillance systems in South Korea and Singapore, which would have invited censure under normal circumstances, have been praised for slowing infections. Governments that initially criticized China for putting millions of its citizens under lockdown have since followed suit.

Some Source from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/world/europe/coronavirus-governments-power.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_200331&instance_id=17201&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=49769097&segment_id=23366&user_id=ed77ee1e9ba027a35313df268f99ef3e

A senior lawmaker from the opposition Prosperous Armenia party on Monday voiced her criticism of a government-proposed bill outlining procedures for determining citizens’ location in times of national emergency.

In a speech at the National Assembly, Naira Zohrabyan said their political team will vote against the measure on “intervening in personal data protection, individual privacy, family immunity and freedom of communication”.

She called for the urgent return of the bill, stressing instead the need of a stronger attention to problems perceived to be of a more vital impoetance.

“This is not only a democratic backsliding but also an aimless effort on your part,,” Zohrabyan said, addressing the political majority. “The tremendous resources you are going to spend to determine our locations might be as well spent on arranging testing at all the entrance and exit gateways or relieving the burden of the unemployed and those working on daily wages.”

YEREVAN. – The draft bill restricting confidentiality of communication and other rights that was offered by the Armenian government will become a background for active involvement and restrictions of human rights, Armenian Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan said in a statement.

The Ombudsman studied the bills and submitted to the Ministry of Justice preliminary written proposals and comments. The details were discussed during a working meeting on Sunday, March 29.

A part of proposals and observations was accepted, the Ombudsman said, adding that he still had questions and remarks of crucial significance. Therefore, Tatoyan believed it was necessary to make public his approaches and offers in connections with the regulations suggested in the draft bill.

“The human rights defender realizes clearly that in this situation, and even more so in the context of the declared emergency situation, the government needs effective measures to prevent a new type of coronavirus (COVID-19) and to combat its further spread. All this, however, does not mean that the processes of preventing infection and combating its spread should make us forget about fundamental and, especially, constitutional rights and freedoms,” he said.

International community has a clear position in this regard, which states that no matter how appealing the idea to restrict the rights and freedoms is, the government should not allow this. Tatoyan recalled that international agencies such as UN, Council of Europe, OSCE/ODIHR and others, have been repeatedly stating it is unacceptable to ignore the main demands by the member states.

“The regulations proposed by the Cabinet in the draft law on amendments to the law “On the Legal Regime of a State of Emergency” impose restrictions on the constitutional rights of a person and are accompanied by deviations from the obligations undertaken by Armenia under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The matter refers to such rights as the protection of personal data, respect for private and family right, freedom of communication. Of course, the study of a draft bill indicates that a question may arise about the restriction of other rights (for example, the right to personal freedom of a person isolated at the request of the state),” he said.

The Constitution as well as the European Convention on Human Rights and other international treaties ratified by Armenia provide the government with the opportunity to restrict certain rights, however, restriction of rights and freedoms cannot be  left to the discretion of the government, as they must comply with the Constitution of Armenia and the standards established by the European Convention and other international treaties.

Ombudsman added that one of the proposed options regarding the regulations is that the police will deal with the matter, but there must be a special note in the draft bill. In this case, it will be clear that, for example, if a doctor of a regional medical facility, who has discovered a person infected with coronavirus, will report this to the police, which, in turn, will start acting.

“It is obvious that individuals who are isolated or self-isolated in certain situations will be deprived of their freedom. Therefore, the question will arise of guaranteeing their right to personal freedom,” he said.

Tatoyan wonders what will happen if one of the family members is infected with coronavirus.

“What will happen to other family members? Will the infected person be isolated from the family and will be transported to another place? If no, how his contacts with the family will be regulated?” he said.

The justifications for the application of the proposed mechanism have to be clear, Tatoyan resumed.