Author: Nahapetian Samvel

The Council of Europe Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists has raised an alert over blogger Alexander Lapshin’s detention and his expected trial in Azerbaijan. The reads:

Aleksandr Lapshin, an Israeli-Russian travel blogger, was detained in Minsk, Belarus, on 15 December 2016, at the request from Azerbaijan and extradited to Baku on 7 February 2017.

Lapshin faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison on charges of illegally crossing Azerbaijan’s state borders during his April 2011, October 2012, and June 2016 visits to Nagorno-Karabakh, and for making “anti-state calls to the public” and criticizing Azerbaijani policies.

Currently, Alexander Lapshin is in the Kurdakhani Pre-trial Detention Centre of the Baku Investigative Prison Nr 1.

Iranian Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Masoud Soltanifar says that they want to expand ties with Armenia, reports.

Soltanifar met with Armenian ambassador to Tehran Artashes Tumanyan in Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs’ headquarters on Monday.

“Armenia has a high economic potential and two countries have had good relations in the field of culture,” Soltanifar said.

“I suggest that the sport teams from the two countries meet each  other in the current year and we can take advantage of our capacities. Iran and Armenia football teams can play each other according to their respective federations’ schedule,” he added.

“Iran and Armenia can develop their ties in the various areas focusing on women’s football development, coaching, and youth sports,” Soltanifar said.

Photo: AP

 

The Iraqi military says it has retaken a bridge across the River Tigris in Mosul, after driving back Islamic State militants in the city’s south-west, the BBC reports.

The Federal Police Rapid Response Force advanced into the Jawsaq district on Monday and reached the Fourth Bridge.

Mosul’s five bridges have been badly damaged in fighting since October.

But once it is repaired, the Fourth Bridge could help the military bring in reinforcements and supplies from the government-held east of the city.

The Festal Works of St. Gregory of Narek, Annotated Translation of the Odes, Litanies, and Encomia,  a book presentation by Dr. Abraham Terian will take place on Monday, February 27, 2017, at the Armenian Museum of Fresno Exhibition Hall.

Monday, is also the first day of Great Lent in the Apostolic / Orthodox Churches, and for the Armenian Evangelical Churches. The Roman Catholic Church commemorates on this date Saint Gregory of Narek, who is most known for his prayerbook titled, Book of Lamentations.

This book, which has been translated to numerous languages, is an “edifice of faith for the ages, unique in Christian literature for its rich imagery, its subtle theology, its Biblical erudition, and the sincere immediacy of its communication with God.”

When proclaiming Saint Gregory of Narek a Doctor of the Universal Church, Pope Francis had this to say:

“Saint Gregory of Narek, a monk of the tenth century, knew how to express the sentiments of your people more than anyone. He gave voice to the cry, which became a prayer of a sinful and sorrowful humanity, oppressed by the anguish of its powerlessness, but illuminated by the splendor of God’s love and open to the hope of his salvific intervention, which is capable of transforming all things.” -Pope Francis, April 12, 2015

Terian’s is the first translation in any language of the surviving corpus of the festal works of St. Gregory of Narek, a tenth-century Armenian mystic theologian and poet par excellence (d. 1003). Composed as liturgical works for the various Dominical and related feasts, these poetic writings are literary masterpieces in both lyrical verse and narrative. Unlike Gregory’s better-known penitential prayers, these show a jubilant author in a celebratory mood. In this volume Abraham Terian, an eminent scholar of medieval Armenian literature, provides the nonspecialist reader with an illuminating translation of St. Gregory of Narek’s festal works. Introducing each composition with an explanatory note, Terian places the works under consideration in their author’s thought-world and in their tenth-century landscape. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN, 2016.

The military and technical cooperation between Russia and Armenia meets the friendly relationship between the two countries, Russia’s Ambassador to Armenia Ivan Volynkin said in an interview with TASS.

“The military and technical cooperation between Russia and Armenia is complex and in line with the friendly relations between the countries,” he said.

The sides are consistently improving the contractual legal framework, Volynkin said, adding that an Agreement on creation of a combined force was signed last year, and an Agreement on creation of a combined regional air defense system has recently came into force in the Caucasus region.

According to the Russian Ambassador, “the intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation regularly discusses the pressing issues of Russia’s arms delivery, as well as expansion of cooperation between Russian and Armenian enterprises of the military-industrial complex (its 11th meeting was held last September).”

 

 

 

Angelina Papikyan and Sabina Manvelyan will represent Armenia in the new music show “Ты-супер” (“You’re super”) to be hosted by the Russian NTV channel.

Angelina Pepanyan, 15, studies at the Gyumri’s boarding school after Fridtjof Nansen. Sabina Manvelyan, also 15, lives at children’s home in Vanadzor.

The project provides a chance to talented children without parents to express themselves. According to the rules of the project, every country should be represented by two participants.

The girls will leave for Moscow in the coming days and are looking forwards to the start of the show.

Armenian Deputy FM has lashed out at his Azeri counterpart for attempts to politicize the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization.

Addressing the 35^th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of BSEC member states, Armenian Deputy FM Ashot Hovakimyan said “the attempts to politicize the organization are unacceptable.”

He noted that “BSEC is not the platform where one can try to raise issues in no way related to the mandate of the organization and.”

During the meeting in Belgrade the Council summed up the six months of the Serbian presidency.

Ashot Hovakimyan noted in his speech that “over the past six months Armenia has kept making efforts to promote multifaceted economic cooperation, implement the programs on the agenda of the organization, encourage investments.”

French ambassador Stéphane Visconti has been appointed co-chairman of the Minsk Group. Since 1992, this group has been instructed by the OSCE to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan in order to put an end to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Minsk Group has been represented since 1997 by a co-presidency composed of France, the United States and Russia, each of which is represented by an ambassador.

The co-presidency of the Minsk Group maintains a high level of engagement in political negotiations and the implementation of confidence-building measures.

Ambassador Stéphane Visconti was successively Consul General of France in St. Petersburg and Munich. He also served as adviser to the Prime Minister and then to the Mayor of Paris for international relations. Until recently he was the French Ambassador to Latvia. He succeeded Ambassador Pierre Andrieu.

Photo: AP

 

Tokyo experienced its first November snowfall in 54 years on Thursday, the BBC reports.

Residents of the Japanese capital were taken by surprise, as the temperatures around this time of the year usually range from 10C to 17C.

The snow was caused by an unusual cold front over the city, but above-freezing temperatures kept the snow from sticking.

The unexpected weather meant longer commuting trips because of public transport delays.

The Japan Meteorological Agency also warned of possible icy roads, snow on electric wires and trees, and the collapse of plastic greenhouses, according to the Japan Times.

Photo: AFP

 

The dress worn by Marilyn Monroe as she sang “Happy Birthday Mr President” to John F Kennedy has been sold at auction for $4.8m (£3.9m), the BBC reports.

The figure-hugging Jean Louis gown, with 2,500 crystals, was bought by the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum chain, exceeding the $3m guide price.

The company’s vice president said it was “most iconic piece of pop culture that there is”.

Monroe died from a drug overdose just three months after the performance.

The sultry rendition for President Kennedy’s 45th birthday at a 1962 Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square was one of her last public appearances.

President Kennedy was shot dead a year later.

The dress, which the auction house said was so tight she had to be sewn into it, had previously been bought at auction for $1.3m in 1999 by the late business mogul and collector Martin Zweig.