Author: Hovik Karapetian

TBS’s late-night show host Conan O’Brien visited Armenia with his Assistant Sona Movsesian to shoot the installment of his show.

The trip marked the first time in Armenia for both O’Brien and Movsesian. “I think it’s every boss’s responsibility to take their assistant back to their ancestral land,” said O’Brien.

The show will air on Tuesday, November 17.

“It’s going to be a great show. The people of Armenia are amazing. It was a glorious experience,” Conan says.

On November 5, in accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the OSCE Mission conducted a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the eastern direction of the Talish village of the NKR Martakert region.

From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring was conducted by Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his Field Assistants Yevgeny Sharov (Ukraine) and Khristo Khristov (Bulgaria), as well as by staff member of the Office Peter Svedberg (Sweden).

From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistant of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic) and Personal Assistant to the Personal Representative of the CiO Simon Tiller (Great Britain).

The monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule. No violation of the cease-fire regime was registered.

From the Karabakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense.

The countries in which people feel the safest to walk home alone at night have been revealed in the 2015 Gallup Law and Order Index, reports. Armenia is placed 9^th in the list.

 is a worldwide measure of people’s sense of personal security in local areas, as well as their own experiences with law enforcement.

The report is based on more than 142,000 interviews with adults in 141 countries in 2014.

For one of the measurements, respondents were asked: “Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live?”

Singapore and Hong Kong share the honour of the countries in which people are most likely to feel safe, both achieving 91 per cent.

Venezuelan adults are the least likely to say they feel safe walking alone at night, with only 22 per cent.

 

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian got a surprise 35th birthday party from her husband Kanye West. West gathered Kim’s mother Kris Jenner and sisters Kourtney Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner for a special movie screening at the Westlake Cinepolis theatre in LA, reported Us Weekly.

Keen to not let Kim feel like the odd one out, the rapper engineered the party so that all of her friends came dressed as their ‘best pregnant Kim’ so she could enjoy her birthday surrounded by fellow bumps.

And the reality TV star was so touched by his gesture, which included hiring out a cinema for her friends and family to enjoy as well as a lavish birthday cake, she took to Twitter to gush about how lovely her husband is, according to Metro.

Kim Kardashian gushed over the attractive birthday cake via an Instagram post and called it “the flawless chill yummy food birthday.”

Syrian ambassador to Russia, Riyad Haddad, said there was “heavy fighting” ahead, as Syrian troops braced for a “decisive battle” to retake the country’s second largest city of Aleppo from jihadist terrorists, reports.

“Half of the city remains in the hands of the terrorists, while the other half is under our control… Our troops, backed by Russian aviation, are encircling the city and preparing for a ground offensive. This is going to be a heavy fight because the terrorists are getting a lot of support from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Haddad said in an interview with Gazeta.Ru.

The ambassador also said that Russian airstrikes had brought immediate results destroying many enemy strongholds and arms depots, and cutting off the terrorists’ supply routes.

“Another major result [of the Russian airstrikes] is that many terrorists have laid down their arms and surrendered to the Syrian army, while many others retreated towards the Turkish border,” the Syrian envoy added.

Riyad Haddad emphasized that the Syrian authorities were closely coordinating their actions with Russia, but maintained no contact with the command of the US-led coalition.

President Serzh Sargsyan took part today in the festive events to celebrate the 2700th anniversary of Etchmiadzin. First, Armenia’s president visited Vazgen Sargsyan Square located next to Saint Hripsime Church where he attended the opening of the Monument to Vazgen Sargsyan and placed flowers at the monument to Sparapet, President’s Press Office reported.

Afterwards, the president visited the building site of the town’s sports complex, participated in its groundbreaking ceremony and then familiarized himself with the sports school construction and territory improvement projects.

As part of the events to mark the 2700th anniversary of Etchmiadzin, Serzh Sargsyan also visited newly-renovated Art School after Yeghishe Tadevosyan. The president familiarized himself with the works done at the educational institution to provide 300 pupils with necessary learning conditions. Armenia’s president then paid tribute to the memory of the heroes of the Artsakh Liberation War and placed flowers at the monument to the heroes.

In company of town dwellers, numerous guests, and Honorary Citizens of Etchmiadzin, President Serzh Sargsyan took part in the solemn gathering at the municipality’s conference hall devoted to the 2700th anniversary of Etchmiadzin.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today Sergei Kirienko, head of Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom.

President Sargsyan noted that nuclear energy is an important part of the agenda of Armenian-Russian allied partnership. The Armenian leader added he discussed the implementation of long-term projects in the field at a meeting with his Russian counterpart last month.

The parties spoke highly of the level of collaboration in the aforementioned sphere. Sergei Kirienko expressed satisfaction with the course and results of discussions, held today during the first Yerevan session of the RA Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and Rosatom’s Joint Coordination Committee. The session was dedicated to the issue concerning the extension of the ANPP second energy block’s operation terms.

The Rosatom CEO presented to the president the intermediary results of the works carried out by the Russian side to give an overview of the ANPP second energy block, and touched upon the subsequent activities envisioned by the cooperation agenda.

Stolen relics from Turkish-occupied north Cyprus went on exhibit today at the Byzantine Museum, Gibrahayer E-magazine reports.

Among them was a 14th century Armenian Gospel that was stolen by Turkish Cypriots in 1963 from Sourp Asdvadzadzin Church in Victoria street.

The Church of Cyprus that 34 treasures that had been stolen from the island’s Turkish-occupied areas, returned to Cyprus following a decision by the Munich Court of Appeals, on March 16, in the case of Turkish art smuggler Aydin Dikmen.

Among the artifacts, 24 are Byzantine relics and some prehistoric antiquities coming mostly from the collection of Chr. Chatziprodromou, from Ayios Epiktitos Church. Among the Byzantine relics there are three pairs of bema doors (Monastery of Antiphonitis Christ, Virgin Mary Monastery in Kantara), wall paintings from the Monastery of Antiphonitis Christ, the church of Agia Solomoni in Coma tou Yialou and the Monastery of Panagia Apsinthiotissa in Sychari. Also the treasures include a hand written manuscript of 17th century (omilario) from the Monastery of the Panagia Trooditissa, and the hand written gospel of the Armenian community of Cyprus stolen during the Turkish mutiny in 1963.

On September 14, President Serzh Sargsyan is due to pay a working visit to the Republic of Tajikistan to take part in the session of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to be held in Dushanbe.

The session will discuss, inter alia, the status of decisions adopted at the previous session in Moscow in December 2014 and will outline the programs for the upcoming year. The participants will also touch upon the works carried out in the main directions of CSTO collaboration. During the Dushanbe session, the Republic of Armenia will assume CSTO chairmanship.

Aram Papoyan, Director of the Institute for Physical Research of National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, has won an ICO Galileo Galilei Award for his “considerable achievements in the field of spectroscopic study of high solubility of alkali atoms and his contribution to the development of experimental atomic physics in Armenia,” Press Service of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

The ICO Galileo Galilei Award recognizes the promotion of Optics under difficult circumstances. The award was established by the 1993 General Assembly of ICO and has been awarded annually since 1994.

Aram Papoyan was born in Yerevan in 1959. The scope of his study includes laser and atomic physics, as well as quantum and nonlinear optics. In 2004 he received RA President’s Award in Physics for the series of papers on “New possibilities for the study of laser radiation interaction with atomic vapor opened by new optical cells.”

He is a member of the Alfred Kastler Foundation of the French Academy of Sciences and a member of the Armenian Optical Society.