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President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan will conduct an official visit to the Federal Republic of Germany on April 6-7.
In the framework of the visit, the President of Armenia will meet with the highest leadership of Germany – President Joachim Gauck, Chancellor Angela Merkel, President of Bundestag Norbert Lammert, Minister of Foreign Affairs, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Frank-Walter Steinmeier, president’s press office said in a statement.
The situation remains somewhat tense now, but it is under control, David Babayan, Spokesman for the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), told Tert.am.
The enemy tried to intrude into the Nagorno-Karabakh territory and was thrown back in all the directions, suffering heavy casualties. The Armenian side put five Azerbaijani tanks out of action.
Time will show how long the situation will last.
“Aliyev has fallen into a bad trap, sacrificing hundreds of human lives, dozens of pieces of military equipment. He has lost 20 tanks, four or five drones. They have hundreds of wounded servicemen. How are they going to explain the purpose of this gamble to their people?”
Speaking of international calls, Mr Babayan said:
“Of course, we highlight such calls. Bu we are expecting a tougher international approach, particularly by the OSCE Minsk Group, as Aliyev’s conduct is inadmissible and it will be a disgrace unless a harsher reaction follows this all.”
This harsh response may not be in public, but it is necessary.
“But we do not let Azerbaijan to take strategic initiative in its hands,” Mr Babayan said.
YEREVAN. – The President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, on Monday paid a visit to the Ministry of Defense Central Clinical Military Hospital in capital city Yerevan.
At the medical center, Sargsyan met with the military servicemen who were wounded in the hostilities around the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact.
The President asked the physicians about the health condition of these soldiers, and expressed his support to these servicemen and wished them a speedy recovery.
The situation at the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone dramatically escalated in the early morning hours on April 2. From regular shootings and frequent sabotage-reconnaissance attempts, Azerbaijan switched to large-scale attacks all along the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact, using a variety of weaponry as well as artillery, armored vehicles, and air force. Both sides have suffered casualties.
Визит президента Азербайджана Ильхама Алиева в Германию
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reporters have found out that Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev has offshore companies to conceal his shares in gold mining and London real estate.
Accordingly, relatives of the Azerbaijani president have used foundations and companies registered in Panama to hide his shares in gold mining companies and real estate market. This is said in an ICIJ press release, according to RBC news agency of Russia.
ICIJ has obtained the documents of Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm, which is suspected of establishing fake firms and corporate organizations to conceal asset owners. Even though the press release does not specify the makeup of the Aliyev family property, the Azerbaijani president was already at the ICIJ focus three years ago. At the time, the journalists had found out that he and his family have secret offshore companies.
According to the documents which are under the ICIJ disposal, in 2003, Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, had purchased a company in the British Virgin Islands. Aliyev, who was noted as the director and co-owner of this company, was an MP at the time, but he became President of Azerbaijan in October of the same year. According to the ICIJ data, this company had a legitimate legal status until May 2004. In actual fact, Aliyev was violating the Azerbaijani law which prohibits the members of parliament and the president from engaging in business activities, the attorneys explained.
In 2008, according to the ICIJ data, Aliyev’s daughters, 19-year-old Arzu and 23-year-old Leyla, purchased Arbor Investments, LaBelleza Holdings Limited, and Harvard Management Limited companies likewise in the British Virgin Islands. The first company was “registered” under Arzu’s name, and the rest—Leyla’s. The respective business transaction was concluded two months after Aliyev’s reelection as President.
At the time, the ICIJ could not find out the type of activity of these companies, but it had noted that, apparently, the Azerbaijani leadership had made considerable efforts to hide these companies from the public.
The ICIJ had informed that the head of all these three companies is Azerbaijani entrepreneur Hassan Gozal. According to the ICIJ data, Gozal, together with his brother Abdolbari, had at least ten companies in Intersun Holding, where Abdolbari was president and Hassan—vice president. According to the documents which are under the ICIJ disposal, Intersun had received several major contracts from Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company, where Aliyev was first vice president before becoming President of Azerbaijan. In addition, the Gozal brothers’ companies had won state construction contracts in and around Azerbaijani capital city Baku, and totaling some $4.5 billion.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who is in Greece on an official visit, has chaired a top-level meeting in the country’s capital, Athens, after private talks with his Greek counterpart, Prokopios Pavlopoulos.
