Author: Ani Kharatian

Initiatives for Development of Armenia Foundation (IDeA Foundation) thanks all individuals and organizations that support 100 LIVES and the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. We express our deepest gratitude to the partners of Aurora Prize Inaugural Сeremony: producer of the legendary Armenian brandy “ARARAT” – Yerevan Brandy Company, Armenia’s Leading Telecommunications Operator VivaCell-MTS and Panarmenian Media Group.

“We are grateful to the companies that have joined us in sharing the ideas and values of our initiative. This is especially relevant today, when the humanitarian challenges of the world are as urgent and important as a century ago, ” Edgar Manukyan, CEO of IDeA Foundation, noted.

“The idea of honouring heroes a hundred years later on behalf of all the survivors of the Armenian Genocide in gratitude to their saviours, and launching a new global initiative, is unique, and we are very delighted to contribute to its realization”, said Igor Arakelyan, Chief Operation Officer of Yerevan Brandy Company.

“Aurora Prize is a clarion call to go back to the core values of our human nature, to cherish once again the need of helping each other and save each other’s lives. We join Aurora Prize initiative to celebrate those people who are putting their lives at risk to save others,”stated VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian.

“It’s a great honour for us to be the main media partner of Aurora Prize. I hope that 100 LIVES initiative and Aurora Prize will make the world kinder and the people more humane”, Chairman of the Board of Panarmenian Media Group Armen Arzumanyan said.

The Inaugural Ceremony of Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity will take place on April 24 in Yerevan, Armenia.

 

 

 

Instead of chiding aggressor Azerbaijan, the German Foreign Minister is issuing blurred statements, President of the Union of Armenian Academicians of Germany Azat Ordukhanyan said, speaking to . He said the German press is also working unprofessionally.

“No German media outlets work on the ground. They all report about the situation referring to German agencies, present copied texts. Although the reports are not anti-Armenian, they blame ‘both sides,’ which is unfair and non-professional,” he said.

“The German Armenians are in a fighting spirit. If things continue this way, we’ll not leave the Azerbaijani and Turkish Embassies and Consulates calm. We’ll give a worthy response, at least on a local level. They should be held accountable for the life of every Armenian young man lost,” Ordukhanyan said.

He said Turkish President Erdona’s statement should also be criticized. “Turks must be aware that if they intend to stand by Azerbaijan, the 10-million Armenian Diaspora is ready to support brothers in Armenia and Artsakh.”

 

 

 

The Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul has sent a note to the Turkish government and requested clarifications regarding the decision to expropriate the Armenian Sourp Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir, Rober Hatechian, editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based Marmara daily, told .

He added, however, that the Patriarchate has not received any explanation so far.

After years of struggle the Armenian St. Giragos Church was renovated and reopened in 2011, but has since been damaged in clashes between Turks and Kurds.

Hatechian said the national minorities are worried about the move, but don’t believe the government will manage to expropriate all 6,300 plots of land “with one shot.”

“The properties, namely the Armenian St Giragos and St. Sarkis Churches will belong to the Armenian community, and I don’t believe any state body will suddenly confiscate them.  I don’t see the danger. But I think we have to wait for another couple of days for explanations from the government,” Hatechian said.

“With this step Turkey showed that its policy is the same as it was 100 years ago,” historian Vahan Melikyan told reporters in Yerevan.

“This is a serious threat to the dialogue between the Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian communities. This is a failure of an attempted dialogue between civil societies Turkey had imitated. Turkey behaves like a rightful heir of the Ottoman Empire,” he said.

Founding member of the National Council of Western Armenians Aragats Akhoyan accuses the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul. “This is the consequence of the weakness of the Patriarchate and the policy of Acting Patriarch Aram Ateshyan.”

 

 

 

As a country presiding over the OSCE, Germany expresses its support to the implementation of new mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, German Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kisler told on the sidelines of a conference in Yerevan titled “German Presidency of the OSCE: Dialogue, trust and reinforcement of security in the OSCE area.”

