The second course in the Winter 2014 Session of the RSC “Expert School” opens on Tuesday, 25 February from 19:00-21:00, focusing on the topics of “National Security, Military Reform and Defense Economics.”

As an independent “think tank” in Yerevan, the Regional Studies Center (RSC) offers a unique, certificate-based professional training program based on an academic calendar (January-May), which also includes innovative and interactive workshops and exercises.

The RSC Expert School meets every Tuesday evening, from 19:00-21:00, and is conducted in English (but we do offer informal translation for anyone with difficulty following or participating in English). We meet in the RSC Conference Room, located on the fourth floor of the GriarBusinessCenter, at 4/6 Amiryan Street in central Yerevan.

In the latest in a regular series of special closed briefings on pressing issues, the Regional Studies Center (RSC) convened a special presentation and discussion on February 21 assessing developments in Ukraine. The briefing featured three specific presentations, followed by an open discussion (for more details, see the accompanying event summary notes):

On February 20, RSC Director Richard Giragosian met with a senior Latvian delegation led by Juris Poikāns, Latvia's Ambassador-at-Large for the Eastern Partnership, and Ambassador Elita Gavele, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Latvia to Armenia.

As part of a broader analytical report on recent developments in Ukraine, Shant TV interviewed RSC Director Richard Giragosian on February 20. Giragosian joined two other Armenian analysts in assessing the intensifying violence between the Ukrainian government and the demonstrators and analyzed the implications for Russia and the West, as well as the future of Ukraine.

www.shanttv.com/am/news/political/2014_02_20/14587/

In an extended interview with Boon (“original”) TV on February 20, RSC Project Coordinator Haykak Arshamyan assessed current challenges facing Armenia, explaining that “for over two thousand years, the nation has faced a dilemma in orientation, East or West, Europe or Russia, and other various directions.”  He went on to add that “each time, in different historical periods, we have had to face a dilemma again, and we now find ourselves on the threshold of collapse: a collapse of the political system, economic collapse, or a loss of statehood.”

http://boon.am/suveranitate-haykak-arshamyan/