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Putin says Russia not responsible for recent global cyber attack

May 15, 2017 by administrator

global cyber attack

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that his country had nothing to do with the recent global “ransomware” cyber attack that targeted some 150 countries over the weekend.

“Microsoft’s management has made it clear that the virus originated from US intelligence services,” said Putin while addressing reporters in the Chinese capital Beijing on Monday.

Earlier, Microsoft President Brad Smith noted that US intelligence agencies, such as the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA), were to blame for the attack because they stockpiled malicious software code which was used by the hackers.

The NSA claims the software used in the attacks had been stolen from it.

“Once they’re let out of the lamp, genies of this kind … can do damage to their authors and creators,” said Putin. “So this question should be discussed immediately on a serious political level and a defense needs to be worked out from such phenomena,” he added.

Putin went on to stress that Russian institutions were not significantly affected in the attacks.

The Russian president also noted that last year Moscow had called on the US to engage in negotiations about dealing with cyber threats. “Unfortunately, they refused our proposal,” he said.

“The previous administration told us they were interested in reaching back to this proposal again, but nothing was actually done,” he added. On Friday, hundreds of thousands of computer systems across the world were targeted in a cyber attack.

When the ransomware virus infects a computer system, data on that system get encrypted, and images appear on monitors demanding a payment of $300 in the almost untraceable virtual currency Bitcoin.

The payment must be made within three days, otherwise the price would be doubled; and if none is received within seven days, the locked files will be deleted, according to the screen messages.

Four Armenian cities become part of UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities

October 20, 2016 by administrator

armenia-unisco The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recognized four Armenian towns – Sisian, Dilijan, Sevan, and Gyumri – among its Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC), Armenia’s ministry of foreign affairs reported.

According to the statement, UNESCO established the Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically its 4th Goal to encourage the growth of learning cities, accelerating the practice of lifelong learning in the world’s metropolitan areas. The launch of the initiative along with its Award took place in Mexico City on September 28-30, 2015 at the 2nd International Conference on Learning Cities.

The cities that become GNLC members benefit from participating in international policy dialogue, action research, capacity building and peer learning, and effectively using learning city approaches to promote lifelong learning for their citizens.

Any council or other elected body of an administrative unit with at least 10 000 residents may apply to become a member of the UNESCO GNLC if they commit to develop a learning city, pledge to implement the guiding documents of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities – Beijing Declaration on Building Learning Cities and Key Features of Learning Cities. The Armenian National Commission for UNESCO is authorized to review and approve applications, the ministry said.

Armenia improves position in UN’s Global Innovation Index

August 16, 2016 by administrator

Armenia has climbed one spot in the Global Innovation Index to rank the 60th among 128 countries against the 61st spot last year, with Switzerland, Sweden and Great Britain ranking highest on the list.

The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation.

Armenia is the only economy in the region which outperforms relative to its GDP.

Among Armenia’s strengths are mentioned ease of starting a business (5th spot overall), innovation efficiency ratio which is designed to assess the effectiveness of innovation systems and policies (15th), females employed with advanced degrees (24.7%, 5th spot overall) and other indicators.

On the other hand, lack of high- and medium-high-tech manufacturers, the low number of graduates in science and engineering, expenditure on education are listed among the country’s weaknesses.

Turkey ranks the 42nd, Georgia – 64th, Azerbaijan – 85th, Iran – 78th, while Russia comes in the 43rd.

Also, China has broken into the world’s top 25 innovative economies for the first time this year, said the annual report by the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), INSEAD Business School and Cornell University.

Other emerging economies are climbing the list, like India, which climbed to 66th place from 81st a year earlier.

According to the report, Yemen, Guinea and Togo are the least innovative countries in the world.

Related links:

The Global Innovation Index 2016

US warns of global attack on freedom, slams some allies like Turkey

April 13, 2016 by administrator

© AFP/File | A demonstrator holds a placard reading "Free Press Free Society", outside the Istanbul courthouse on April 1, 2016

WASHINGTON (AFP) Governments around the world are cracking down on basic freedoms, the United States warned Wednesday, in a report that did not spare key US allies like Turkey and Egypt.

Secretary of State John Kerry, writing the preface to his department’s annual human rights report, said attacks on democratic values point to a “global governance crisis.”

Yerevan to host Second Global Forum on Armenian Genocide in 2016

December 10, 2015 by administrator

PanARMENIAN.Net – Major efforts are underway to organize the Second Global Forum, commemorating the Armenian Genocide on April 23, 2016, secretary of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee, Chief of Staff of the Armenian President’s office said, according to Artsakhpress.

