Category: News

The United States today began implementing changes under the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 (the Act), the U.S. Emassy in Armenia infoms.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) welcomes more than a million passengers arriving to the United States every day and is committed to facilitating legitimate travel while maintaining the highest standards of security and border protection. Under the Act, travelers in the following categories are no longer eligible to travel or be admitted to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP):

• Nationals of VWP countries who have traveled to or been present in Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited exceptions for travel for diplomatic or military purposes in the service of a VWP country).
• Nationals of VWP countries who are also nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria.

These individuals will still be able to apply for a visa using the regular immigration process at their embassies or consulates. For those who need a U.S. visa for urgent business, medical, or humanitarian travel to the United States, U.S. embassies and consulates stand ready to process applications on an expedited basis.

Beginning January 21, 2016, travelers who currently have valid Electronic System for Travel Authorizations (ESTAs) and who have previously indicated holding dual nationality with one of the four countries listed above on their ESTA applications will have their current ESTAs revoked.

Under the new law, the Secretary of Homeland Security may waive these restrictions if he determines that such a waiver is in the law enforcement or national security interests of the United States. Such waivers will be granted only on a case-by-case basis. As a general matter, categories of travelers who may be eligible for a waiver include:

o   Individuals who traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria on behalf of an international organizations, regional organizations, and sub-national governments on official duty;

o   Individuals who traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria on behalf of a humanitarian NGO on official duty;

o   Individuals who traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria as a journalist for reporting purposes;

o   Individuals who traveled to Iran for legitimate business-related purposes following the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (July 14, 2015); and

o   Individuals who have traveled to Iraq for legitimate business-related purposes.

Again, whether ESTA applicants will receive a waiver will be determined on a case-by-case basis, consistent with the terms of the law. In addition, we will continue to explore whether and how the waivers can be used for dual nationals of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Sudan.

Any traveler who receives notification that they are no longer eligible to travel under the VWP are still eligible to travel to the United States with a valid nonimmigrant visa issued by a U.S. embassy or consulate.  Such travelers will be required to appear for an interview and obtain a visa in their passports at a U.S. embassy or consulate before traveling to the United States.

The new law does not ban travel to the United States, or admission into the United States, and the great majority of VWP travelers will not be affected by the legislation.

An updated ESTA application with additional questions is scheduled to be released in late February 2016 to address exceptions for diplomatic- and military-related travel provided for in the Act.

Information on visa applications can be found at .

Current ESTA holders are encouraged to check their ESTA status prior to travel on CBP’s website at .

 

 

 

The bears from Gyumri zoo will be moved to Romania in a month. The story of starving bears and lions went viral after the Daily Mail published an article titled

Animal rights organizations have applied to a number of strictures, but have not received any support. After the Yerevan Zoo’s refusal to take care of the animals, a Romanian organization has expressed willingness to ensure favorable conditions for them.

Environmentalists Silva Adamyan, member of the “Save the animals of Gyumri Zoo” initiative, told reporters today “the owner of the zoo is ex-Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan’s brother, who is unable to care for the animals today.”

A task group has been established at the Ministry of Environmental Protection to take urgent steps to solve the issue. a number of international organizations are also involved in the case.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

 

France will seek to keep its state of emergency until a “total and global war” against so-called Islamic State (IS) is over, Prime Minister Manuel Valls has told the .

The measures were introduced after the IS-led Paris attacks on 13 November and then extended for three months.

Such a move gives police more power to conduct raids and impose house arrests.

Mr Valls also warned that Europe’s migration crisis was now putting the European Union itself at grave risk.

Mr Valls said France was “at war”, which meant “using all means in our democracy under the rule of law to protect French people”.

When asked how long he envisaged the state of emergency remaining, Mr Valls said: “The time necessary. We cannot always live all the time in a state of emergency.”

“As long as the threat is there, we must use all the means,” he said, adding that it should stay in place “until we can get rid of Daesh”, using an acronym for IS.

“In Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia we must eradicate, eliminate Daesh,” he said. “It is a total and global war that we are facing with terrorism,” he added. “The war we are conducting must also be total, global and ruthless.”

