Category: News

The Dutch BNN Public TV has aired 2 films about Armenia with the support of the Development Foundation of Armenia and the Armenian Embassy in the Nethelands.

The group representing the “3 op Reis” travel program spent a week in Armenia to shoot the series.

The first film presents the places of interest in capital Yerevan –The Vernissage, the Cascade, the Chess House, the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial, the Republic Square, the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute and others.

In the second part the reporters travel to Lake Sevan, the Noravank and Tatev Monasteries, and other sites of Armenia.

The films are available at  and .

An airplane with 72 people on board, including players from a Brazilian football team heading to Colombia for a regional tournament final, has crashed on its way to Medellin’s international airport, AP reports.

Medellin’s Mayor Federico Gutierrez said that it is possible there are survivors.

“It’s a tragedy of huge proportions,” Gutierrez told Blu Radio on his way to the site in a mountainous area outside the city where the chartered aircraft is believed to have crashed shortly before midnight local time.

He said ambulances and rescuers were on their way. It is not clear what caused the crash.

Medellin’s airport confirmed that the aircraft, which departed from Bolivia, was transporting the Chapecoense football team from southern Brazil, which was scheduled to play the Copa Sudamerica finals against Atletico Nacional on Wednesday in Medellin.

Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan attended a reception at the Armenian Embassy in Russia on November 28.

Representatives of the Russian legislative and executive authorities, outstanding political analysts and experts, heads of Armenian community organizations, public and political figures who have contributed to the deepening of Armenian-Russian relations were present at the reception.

The Armenian Defense Minister briefed the attendees on the ongoing reforms in the Armed Forces, the new cooperation programs with different Diaspora organizations within the framework of the Army-society ties.

During the meeting the participants exchanged views on the reinforcement of the Armenian-Russian strategic partnership, the deepening of friendly relations between the two countries, as well as the need for steps stemming from the regional developments.

Minister of Culture Armen Amiryan briefed President Serzh Sargsyan on the priority directions of the Ministry’s activity –popularization of the Armenian culture in Armenia and abroad, new initiatives aimed at intensification of the cultural life outside capital Yerevan.

Minister Amiryan presented the issues raised during his meetings with culture workers.

Armen Amiryan offered to create a pan-Armenian symphony orchestra that will bring together talented Armenians from different sides of the world. He said the first concert is expected on April 24, 2017, after which the orchestra will perform in different cities of the world.

The President welcomed the idea, underling that it goes in line with his vision of Armenia-Diaspora cooperation and can well serve an example for cooperation in other spheres, as well.

“Over the last 24 hours, 14 neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo (around 300,000 residential quarters) were completely liberated from terrorists,” the Russian center said, TASS reports.

The Spanish website  has listed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev among the 48 dictators of the world.

“In 1993, the democratically-elected President Abulfaz Elchibey was overthrown by a military insurrection led by Colonel Surat Huseynov, which resulted in the arrival of Heydar Aliyev,” the website writes.

In 2003, Ilham Aliyev succeeded his father as president and his government has been charged with maintaining many of the policies of his predecessor, as well as seeking greater openness to the West and turning Azerbaijan into an industrialized nation.

According to the publication, to date the country has not fulfilled its commitments. “Although its constitution allows conscientious objectors to opt for alternative civilian service, the Government has not yet adopted a law to establish this alternative to military service. Conscientious objectors are currently being pursued, and there are reports of prolonged illegal detentions in military barracks.”

The leaders of Belarus, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are also included in the list.

A piece of music handwritten by Gustav Mahler has broken the record for the highest price for a musical manuscript sold at auction, the BBC reports.

The composer’s Second Symphony, which spans 232 pages, fetched £4.5m at Sotheby’s on Tuesday morning.

But a controversial manuscript which the auction house said was handwritten by Beethoven failed to sell.

The authenticity of the manuscript for the composer’s 1817 piece, Allegretto in B minor, had been questioned.

