Author: Boris Nahapetian

Photo: Mohamed Abdiwahab / AFP

President Serzh Sargsyan will leave for Luxembourg today to participate in the jubilee summit dedicated to the 40^th anniversary of the European people’s Party, President’s Press Office reports.

The Azerbaijani army is violating international humanitarian law by using own civilians as a human shield.

The NKR Defense Army has pointed out all military objects, which are considered legitimate targets, according to the principles of ionternational law (Protocol 1 Additional to the 1949 Geneva Convention on Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts), the NKR Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Azerbaijan deploys its military objects in populated areas in violation of Article 58 of the same Protocol.

“The recent developments showed that the sooner Artsakh gets involved in the negotiations, the more effectively the ntalks will proceed,” Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told reporters following the government sitting today.

Speaking about the Kazan document, the Deputy Foreign Minister said “it’s almost the same as the Madrid Principles with some positive changes for the Armenian side.”

As CSTO’s reaction to the four-day war in Artsakh, Kocharyan said “the CSTO Secretariat and Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha responded to the development, and added that “Armenia has not applied for advice from the CSTO Council and therefore has no expectations from it.” “Armenia should rely upon itself, at the same time attaching importance to relations with any country, particularly the allies,” Kocharyan said.

The Deputy Foreign Minister noted that being part of an organization does not yet mean enjoying full support. “Neither the international law, nor the international organizations are ideal,” he said.

Had the international law been ideal, there would not be a Karabakh issue, as self-determination is a core principles of it prominently embodied in Article I of the Charter of the United Nations.

Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA), a senior member of the House Financial Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, has called on the administration to negotiate a new tax treaty between the United States and Armenia, the Armenian Assembly of America reports.

At a recent hearing before the Financial Service Committee, Sherman told Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew that currently, “we have a chicken and egg circumstance.  You don’t get the business investment because you don’t have the tax treaty.  Then you don’t need the tax treaty because you don’t have the business investment.

“We have tax treaties with scores of countries around the world.  We devote a substantial amount of money to trying to achieve our international development goals and can always provide foreign aid to Armenia.  But we can also achieve those goals by having a tax treaty.”

According to confirmed sources, the combat efficiency of the Azeri troops has fallen so drastically that even hired mercenaries with vast terrorist experience are unable to help, Spokesman for the Ministry of Defense Artsrun Hovhannisyan said in a Facebook post.

Like in 1994, Azerbaijan is using death squads to shoot those who retreat, he said.

Syrian state television said government forces fought their way into Palmyra on Thursday as the army backed by Russian air cover sought to recapture the historic city from Islamic State (IS) insurgents, Reuters reports.

A monitoring group said the fighting was still outside the city, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

The Syrian army earlier this month launched a concerted offensive to retake Palmyra, which the ultra-hardline Islamist militants seized in May 2015, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west. A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

“We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the centre of the Daesh gangs,” he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

The state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armoured vehicles approaching the city.

Supporters at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar could be housed in traditional Bedouin-style desert camps, the BBC reports.

Some of the 500,000 fans expected in the Gulf nation might be accommodated under canvas near stadiums.

“At the heart of this World Cup is a commitment to showcase hospitality and friendship of the Middle East,” said a spokesman.

“As a result, we are actively researching the concept of supporters sleeping under the stars.”

Bedouin campsites are inspired by the homes of tribes that have historically lived in the Arabian and Syrian deserts.

The tournament has already been moved from its traditional June-July slot to December over concerns about high temperatures.

Armenia will host the World Congress on Information Technologies (WCIT) in 2019.

The government has decided to allocate funds to pay the advance to the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA).

The World Congress on Information Technology, which has taken place every two years since 1978, is organized by the World Information Technology and Services Alliance. WITSA is present in 82 countries, with the inclusion of members representing 90% of the global ICT market, as well as key global information technology companies.

The WCIT is based on four main pillars: speeches, exhibitions, B2B meetings, and social events. These afford a unique opportunity for expanding businesses and investments in companies and ideas, while generating competitiveness in the global market.

About 2,000-2,500 delegates from more than 80 countries of the world are expected to attend the WCIT 2019 in Armenia.

During today’s governemnt sitting Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan stressed the importance of hosting the Congress in Armenia and noted that it would help attract investments in the IT sphere.

Asbarez  – Armenoid Productions– a documentary film production company of dedicated, storytellers of concealed history – today announced that the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) has selected its awardwinning Orphans of the Genocide documentary by Bared Maronian for national distribution to over 300 public television stations. The documentary is scheduled for national broadcast across PBS stations by April 24.

“I urge Armenian-Americans nationwide to contact their local public television station’s programing department to urge them to air Orphans of the Genocide’s special 60-minute version sponsored by NETA,” said Maronian. “This is a great honor that NETA has selected a documentary on the Armenian Genocide as part of their select number of programming recommendations to national PBS stations.”

The National Educational Telecommunications Association is a professional association that serves public television licensees and educational entities in all 50 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The four-time Regional Emmy Award winner filmmaker, Bared Maronian’s Orphans of The Genocide documentary has been previously screened on select PBS stations nationwide. The documentary weaves historical archives with interviews and memoirs of Armenian orphans establishing irrevocable proof of the Armenian Genocide. An emotional, visual journey through never-before-seen archival footage and discovered memoirs of orphans who lived through the last century’s first genocide. Maronian is currently completing his new documentary project – Women of 1915 – of stories of Armenian and non-Armenian women heroines who lived through the atrocities of W.W.I and survived to retell stories of strength, perseverance, and empowerment.