The Stepantsminda-Lars highway is open for all types of vehicles as of 10 a.m. January 11, the Georgian Ministry of infrastructures and Territorial Development has informed the Armenian Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies.
The Ministry warns, however, that tire chains need to be used.
Michigan State University is one of a growing number of institutions using video testimonies from genocide survivors to inspire learning and new research insights across multiple academic disciplines. The University is providing its students, faculty and researchers with access to University of Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive®, the world’s largest collection of eyewitness accounts from genocide witnesses and survivors, available through .
“Moving forward into an era in which we will no longer be able to speak with Holocaust survivors personally, oral testimonies provide essential historical and emotional truths about the Holocaust,” said Amy Simon, William and Audrey Farber Family Endowed Chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History at Michigan State University.
“Faculty from a range of disciplines are interested in furthering their research through this archive,” added Simon. “All of us hope to complement our printed sources with these oral testimonies as we write about history, language, economics, trauma studies, literature, and more. Many of us have also begun using these testimonies in the classroom, encouraging our students to delve into them in their own research.”
The Visual History Archive includes 54,000 video interviews, each one a source of unique and powerful stories from the Holocaust and other genocides, including those that occurred in Rwanda, Guatemala, Armenia and Nanjing. Soon to be added will be testimonies from Cambodia. The average length of each testimony is about two hours, preserving a complete personal history of life before, during and after the subject’s firsthand experience with genocide. Digitized, fully searchable via indexed keywords, and hyperlinked to the minute, the archive contains more than 114,000 hours of testimony that can be precisely narrowed to pinpoint topics of interest, making it particularly useful to students, faculty and researchers.
USC Shoah Foundation and ProQuest launched a partnership in 2016 to dramatically improve access, discovery and contextual understanding to the content of the Visual History Archive. The ability to connect the streamed video and metadata to a library’s holdings of ProQuest content – which can span dissertations, historical news, periodicals, scholarly journals, government records, primary source documents, and ebooks – provides researchers with a much richer experience and greater insights about the impact of these exceptional testimonies.
About 50 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.
The rival fired over 900 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions. More intensive firing was reported in the eastern (Martuni) direction of the line of contact.
The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army confidently continue with their military duty and resort to response actions in case of extreme necessity.
Photo: Getty Images
Prosecutors have charged relatives of former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with conspiracy to bribe a government official, the BBC reports.
Mr Ban’s younger brother and his nephew stand accused of offering money to a Middle Eastern official, through an American middleman.
They allege the two men bribed the official to use state funds to buy their building project.
Mr Ban served as UN secretary general from 2007 until 2016.
He was succeeded by former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres on 1 January 2017. Mr Ban is now being seen as a possible future president in his home country of South Korea.
Reuters quoted his spokesman as saying Mr Ban was unaware of the circumstances surrounding the allegations against his relatives.
Vice-Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Edward Sharmazanov met with the Head of the Armenian Diocese of Tehran Sepuh Archbishop Sargsyan at the National Prelacy of Iran.
During the meeting the interlocutors highlighted the unique role of the Armenian Apostolic Church in preservation and spreading of Armenian identity, spiritual, moral and national values.
“The role of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church is unique in the life of the Armenian people and particularly in the life of the Iranian Armenians. Today, in the world of challenges we should remain faithful to our spiritual and national values,” Sharmazanov said.
In the course of the meeting the interlocutors highlighted the strengthening of the Armenia-Diaspora-Artsakh unity.
A statue of Argentine football star Lionel Messi has been vandalised in Buenos Aires, the BBC reports.
The bronze statue, unveiled last June, was broken in half and the torso, arms and head removed.
The motive for the damage was not clear but city officials say repairs to the statue are already under way.
It was unveiled just as the striker announced he was retiring from the national team – a decision he later reversed.
The statue stood on Paseo de la Gloria (Glory Street), which also displays casts of other famous Argentine sports stars such as tennis player Gabriela Sabatini and basketball player Manuel Ginobili.
Statues in the area have previously been targeted by vandals or thieves.
“The statue of Lionel Messi… was victim of an act of vandalism that left the footballer’s sculpture without its top half,” the Buenos Aires municipal government said in a statement.
“The city government is already working on its repair.”
The World Cup will be expanded to host 48 teams, up from 32, FIFA has decided, the BBC reports.
