Category: News

Jose Mourinho moved a step closer to a major trophy in his first season as Manchester United manager as goals from Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini secured a first-leg victory over Hull City in the semi-final of the EFL Cup, the BBC reports.

A near full-strength United struggled to break down resilient Hull in a first half in which the hosts had just two shots on target – Mata forcing a good save out of goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic, who also tipped over Paul Pogba’s long-range effort.

The visitors had chances of their own against a side who had won their eight previous games in all competitions, Robert Snodgrass causing problems from set-pieces.

However, Mata got the breakthrough just before the hour mark when he tapped in from Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s knockdown.

Substitute Fellaini scored a second late on, heading in from Matteo Darmian’s cross to put United in command heading into the second leg on 26 January.

On January 12, 2017, in accordance with an agreement reached with the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the OSCE Mission will conduct a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the direction of the NKR Martuni region, north-east of Ashaghy Veysali settlement, press service of the NKR Foreign Ministry reports. 

From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring will be conducted by staff member of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Peter Svedberg (Sweden) and head of the OSCE High Level Planning Group Colonel Hans Lampalzer (Austria). 

The NKR authorities have expressed their readiness to assist in conducting the monitoring and to ensure the security of the OSCE Mission members.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been credited as the key player in Manchester United’s upturn in fortunes, accoridng to .

The Armenian was initially frozen out by Jose Mourinho but since being brought into the fray has excelled. It’s coincided with a run of results that sees Manchester United unbeaten in 11 Premier League games and on a nine-game winning run in all competitions.

Liverpool legend Didi Hamann believes Mkhitaryan deserves much credit.

‘Mkhitaryan has been a key man in United’s changing fortunes,’ said the German. ‘He’s played a far greater role in the league since the end of November, scoring against Sunderland and bagging the winner at home to Tottenham, and in that time United have won six and drawn two in the league. He’s been excellent playing just off Ibrahimovic and has helped shape United’s style of football.’

The Georgian Government has given nod to a deal with Gazprom on the terms of gas transit to Armenia, Minister of Energy Kakha Kaladze has declared, Gruzia Online reports.

The Minister said the parties would shift to partial monetization of payments for the transit of Russian gas to Armenia.

Kaladze noted that “the changes will not increase Georgia’s dependence on Russia.”

Previously, Russia paid Georgia for gas transportation by supplying natural gas in the amount of 10% of the transported gas volume, but the agreement expired on December 31.

“As a result of multi-round talks we managed to reach an optimal proposal with the exiting circumstances taken into account,” Kakha Kaladze told reporters after the government sitting. “The government discussed and decided to sign the deal,” he added.

The Minister said the rates will be among the highest in Europe.

Last year Georgia transported 2.1 cubic meters of natural gas through its pipeline from Russian to Armenia, of which 0.3 cubic meters stayed in Georgia.

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.

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Karen Nazaryan and MEP Frank Engel discussed the Armenia-EU relations at a meeting in Yerevan on January 9.

During the meeting reference was made to the negotiations on a new framework agreement, the ongoing dialogue and other issues. The Armenian Deputy FM briefed the guest on the current status of Armenia-EU relations and the perspectives of their development.

The parties stressed the importance of permanent support for their implementation on the legislative and executive levels.

In the context of elimination of consequences of Azerbaijan’s April aggression against Artsakh and the efforts of Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to thfurer the negotiation process, the interlocutors attached importance to raising awareness in the European Parliament and among the European community, at large.

The parties exchanged views on the latest regional and international developments.

Photo: Reuters

 

President-elect Donald Trump has named his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as one of his senior White House advisers, the BBC reports.

The 35-year-old played a key role in the presidential campaign and his new White House job will cover both domestic and foreign policy.

Mr Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, is a property developer with a wide range of business interests.

Democrats immediately called for a review of the appointment, citing nepotism laws and potential conflicts.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee urged the Department of Justice and the Office of Government Ethics to step in.

Earlier, Mr Trump hailed his son-in-law as a “tremendous asset” and he was proud to give him a “key leadership role” in the administration.