Category: News

Photo: Mikhail Pochuev/TASS    

Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Pakistan will present their national expositions at the Army-2016 military-technical forum, a Russian Defense Ministry official told reporters on Thursday, TASS reports.

“It is planned to deploy four national expositions: the Republic of Armenia – 5 enterprises, the Republic of Belarus – 9 enterprises, the Republic of Kazakhstan – 6 enterprises, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – 9 enterprises,” Alexander Mironov said at a meeting with foreign military attaches from more than 50 countries of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

Companies from Germany, India, Israel, Ireland, China, Malaysia, Thailand, France and Switzerland are also planning to take part in the forum. Mironov recalled that 28 foreign companies from 7 countries took part in the forum in 2015.

A total of 107 have been invited to the forum, 86 of them have confirmed their participation, while 45 countries are planning to send official delegations. In 2015, 73 countries attended the forum, 38 of them sent official delegations.

The Army-2016 international military-technical forum will be held on September 6-11 in the Russian Defense Ministry’s Patriot Park in the Moscow region.

 

System of A Down frontman Serj Tankian has finished a song for the Armenian Genocide-themed “The Promise” produced by Kirk Kerkorian’s Survival Pictures.

“I am really excited to have finished a beautiful song I did with my friends the Authentic Light Orchestra for “The Promise” soundtrack. The film produced by Survival Pictures and Eric Esrailian and directed by Terry George stars Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale along with my friend Angela Sarafyan in a powerful love story during the last, genocidal days of the Ottoman Empire,” Tankian said in a Facebook post.

“The Promise,” the Armenian Genocide-themed feature produced by Kirk Kerkorian’s Survival Pictures will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The festival also announced on Tuesday that “The Promise” will be featured as one of the event’s coveted opening weekend galas on September 11.

“Michael, a humble Armenian apothecary, leaves his village to study medicine in cosmopolitan Constantinople. Chris, an American photojournalist who has come to the country to partly cover the geopolitics, is in a relationship with the talented Ana, a Paris-educated, Armenian artist. When Michael meets Ana, their shared heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between the two men. After the Turks join the war on the German side, the Ottoman Empire turns violently against its own ethnic minorities. Despite their conflicts, everyone must find a way to survive — even as monumental events envelope their lives,” reads the film synopsis on the TIIF website.

Fire has been opened on the motorcade of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader in the Savsat district of the Black Sea province of Artvin, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

The bodyguards of the CHP leader fired back at the attackers, Turkish sources say.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu was kept in his car for security while police and the assailants engaged in an armed clash.

However, an adviser for Kilicdaroglu said it was not an armed attack targeting the CHP leader but a result of clashes erupted in the region.

Kilicdaroglu was heading back to the city center, where he was for his party’s program.

Kilicdarogluu told private broadcaster CNN Türk via telephone that they had been taken out of the clash zone by security forces.

“We are in a safe place but clashes are continuing. I hope no security personel will be hurt,” he said.

The NKR National Assembly voted 28 to 0 at an extraordinary session today to approve the proposal on amnesty on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of proclamation of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

This will be the 6th general pardon to be announced on the occasion of remarkable jubilees.

The decision shall come into force upon the official publication.

“The 25th anniversary of independence is the best summary of the path we have passed. We have faced a number of difficulties and hardships along this way and have reached the current reality at the cost of great sacrifices. The citizen of Artsakh is the main hero of all of this,” Speaker of the National Assembly Ashot Ghulyan said at the end of the session.

A man detained for seizing a bank in downtown Moscow and taking several people hostage on Wednesday evening has told investigators he had no plans of killing anyone, reports.

“During the interrogation, the detained man said he did not plan to kill anyone, but wanted to draw attention to the problem of [bankruptcy] by his actions,” senior aide of the head of the Main Investigative Department in Moscow Yulia Ivanova told TASS. On Thursday, the investigators plan “to bring charges against him and impose a pre-trial restraint.”

The 55-year-old man, later identified as Aram Petrosyan, a businessman from  Moscow region, seized the Citibank office located at 15 Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, 800 meters from the Kremlin, at around 6.30 p.m. Moscow time (1530GMT) on Wednesday. He said he had been manufacturing first aid kits until recently before going bankrupt.

