Category: News

At least ten people were killed and dozens wounded when a car bomb exploded in the Syrian city of Latakia on Wednesday, state television said, in a rare attack in a coastal stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reports.

Latakia has so far been largely spared the violence that has ravaged Syria during more than four years of civil war, killing around a quarter of a million people.

The explosion was in a main square, state television said.

The governor of Latakia, Ibrahim Khader al Salem, told pro-government television channels that insurgents sought to strike at the heart of government-held safe areas that had become a refuge for tens of thousands of displaced families in an attempt to sow “destruction and fear”.

State media said a white van filled with at least half a ton of explosives was parked near a school and had created a huge crater in the square that lies at a major crossroad inside the port city.

State media said at least two explosive-laden cars had been discovered in recent days in the city in foiled attempts to blow up heavily populated areas.

Separately, a mortar attack on part of the campus of Damascus University killed at least two students and wounded several, state media said.

Latakia is home to a large Armenian community.

Google has unveiled a new logo for its core search services, the BBC reports.

The change smoothes out some of the features in the letters that make up the well-known colourful logo spelling out its name.

It said the change was needed because people were now reaching Google on lots of mobile devices rather than just desktop computers.

The change comes after Google put its many divisions under an umbrella company called Alphabet.

It said that the logo, and its many variations, would work better on the many different-sized screens through which people used or encountered Google and its services. As well as the full logo of the company’s name, it also plans to use four dots in its signature blue, red, yellow and green colours and a single, multi-coloured capital “G” to represent it.

Google announced the change on its official blog and illustrated what was different via a series of animated gifs. It said the revamped logo was “simple, uncluttered, colorful, friendly” and represented the best of Google.

 

 

 

Fossils recently recovered from the bottom of Lake Sevan may come to refute earlier beliefs that no aurochs or bisons lived in Armenia.

The at the intersection of Large and Small Sevans at the depth of 6-7 meters could be part of a backbone of a prehistoric animal.

Specialists say a DNA test is needed to establish the facts. They warn, however, that the test will completely destroy the fossil.

Rafael Mkrtchyan, Head of the Diving Department of “AYAS” Nautical Research Club says they have found a lot of items at the bottom of Lake Sevan over years, but never a bone.

Members of the club conduct the research on their own, but say government support is needed.

To preserve the remains it’s necessary to establish a museum and find funds for future research, they say.

Photos by Anna Martikyan, Public Radio of Armenia

Charles Aznavour called on Tuesday to provide refuge to migrants arriving in France, defending the idea expressed in the spring to repopulate the villages with these newcomers, AFP reports.

“It troubles me a lot, it’s very hard to see those people wandering around with their children,” said Aznavour, 91, who was born in Paris in 1924 to Armenian parents.

“There is something I’ve never known, but I think my parents had to live this life,” he added.

“We need to find a way to provide for their future existence,” he said.

“I am very determined on that, it must be done!” Aznavour concluded.

Armenian GM Levon Aronian will leave for Baku next week to participate in the World Chess Cup 2015.

“Unfortunately, it’s hard for us – chess players – to help settle the discrepancies between the two countries,” Aronian said in an interview with chess-news.ru.

“However, musicians, representatives of different creative professions visit Azerbaijan as people carrying peace, and I will try to follow their example,” Aronian said.

“I’ll try to show my respect for the neighboring country, to play my best and please the local chess fans,” the Armenian GM said.

The FIDE Chess World Cup 2015 will be played in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 10 September to 4 October 2015.

It will be a 128-player knockout chess tournament. The finalists will qualify for the 2016 Candidates Tournament.

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.

Turkey’s newly appointed envoy to to the European Union (EU) said Tuesday that genocide was committed against Armenians in Turkey during the First World War, reports.

Ali Haydar Konca, a parliamentarian with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was recently appointed as Minister of European Union Affairs by the Turkish interim cabinet. His comments contradict the long-held position of the Turkish government.

“The fact that genocide happened is explicit and clear and everybody accepts that. Right now, the issue is what it should be called. We will make a decision in our party about that,” Konca told the press.

This is the first time that a Turkish authority has admitted Turkey committed genocide against Armenians.

Kate Winslet is set to play Polish-Armenian Joanna Hoffman — one of Apple’s earliest employees who was known for standing up to Steve Jobs — in the new movie about the legendary Apple cofounder’s life.

The movie, which includes a star-studded cast that features Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs and Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, is set to debut on Oct. 9, according to Business Insider. 

In a recent interview with , Winslet explained how she landed the role. The actress was interested in the role as soon as she heard about the film from her hair-and-makeup artist, who was set to work on the movie after she had finished working with Winslet on “The Dressmaker.” The fact that the film was written by Andrew Sorkin was enough to draw Winslet in, but she was also intrigued by the movie’s three-act format.

Winslet decided to move on the opportunity right away, but there was one hurdle: she looks nothing like Hoffman, the Polish-Armenian immigrant that served as the only marketing person on the original Mac team for more than a year.

So, to audition for the role, she sent her husband out to purchase dark brown wigs in varying lengths. She took photos of herself in the wigs and sent them over to Scott Rudin, the film’s producer.

“I  wanted to please her [Joanna Hoffman] as much as I could. How she sounds, and her accent, is fairly complicated. She grew up largely in Armenia, spent some time in Poland, and has Russians in her family, so she has all three accents, but she’s been in America since she was a teenager, so she had American rhythms,” Winslet said.

 

FAIR, French Armenian International Network, aims to promote economic
synergies between the business entrepreneurs of the Rhone-Alpes region and their
counterparts in Armenia for the creation of a regional hub providing access to the region’s
markets, such as Georgia, Iran, and other CIS countries.

The worldwide networking of FAIR, which is a recently created business association, shall
definitely include the still-untapped economic potential of the Armenian diaspora, from the
Middle-East countries to the Americas, as well as the countries of Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union.

The Rhône-Alpes Regional Parliament is set to host the official launching of FAIR in a
special ceremony on Wednesday, September 23, 2015.

The event is organized under the sponsorship of Raffi Haladjian, inventor of NABAZTAG
and a pioneer in the field of connected items and other state-of-the-art technologies.