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Participating in the “Հարթակ” (“Platform”) talk show hosted by the Lragir.am electronic news agency on 28 November, RSC Project Coordinator Haykak Arshamyan assessed the latest wave of assaults targeting civil society activists in Armenia. Arshamyan noted that the latest incidents, involving both a physical assault of a young activist and a coordinated series of arson attacks against the vehicles belonging to civil society activists, were part of a broader context of “impunity,” as demonstrated by the complete failure of the police to arrest or even identify any of the assailants involved in such attacks against civil figures.

The LIBERTAS – European Institute GmbH think-tank published a recent RSC report entitled, “Nagorno-Karabakh Situational Assessment,” in the 28 November issue of its “European Union Foreign Affairs Journal” (EUFAJ). The RSC Assessment was prepared in response to the 12 November downing of a Nagorno-Karabakh army helicopter by an Azerbaijani frontline unit. The three page assessment ( www.regional-studies.org/en/publications/analytical/400-171114) warned that the shoot down of the Mi-24 combat helicopter marked a fresh escalation of tension, only enhanced by an earlier surge in fighting in August that was the most serious since the May 1994 ceasefire. The RSC report further noted that the repercussions from this one incident are even more significant, however, with broader implications, ranging from the military situation to the peace process itself.

www.libertas-institut.com/de/EUFAJ/EUFAJ_4_2014.pdf

On 28 November, the RSC provided a special training on analysis and “critical thinking” for 25 staff members from several committees of the Armenian parliament. As a component of the RSC Parliamentary Support project, this staff training was the latest of our activities designed to enhance the institutional capacity of the Armenian National Assembly through analytical support and technical expertise in the areas of parliamentary oversight, committee hearings, legislative review and the public policy process.

Several RSC staff members participated in an international expert workshop organized in Berlin on 25 November by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) focusing on the “Repercussions of a Changing Geopolitical Environment on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict.”

The Armenian news agency Arminfo reported on the presentation of RSC Director Richard Giragosian at the South Caucasus Security Forum 2014. Held from 18-19 November in Tbilisi, Georgia, the conference was entitled “New regional Security Environment and Global Challenges,” and was organized by the Center for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENNA) and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS).