Category: News

Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan participated in a charity event at the Football Academy today.

Mkhitaryan signed balls, which were presented to 30 kids, beneficiaries of the Armenian Caritas, including 10 Syrian Armenians.

Mkhitaryan also signed 2 t-shirts and 20 balls, which will be auctioned in the future: all proceeds will be donated to Armenian orphanages.

Diaspora Armenian businessmen Tigran Tchablakian and Grigor Jaburyan from Tecbuy and Airpo-Tech companies gifted an “Erebouni Haverzh” unique golden pen to Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The player signed the balls with the pen.

Tumo Center for Creative Technologies was launched in Nagorno Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert today thanks to partnership between the Simonian Educational Foundation has partnered with the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

The official opening ceremony was attended by the Presidents of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh Serzh Sargsyan and Bako Sahakyan.

AGBU will cover all operational costs of the center as well as startup costs in the framework of the TUMOxAGBU partnership, while the government of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has provided the space in a historic building in the city center.

The Stepanakert program is expected to cater to 500 to 1,000 students who will participate twice a week for two hours per session, gaining 21st century skills, and studying animation, filmmaking, web development and game development, as well as supporting skills such as 3D modeling, computer programming, music, photography and graphic design.

Registration will start on the 14th of September, and students will begin their Tumo life during the first week of October. The Tumo Center for Creative Technologies is a free of charge after school program that started in Yerevan and subsequently opened a location in Dilijan. The TUMOxAGBU partnership has already opened a branch in Gyumri and is expected to spread Tumo to other locations in Armenia and beyond.

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will hold a meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in September to discuss organizing a presidential meeting this year.

“The co-chairs will bring the foreign ministers together on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September. We will discuss with the ministers the possibility of holding the next presidential summit later this year,” James Warlick, the U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group, told AzerNews.

Commenting on the recent escalation of tension along the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, Warlick said the co-chairs continue to propose confidence-building measures for ensuring the ceasefire regime.

“For most of the year, the situation along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border has been relatively stable. We have appealed to the sides to reduce tensions and strictly respect the ceasefire. We also continue to propose confidence-building measures that would reinforce the ceasefire, creating a more positive environment for negotiations that could lead to a settlement,” Warlick said.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will speak at the Chatham House on September 10, reads a statement on the official website of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Minister Nalbandian will discuss Armenia’s foreign policy priorities.

He will offer introductory remarks for approximately 20 minutes, followed by an hour for questions and discussion.

Atom Egoyan’s new film Remember will premiere Sept 10 at the Venice Film Festival. The film stars Christopher Plummer as a Holocaust survivor who sets out on a path of revenge after discovering that the Nazi guard who murdered his family 70 years before is still alive and living in America.

“This film raises many issues; this is very much the last story that can be told in the present day with the characters still living,” Egoyan said in an interview with .

“The character that Plummer is playing [focuses on] that idea of people near the end of their lives still trying to find justice, and realizing that the regular channels won’t serve that, which is why he takes it on himself,” he said.

“It is a revenge film. It posits the idea that after all this time, those wounds have not healed. It is going to provoke a lot of discussion. You see how visceral the feelings are even after all this time has passed,” the director added.

Egoyan last worked with Christopher Plummer on Ararat, which deals with the impact the Armenian Genocide of 1915 had on later generations.

“It is interesting that on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, I am making a film called Remember which deals with this issue of acknowledging the past and notions of repressed or elective memory and how we understand trauma,” Egoyan said.

A Thai court has issued an arrest warrant for a Turkish man who is the husband of a Thai suspect already being sought in connection with Bangkok’s deadly bombing, the Associated Press reports.

National police chief Prawut Thavornsiri identied the man as Emrah Davutoglu. He is facing charges of conspiracy to possess unauthorized war materials.

Wednesday’s arrest warrant is the eight issued by Thai authorities in connection with the Aug. 17 bombing of a central Bangkok shrine, which left 20 people dead and more than 120 wounded.

Prawut says that Davutoglu is believed to have been “part of a network that provided accommodation” to those connected with the bombing.

Earlier this week, police issued an arrest warrant for his wife, Thai national Wanna Suansan, whose name was on the lease of an apartment that police raided over the weekend and discovered bomb-making materials.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry has dismissed the reports on the occupation of the Armenian-populated regions of Damascus.

“According to the data of the Armenian Embassy in Syria, the reports that terrorists have captured the Armenian-populated regions of Damascus do not correspond to reality,” Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tigran Balayan said in a Twitter post.

Russia hopes for progress in the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

“I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the bilateral relations, the situation in the region and the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. This is where we are trying to reach a common ground under your leadership, the leadership of the Presidents of Armenia and Russia, as well as the Minsk Group co-chairing countries,” RIA Novosti quotes Lavrov as saying.

“I hope progress will be reached,” teh Foreign Minister stressed.

The meeting took place within the framework of Lavrov’s working visit to Baku.

Armenian GM Levon Aronian defeated Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria to seal a victory in the Sinquefield Cup held in St Louis, USA.

Aronian secured a solid lead by gaining 6.5 point out of 9 possible.

The super tournament brought together eight of the world’s current Top 10 – the reigning World champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway), World #2 Viswanathan Anand (India), #3 Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), #4 Hikaru Nakamura (USA), last-year’s winner and World #5 Fabiano Caruana (USA), #6 Anish Giri (the Netherlands), #8 Wesley So (USA), #9 Alexander Grischuk (Russia), #10 Levon Aronian (Armenia) and #26 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France).