Category: News

The Central Electoral Commission reports that 842,147 citizens or 40.99 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot in the Yerevan City Council elections as of 11:00.

The voter turnout by administrative districts:

Ajapnyak – 45.29%
Avan — 52.75%
Arabkir — 38.82%
Davtashen — 43.67%
Erebuni— 40.70%
Kentron —38.52%
Malatia-Sebastia – 33.28%
Nor Nork -41.04%
Nork Marash — 50.67%
Nubarashen – 52.66%
Shengavit — 46.54%
Kanaker-Zeytun –33.23%

Three forces were running in the election – Yelk bloc, Yerkir Tsirani Party and Republican Party of Armenia.

President Serzh Sargsyan and First Lady Rita Sargsyan cast their ballots in the Yerevan City Council elections at polling station 9/18 this morning.

As what will change if Taron Margaryan is elected as  Mayor, the President said “Yerevan will become much better.”

The President said he voted for the sake of good Yerevan.

The Central Electoral Commission reports that 842,147 citizens or 34.52 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot in the Yerevan City Council elections as of 17:00.

The voter turnout by administrative districts:

Ajapnyak – 38.50%
Avan — 46.72%
Arabkir — 32.72%
Davtashen — 35.97%
Erebuni— 34.96%
Kentron — 31.47%
Malatia-Sebastia – 27.60%
Nor Nork -33.78%
Nork Marash — 42.13%
Nubarashen – 44.02%
Shengavit — 40.23%
Kanaker-Zeytun – 27.08%

Three forces are running in the election – Yelk bloc, Yerkir Tsirani Party and Republican Party of Armenia.

Leader of the Yerkir Tsirani party Zaruhi Postanjyan cast her ballot at polling station 4/7 this morning.

Speaking to reporters, Postanjyan said she voted for ‘freedom.’

“We’re going to follow the process both inside and outside precincts,” she said.

Postanjyan urged citizens to participate in the election and not to succumb to any pressure.

An Armenian orphanage in Istanbul’s Tuzla district, which was demolished on April 8 to prepare for the construction of a new building, will be rebuilt as a social and cultural facility, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

The orphanage was built in 1962 by the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church, as a former building on the site could not host the increasing number of Armenian students arriving from various parts of Anatolia.

Known as the orphanage where Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was murdered in 2007, and his wife, Rakel Dink, studied, it was expropriated by the Turkish state in 1987 on the basis of a 1936 bill preventing minority foundations from acquiring property.

Although the Turkish government signed a historic decree in 2011 to return property taken away from minority foundations, the camp was omitted, alongside hundreds of other properties.

Fatih Ulusoy, the land owner, had initially tried to demolish Kamp Armen in May 2015, but the controversial plan was later shelved as Ulusoy said he would donate it to the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church and School Foundation.

Efforts to demolish the camp received widespread attention once the news broke on social media. The demolition was subsequently stopped when many people, including activists and leading figures from the Armenian community, rushed to the area to protest the demolition work.

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s municipal council on May 12 unanimously accepted the construction plan regarding the orphanage, which will be rebuilt taking the original building into account. The Kamp Armen area was taken under “Social and Cultural Facility Area” category in line with the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church and School Foundation’s will.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, a council member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Hüseyin Sağ, said Kamp Armen was significant since Hrant Dink was raised there.

“It became a social and cultural facility area. Now, Armenian citizens, non-Muslims or our Muslim citizens, we will all go there and sit. We will benefit from the social and cultural facility. This is a place where a person like Hrant Dink stayed in the orphanage. It’s also important because of that,” Sağ said.

According to the construction plan regarding the plot, which is owned by the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church and School Foundation and Tuzla Municipality, the area will include vocational courses, movie theaters, exhibition and conference halls, a library, a dormitory, a nursing home and an orphanage.

The plan will also ensure the protection of green areas.

Residents of Yerevan are heading to polls to elect the City Council. All polls opened at 8:00 and will close at 20:00.

Three political forces are running in the elections –  Yelk bloc, Yerkir Trirani Party and Republic Party of Armenia.

Seventeen organizations with 5,136 observers are carrying out an observation mission.

Photo: Reuters

 

Friday’s cyber-attack has affected more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries, Europol chief Rob Wainwright says, the BBC reports.

Speaking to Britain’s ITV, he said the world faced an escalating threat, and there was concern about the level of potential attacks on Monday morning.

The virus took control of users’ files, demanding payments; Russia and the UK were among the worst-hit countries.

Security experts have warned that another attack is imminent and could be unstoppable.

Mr Wainwright said he was concerned that the numbers of those affected would continue to rise when people returned to work on Monday morning.

“We’re in the face of an escalating threat, the numbers are going up,” he said, adding that the current attack was unprecedented.

“We are running around 200 global operations against cyber crime each year but we’ve never seen anything like this.

“The latest count is over 200,000 victims in at least 150 countries. Many of those victims will be businesses, including large corporations. The global reach is unprecedented.”

He said the ransomware was unique because it was used in combination with a worm – allowing it to spread through an infected computer through an entire network.

However, Mr Wainwright said that so far “remarkably few” payments had been made by victims of the attack.

Photo: Reuters

 

At least 20 people have died after a tourist bus fell from a cliff near the southern Turkey seaside resort of Marmaris, the BBC reports.

Another 11 were injured when the driver lost control of the minibus and ploughed through a crash barrier.

Local media said no foreign tourists were among the passengers.

About 40 people were on board, according to Amric Cicek, governor of Mugla province, who suggested the brakes may have stopped working.

But the mayor of Marmaris, Ali Acar, told Turkish newspaper Hurriyet: “I think that the accident was a result of driver error.”

Other media reports said the victims were mainly women and children.

On 13 May Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.

The meeting addressed a number of issues related to the situation along the contact line between Artsakh and Azerbaijan armed forces.

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