The Armenian leader hailed the two countries’ centuries-old friendship, praising the traditions inherited from the dawn of civilization. “Representing two ancient civilizations, the Armenian and Greek peoples created culture side by side, leaving their trace on the chapters of world history. They struggled side by side, earning the right to existence. And they stand side by stand also today – as bearers of shared values and morals. Relying on that heritage, we continue strengthening the Armenian-Greek friendship which gained an interstate importance 24 years ago.
“Today, we have an enriched bilateral agenda, ranging from an active political dialogue to cooperation in education and culture. We are closely collaborating in the military sector. Greece is among our key partners in the Armenia-EU relations. The high-ranking visits, which have become repeated, give us an opportunity to outline new prospects of cooperation. A fair example of this statement of mine is my current visit, which is aimed at upgrading our economic relations to a new level, relying on the existing potential,” he said.
Greeting President Sargsyan and his delegation, the Greek leader agreed that the official visit demonstrates the willingness to develop and deepen cooperation in most different sectors. Noting that the two nations are tied by the firm bonds of history and friendship, Mr Pavlopoulos said he thinks that the existing high-level interstate relations were shaped over the course of centuries, resisting the hardships and challenges of time.
“In the early 20th century, the two peoples experienced moments of suffering that had a common cause. History bears witness to that, describing the [plight] of the Armenian people, the Pontic Greeks and those in Asia Minor. We will never forget the 1915 Armenian Genocide. We are proud that Greece was among the first countries to give home to the Armenian exiles and also the first country to recognize the Genocide against Armenians, with the Armenian parliament, on the other hand, recognizing the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks. We must bear in mind, Mr President, to that historical memory is important for humanity’s collective existence, as well as from the point of view of its future,” he added.
The Greek president further spoke of broad possibilities of development and the bilateral ties promising good perspectives.
YEREVAN (AFP) – Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian on Wednesday invited a fiercely anti-Turkish party to join his government, in a controversial power-sharing deal highlighting a stalemate in efforts to normalise ties with arch-foe Ankara.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, or Dashnaktsutyun, took three ministerial posts and appointed two regional governors, according to the memorandum it signed with Sarkisian’s ruling Republican Party (HHK).
In a decree signed by Sarkisian, Dashnaktsutyun’s Avik Minasyan was named economy minister. Davit Lokyan and Levon Mkrtchyan were appointed ministers of education and of the local administration respectively.
Armenia and Turkey are at loggerheads largely because of a historical dispute over a World War I-era massacre of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Dashnaktsutyun, a socialist party which currently holds five seats in Armenia’s 131-member parliament, also advocates territorial claims to Turkey.
Highly popular among Armenia’s influential diaspora abroad, Dashnaktsutyun went over to the opposition in 2009 after Armenia and Turkey signed an agreement to normalise relations.
The so-called Zurich protocols, which would have led to the opening up of the border between the two neighbours, have since languished without ratification in both nations’ parliaments.
In February 2015, Sarkisian recalled the protocols — brokered by the United States, France and Russia — from parliament, citing the “absence of political will” on the Turkish side.
The massacre of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces between 1915 and 1917 is formally recognised as genocide by some two dozen countries, including France and Russia.
Turkey rejects calls to recognise the killings as genocide, saying up to 500,000 Armenians died in fighting and of starvation after Armenians sided with invading Russian troops. It claims a comparable number of Turks were also killed.
San Jose State University president Mary Papazian. (Source: SJSU)
SAN JOSE (News.Calstate.edu) — The California State University Board of Trustees has appointed Mary A. Papazian, Ph.D., as president of San José State University effective July 1. Papazian is the daughter of two longtime Ferrahian Armenian School teachers Marilyn and Hagop Arshagouni. She is also the wife of Dr. Dennis Papazian, Professor Emeritus (Retire) and founding director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
A seasoned higher education leader with more than 25 years of teaching and administrative experience, Papazian is currently serving as the president of Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in New Haven, Connecticut. She replaces Susan Martin, Ph.D., who was appointed as the interim president in August 2015. Papazian will be the university’s 29th president and the third female president in its 159-year history.
