Author: Ardanoush Artashessian

Moscow sees considerable progress on the path of agreeing the modalities of unblocking transport communications between Baku and Yerevan, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk said. “With satisfaction, considerable progress has been stated in agreeing the modalities of unblocking transport communications between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Thus, a general understanding has been reached concerning the implementation of concrete steps toward restoring and organizing railway communication along the route Yeraskh-Julfa-Megri-Goradiz,” he stated Friday after the meeting of trilateral working group in Moscow. “The sides agreed to continue working within the trilateral working group,” he added. The working group held its 12th meeting in…

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Thursday calling on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to swiftly reverse their increasingly harsh restrictions on women and girls, which range from severely restricting education to banning women from most jobs, public spaces and gyms. The council condemned the Taliban’s ban on women working for the U.N., a decision the resolution calls “unprecedented in the history of the United Nations.” The unanimous 15-0 vote, with the United States, Russia and China all in favor, was a sign of the widespread global concerns over the Taliban’s actions. It was a rare moment of unity on a high-profile…

The Foreign Ministry condemned Armenia for inaugurating a monument in the capital Yerevan, glorifying the assassinators of Ottoman and Azerbaijani officials in the early 1920s, as the three countries try to mend relations amid ongoing tensions. “We strongly condemn the opening of the ‘Nemesis Monument’ in Yerevan, which is dedicated to the perpetrators of the assassinations against Ottoman political and military leaders in the early 1920s, and Azerbaijani officials of the time, as well as even some Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The opening of this shameful monument glorifies a bloody act of…

The Republic of Armenia has been under attack by Azerbaijan. Baku may not halt its aggression any time soon. If matters worsen for Armenia, Russia may offer the ultimate trade of sovereignty for security. The West needs to understand that Armenia, a rising democratic state, strongly linked to Western businesses in IT and ranked 11 out of 165 in the world for economic freedom, is significantly vulnerable to larger powers of the region and dependent on authoritarian Russia and Iran for assistance. Each is facing its own domestic issues and cannot be depended on by Yerevan for certain defense assistance. Armenian suffered military and civilian…

Four gymnasts representing Armenian have reached the finals of the fourth round of the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup.The qualifying rounds of the Rings and the Pommel Horse exercises took place Thursday in the fourth round of the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup which started in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. In the Rings, Artur Davtyan and Artur Avetisyan from Team Armenia reached the finals. Two-time European champion, world champion Davtyan passed the qualifying round with 14.266 points, Avetisyan—with 14.633 points.Harutyun Merdinyan, two-time European champion, two-time bronze medalist of Artistic Gymnastics World Cup, and Gagik Khachikyan reached the finals in the Pommel…

The international community gathered to discuss the issues of uniting the world on the way to the Sustainable Development Goals until 2030. All member countries and specialized agencies of the UN, with the participation of authoritative speakers, are considering the issues of uniting the world on the way to the Sustainable Development Goals until 2030 through the conservation of water resources, the importance of the seas and oceans in the well-being of our planet and global initiatives in this direction. Such a conference was held for the first time after a 45-year break. After all, the issue is extremely relevant: by…

UN documents dozens of summary executions of Ukrainian and Russian POWs UN human rights monitors have documented dozens of summary killings of prisoners of war (POWs) carried out by both Russian and Ukrainian forces, as well as the use of torture, human shields and other abuses against POWs since Russia invaded Ukraine, according to a new report published today. The report, by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), was based on interviews with about 400 POWs, half of them Ukrainians who were released and the other half Russians held captive in Ukraine. The team said it had no…

The delegation led by Mr. Edouard Philippe, the former Prime Minister of France and incumbent Mayor of Le Havre, and Member of the European Parliament, Ms. Natalie Loiseau, visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial, accompanied by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Armenia, Ms. Anne Louyot. Harutyun Marutyan, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, welcomed the guests and presented the history of the creation of the memorial complex. He also referred to the history of the three khachkars erected in the Tsitsernakaberd area in memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in…

It was an innocuous-looking photograph that turned out to be the downfall of Zheng Xiaoqing, a former employee with energy conglomerate General Electric Power. According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment, the US citizen hid confidential files stolen from his employers in the binary code of a digital photograph of a sunset, which Mr Zheng then mailed to himself. It was a technique called steganography, a means of hiding a data file within the code of another data file. Mr Zheng utilised it on multiple occasions to take sensitive files from GE. GE is a multinational conglomerate known for…

It took Defense Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky more than a week to confirm the biggest overhaul in the ranks of Hungary’s army in the past two decades after the first articles appeared about a major wave of layoffs. For days, news about the dismissal of hundreds of high-ranking officers, some of them only recently promoted, were circulating in the Hungarian press without any official comment from the government. Szalay-Bobrovniczky said in an interview on January 31 that several hundred officers were being sacked, mostly from the top ranks, in order to help “meritocracy and competition” in the army and to make the organization…