An initial stage of 16 groups of three teams will precede a knockout stage for the remaining 32 when the change is made for the 2026 tournament.
The sport’s world governing body voted unanimously in favour of the change at a meeting in Zurich on Tuesday.
The number of tournament matches will rise to 80, from 64, but the eventual winners will still play only seven games.
The tournament will be completed within 32 days – a measure to appease powerful European clubs, who objected to reform because of a crowded international schedule.
The changes mark the first World Cup expansion since 1998.
The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France, and Richard Hoagland of the United States), released the following statement today:
Baku and Yerevan continue to accuse each other of a December 29, 2016 attempted incursion on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border resulting in casualties. Armenian Armed Forces are still holding the body of an Azerbaijan serviceman killed in the fighting.
Violations of the ceasefire are unacceptable and are contrary to the acknowledged commitments of the Parties, who bear full responsibility, not to use force. The Co-Chairs urge the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to strictly observe the agreements reached during summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 2016, including obligations to finalize in the shortest possible time an OSCE investigative mechanism. The Co-Chairs also urge the return, without delay, of human remains, in accord with the agreements of the Astrakhan Summit of 2010, bearing in mind the exclusively humanitarian nature of this issue. We call upon the Parties to cease mutual accusations and undertake all necessary measures to stabilize the situation on the ground.
The Co-Chairs extend their condolences to the families of the fallen soldiers and to all Armenians and Azerbaijanis for whom hopes for the New Year have been darkened with the grief of senseless loss.
Fierce debate has broken out after fans raised two Turkish flags at a Lebanese basketball match, apparently in an attempt to anger Armenian players and fans, reports.
The flags were photographed on Sunday during a game between the Riyadi and Homenetmen clubs in Lebanon’s basketball league. Homenetmen are a Lebanese-Armenian team, representing the estimated four percent of the Lebanese population who are of Armenian descent, according to Minority Rights Group.
The recent flag waving appears to have been pre-planned and deliberately provocative, as one Riyadi fan, Mohammed Khoder, tweeted on Sunday morning “Tonight we’ll be raising the turkish flag in the basketball game against homentmen ‘Armenian Lebanese team’! BURNNN”. The tweet was later taken down.
A Riyadi fan page posted the following unapologetic message on Facebook: “If you want to prevent us from raising the Turkish flag at the stadium, then prevent them from singing the Armenian national anthem at their stadium.”
Meanwhile, one Lebanese blogger called the flag-waving “disgusting, disgraceful, hurtful and despicable.”
Riyadi club issued a statement on their Facebook page, “denouncing” and “rejecting” the raising of the Turkish flag, emphasizing that no provocative chanting took place during the game, and that the flags were flown after it had finished. The club also offered assurances that it would increase its efforts to prevent a repeat of what happened.
Armenia agrees with the Co-Chairs that ceasefire violations are unacceptable, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said, commenting on the .
“The Co-Chairs refer to what we have been consistently talking about. We agree with them that the ceasefire violations are unacceptable. We agree that the agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg should be unequivocally implemented. The mechanism of investigation of border incidents should be implemented as soon as possible,” Edward Nalbandian said in comments to Armenpress.
“The co-chairing countries have mentioned on many occasions which party has been turning down the implementation of the mechanism. Therefore, that party bears full responsibility for the incidents and ceasefire violations. Such mechanisms will allow, as the Co-Chairs say, to avoid reciprocal accusations. However, the fact of an Azerbaijani saboteur being neutralized at the Armenian military posts makes it clear who’s the attacker even without any mechanism,” Minister Nalbandian said.
“We hope the Co-Chairs will be consistent in strongly responding to any use of force or the threat of force in the conflict zone, especially considering that ceasefire violations result in human losses. We must not allow a delayed response to be accepted by the violators of the ceasefire as tolerance towards their actions. As the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs have mentioned on many occasions, the unconditional implementation of the 1994-1995 trilateral agreements on ceasefire is a must, the incidents that result from their violation are unacceptable and cause a huge damage to the settlement process,” Edward Nalbandian stated.
“Under the conditions, when Azerbaijan hampers the implementation of an investigation mechanism and the expansion of capacities of the team of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman0-in-Office, the Co-Chairs remain the only format, which can and should continue its preventive activity in compliance with its mandate,” the Armenian Foreign Minister stated.