Sotheby’s had stood by the manuscript’s authenticity and expected it to fetch up to £200,000.

But ahead of the auction, Prof Barry Cooper, a musicologist and Beethoven scholar, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were inconsistencies within the piece.

On November 28^th, 2016, 1 postage stamp dedicated to the theme “The Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications. National cuisine” has been put into circulation.

The postage stamp has been cancelled by the President of “Development and preservation of Armenian culinary traditions” organization Sedrak Mamulyan and the Acting Chief Executive Officer of “HayPost” CJSC Haik Avagyan.

The postage stamp with nominal value of 170 AMD has been printed in “Cartor” printing house in France.

The postage stamp depicts an old Armenian traditional festive dish “Telbats Koubati”, which consists of fish with vegetables baked in puff pastry.

Date of issue: November 28, 2016

Designer: Vahagn Mkrtchyan

Printing house: Cartor, France

Size: 30,0 x 40,0 mm

Print run: 60 000

“New history lessons adopted by the California Board of Education this year may especially resonate with Fresno students and families,” Mackenzie Mays writes in an article published by .

Schools are now required to teach about the Armenian genocide – an important history in the Fresno area, which has a large Armenian American community. Teachers also are to provide information on the “unprecedented American humanitarian response” to the genocide: relief efforts raised more than $117 million in the aftermath, saving more than 1 million refugees.

The new content, which is more inclusive and aims to teach students to think critically about historical events, is expected to show up in textbooks by 2018.

“Turkish authorities first arrested hundreds of Armenian intellectuals who eventually were killed. The remaining Armenians were ordered onto death marches into the Syrian desert, during which they were subjected to rape, torture, mutilation, starvation, holocausts in desert caves, kidnapping and forced Turkification and Islamization,” reads the curriculum framework for California’s 10th-graders.

“The Armenian genocide has been ignored in history textbooks,” said Barlow Der Mugrdechian, director of Fresno State’s Center for Armenian Studies. “I know several local teachers who have already been providing materials on it, but it’s absolutely essential for all teachers. It brings to light an example of how government can choose to go down a path toward genocide and what conditions allow that to happen.”

Der Mugrdechian pointed to Adolf Hitler’s quote before invading Poland, in which he asked who remembered the annihilation of the Armenians – leading many to believe that it encouraged him to proceed with plans to kill millions of Jews.

That alone “is a clear statement about the necessity to remember history,” Mugrdechian said.

Fresno Unified school board member Brooke Ashjian’s great-grandmother survived the Armenian genocide. He says contributions made by Armenian Americans have shaped the city and beyond, pointing to famous writer and Fresno native William Saroyan.

“It’s a valuable lesson because it’s something you don’t want to repeat,” Ashjian said of the Armenian genocide. “Armenian people are resilient.”

“Armenia and Russia are linked not only by long-term allied relations, but also centuries-old friendship and brotherly relations between the two peoples,” Armenia’s Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan said in an interview with ahead of his official to Russia November 27-30.

Vigen Sargsyan will hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Army General Sergey Shioygu. The two Ministers are expected to sign an agreement on Joint Group of Forces and the plan of cooperation for 2017.

The Armenian DM said “the group was actually created long ago.” “Since 2000 we have been celebrating the day of creation of the Joint Group of Forces on September 27. The agreement on joint planning of the use of troops (forces) for ensuring collective security signed in Sochi 16 years ago served as a basis for it. The document envisaged creation of a group, and this was done in line with joint directives of our General Staffs,” Minister Sargsyan said.

As for the Armenian-Russian agreement on Joint Group of Forces, it will come to reinforce the legal ground for the group’s activity on the inter-state level. Besides, he said, the agreement will outline the goals, tasks, composition and organization of cooperation and the system of management, the financial-technical support.

“The main task of the Joint Group of Forces is the timely revealing of preparation of an armed attack (aggression) against Armenia and Russia and the rebuffing of it through cooperation between Armenia and Russia, as well as in collaboration with other troops, armed formations and structures,” he said.