“The Yerevan-hosted forum will focus on the crime of genocide and the refugee crisis,” Vigen Sargsyan said, adding that the subject is rather topical and of great international interest.

According to the official, the international struggle against the crime of genocide was a key factor in view of events commemorating the Armenian Genocide centennial.

As he reminded, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, co-authored by 90 states on Armenia’s initiative.

“The United Nations New York headquarters marked the first-ever International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime on Wednesday, December 9. The event was hosted by the President of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft, with the Secretary-General’s special representative and Armenia’s permanent representative to the UN Zohrab Mnatsakanyan participating. Also, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute co-sponsored the project,” Sargsyan noted.

Global cost of war reaches $14 trillion, says report

June 18, 2015 by administrator

More than $14 trillion (£8.9 trillion) was spent on international conflicts in the past year, according to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), which found that Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were responsible for a surge in war deaths.

The spending represents 13% of global GDP and is roughly the combined value of the economies of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Spain and Brazil.

Steve Killelea, IEP Chief Executive, said reducing conflict was one way to help the world’s economic recovery.

“If global violence were to decrease by 10% uniformly, an additional $1.43 trillion would effectively be added to the world economy,” he said.

This year saw overall levels of conflict unchanged. However, the picture was uneven around the world, with 86 nations seeing their peace index fall while 76 enjoyed increased peace.

Source: Panorama.am

Daily Mail Genocide of the Christians: The blood-soaked depravity exceeded even today’s atrocities by Islamic State – now, 100 years on Turkey faces global disgust at its refusal to admit butchering over a MILLION Armenians

April 18, 2015 by administrator

By Tony Rennell for the Daily Mail

In 1915 the rulers of the Ottoman empire turned their hatred on Armenians
The Young Turks persecution of the minority turned to unbridled savagery
Modern Turkey faces disgust over refusal to admit the historic genocide
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES

She was in bed when the soldiers came in the middle of the night and dragged her father out of the family home in Diyarbakir, a city in eastern Turkey.

The last thing little Aghavni (her name means ‘dove’ in her native Armenian) heard as she cowered in her room was his shout of defiance: ‘I was born a Christian and I will die a Christian.’

Not until first light did Aghavni dare to creep downstairs on that morning 100 years ago. ‘I saw an object sticking through the front door,’ she later remembered. ‘I pushed it open and there lay two horseshoes nailed to two feet.

the ruling Turks had turned their hatred on the 2 million men, women and children of Armenian extraction who lived within their borders

‘My eyes followed up to the blood-covered ankles, the disjointed knees, the mound of blood where the genitals had been, to a long laceration through the abdomen to the chest.

‘I came to the hands, which were nailed horizontally on a board with big spikes of iron, like a cross. The shoulders were remarkably clean and white, but there was no head.

‘This was lying on the steps, propped up by the nose. I recognised the neatly trimmed beard along the cheekbones. It was my father.’

The year was 1915. In the sprawling, beleaguered Ottoman Empire — an ally of the German Kaiser in the world war that had engulfed Europe and parts of Asia for nine months — the ruling Turks had turned their hatred on the 2 million men, women and children of Armenian extraction who lived within their borders.

The Armenians — who lived on the eastern edge of the empire ruled from Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) — were Christians and had been since the year 301, making theirs the first nation officially to adopt Christianity, even before Rome.

But here, among the Islamic Turks, they had long been second-class citizens, a persecuted minority. Now, as power in the land was seized by a junta of nationalist officers known as the Young Turks, persecution turned to unbridled savagery.

Over the next six months, there was to be a systematic uprooting and slaughter of perhaps as many as 1.5 million Armenians — on the grounds that they were infidels, racially inferior ‘dogs’ and traitors who were siding with Russia against Turkey.

Those who weren’t put to death on the spot, their faith cruelly mocked — such as Aghavni’s father, a mild-mannered, cultivated spice merchant who spoke five languages — were hounded in columns, eastwards, into the deserts of Syria and Iraq to die.

Their remains are long turned to dust, but the controversy that surrounds those terrible events is as alive as ever.

Just this week at mass in St Peter’s in Rome, the Pope heralded the upcoming centenary of the first killings on April 24 by describing the slaughter of the Armenian Christians as ‘the first genocide of the 20th century’ — only to be ticked off by Turkey in no uncertain terms for inflammatory remarks.

Read the complete story on Daily Mail

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