“I am honored that the CSU Trustees have chosen me as president and entrusted me to build upon the campus’ long legacy of innovation and excellence. I look forward to working alongside the many dedicated faculty and staff who guide students along their academic journey and prepare them for achievements beyond the classroom,” said Papazian.
“Interim President Susan Martin and former President Mohammad Qayoumi provided the transformative leadership that built the campus’ reputation as an academic powerhouse, providing highly qualified graduates for Silicon Valley companies. Dr. Papazian envisions partnering with faculty, the campus community and external stakeholders to expand this sound foundation and bolster educational opportunities for students,” said CSU Trustee Rebecca D. Eisen, who served as the chair of the Trustees’ Committee for the Selection of the President. “She has extensive academic leadership experience and a knack for connecting campus, organizational and political leaders to higher education. Best of all, she has a long history of always putting students first.”
Papazian has served as president of SCSU since 2012, leading a campus of 11,000 students and overseeing an operating budget of $210 million. While her career at SCSU is marked with many accomplishments, one of her significant contributions to the university has been her personal commitment to student success. As a result of her efforts, the campus expanded outreach to feeder community colleges, bolstered the campus’ advising staff, launched an online advising tool, and developed summer scholarships for undergraduate research to enhance student engagement. In response to workforce needs, she actively supported new undergraduate programs in sports management, respiration therapy and utilities management, graduate degrees in cyber security, materials science and applied physics, and an accelerated MBA program.
Papazian led the university through the final phase of a successful academic accreditation process and was instrumental in the university receiving full approval by the Connecticut Board of Education for its teacher preparation program. In addition, she stabilized the campus’ leadership team, implemented the Work/Life Balance Initiative for employees and established the first President’s Commission on Campus Climate and Inclusion aimed at enhancing conversations around the university’s core commitment to social justice, equity and inclusion. She is also responsible for transforming the learning environment for students by overseeing significant physical plant expansion projects ranging from the completion of the renovation of the School of Business complex and renovation and expansion on the library to the construction of a new Academic Science Lab Building and a new environmentally-sound parking structure.
In addition to reshaping the campus’ academic programs and physical environment to facilitate student success, Papazian expanded the university’s community engagement by cultivating stronger ties to SCSU’s feeder K-12 school districts, donors and other partners. Under her leadership, the campus began the planning phases, in partnership with New Haven Public Schools, to place a K-4 magnate school on campus. Furthermore, she worked to foster a spirit of civic responsibility and engagement among students, faculty and staff, which has enabled the campus to earn a place on the coveted President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
Prior to her tenure at SCSU, Papazian was the provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Lehman College of The City University of New York. She also served as the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and associate dean of the College of Arts and Science at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Papazian began her career in higher education at Oakland University, where she was an assistant, associate and tenured professor of English.
Born and raised in Southern California, Papazian holds a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. in English from UCLA.
The California State University is the largest system of senior higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, 47,000 faculty and staff and more than 470,000 students. Half of the CSU’s students transfer from California Community Colleges. Created in 1960, the mission of the CSU is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever changing needs of California. With its commitment to quality, opportunity, and student success, the CSU is renowned for superb teaching, innovative research and for producing job-ready graduates. Each year, the CSU awards more than 100,000 degrees. One in every 20 Americans holding a college degree is a graduate of the CSU and our alumni are 3 million strong. Connect with and learn more about the CSU at CSU Social Media.
President Serzh Sargsyan has issued an address to congratulate the Armenians on the New Year and Christmas holidays.
Dear Compatriots,
In a few moments, we will bid farewell to year 2015. The passing year has been in fact full of evens and impressions. We commemorated the memory of the victims of the Great Eghern. Events dedicated to the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide had pan-Armenian and world-wide coverage. I believe that year 2015 will remain in the Armenian history first of all as the year of beatification of our innocent victims.
This year we all witnessed manifestations of the exceptional unity of the entire Armenian nation. Through our joint efforts and dignified stance, we have conveyed our message to the world. I am confident that next year too, all Armenian structures, individuals and entire Spyurk will continue to work side by side for the benefit of Armenia, for the benefit of Artsakh, for the benefit of all parts of the Armenian nation.