The Ambassador stressed the importance of investigation of incidents at teh Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the line of contact, and attached special significance to the responsibility of the conflicting parties.

“The Karabakh settlement principles have been agreed and are on the table of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, but the political will of the parties is needed for their implementation,” Amb. Kisler said.

“We strongly support the three Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. It’s up to them to make new proposals on the issue. Easing of tensions at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the line of contact is very important to us. That’s why we insist on the investigation of border incidents in order to find out who’s violating the ceasefire,” he added.

On March 25, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Karen Mirzoyan received students and lecturers of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University of Hungary, Press Service of the NKR Foreign Ministry informs.

The Foreign Minister welcomed the guests and noted that the visits of the Hungarian University students would allow them to get a true and comprehensive picture of Artsakh and establish contacts with representatives of Artsakh’s university circles.

During the meeting Karen Mirzoyan briefed on the main directions of the NKR’s foreign policy, touched upon the process of international recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and emphasized that the achievements in that direction contributed to the NKR’s international integration, as well as to the development and consolidation of cooperation in various spheres.

The NKR Foreign Minister answered the questions of the participants. While touching upon the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement process, Karen Mirzoyan noted that the reason for the lack of real progress was the destructive policy of the Azerbaijani authorities aimed at undermining the negotiation process at all costs.

Pope Francis is planning a trip to Armenia in June, a year after he termed the Ottoman-era slaughter of Armenians a genocide.

Pope Francis may be going to Armenia, Vatican Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Friday. “A trip by the pope to Armenia is being assessed,” he said, adding that the most likely period was “the second half of June.”

“There is not yet a finalized programme, not certain dates,” said Lombardi,  reports.

Fr. Lombardi said a final survey of the sites by organisers on the Vatican side has not yet taken place and there is no definitive programme for this visit approved by the Pope.

His comments came after some media outlets reported a visit by Pope Francis to Armenia would take place from the 22nd to the 26th of June. Fr. Lombardi said those dates were not correct and it would be best to await final decisions to avoid creating confusion, Radio Vatican reported.

Photo: AFP

 

A woman flew from Istanbul to Paris with a four-year-old girl hidden inside her hand luggage, Air France has said.

The airline said the child, travelling without a ticket, was discovered on board the flight on Monday night.

An airport source told AFP news agency that the woman was a resident of France who was in the process of adopting the child, from Haiti.

The airline notified the French authorities but prosecutors decided not to press charges.

The woman was in the transit zone in Istanbul but was preventing from boarding her flight with the child, the source told AFP.

She then bought a new flight ticket and hid the child in a bag.

Once on board, she placed the child at her feet under a blanket, but the girl needed to go to the toilet and was noticed by other passengers, the source said.

The Armenian national team will host Belarus in a friendly on March 25. The fixture to be held at Yerevan’s Vazgen Sargsyan Stadium will be the farewell match of Armenia’s long-time goalkeeper Riman Berezovsky.

The legendary keeper decided to quit international football after a Euro-2016 qualifier against Portugal.

Berezovsky had been playing for the Armenian national team since 1996. On club level he played for Russian “Zenit,” Torpedo” and “Dinamo” and holds the Russian and USSR record of denying penalties.

The Azerbaijani side used weapons of different caliber as it fired more than 1,200 shots from weapons of different caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions over the weekend.

The rival also used 60mm mortars in the southeastern direction of the line of contact.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army mostly refrained from retaliatory measures and took relevant steps to ensure the reliable protection of the military positions all along the line of contact.

Two passenger trains have collided in the German state of Bavaria, with police saying at least four people have been killed and scores injured, the BBC reports.

The head-on crash happened near Bad Aibling, a spa town about 60km (37 miles) south-east of Munich.

One of the trains was derailed in the crash and several carriages were overturned, German media reported.

Police said rescue teams were trying to free people still trapped in the wreckage.