President Serzh Sargsyan and First Lady Rita Sargsyan cast their ballots in the Yerevan City Council elections at polling station 9/18 this morning.
As what will change if Taron Margaryan is elected as  Mayor, the President said “Yerevan will become much better.”
The President said he voted for the sake of good Yerevan.
Asbarez – Â The âFriends of Maria Jacobsenâ committee has organized a special memorial service in commemoration of the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The ceremony will be held at the courtyard of the Bethania Lutheran Church (where Maria Jacobsenâs bust stands), 603 Atterdag Rd., Solvang, California on May 14, following the church worship service at 11 a.m.
Armenian community representatives will lay a wreath in honor and memory of 1.5 million Armenian martyrs as well as Danish humanitarian/missionary Maria Jacobsen (1882-1960) whose entire life was dedicated to serving orphaned Armenian children both in the Ottoman Empire and in Lebanon and was a key witness of the Armenian Genocide. âWe are honoring Maria Jacobsenâs memory on Motherâs Dayâ, said Dr. Garbis Der-Yeghiayan, chairman of the Committee, âshe is known as the beloved âMamaâ by her grateful former orphan children.â
On October 23, 2016, Jacobsenâs bust was unveiled in the courtyard of the Bethania Luthern Church in the presence of hundreds of her admirers, including her former orphans.
The Committee will make an important announcement at the conclusion of the memorial ceremony: Student Essay Contest in Honor and Memory of Maria Jacobsen. The theme of the essay contest is: In the more than 100 years that have passed since the first Genocide of the 20th century â the Armenian Genocide of bigotry, prejudice, intolerance, persecution, deportations, and heinous plans to annihilate a nation â what you believe your generation can do to make NEVER AGAIN a reality? The essay contest is open to all students attending Armenian, public or private high schools in Southern California and all high school students living in Solvang, California.
Pedro Agramunt, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) was banned from chairing the Assembly sitting as His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain was addressing the sitting.
According to member of the Armenian delegation to PACE Samvel Farmanyan, Agramunt was banned from chairing the sitting under the pressure of PACE political groups.
Farmanyan is confident today is Agramuntâs last working day at PACE and expects the Spanish to resign tomorrow.
Foreigners visiting Armenia will not be required to fill in an application-questionnaire to get an entry visa to Armenia.
The government has decided to adopt the change to maximally simplify the procedure and improve the quality of services provided to foreign citizens.
The executive says it requires time to fill in the application-questionnaire, which creates overcrowding at checkpoints, thus arousing discontent. Meanwile, experience shows that most of the data included in the questionnaire is imprecise, is never checked or used for any purpose.
Four political forces will be represented in the Armenian Parliament, according to final results of the poll published by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).
The CEC said 2,575,786 citizens or 60.93 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the parliamentary elections.
The Republican Party of Armenia will hold 58 seats in the 105-member National Assembly, Tsarukyan Alliance will claim 31 seats. Yelk bloc and ARF Dashnaktsutyun will be represented by 9 and 7 lawmakers respectively.
A passenger plane has caught fire on landing at an airport near the town of Jauja in central Peru. Remarkably no injuries have been reported. All 141 people on board were evacuated safely, Euronews reports.
Witnesses said the the Boeing 737 which had taken off in Lima drove off the runway after swerving for no apparent reason.
The fire may have been started when the wing scraped the ground.
Peruvian Airlines which own the jet have launched an investigation into the incident.
The State Border Committee of Belarus confirmed to Sputnik on Monday that radioactive materials were found aboard an Armenian aircraft en route to Bulgaria.
Bychkovsky noted that the aircraft, which he said was not a passenger flight, was flying from Armenia to Bulgaria via Belarus.
“I can confirm this fact. The incident took place on [Sunday] March 19 at Gomel Airport,” spokesman Anton Bychkovsky said following President Alexander Lukashenko’s assertion earlier in the day.
Photo: Getty Images
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says the Netherlands has rejected “the wrong kind of populism” as he celebrated victory in parliamentary elections, the BBC reports.
With nearly all votes counted his governing centre-right VVD party easily beat the anti-immigration, anti-EU Freedom party of Geert Wilders.
The race was seen as a test of support for nationalist parties that have been gaining ground across Europe.
Mr Wilders insisted “the patriotic spring” would still happen.
With more than 90% of votes counted, the VVD had won 33 out of 150 seats, a loss of eight seats from the previous parliament.
Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) was in second place on 20 seats, a gain of five, with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the liberal Democrats 66 (D66) close behind with 19 seats each.
The Green-Left party also did well winning 14 seats, an increase of 10.
The Labour Party (PvdA), the junior party in the governing coalition, suffered a historic defeat with only nine seats, a loss of 29.
Turnout was more than 80%, the highest for 30 years, which analysts say may have benefited pro-EU and liberal parties.
Dozens of people were reported to have been killed or injured by a suicide bomber at a Damascus court building on Wednesday, state media reported on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
No further details were immediately available.
State media said the attacker targeted the Palace of Justice, a court house in central Damascus.
The fabled last will and testament of Alexander the Great may have finally been discovered more than 2,000 years after his death.
A London-based expert claims to have unearthed the Macedonian king’s dying wishes in an ancient Armenian text that has been ‘hiding in plain sight’ for centuries, reports.
The long-dismissed last will divulges Alexander’s plans for the future of the Greek-Persian empire he ruled.
It also reveals his burial wishes and discloses the beneficiaries to his vast fortune and power.
Evidence for the lost will can be found in an ancient manuscript known as the ‘Alexander Romance’, a book of fables covering Alexander’s mythical exploits.
Likely compiled during the century after Alexander’s death, the fables contain invaluable historical fragments about Alexander’s campaigns in the Persian Empire.
Historians have long believed that the last chapter of the Romance housed a political pamphlet that contained Alexander’s will, but until now have dismissed it as a work of early fiction.
But a ten-year research project undertaken by Alexander expert David Grant suggests otherwise.
The comprehensive study concludes that the will was based upon the genuine article, though it was skewed for political effect.
The revelation is detailed in Mr Grant’s new book, ‘In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great.’
He believes that Alexander’s original will was suppressed by his most powerful generals, because it named his then unborn half-Asian son Alexander IV and elder son Heracles as his successors.
Rather than accepting the leadership of what the Macedonians saw as ‘half-breed’ sons, which would have been ‘unthinkable’, they fought each other for power in a bloody period of infighting and civil war known as the ‘Successor Wars’.
It was in the decades following Alexander’s death that Mr Grant now believes the original will was secretly rewritten and distributed in leaflet form by one of the competing generals to ‘prove’ the legitimacy of his own inheritance, as well as to damn the generals opposing him.