Today, the entire world is going through a difficult and intense period. Regrettably, year 2015 not only failed to decrease tension and freeze the existing wars, but in some cases intensified the existing tensions and flared up hotbeds of aggression. Inhumane acts of terror, which claimed lives of innocent people in different parts of the world, did not decrease in number. Against this backdrop and in this context, Armenia has lived another peaceful and stable year. We have preserved our rating as one of the safest countries in the world. We have carried on with the advancement of our country; we have built roads, housing, schools, and hospitals – always dreaming of doing more.
The passing year has been significant with yet another important state and political event. We have introduced changes to the Main Law of the land – Constitution. I have no doubt that together we have opened a door for the new opportunities for our political and economic development. We have opened a door towards becoming a more secure, more liberal, and more harmonious country.
On this festive night, we traditionally raise our glasses for our military. We live behind their infallible shield. We entrusted them things that are most precious to us all; and they are the most precious thing to us. The enemy is perfidious, nothing new here. But the Armed Forces of Armenia are strong – always. Today, the combat readiness and technical capabilities of the Armenian Army are exceptionally high, as never before. Let us wish our servicemen a safe term of duty. Let us wish peace to our country and the entire world.
Very soon, we will step into year 2016. In 2016, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Armenia. It’s been a quarter of a century that we live as a free and independent country. It’s hard to recall when our country had a period of twenty-five years of independence. It means that we have a new and bright generation of those who are twenty or twenty-five years old, who have no idea what it means not to have an independent state, who are free and uninhibited both psychologically and politically.
This is a new and young Armenia, which is open to the world, which is ready to accept new ideas, to accept a new culture of work and lifestyle, which will live and advance in step with the contemporary world. We are entering the New Year with a new political structure, with new vigor and new dreams, convinced that we are building our own home and we build it on a right foundation. Armenia, which is 25 years old, is not yet the Armenia of our dreams, but it is an essential and forceful milestone on that road.
Dear Compatriots,
I wish you happiness and all the best in year 2016!
Happy New Year and Holly Christmas!
Czech President Milos Zeman speaks during a conference on the Holocaust, commemorating the liberation of concentration camp Auschwitz in 1945 in Prague on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015. (AP Photo/CTK, Michal Kamaryt) SLOVAKIA OUT
Czech President Milos Zeman has voiced opposition to Turkey‘s bid to become a member of the European Union, saying that although Turkey is a NATO member, it sometimes acts as if it is an ally of the radical terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a Czech news agency reported.
In his remarks made at the end of his three-day visit to north Bohemia on Wednesday, Zeman reportedly criticized the EU’s recent offering to Turkey of 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in financial aid in exchange for keeping Syrian refugees on its soil.
“The Roman Empire, before it collapsed, too, paid tribute money to barbarians [for them not to pilfer its territory],” Zeman was quoted by the Czech news agency as saying.
Zeman argued that Turkey is able to accept Syrian refugees because both Turkish and Syrian nations share the same religion. “The danger does not rest in Islam as such but in transferring these [Muslim] habits to Europe,” he reportedly said.
The Czech leader also said that Turkey must be approached with “caution.”
The EU recently offered Turkey 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in financial aid to keep Syrian refugees on its soil in return for accelerated EU accession talks and speeded-up visa liberalization for Turks visiting Europe.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on Wednesday gave an extensive interview to the local TV channels, responding to questions concerning constitutional reforms and an upcoming referendum.
Armenia’s leader rules out a shadow cabinet in Armenia.
“Our country cannot have any shadow cabinet. And some of my problems come from my disagreeing with existence of a shadow cabinet. Without opening the brackets, I can say an interesting idea is emerging. You say; ‘the president, the premier our party-mates.’ Even if I state tomorrow that I resign as party leader, I am sure protesters will claim that if Serzh Sargsyan become president of the Chess Federation, he will continue in power in Armenia. But there is a limit to everything. What prevents them from taking part in elections? They do not take part or work, but they seek majority in national elections. But such things d not happen.”