Author: Garnik Zakarian

The tunnel mural of the Armenian Students’ Association (ASA) was found defaced and covered with propaganda posters on the morning of Feb. 27,  reports.

Serge Iskedijan, senior executive member of the ASA, said he and his club suspect the incident is a hate crime, and reported the incident to Campus Safety.

Iskedijan said Campus Safety has involved the Ottawa Police in the case.

“We were deeply appalled that they chose to attack the mural . . . The mural is a depiction of just our historical background,” he said. “There’s nothing political about the mural. We’re not sending a message, and we don’t want people to interpret it that way.”

According to a statement on the ASA’s Facebook page, the posters were not approved by the Carleton University Students’ Association, and were not found anywhere else on school grounds.

The ASA said in the statement that they condemn “any sort of hate speech and discrimination towards any race, ethnicity or faith.”

This mural defacing was not the first time his club has encountered hostility, according to Iskedijan.

The posters placed on the mural appeared to be part of Azerbaijani campaign  called “Justice for Khojaly.”

Iskedijan said Campus Safety has forwarded information about the case to the intelligence unit of the Ottawa Police, which will determine whether or not the incident will be considered a hate crime.

On February 28, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Artsakh Karen Mirzoyan received Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.

During the meeting, a range of issues related to the current situation on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, as well as the monitoring conducted by the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office was discussed.

The sides touched upon the issues related to the attempted attack by the Azerbaijani armed forces on the positions of the Defense Army of Artsakh  in the early hours of February 25 and to the consequent situation.

Karen Mirzoyan stressed that the noted incident confirmed once again the necessity of the full restoration of the ceasefire set in the agreements of 1994 and 1995, as well as the practical implementation of the arrangements on creating conditions for the resumption of the negotiation process reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg.

Photo:AFP

 

Bosnia has formally asked the UN’s top court to review its ruling which cleared Serbia of genocide in the 1990s, Bosnia’s Muslim leader has said, the BBC reports.

Bakir Izetbegovic, a member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, said he was seeking “truth and justice”.

Bosnian Serb officials warned the move would trigger a “serious crisis” in the country.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide.

The ICJ found only one act of genocide during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war – the massacre of about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces in the town of Srebrenica in 1995.

It was Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two.

The ICJ ruled that Serbia had violated international law by failing to prevent the killings, but absolved it of direct responsibility.

Beyonce’s dancers wore jewelry by Armenian designer Marianna Harutunian at the Grammy Awards.

The designer took to social media to express her delight. “Excited to see my golden Halos on Beyoncé’s dancers in tonight’s Grammy Performance,” she said in posts on and .

 

Marianna Harutunian also made gold stackable rings for Beyoncé’s dancers.

Marianna Harutunian is a California-based celebrity jewelry designer. Lady Gaga,Nicki Minaj, Pink, Beyonce, Madonna, Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry and others are among her clients.

Photo: AP

 

Volunteers in New Zealand are racing to rescue survivors after more than 400 pilot whales beached themselves, the BBC reports.

About 300 stranded whales died overnight at Farewell Spit, on the South Island, in one of the worst such cases the country has seen.

Hundreds of locals and conservation officers have been trying to rescue the survivors since early Friday and formed a human chain to refloat the whales.

Scientists do not know what exactly causes whales to beach themselves.

But it sometimes happens because the whales are old and sick, injured, or make navigational errors particularly along gentle sloping beaches.

Sometimes when one whale is beached, it will send out a distress signal attracting other members of its pod, who then also get stranded by a receding tide.

US astronaut Gene Cernan – the last man to walk on the Moon – has died aged 82, the BBC reports.

America’s space agency Nasa said it was “saddened by the loss” of the retired spaceman.

Captain Cernan was one of only three people to go to the Moon twice and the last man to leave a footprint on the lunar surface in 1972.

The final words he spoke there were: “We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return with peace and hope for all mankind.”

He was the commander of the Apollo 17 mission at the time.

Twelve people have walked on the Moon, and only six of them are still alive today.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has pipped Henrikh Mkhitaryan to be named Manchester United’s Player of the Month for December.

The towering Swede, United’s top scorer this term, was honoured after an irresistible period in which he was an ever-present and scored seven goals in six games, as well as providing three assists.

Ibrahimovic earned 38 per cent of the combined votes in our polls on ManUtd.com and Twitter to finish marginally ahead of Mkhitaryan, whose own impressive month (which yielded his first three goals for the club) was recognised by 36 per cent of the 140,000 fans who voted.

The duo’s fellow summer signing Paul Pogba, who also found the net twice in December, finished third with 26 per cent – a further illustration of the collective contribution to United’s excellent month, which featured six wins and a draw.

It’s the first time Ibra has picked up this particular prize and the result continues a recent trend of different winners – the 35-year-old succeeds previous recipients Antonio Valencia (November), Juan Mata (October), Marcus Rashford (September), Eric Bailly (August), Anthony Martial (May) and David De Gea (April).

 

 

 

“Speaking about a peace deal is impossible unless we have targeted response regarding the maintenance of the ceasefire regime stipulated by the agreements of 1994 and 1995,” Artak Zakaryan, Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, told a year-end press conference today.

According to him, 2016 failed to register intensification or even restoration of the negotiation process. “We have a negotiation format and negotiations that have stopped at a certain point,” he said, adding that “the meetings held after the April war were aimed at seeking ways out of the stalemate.”

“Considering that there is no negotiation process and the Azerbaijani side is unwilling to return to the table, we have to be ready for any scenarios of development,” the MP said.

Artak Zakaryan believes that it will be possible to speak about concessions only in case there is real political will to solve the issue, but says he does not see any will on the Azeri side at this point.

“We deal with a neighbor that hopes to solve the issue in a military way, relying upon its economic resources,” Zakaryan said. He added, however, that “the Karabakh issue is perhapes the only conflict in the world that has no military solution even under the conditions of economic privilege.”

The MP said the realization of the right of peoples to self-determination is the cornerstone, while all other details and sequence of actions will stem from the full realization of it.

“Other concessions are impossible as long as Azerbaijan fails to speak about the self-determination of the people of Artsakh and recon with the fact,” he said.

Artak Zakaryan said the military-technical cooperation with Russia has intensified after the April war. “The signing of the two agreements on creation of Joint Air Defense System and a Joint Group of Forces is an evidence of this,” the MP said. He added that Armenia keeps cooperating with NATO and Iran, as well.

Photo: Reuters/Raheb Homavandi

Russia’s energy giant Gazprom and National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday.

The memorandum was signed by Gazprom Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev, a RIA Novosti reports.

There is no information concerning the details of the memorandum.

Earlier in the day, Medvedev said that Gazprom was interested in a number of projects in Iran, including production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and deliveries of pipeline gas, including deliveries to India.

The Armenian national team will face Uzbekistan in a friendly in February, Press Service of the Football Federation of Armenia reports.

The fixture will be held in Antalya, Turkey on February 12, 2017. The kick off is at 18:00 Yerevan time.