Armenia News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 10.09.2019:
· WCIT announced today that activist, entrepreneur, beauty mogul, and producer Kim Kardashian West will be a special keynote speaker and panelist at the 23rd World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2019), which will take place in Yerevan, Armenia from October 6 through 9, 2019.
Ms. Kardashian West will address a plenary session of WCIT 2019 called “Marketplace of Ideas,” which will examine how decentralized technologies have democratized the worlds of entertainment, media, and journalism and revolutionized the manner in which we create and disseminate art and information, making new stars along the way.
Ms. Kardashian West will set the stage for the “Marketplace of Ideas” session by engaging in an intimate, one-on-one conversation, and will then be joined on stage by a group of distinguished panelists, including Mr. Hovhannes Avoyan, co-founder & CEO of the globally recognized Armenian company PicsArt, to further explore its themes.
· The body of a missing fifteen-year-old girl has been found in the Geghagurnik province in Armenia, shamshyan.com reported..
A resident of the village of Kutakan Arega M (born 2004) disappeared on September 6. The girl’s body was found at about 10:20 am on September 10 on a hillside near the village. The girl suffered from bouts of epilepsy.
Rescue workers, police officers, residents of neighboring villages participated in the search.
· The environmentalists at Amulsar gold mine have given the government time until September 20, after which they will launch peaceful civil disobedience demonstrations.
This morning, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan went live on Facebook and announced about the absence of legal grounds to prohibit exploitation of the Amulsar gold mine. In response, the residents of Jermuk agreed to hold a discussion meeting.
After several speeches devoted to the mine exploitation, environmentalist Shirak Buniatyan suggested developing an action plan to hold workers’ strikes, school strikes and closure of the road leading to the Amulsar gold mine.
· The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) today published conclusions on the implementation of priority recommendations made to Armenia in 2016, Council of Europe's press service reported.
In its 2016 report on Armenia, ECRI recommended that the authorities bring their criminal law into line with ECRI’s General Policy Recommendation No. 7. ECRI concludes that this has not been implemented as, for example, the list of “prohibited grounds” in the new draft Criminal Code does not contain all those proposed by ECRI. Besides, the adoption of the new Criminal Code is currently only planned for 2020.
ECRI also recommended that the various action plans for the integration of vulnerable groups include a description of their objectives, a complete set of criteria for assessing the impact on those groups, and a clear financial plan. This has been partially implemented.
· A protest rally of Sanitek waste management company’s employees was held in front of the Yerevan City Hall on Tuesday.
According to the latter, they can’t get their salaries, because the city hall refused to accept invoices and writ of execution for August.
According to Sanitek employees, they worked the whole of August, but no one informed them that the company was closing.
Armenian mayor, Hayk Marutyan, in his turn, noted that the garbage disposal issue has already been resolved.
"I will not let the city of Yerevan deal with such a problem anymore,” he added.
Marutyan also spoke about his possible resignation.
“We have returned 6,500 square meters of our kindergartens to the community and increased our city’s budget. We’re restoring parks, reviewing all unlawful tenders and illegal acts of privatization and launching big construction projects. What resignation? Yerevan Municipality had almost no equipment in the past, but now it has so much technical equipment that we can be independent and implement our tasks. How can I think about resigning after all this?” Marutyan noted.
· Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the captain of the Armenian national team, who moved to Roma from Arsenal, has returned to Rome.
He expressed happiness to join Roma.
According to him, they need now to focus on club work.
The football player noted he is not afraid of criticism and he is here in Rome to help Roma win new titles.
Moving from the London Arsenal to Roma, Henrikh Mkhitaryan held his first training as part of the Italian club as Roma is preparing for the clash against Sassuolo.