Associated Press – At least 21 people, including eight children, died in two separate incidents of boats smuggling migrants or refugees sinking off two Greek islands overnight into Friday. Dozens survived, and a search and rescue operation was underway for more potential survivors.

In the first incident, a wooden boat carrying 48 people sank in the early hours off the small islet of Farmakonissi in the eastern Aegean. Forty of the passengers managed to make it to shore, while authorities rescued one girl and recovered seven bodies from the sea — those of six children and one woman, the coast guard said.

A few hours later, a wooden sailboat carrying an undetermined number of people sank off the islet of Kalolimnos, to the south of Farmakonissi.

The coast guard rescued 26 people and recovered 14 bodies — nine women, three men and two children — while coast guard vessels, a helicopter and private boats were searching for survivors. Authorities said the survivors’ estimates of how many people had originally been on board varied from about 40 to 70, so it was unclear how many people were missing.

Greece has become the main gateway for people fleeing war and poverty trying to reach the European Union. More than 800,000 entered Greece last year, mostly using unseaworthy boats to reach Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast. Hundreds have died in the attempt.

Samuel Forrest says his life turned upside down last year after he was faced with the devastating choice of giving up his wife or his newborn son with Down syndrome.

Now, a year later, both Forrest and his wife, Ruzan, are speaking out about life with their son, Leo.

“He’s generally a very happy kid,” Forrest of Auckland, New Zealand, told Tuesday in an exclusive interview. “He’s got a sense of humor … in many ways he’s not really different than a lot of other children. He’s got a lot of challenges, but to bring out the best of him you have to work with him differently than you would do another child.”

Forrest, 37, told ABC News last February that the day Leo was born in Yerevan, Armenia, on Jan. 21, 2015, he was told, unexpectedly, that Leo had Down syndrome.

After the news sank in, Forrest held Leo for the very first time: “They took me in to see him and I looked at this guy and I said, ‘He’s beautiful — he’s perfect and I’m absolutely keeping him,’” he said last year.

Forrest was living in his Armenian wife’s home country where she presented him with an ultimatum: Put the child in an orphanage, or she would leave.

He chose Leo and decided he would return to his native New Zealand, where he said they’d receive support from loved ones. Ruzan Forrest filed for divorce.

Now, he told ABC News Tuesday, “It was pretty clear that the main things were cultural and huge pressure. About three-and-half weeks later, Ruzan got in touch with me through a friend and we ended up having a candid conversation through Skype. I finally agreed to meet her and she held little Leo for the first time.”

“Before this, she had no idea what Down syndrome really was, or that there was hope,” he added. “The doctors had told her Leo would never learn to walk, or talk or feed himself.”

Leo was born in Yerevan, Armenia, but Forrest moved to New Zealand where he said they’d receive support from loved ones.

Ruzan Forrest, 30, told ABC News Tuesday that she felt the “world was against her” after her husband had shared their story globally.

“I read all the comments and there were some positive comments, but now when I look back, [they’d say] ‘Why would you leave your child?’” she said. “I didn’t like the feeling, it was really bad. I thankfully forgot about it. I am very grateful my family gave me a chance because I don’t know what I would do without them. It made me really happy.”

Samuel Forrest, who at the time was working as a freelance business contractor, enlisted help on his GoFundMe page, titled “Bring Leo Home”

The Internet quickly rallied, raising over $500,000 (U.S.) for little Leo and his dad, after Forrest’s Feb. 5, 2015, interview with ABC News.

The fundraiser was at 4,000 Australian dollars and then “I woke up in the morning and it was rolling over like a speedometer,” Forrest said. “…[It] was a big shock.”

The story was soon recognized by media platforms all over the world and Forrest received 18,000-plus messages from strangers, he said.

“The bulk of it was positive, then there was this huge negative story about Down syndrome, that the child should’ve been killed at birth,” Forrest recalled. “There was a nasty underbelly, [but] I’d say most of it was ignorance.”

During the media frenzy, Ruzan took to her Facebook page in an effort to defend her actions.

“Sam has never suggested joining him and bringing up the child together in his country,” Ruzan wrote in 2015. “Neither did he tell me anything … The only thing he kept saying was that he didn’t want us to separate, whereas my question what we should do always remained unanswered.”

