14-21 December

Հայացք Երևանից 20 December 2019

Weekly update

The top Democrat in the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi, has written to President Donald Trump inviting him to give his State of the Union speech on 4 February amid the partisan impeachment battle, reported BBC. The annual speech would come during or soon after his trial in the Senate, where he is likely to be acquitted. He was formally impeached by the House of Representatives on Wednesday. House Speaker Pelosi told Associated Press he would be “impeached forever, no matter what the Senate does.” The impeachment vote two days ago in the Democrat-led House of Representatives split almost totally along party lines. Democrats and Republicans have yet to agree on when the upcoming Senate trial will take place.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the second of two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Wednesday, voting that Trump obstructed Congress by refusing to cooperate with a Democratic-led impeachment investigation, reported Reuters. The 229 to 198 vote fell almost entirely along party lines. All of Trump’s fellow Republicans opposed it, and all but three Democrats supported it. The House has already voted on the first article of impeachment, which charges Trump with abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden.

Armenia’s burgeoning information technology (IT) industry dominated by software firms has grown by around 30 percent this year and will double its output by 2024, Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob Arshakian said on Wednesday, said Azatutyun.am. The industry currently employing at least 15,000 people has been expanding at double-digit annual rates for more than a decade, making it the fastest-growing sector of the Armenian economy. Government data cited by Arshakian showed the sector’s combined turnover increasing by 33 percent to $250 million in 2018. “Its average growth was around 28 percent from 2015 to 2018,” said the minister. The former Armenian government reported much higher turnover numbers. Arshakian attributed the conflicting figures to the fact that the revenues of IT firms operating in the country are mostly generated abroad.

The State Department on Tuesday said that the Trump Administration’s stance of the Armenian Genocide remains unchanged, despite last week’s historic recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Senate and the House of Representative’s earlier signaled an across the board—Republican and Democrat—consensus on the matter, reported Asbarez. “The position of the administration has not changed,” said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus in a statement on Tuesday. “Our views are reflected in the president’s definitive statement on this issue from last April,” she said. She was referring to the White House statement issued on April 24, in which President Donald Trump refers to the events of 1915 as “Medz Yeghern.”

Justice Minister of Armenia Rustam Badasyan delivered remarks at the 8th session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the ministry told Armenpress. The minister thanked for the invitation and the warm welcome and informed that after the 7th session, in the past 2 years, Armenia has transitioned to democracy both from political and institutional terms, especially in fighting and preventing corruption at various levels. In this context the minister stated that the activity of the new government is dedicated to fighting corruption, strengthening the rule of law, building stable society and added that the 2018 snap parliamentary elections were assessed by international and local observer organizations as really free, fair, transparent and democratic.

President Armen Sarkissian, at the invitation of the Emir of the State of Qatar Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani participated at the prestigious Doha Forum and made a statement at the plenary session of the Forum, said the Presidential office. This year the Forum is titled “Reimagining Governance in a Multipolar World” and is dedicated to the issues of shaping efficient governance mechanisms in the rapidly changing world. According to the President, today along with a natural and real life there is also a virtual life which creates a totally new and different environment of a quantum nature: old paradigms are not applicable any longer for politics and security strategies, and it is necessary to take into consideration the realities of the new world.