Author: Maral Takmazian

Explorers are setting out to create a 1,000-mile hiking route across a little-visited mountain range in Georgia and Armenia, reports.

The team will survey and hike off-road routes over the next six months to design the first long distance walking trail through the Lesser Caucasus mountains.

The team’s leaders, experienced traveller and film-maker Tom Allen and robotics engineer Alessandro Mambelli, will use technology to gather data on the network of off-road car tracks, logging roads and informal trails through important areas.

The Caucasus region is dominated by the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountain ranges, some of the most impenetrable in the world but known for their rich wildlife, including rarely-seen Eurasian lynx, Caucasian leopards and bears.

Exploring them has been difficult due to the lack of formal trails and maps, which the team hopes to change to help give local people and visitors access to the mountains and raise awareness of the region’s landscapes and cultures.

They are working with the newly-formed Transcaucasian Trail Association and local communities, who will maintain the trails and benefit from them through increased tourism.

The long term vision is to create a way-marked trail network similar to Alpine back-country routes, including sections that would involve camping out and staying in refuges while hiking between villages, backed up by resources such as guidebooks.

Mr Allen, who has close personal ties to Armenia through his wife and has lived there for periods in the last eight years, said he wanted to do something of value to the region.

“There is a real lack of access to the outdoors, there’s no information, the maps are extremely out of date, from the Soviet era.

“People don’t know how to go out and engage with the geography of the country they are living in or go exploring.

“The main objective is to develop a long distance hiking trail which is a kind of flagship for the idea of more trails being developed in the future.”

He added: “This is a very nice rural area within these two countries, there’s a low crime rate, it’s very safe, and people are very hospitable to tourists.”

The team have mapped out plans for covering 1,000 miles (1,500km) of the mountain range, though they are set to walk much further than that as they explore potential routes in detail.

They are backed by a bursary scheme run by the Royal Geographical Society and Jaguar Land Rover, with a Land Rover Defender 110 Station Wagon being specially adapted to carry the team’s GPS equipment and a drone-landing platform.

Mr Mambelli, who lives in Armenia, enjoyed hiking in the Dolomites in his native Italy when younger and took the opportunity to take a break from his engineering career to take part in the expedition.

“I’m looking forward to doing the exploration for some time in the mountains. It’s something I used to do for fun and I’m now doing with a purpose, not just having fun for myself,” he said.

The delegation led by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial today to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims.

The Russian Prime Minister laid flowers at the eternal fire and respected the memory of the victims with a minute of silence.

Dmitry Medvedev later visited the Memory Alley and watered the fir tree he planted in 2008.

 

Lusine Avanesyan
Public Radio of Armenia

Twenty Armenian soldiers were killed, 72 were wounded as a result of the clashes along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact, Spokesman for the NKR Defense Ministry Senor Hasratyan told reporters in Stepanakert.

According to him, another 26 servicemen are missing. The Armenian side lost seven tanks. “Azerbaijan’s advancement has not exceeded 300 meters. At this point we have lost 5 military positions in the southern direction and 3 in the northern direction of the line of contact,” Hasratyan said.

As for the losses of the Azerbaijani side, Hasratyan noted that the rival lost 18 tanks, 2 helicopters, 6 infantry fighting vehicles, other military equipment. He said 300 Azeri servicemen were killed in clashes.

President Serzh Sargsyan visited today the soldiers wounded as a result of military actions along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact.

The President asked the doctors about the health condition of the servicemen, voiced his support to the soldiers and wished them speedy recovery.

A lobbying firm that’s a registered agent of the Turkish government is trying out a new argument during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the U.S. this week: the Russians are coming, and Armenia is helping them, the reports.

Representatives from Mercury LLC have contacted multiple congressional offices to argue that Russia’s presence in Armenia, a small country on Turkey’s border that has tensions with the Turks lingering from the 1915 genocide of Armenian Christians, makes it important for the U.S. to close ranks with fellow NATO member Turkey, according to two Capitol Hill aides.

Mercury, which registered to work on behalf of Turkey last month, hopes to convince lawmakers to attach their names to two separate documents, an aide told The Huffington Post.

One is a letter addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry that focuses on the “growing military alliance between Russia and Armenia” — citing the flow of Russian fighter jets, helicopters gunships and drones to Armenia. It calls the Russia-Armenia relationship “deeply concerning.”

Asked for comment, Mercury shared a statement from an organization called the Turkish Institute for Progress, the Huffington Post says.

“The Turkish Institute for Progress along with U.S. security experts and officials are calling on Armenia to expel the two Russian bases in Armenia and to sever its military ties with [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia. The close relationship between Russia and Armenia speaks for itself,” said Derya Taskin, the institute’s president.

A diverse group of Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, Cypriots, Yezidis, human rights groups and even various opposition Turkish political factions protested Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repression at home and aggression abroad in a heated demonstration which forced the closure of one of Washington, DC’s busiest streets for over an hour, reported the Armenian National Committee of Greater Washington.