He had a box wrapped in yellow tape that he claimed was an explosive device and threatened to blow up the office. Police later said it turned out to be a fake bomb, makeshift box was filled with salt. The hostage taker demanded that the current law on personal bankruptcy be canceled and that “a personal bankruptcy institution” be established to address the problems of bankrupt businessmen. When the man entered the bank, there were six people inside: three clients, two cashiers and a security guard. By 10.00 p.m. Moscow time the perpetrator freed all hostages and surrendered to the police.

TASS Deputy Editor-in-Chief Gleb Bryansky was one of the hostages in the seized bank office. “The hostage taker did not look like a cruel criminal, but rather like a desperate person. He was very nervous, was constantly apologizing and smoking a lot,” Bryansky said.

More than 25 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were reported at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night.

The rival used firearms of different calibers as it fired over 370 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front units of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the operational-tactical situation at the line of contact and confidently continue with their military duty.

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

 

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United States Attorney Richard Hartunian, the Albany-based federal prosecutor for the Northern District of New York, was appointed Monday to lead an advisory committee on policy for U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

It is the first time a prosecutor in charge of the 32-county district, which includes the Capital Region, has been named to head the panel.

Hartunian, 55, of Delmar, who graduated Georgetown University in 1983 and Albany Law School in 1986, became vice chair of the panel in January 2015. Now he will head a panel that is tasked with establishing policies for the U.S. Department of Justice, fostering cooperation with state attorneys general and promoting consistency in the application of legal standards.

The panel dates to 1973. Hartunian succeeds former U.S. Attorney John Walsh of Colorado. Hartunian will be joined by a new vice chair, U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade, who heads the Eastern District of Michigan.

“The attorney general’s Advisory Committee plays an essential role in shaping the Justice Department’s policies, implementing its programs, and ensuring that equal justice and the rule of law are upheld throughout the United States,” Lynch said in a statement. “As a former chair of the AGAC, I know firsthand the significant duties required of the committee’s leaders, and I am certain that U.S. Attorneys Richard Hartunian and Barbara McQuade are ready to assume the responsibility of chairing such an important and distinguished body. They are both seasoned prosecutors, exemplary law enforcement officers, and devoted public servants, and I look forward to benefiting from their long experience and wise counsel as we advance the department’s vital work in the months ahead.”

Hartunian, a one-time Albany County prosecutor and a frederal prosecutor in Albany since 1997, served as coordinator of his office’s Organized Crime Drug Task Force from 2006 until his appointment to U.S. attorney in 2010.

Hartunian has been on the committee since 2013 when he was appointed by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

He has co-chaired the panel’s Border and Immigration Subcommittee and has sat on subcommittees focused on Native American issues, health care fraud and environmental crimes.

 

 

 

About 40 Yazidi teachers are participating in training courses at the National Institute of Education of the Armenian Ministry of Education and Science.

The course is led by Hasan Tamoyan, editor of the Yazidi programs of the Public Radio of Armenia.

“Our language is rather complex. It’s not easy to learn all rules,” Hasan Tamoyan says. Upon the conclusion of the course certificates will be given to those who meet the required standards..

The teaching of Yazidi language was introduced in Armenia in 2005. Hasan Tamoyan says the achievements in the sphere are apparent.

Photo: AFP

 

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake has struck central Italy, leaving at least six people dead and others trapped under rubble, Italian officials said, the BBC reports.

The quake hit at 03:36 (01:36 GMT), 76 km (47 miles) southeast of the city of Perugia, at the very shallow depth of 10km (six miles), the USGS said.

The Mayor of Amatrice told Italian radio “half the town is gone”.

In Rome, some buildings shook for 20 seconds, according to La Repubblica newspaper.

A family of four had been found under rubble in the town of Accumoli, the town’s mayor Stefano Petrucci told RAI TV.

Meanwhile police said two people had died in the nearby village of Pescara del Tronto, RAI reported.

Photo: DHA via AP

 

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has assessed Turkey’s intrusion into Syrian territory as an act violating the country’s sovereignty, the news agency SANA reports.

“Damascus condemns the intrusion of Turkish tanks into Syrian territory under the cover of air support provided by the US-led international coalition,” the statement says. “Syria regards such actions as outright violation of its sovereignty.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said that resistance to terror “is not confined to driving out militants of the terrorist group calling itself Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) only to replace them with other extremist groups supported from Turkey.”