Shortly after the couple reconnected through Skype when Leo was about a month old, Samuel and Ruzan reconciled. Forrest says she canceled the divorce before it was finalized and moved to New Zealand to live with her husband and son.

“She’s adapted to Leo’s therapy programs and she’s turned out to be a wonderful mother,” he added.

Forrest said Leo, who is receiving therapy both physical and intellectual development, is now crawling, pushing buttons and is able to say “dad” and tries to say “mom.”

Ruzan said Tuesday, “At first I was very, very scared because I didn’t know what Down syndrome was like. Doctors said he would be like a vegetable. It was very scary. I think I was also very selfish and then there was depression…[it was] all of that together.

“I love him [Leo] very much,” she added. “One year ago, I couldn’t imagine life with him and now, I can’t really imagine my life without him. He’s changed me so much. I can say I’m a different person now.”

Armenia will be the Guest of Honor of the Minsk International Book Fair to be held in the Belarusian capital on 10 to 14 February, learned from the Belarusian Information Ministry.

In different years, the honorary title was given to Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Kazakhstan, France, Germany, Venezuela, and China.

This year’s edition of the forum is expected to bring together book publishers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries.

The Information Ministry said that the book fair will showcase best products of the national and foreign book publishing industries. The program of the forum features many cultural and business events.

The Year of Culture in Belarus will be one of the key themes of the upcoming event along with the preparations for the 500th anniversary of Belarusian book printing. Other themes include the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, and other anniversaries.

Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan received the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk. The parties discussed the situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

Minister Ohanyan presented the recent provocations of Azerbaijan and the retaliatory measures taken by the Armenian side.

The Armenian Defense Minister reiterated the importance of working out international mechanisms to reinforce the control of the situation.

Ambassador Kasprzyk, in turn, expressed concern over the escalation of the situation and promised to take relevant steps.

Valery Permyakov, a soldier at a Russian base in the Armenian town of Gyumri, pleaded guilty to killing seven members of a family, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

The family, including a six-month-old baby, was killed as a result of an armed assault on January 12, 2015.

Permyakov was arrested and later charged with the murder of two or more persons under the Armenian Criminal Code.

On August 12, Permyakov was found guilty of desertion, theft of weapons and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The murder case was singled out for considering it in a separate procedure and passed to the Armenian authorities.

On October 13, Permyakov was found sane. According to experts, he was not in the heat of passion while committing the crime. He also could recognize the consequences of his actions.

On October 16, Permyakov was additionally charged with armed assault, home-invasion robbery and attempted border crossing.

Aras Ozbiliz seems very close to a Besiktas move, reports, quoting  Haber1903.

According to the report, the Armenian international winger has reached an agreement on all terms with the Black Eagles and will arrive in Istanbul today to sign a contract for 4,5 years after he passes his medical.

Ozbiliz will be bought from Spartak Moscow for a fee of around € 3 million and will be directly loaned out to Spanish La Liga side Rayo Vallecano until the end of the season. Reason for this is because Gökhan Töre will most likely be sold at the end of the season. Özbiliz will have 6 months to get in good shape at a good level, La Liga, and he can immediately take Töre’s place when he is sold for a good transfer fee.

Ozbiliz played in the youth academy of Ajax Amsterdam before getting in their first team. He played two seasons for the Dutch club, in which he had some very good games. His most memorable moment for them was when he scored the equalizer at Old Trafford against Manchester United in 2012. At the end of that season he was sold to Krasnodar, before moving to Spartak Moscow only one year later for a transfer fee of € 8 million. Besiktas have been following him for nearly two years now and it seems like he will finally make his transfer to the club.

Photo: Reuters

 

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence in northern Kenya of what could be the earliest example of warfare between different human communities, the reports.

The 10,000-year-old remains of 27 people found at a remote site west of Lake Turkana show that they met violent deaths.

They were left to die there rather than being buried.

Many experts had thought conflict emerged only around 6,000 years ago after humans became more settled.

The archaeologists, who have been working on the site at Nataruk since 2012, discovered that the victims were clubbed or stabbed to death in a single event.

The dead included male and female adults, as well as children.

The evidence, published in the journal Nature, does not reveal exactly what happened but it was definitely the result of “some sort of conflict”, according to Cambridge University Professor Robert Foley.