Holding banners calling out Turkey’s ongoing Armenian genocide denial, crackdown on the country’s Kurdish community, and support for ISIS forces in Syria – protesters spotlighted Turkey’s democratic decline under President Erdogan’s rule, a view gaining increased support in Washington’s political circles in the days leading up to his U.S. visit. Among the protesters’ chants was: “Long live Kurdistan; long live Armenia.”

Pro-Turkish government counter-protesters wearing “We love Erdogan” T-shirts and holding “We Heart Erdogan” signs chanted their praise for the dictator. Erdogan security personnel were seen attacking protesters and needed to be subdued by Washington DC police. At least one Turkish reporter was pushed and another forced to the ground and beaten by Erdogan’s security team. Another reporter was forced out of Brookings Institution venue, prior to Erdogan’s arrival. Turkish journalists tweeted the surreal circumstances of the protest throughout.

The National Press Club (NPC) was quick to condemn the press crackdown, with NPC President Thomas Burr stating that the Turkish leader’s team “have no right to lay their hands on reporters or protesters or anyone else for that matter, when the people they were apparently roughing up seemed to be merely doing their jobs or exercising the rights they have in this country.”

The ANCA Eastern Region’s Armen Sahakyan commented that “We were pleased that so many Washington area Armenians joined today with our Kurdish and Greek friends and our allies in the human rights community in a strong show of solidarity against Recep Erdogan’s repression at home and aggression abroad. While it was encouraging to see such powerful American civil society opposition to Turkey’s increasingly violent rule, it was, at the same, deeply troubling to witness Erdogan’s security detail attacking journalists, effectively exporting Turkey’s intolerance to the U.S. capital.”

President Erdogan is one of 50 world leaders in Washington, DC this week, attending the nuclear energy summit. President Obama refused a one-on-one meeting with Erdogan, a fact which apparently prompted a three-hour rant by the Turkish leader at a Foreign Policy Association dinner on the eve of today’s speech at the Brookings Institution. Vice-President Biden was scheduled to meet with the Turkish leader today.

Turkish genocide scholar Taner Akcam’s book titled “The Armenian Issue is Resolved” has been republished for the seventh time by Iletisim Publishing, Akunq.net reports.

According to the source, immediately after the Balkan War, the Committee of Union and Progress cleansed the Anatolian lands of all non-Muslim elements and Turkified them. The 1915 massacre of Armenians was the last stage of the Turkish policy.

In the work based on Ottoman documents Taner Akcam focuses on what the primary sources are telling about the events. The author presents the atrocities carried out under the constant control of Talaat Pasha and the reasons behind the so-called ‘deportation.’

The book quotes Tallat Pasha as saying in one of the telegrams that “The Armenian issue is resolved. There’s no need to stain the nation and the government with extra atrocities.”

Photo: Newsru.com

 

A Russian pilot was killed as a cargo plane crashed into the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar district on Wednesday, TASS reports.

The plane crashed into the Bay of Bengal at around 9.30 a.m. local time (0400GMT) several minutes after taking off from the Cox’s Bazar airport. The aircraft, en route to Jessore, southwestern Bangladesh, “fell without any reasons,” a manager at the airport said.

Local fishermen found two men who were in a critical condition. One of them died of injuries in hospital. Doctors are fighting for the life of the second man. Rescuers and police are searching for the two other crew members.

Local media reports said the plane was used for carrying shrimps and other seafood. The aircraft was owned by Bismillah Airlines and operated by True Aviation.

Russia will launch negotiations with the Armenia on the latter’s accession to Defense Systems interstate financial and industrial group of Russia and Belarus established in 1996, RIA Novosti reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted the government’s proposal to launch negotiations with Armenia on the latter’s accession to the Defense Systems interstate financial and industrial group. A corresponding decree was posted on the Russian official legal portal on Wednesday.

Leonardo DiCaprio has finally won his first Oscar for survival epic The Revenant, after six nominations.

He was named best actor at the 88th Academy Awards, with Brie Larson named best actress Oscar for Room.

Spotlight took home the best picture Oscar with Mad Max: Fury Road picking up the most awards of the night, with six accolades.

Mark Rylance won the best supporting actor Oscar, with fellow Briton Sam Smith winning best original song.

These are the winners of the 88th annual Academy Awards.

Best Picture: “Spotlight”

Direction: “The Revenant,” Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Revenant”

Actress: Brie Larson, “Room”

Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, “Bridge of Spies”

Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, “The Danish Girl”

Adapted Screenplay: “The Big Short,” Charles Randolph and Adam McKay

Original Screenplay: “Spotlight,” Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy

Cinematography: “The Revenant,” Emmanuel Lubezki

Production Design: “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson (set decoration)

Film Editing: “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Margaret Sixel

Visual Effects: “Ex Machina,” Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett

Costume Design: “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Jenny Beavan

Makeup: “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin

Sound Editing: “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Mark Mangini and David White

Sound Mixing: “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo

Score: “The Hateful Eight,” Ennio Morricone

Song: “Writing’s on the Wall,” from “Spectre,” Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

Foreign Language Film: “Son of Saul” (Hungary)

Animated Feature: “Inside Out”

Documentary Feature: “Amy”

Animated Short: “Bear Story”

Documentary Short: “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness”

Live Action Short: “Stutterer”