Author: Aram Torosian

Yura Movsisyan’s return to Salt Lake City appears to be imminent, according to a report from reliable reporter Chris Kamrani of the

The Tribune learned through league sources Sunday that terms have been agreed upon to bring the 28-year-old Spartak Moscow striker back to Major League Soccer and RSL after spending the last six seasons professionally both in Denmark and Russia.

Movsisyan’s agent, Patrick McCabe, told The Tribune on Saturday night that discussions between RSL and Spartak were ongoing, adding, “But not anything final.”

Movsisyan originally left RSL to pursue a career in Europe in Jan. 2010, but RSL extended a contract offer despite the expiration of Movsisyan’s previous contract, which allowed RSL to retain his MLS rights if he ever chose to return to the league down the road.

Six years later, he looks to be headed back.

Last night President Serzh Sargsyan together with the officials responsible for the sport area participated at the award ceremony for the representatives of Armenia’s sport community.

At the traditional meeting held on the eve of the holidays, the President congratulated the representatives of the sport area of the Republic on the occasion of New Year and Holly Christmas, wished them excellent health, new success and achievements in the area of sport and in personal life. Serzh Sargsyan congratulated also athletes who received awards.

Speaking about year 2015, which was full of events and success, the President of Armenia stressed that 2015 has also been important as the pre-Olympic year and wished that at the Olympic Games of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro the Armenian athletes win gold medals and make our people proud.

Syrian army forces have recaptured the Al-Jamiliyah neighborhood in northwestern city of Aleppo from Islamic State, reports. 

The seizure occurred on Wednesday, the Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen satellite news network reported.

Meanwhile, in another development on the same day, ISIS elements transferred heavy weapons and Christian families from the town of al-Shaddadah, located in Syria’s northeastern province of Al-Hasakah, to the city of Deir Ezzor.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, also reported that ISIS militants and their families are leaving their command base in Syria’s northern city of Raqqa and moving to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

There are further reports saying that French and Russian forces have intensified their strikes on positions held by ISIS in Raqqa following the November 13 attacks in the French capital city of Paris, which left 132 people dead and over 350 others injured.

A train has derailed near the French city of Strasbourg, killing five and injuring seven, the Daily Mail repots.

Photographs of the wreckage show its carriages half submerged in the water outside Eckwersheim, Strasbourg.

Rescue workers were seen approaching the mangled train on rubber dinghies and tending to the wounded by the side of the canal.

It is not known what caused the test TGV to come off the tracks or whether the death toll is expected to rise.

About 100 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan last night.

The rival used weapons of different caliber, including 60mm mortars as it fired 1,800 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army confidently continue with their military duty along the line of contact and resort to retaliatory measures if necessary.

Starting November 9, 2015, the U.S. Embassy in Armenia will be changing its visa procedures to make it easier for approved visa applicants to pick up their visas and for certain current visa holders to renew their visas. There is no additional cost for this improved service.

Starting on November 9, approved visa applicants will no longer have to return to the Embassy to pick up their passport containing their visa. Rather, all approved applicants will pick up their passports with their visas from UMAKS, the DHL representative in Armenia, located at 27 Amiryan St. in Yerevan. Applicants told during their visa interview that they were approved, will later receive an e-mail notification that their visa is ready for pick up at the Amiryan location. Applicants can also designate third parties to pick up their passports for them. More details will be available at .

“We know it can be difficult to get to the Embassy,” Consul Frank Tu said. “We hope our visa applicants will find this process easier. For no additional fee, they will be able to stroll over to the DHL office on Amiryan and pick up their approved visas. We aim to make the visa application procedure as simple and easy as possible.”

Some individuals, those who have previously had visas and meet certain requirements for interview-free visa renewal, will also be able to renew their visas by dropping their application packets off at the Amiryan DHL office after submitting the on-line application and paying the regular visa application fee. If approved, these applicants will receive a notification e-mail to return to DHL to pick up their new visas. For more information on who qualifies for interview-free visa renewal, visit the Embassy website: .

Even those applicants who come to the Embassy for an interview and are asked to provide additional documents, will be able to submit those documents via the DHL location, eliminating the need for additional trips to the Embassy.

This change affects all applicants scheduled for interviews after November 9. No additional fee is required to be paid at the DHL office, as the service is covered by the regular visa application fee, which is not changing.

The Islamic State (IS) group affiliate in Egypt claimed it downed the plane, without saying how, AFP reports.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail expressed doubt about the claim, saying “experts confirmed that a plane cannot be downed at such an altitude”, and Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said the claim “cannot be considered accurate”.

Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France said they would halt flights over Sinai until the reasons behind the crash became clear.

The Airbus A321 with 214 Russian and three Ukranian passengers and seven crew, had taken off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in south Sinai bound for Saint Petersburg.

It lost contact with air traffic control 23 minutes later.

The wreckage was found roughly 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the North Sinai town of El-Arish, Egyptian officials said.

Debris and bodies was spread over an area of between six and eight square kilometres (two and a half to just over three square miles).

The aircraft’s black box had been retrieved and sent for analysis, Ismail said.

The IS affiliate waging an insurgency in the Sinai claimed that “the soldiers of the caliphate succeeded in bringing down a Russian plane”.

It said this was in revenge for Russian air strikes against IS in Syria.

Three military experts said IS in Sinai does not have surface-to-air missiles capable of hitting a plane at high altitude.

But they could not exclude the possibility of a bomb on board or a surface-to-air missile strike if the aircraft had been descending to make an emergency landing.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin ordered rescue teams dispatched to Egypt.

Russian experts would take part in the Egyptian-led investigation, Ismail said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for “flexibility” at talks in Vienna between the countries backing rival sides in the Syrian civil war, the BBC report.

He urged the five main participants – the US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – to abandon “national perspectives” for “global leadership”.

On the eve of the talks, Mr Ban urged the five main participants to think beyond their immediate interests.

“The longer they take their own national perspectives, the more people will suffer, and the whole world will suffer,” he said. “As I always say, there is no military solution.”

Director of Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Hayk Demoyan delivered a lecture at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the Charles University in Prague on “The History and memory of the Genocides Committed in the Ottoman Empire against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians”.

The lecture marked the start of genocide courses at Charles University.

The course is intended for BA and MA students at the faculties of history, political science, theology, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, medicine and law in Charles University. The course is being held for the first time and the lectures will be continued until the end of the academic year. Foreign and Czech experts studying genocides are invited; including; specialist of Holocaust and other genocides in history Dr. Paul Levine, and Academician Gerhard Baumgartner. During this course the students will learn about genocide causes, mass violence, history of mass genocides, and crimes against humanity.

AGMI Director handed the publications of AGMI to the faculty library.

Agreement for future cooperation has been made between AGMI and Faculty of Protestant Theology of the Charles University. –