Category: News

Tensions were high at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan over the weekend despite the agreement between the parties to refrain from escalating the situation.

The rival fired more than 2,400 shots from weapons of different caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions over the weekend, the NKR Ministry of Defense reports.

The Azerbaijani side used artillery weapons of different caliber, as well as 60 and 82 mm mortars in the southern, southeastern and northern directions of the line of contact.

The NKR Ministry of Defense said in a statement the Defense Army keeps control of the situation all along the line of contact, simultaneously trying to prevent any provocative action by the rival.

Twitter marks its 10th anniversary on Monday, with the social media site having hosted some of the biggest social movements of the last decade.

However, uncertainty still hangs over its future.

The site is struggling to attract new users, has seen share prices tumble and faces continued questions over how it handles abuse.

However, the social media tool can still lay claim to some of social media’s biggest moments of the last decade.

The first tweet was sent by creato, r Jack Dorsey on March 212006. Hashtags became common by late 2007.

Special Representative of the German Government for the OSCE Chairmanship Gernot Erler, together with the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of Amrrerica, and Piee Andrieu of France, reiterated today their strong commitment to a negotiated settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“To achieve progress in the peace process, it is imperative that the sides take all measures to avoid violence, particularly violence that affects the civilian population living along the Line of Contact and the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.  In that regard, we support the statement of the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, who called on the sides to strictly respect the ceasefire during the holidays of Novruz Bayram and Easter.  We urge the sides to create the conditions for the people of the region to celebrate these holidays in peace.

The Co-Chairs, with the support of the German OSCE Chairmanship, will continue the work with the sides on elements of a settlement, measures to reduce the risk of violence, and programs that promote people-to-people contacts.”

On March 22, 2016 Komitas Museum-Institute will host an internationally renowned Armenian pianist Hayk Melikyan, an Honored Artist of the Republic of Armenia.

The concert program covers both the Giants of the 20th Century, including Olivier Messiaen, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Henryk Gorecki, Lubos Fiser as well as the works by contemporary young composers: Klaus Lang (Austira), Bohdan Sehin and Anna Korsun (Ukraine), Anthony Green (US), Amir Tafreshipour (Iran). There will be eight Armenian and international premieres during one evening.

“Hayk’s Yerevan audience has been waiting for a special contemporary music concert by Hayk for about a year. In addition to the classics of the 20th century, Hayk has also included a bucket of ultra-contemporary pieces, where the composers use non-traditional performing technique. It is really gladsome to see the great interest and inspiration of the Armenian audience towards the contemporary music. This is the evidence of the demand and respect towards the contemporary art in Armenia,”- noted Alexander Hakobyan, the Artistic Manager of the Pianist.

The next Concert of Hayk Melikyan will take place on March 31, 2016 in Nicosia, Cyprus with Levon Mouradian, cellist from Portugal. The program covers prominent Russian composers such as S.Taneyev, S.Rachmaninoff and A.Schnittke.

President Serzh Sargsyan sent a congratulatory message to the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei on the occasion of the Iranian New Year holiday – Novruz.

The President of Armenia wished them good health and happiness, and perpetual peace and prosperity to the people of Iran, President’s Press Office reported.

BBC’s Radio 4 presents the history of the Armenian Martyr’s Church in Der Zor as part of its Museum of Lost Objects project, which traces the histories of 10 antiquities or cultural sites that have been destroyed or looted in Iraq and Syria.

The Armenian martyr’s memorial in Der Zor, Syria was a tribute to the Armenians who perished in the mass killings of 1915. It was consecrated in 1991 and then completely destroyed in 2014 by Islamic militants. A British Armenian writer recalls her visits to Der Zor, and tracing the harrowing journey of her ancestors through the Syrian desert.

A small restaurant in West Bengal is baking Armenian lavash in traditional tonirs. “This restaurant is my small effort to tell a story as beautiful and age-old as Armenia, rather than the history of Armenians in West Bengal,” chief Sabyasachi Gorai says, the reports.

In the chef’s own words, the restaurant is the “fruit of his lost nostalgic past.”

“Lavash (the bread) is a word that has found a permanent spot in UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list (incidentally the only food item to make it to that list from around the world). A word that goes so deep not just into the food history of the world, but also the culture that Armenia had to offer. Till date, we are baking lavash at Kashmir in traditional tonirs after so many centuries. This restaurant is my small effort to tell a story as beautiful and age-old as Armenia, rather the history of Armenians in West Bengal,” Saby says.

Saby grew up in Asansol, a small town steeped in Armenian influence, around the then-thriving bakeries, the churches and the graveyards, playing with the Armenian boys, under the tutelage of the elegant and well-spoken principal of AG Church School, Mrs Aedinnangze. Those memories came flooding back when Saby picked up a book written by his father Sakti Gorai, a scholar and researcher, called 100 years of Coal Mining History. The twin towns of Asansol and Durgapur, and neighbouring suburbs Kulty and Raniganj, came back to Saby, and with them the whiff of the many Armenian dishes. The idea of Lavaash germinated thus. The year was 2015, the centenary year of the Armenian genocide.

“While assimilating the Armenian story I have also taken influences of other foreign settlers in Bengal like the Portuguese and the French. My grandmom’s cook book from 1938 passed on to my mom and my mom’s hand-written recipe notes have also done their bit in finalising the Lavaash menu. Traditional Armenian food is not available anywhere and it took me a lot of research to get this right,” says Saby.

Photo: Reuters

 

President Barack Obama has arrived in Cuba for a historic visit to the island and talks with its communist leader, the BBC reports.

He is the first sitting US president to visit since the 1959 revolution, which heralded decades of hostility.

Speaking at the reopened US embassy in Havana, he called the visit “historic”. He also spent time in the old city.

Mr Obama will meet President Raul Castro, but not retired revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and the pair will discuss trade and political reform.

The US president emerged smiling from Air Force One with First Lady Michelle and their daughters Sasha and Malia.

Holding umbrellas, the party walked in light drizzle along a red carpet to be greeted by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

A Russian court has found Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko guilty in the case of two Russian journalists killed by mortar fire, the BBC reports.

Prosecutors argued that she ordered the mortar fire that killed the journalists in eastern Ukraine and want her jailed for 23 years.

But her lawyer said phone records proved she was captured by pro-Russian rebels before the journalists died.

The sentence will be handed down on Tuesday, after the court explains its reasons for the guilty verdict.

Based on the necessity of improving mechanisms of implementing law supremacy and democracy principles, perfecting the balance between the power branches and raising the efficiency of public administration, as well as taking into consideration the suggestion of political parties represented in the National Assembly and non-parliamentary political forces and guided by the 10^th clause of the 68^th article of the NKR Constitution on 21 March President Bako Sahakyan signed a decree on establishing a professional commission on constitutional reforms under the NKR President.

The decree approved the composition of the commission at the head of the National Assembly Chairman Ashot Ghoulyan.

According to the decree by May 1, 2016 the professional commission was assigned to introduce to the President the concept of the constitutional reforms and in case of its approval by September 10, 2016 elaborate and hand in to the President the project of the constitutional reforms.