Author: Antranik Varosian

Photo: AP    

Two men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning an attack on a shopping centre in Oberhausen near the Dutch border, police say, the BBC reports.

The brothers, aged 31 and 28 and born in Kosovo, were detained early on Friday in Duisburg.

Germany is on high alert after Monday’s attack in Berlin, which left 12 dead.

A Europe-wide manhunt continues for Anis Amri, the Tunisian man suspected of driving a lorry into the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market.

Police said the Oberhausen attack had been intended to target the CentrO shopping centre.

Photo: EPA

An Iraqi paramilitary force says it has seized a key road west of Mosul, effectively encircling the city controlled by so-called Islamic State, the BBC reports.

The Popular Mobilisation (Hashd al-Shaabi) declared it had taken control of the road between Tal Afar and Sinjar after linking up with Kurdish forces.

IS militants still control the section of the road between Tal Afar and Mosul.

Meanwhile, an air strike reportedly hit another bridge in Mosul, as troops advanced further into eastern areas.

There is now only one functioning bridge left spanning the River Tigris, which flows through the city.

About 50,000 Iraqi security forces personnel, Kurdish fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and Shia militiamen are involved in the five-week-old offensive to drive IS militants out of their last major urban stronghold in the country.

James Warlick will step down as OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair on December 31.

“It has been an honor to serve in the Department of State for more than 30 years,” Warlick said in a Twitter post.

Ambassador James B. Warlick will join Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners’ team in Washington, D.C. in January 2017. He will be responsible for working with U.S. and international clients, development of strategic client relationships, legislation and public policy.

The Government decided today to allocate sums to refund the tuition fees of Syrian Armenian students.

About 400 of the 500 Syrian Armenian students need compensation to pay the tuition.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Armenian General Benevolent Union will allocate 120,000 USD each to cover the costs, but the whole sum needed to refund the tuiton fees amounts to 20 mln AMD.

Photo: Reuters

Five people have died after their plane crashed at Malta International Airport, the BBC reports.

The small aircraft, a twin-prop Metroliner, crashed around 07:30 (05:30 GMT), shortly after taking off from Luqa airport on a flight to Libya.

The victims’ nationalities have not been released.

Early reports that they were officials from the EU’s border agency have been denied. Frontex said the plane was “not deployed by” them and said “none of their staff were involved”.

Malta International Airport officials released a statement confirming the deaths. The airport is closed “until further notice”.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia Herbert Salber.

Noting that all previous meetings with the EU Special Representative were conducted in an open and frank atmosphere, the President expressed hope that this meeting too would be of the same nature.

Serzh Sargsyan highly praised the EU commitment to establishing an atmosphere of confidence between the parties of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in order to reach a peaceful resolution of the issue.

President Sargsyan and Herbert Salber exchanged views on the recent developments in the NK peace process after the meetings in Vienna and Saint Petersburg and on the current situation.

Serzh Sargsyan presented Armenia’s efforts made with the mediation of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and reiterated that the Armenian side is ready to continue to make constructive steps for the benefit of peace and security in the region.

The EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Herbert Salber noted that in the framework of his visit to Armenia, he is having meeting with the representatives of the civil society, including the residents of the border regions of Armenia.

At the meeting, the parties also exchanged views on the regional developments.

The second plane with Armenian humanitarian aid to Syria landed at Hmeimim airbase, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs.

Tigran Gevorgyan, the Consul General of Armenia to Aleppo, was at the site to receive it.

Armenia has proudly showed off state-of-the-art Russian ballistic missiles at a military parade marking its independence day, the Associated Press writes.

According to AP, the Iskander missiles displayed Wednesday are capable of striking targets up to 300 kilometers with high precision, adding muscle to the Armenian military amid tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Asbarez – Aline Ohanesian’s book, “Orhan’s Inheritance,” is among 12 finalists announced for the 2016 Dayton Literary Peace Prize — half for fiction, half for non-fiction. A winner and runner-up in each category will be announced Oct. 11. Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and runners-up receive $2,500.

Set against the backdrop of the Armenian Genocide, the book tells the story of Ohan, whose brilliant and eccentric grandfather, who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs, is found dead in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But his grandfather’s will raises more questions than it answers. Kemal has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in a retirement home (Ararat Home of LA) in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan’s grandfather would have left their home to this woman rather than to his own family.

Joining Ohanesian as finalists are “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara; “Delicious Foods” by James Hannaham; “Green on Blue” by Elliot Ackerman; “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and “Youngblood” by Matt Gallagher.

“Many of this year’s finalists explore the contradictory strength and fragility of the family bond, and the threat that external forces such as poverty, war, and prejudice can place on that bond,” said Sharon Rab, co-chair of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. “Through these narratives we explore the sources of conflict within the family but also what our immediate relationships can teach us about healing and reconciliation in the larger world.”

The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony hosted by award-winning journalist Nick Clooney in Dayton on Nov. 20.

Last month, organizers of the event announced that novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson will receive the 2016 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. Holbrooke was the U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that put an end to the three-and-half-year-long Bosnian War.

The finalists for nonfiction: “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates; “Find Me Unafraid” by Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner; “Nagasaki” by Susan Southard; “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America” by Wil Haygood; “The Reason You Walk” by Wab Kinew, and “The Train to Crystal City” by Jan Jarboe Russell.

Inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize was launched in 2006. It is the only literary peace prize awarded in the United States.

Finalists will be reviewed by a panel of prominent writers including Alexander Chee, Christine Schutt, Ruben Martinez and Evelyn McDonnell.