The Azerbaijani side used weapons of different caliber as it fired more than 700 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions last night.
The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army confidently continue with their military duty and resort to retaliatory measures if necessary, the NKR Ministry of Defense said.
Photo: EPA
Rescuers in western Nepal have found the wreckage of a passenger plane which went missing with 23 people on board, the BBC reports.
The Twin Otter aircraft, operated by Tara Air, was travelling from Pokhara to Jomsom and lost contact with the control tower shortly after taking off.
Officials say the chances of finding survivors are slim.
The plane was carrying three crew and 20 passengers, one of them Chinese and one Kuwaiti. Nepal’s aviation industry has a poor safety record.
According to Sanjiv Gautam, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the plane’s wreckage was found near the village of Dana in Myagdi district.
The identities of those on board have yet to be released. Two of those on board were children.
Three helicopters were searching for the missing plane, Tara Air said earlier on its website, adding that “the weather at both origin and destination airports was favourable” for the 20-minute flight.
Nepal’s army said, however, that fog had been hampering the search for the Twin Otter.
Violinist Vanessa-Mae has been awarded damages for defamation from the International Ski Federation (FIS), the BBC reports.
She was banned after the FIS claimed she qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympics at fixed races, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport cleared her.
FIS apologised and has made “an appropriate” payment that the musician intends to donate to charity.
Vanessa-Mae, 37, was 67th and last in the giant slalom in Sochi competing for her father’s native Thailand.
Reacting to the news of her damages, she told BBC Sport: “The fact that the International Ski Federation has apologised to me says it all.”
British citizen Vanessa-Mae insists she will not allow the disruption to derail her bid to continue skiing and qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pheongchang, South Korea.
Baku “is expecting guarantees from the exporting country” that weapons and equipment will not be deployed along Azerbaijan’s border with Armenia or in Nagorno-Karabakh
Azerbaijan has sent a note of protests to Russian Foreign Ministry over the supply of weapons to Armenia, the country’s Foreign Ministry press service head Khikmet Gadzhiev told reporters on Wednesday, TASS reports.
The move comes after Russian side provided Armenian with a state export loan of up to $200 million for financing the delivery of Russian military products.
Gadzhiev said that supplying Armenia with weapons and military equipment “does not facilitate the settlement of the conflict” around Nagorno-Karabakh. In this respect, Baku “is expecting guarantees from the exporting country” that weapons and equipment will not be deployed along Azerbaijan’s border with Armenia or in Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted.
Michigan House of Representatives passes a bill mandating Armenian Genocide education in public schools, Asbarez News reported on its Facebook page.
Turkey’s former international football star Hakan Sukur risks up to four years in jail after being charged with insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in posts on Twitter, reports said Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reports.
Prosecutors have charged Sukur with posting Tweets from his account @HakanSukur containing “insulting content against Mr President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son,” the private Dogan news agency reported.
In his defence, Sukur, 44, said he did not intend to target the president in his posts, the content of which was not made clear.
But that was rejected by prosecutors, who claimed that the tweets were “clearly related” to Erdogan, the news agency said.
If convicted, Sukur faces up to four years in jail, according to the charges. As the indictment has been approved, a first hearing is expected in the coming weeks.
Sukur, a striker whose football career stretched from 1987-2007, was by far the most prolific goalscorer in the history of the Turkish national side, finding the net 51 times in 112 appearances.
He is also remembered for his electric performance in the 2002 World Cup, where Turkey registered its best ever performance of third place.
After football, the high-profile Sukur went into politics and was in 2011 elected MP from Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
But he resigned in 2013 after a vast corruption probe that targeted Erdogan and his inner circle, siding with the movement of his arch-foe, the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
The legal case is one of a string of others targeting journalists, bloggers and ordinary people who land in court on charges of insulting Erdogan and other top officials.
– Monday was a day of celebration, laughter, good food and poignant memories.
The Kardashian-Jenner family gathered together for a sit-down Armenian-style dinner to commemorate what would have been the late Robert Kardashian’s 72nd birthday.
And everyone, from Kris to Kylie, made sure their social media followers were keeping up as they posted details from the elaborate affair.
The 60-year-old family matriarch hosted the dinner on the cabana of her Calabasas, California mansion with her daughters Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie helping to make it the special occasion it deserved.
Even Kris’ boyfriend Corey Gamble was among the celebrants.
Kim went around the table with her video camera, commenting on all the exquisite dishes.
The sumptuous buffet spread included such traditional dishes as stuffed vine leaves, hummus and pita bread, bulgur wheat and rice dishes, Armenian string cheese and baklava (pakhlava) pastry.
Kris set out her fine china – white with a delicate grey border design – and gleaming silverware, cloth napkins and chic wine goblets.
Squat white candles were placed down the center of the stone table and comfy pillows were planted on the backs of some of the chairs.
Cargo shipments of the rechargeable lithium batteries used in countless consumer products should no longer be allowed on passenger planes because they can create intense fires capable of destroying an aircraft, a U.N. aviation agency has concluded, the Associated Press reports.
The decision late Monday by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization’s top-level governing council to ban the shipments isn’t binding, but most countries follow the agency’s standards. The ban is effective on April 1.
“This interim prohibition will continue to be in force as separate work continues through ICAO on a new lithium battery packaging performance standard, currently expected by 2018,” said Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, the ICAO council’s president.
Lithium-ion batteries are used in a vast array of products from cellphones and laptops to some electric cars. About 5.4 billion lithium-ion cells were manufactured worldwide in 2014. A battery is made up of two or more cells. A majority of batteries are transported on cargo ships, but about 30 percent are shipped by air.
The ban doesn’t apply to batteries packaged inside equipment like a laptop with a battery inside, for example.
PRBA – The Rechargeable Battery Association, which opposed the ban, said in a statement that the industry is preparing to comply with the ban, but there may be “significant disruption in the logistics supply chain,” especially for batteries used in medical devices.
Photo: Getty Images
A memoir apparently written by a Canadian serial killer has been withdrawn within hours of appearing for sale online, the BC reorts.
Former multi-millionaire pig farmer Robert Pickton was convicted in 2007 of murdering six women. Charges relating to 20 other deaths were suspended.
Another inmate helped him smuggle the book out of prison, CTV reported.
The publisher requested its removal from retailer Amazon and apologised to victims’ families, reports said.
Officials in British Columbia had earlier vowed to prevent Pickton, who says he is innocent, from profiting from sales of the memoir, entitled Pickton: In His Own Words.
“It is not right that a person who caused so much harm and hurt so many people could profit from his behaviour,” said the province’s Minister for Public Safety, Mike Morris, in a statement.
British Columbian officials also asked Amazon to stop selling the memoir, which was published by Colorado-based Outskirts Press, a firm that specialises in helping authors self-publish books.
Amazon users had also called for it to be removed and gave it the lowest possible rating. The company has not yet commented on the book’s appearance on its site.
Photo: Reuters
The Syrian government and the main opposition umbrella groups say they accept the terms of a deal to cease hostilities from Saturday, the BBC reports.
The government said it would halt “combat operations” in line with the plan announced by the US and Russia.
But the opposition said its acceptance depended on government forces ending sieges and air strikes of civilians.
The deal will not apply to the two main jihadist groups in Syria, Islamic State (IS) and the rival al-Nusra Front.
Al-Nusra is an affiliate of al-Qaeda and forms part of a major rebel alliance.
Under the terms of the agreement announced by the US and Russia on Monday, the Syrian government and opposition were required to indicate by noon on Friday whether they would comply with the cessation of hostilities.