This has been the sunniest, longest Yerevan autumn in a long time. Cold, crisp, sunny, beautiful. Good enough to make us work long hours. And the results?

Project Syndicate is running an article by Vartan Oskanian, on the eve of the OSCE Summit next week, that will, whatever does or doesn’t happen, be significant for Armenians and for Karabakh. This comes on the heels of a NATO Summit which Armenia ‘boycotted’ and Civilitas analyst Tatul Hakobyan reflects on what that means.

This has been a difficult year for Armenians and the Armenian army. What seems to be greater openness has resulted in too-frequent reports about terrible, violent tragedies. Civilitas attempted to tackle this most visible manifestation of a breakdown of the social contract in one of our regular public forums. The video can be viewed on our site.

An interview with Civiiltas Director Salpi Ghazarian days before the public forum began with a discussion about a possible Diaspora role in the Armenian army, as suggested by the Minister of Diaspora. The interview, to Capital Daily, evolved to a far-ranging discussion of a missed connection between Armenia and Diaspora.

Finally, our Blogs and the Facts for Thought continue to be the most popular sections on our site. We look forward to your comments.

Our traveling staff:

Mane Gevorgyan is at a conference in Strasbourg on Using Non-Formal Education in Youth Organizations, Sona Nazaryan is revisiting old memories and friends in the US, where she was a UGRAD scholar. Ani Navasardyan is apprenticing in Tbilisi, at the Caucasus Research Resource Centers, with whom we’ll be engaging in some exciting programs.

All three started at Civilitas as interns. All three are now active and needed members of our staff. We’re on the lookout for more curious, intelligent, flexible, thoughtful young people. Ideally, internships will lead to jobs at Civilitas in one of several new programs we intend to launch next year.

Although we’re looking in the main for Yerevan-based interns, we’re happy to consider others as well. Rubina Shaldjian has just joined us from Florida for a few months. Harout Ekmanian, a multilingual student of politics and history, recently concluded an internship and returned to Syria. Olivia Katrandjian returned to New Jersey and a career as a writer. Babken Der-Grigorian is at LSE getting his MA degree in communications. We were pleased with their work, and I don’t doubt they appreciated the experience.