Author: David Nargizian

Former Manchester United midfielder Owen Hargreaves says he cannot believe the treatment of Henrikh Mkhitaryan under Jose Mourinho this season.

The playmaker, signed from Borussia Dortmund for £26million in the summer, has only featured four times in the Premier League, not playing more than 45 minutes in any of his appearances.

After nursing a slight injury in September, the Armenia international is back fit and seemingly available, and Hargreaves says he can’t understand why the 27-year-old is being overlooked by Mourinho.

‘He needs to play, I can’t believe that he’s not getting a look-in. He would be a banker in my starting XI,’ he told Squawka.

‘He had a slow start at Dortmund too and he was the players’ player of the year last season. He got 23 goals and 32 assists, which is staggering numbers.

‘This wasn’t in a terrible league against pub teams and I can’t think of anybody who could put up those numbers besides Messi and Ronaldo. He’s a top player and we haven’t seen it yet at United.’

Discussing reasons for his absence, Hargreaves mentions a potential fragility in Mkhitaryan’s personality.

‘The thing is, he’s such a wonderful player but I think he’s also quite a sensitive guy,’ he added. ‘It would have been perfect if he started off flying with goals and assists, but the slow start has probably hit his confidence.’ 

Next up for United is a local derby against Manchester City in the EFL Cup, and it is yet to be seen whether Mkhitaryan will be trusted with a role in the game.

The 26 citizens injured in the crash involving a bus en route from Moscow to Yerevan and the bodies of the two victims (Arevik Lunonyan and Yuri Poghosyan) will be transported to Armenia today, the Ministry of Transport, Communication, Information Technologies informs. The three other victims of the accident are citizens of the Russian Federation.

Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Transport, Communication, Information Technologies Aram Arsenyan and representatives of the Ministry of Healthcare visited the site of the accident this morning to coordinate the work on the ground.

The Ministry had already arranged the return of the passengers in a bus, but the Russian authorities have offered to transport them in a plane.

The genocides we witnessed, the crimes committed against ethnic Yezidis, military crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic State in Northern Iraq unfortunately continue today, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE Naira Zohrabyan said, addressing the Parliamentary Assembly today.

In this context she stressed the importance of elaboration of more flexible mechanisms of cooperation with the International Criminal Courtto fight against impunity.

Naira Zohrabyan reminded that during the April military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh soldiers and civilians, including children were severely tortured, killed and beheaded. She added that the actions constitute a gross violation of international humanitarian law and amount to war crime.

“Both the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and Armenia, as a guarantor of Artsakh’s security, will do their best to have Azerbaijan recognized as war criminal,” Zohrabyan added.

She reminded that Azerbaijan unleashed a military offensive against Artsakh, violating the territorial integrity of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic – a party to the trilateral ceasefire agreement of 1994.

“Azerbaijan should be recognized as war criminal and most of you are aware of the Azerbaijani atrocities,” Naira Zohrabyan told PACE.

The Academy has disqualified Armenia’s submission in the best foreign-language film race, Zemletryaseniye (Earthquake).

“The committee deemed that Earthquake did not meet submission requirements,” a spokesperson for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences told on Wednesday. “Armenia’s selection committee was notified of the decision and given the opportunity to submit another film for consideration.”

The Academy’s problem with the film was that there are too many Russians and an insufficient number of Armenians among the crew, a spokesperson for Mars Media, the Moscow-based production company of Earthquake, told THR.

Mars Media sent to the Academy documents proving that the film was a coproduction between Armenia and Russia.

“We still hope that the film will be put on the list,” Ruben Dishdishyan, head of Mars Media, said in a statement, adding that the film was “by 90 percent made by Armenians from Armenia, Russia and France”.

Earthquake, a $3 million disaster movie directed by Sarik Andreasyan, is a dramatized recreation of one of the Soviet Union’s most devastating natural disasters — the Spitak earthquake in northern Armenia in December 1988.

The pic was Armenia’s fifth submission in the best foreign-language film Oscar category since the country gained independence in 1991.

None of the previous submissions — including If Only Everyone by Nataliya Belyauskene, Autumn of the Magician by Ruben Gevorkyants and Vahe Gevorkyants, Vodka Lemon by Hiner Saleem and Symphony of Silence by Vigen Chaldranyan — has been nominated for or won an award.

Photo: AFP

 

Six German lawmakers will visit a key airbase in Turkey Wednesday, a Turkish official told AFP, as the NATO allies seek to move on from a bitter diplomatic row, AFP reports.

The German parliament in June joined more than 20 countries in recognizing the Ottoman Empire’s World War I-era massacre of Armenians as a genocide, prompting fury from Ankara.

Turkey promptly banned German lawmakers from visiting the Incirlik base in southern Turkey, where Germany has around 240 troops as part of the international coalition fighting ISIS across the border in Syria.

A furious President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also accused German lawmakers of Turkish origin who voted in favor of the resolution of having “tainted blood”.

Ankara gave the green light last month for the visit to go ahead only after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government clarified publicly that the Armenia resolution was “not legally binding”.

“Six German MPs will visit Incirlik air base Wednesday,” the official said Monday on condition of anonymity.

Pope Francis on Sunday called for a “stable peace” as he visited mainly Muslim Azerbaijan, several months after pushing for an end to a festering territorial feud while in arch-foe Armenia, AFP reports.

The pontiff met in private with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev – who is accused by rights groups of ruthlessly stamping out dissent in the energy-rich country – before addressing a gathering of government officials.

The Pope – on the last leg of a Caucasus tour that also took him to Georgia – reiterated calls for peace to he made three months ago in neighbouring Armenia, with the two country’s locked in a long-simmering conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh.

“There is no alternative to patiently and assiduously searching for shared solutions by means of committed and sustained negotiations,” he said in a carefully worded statement that did not mention the disputed territory explicitly, expressing sympathy “to the many people who suffer the effects of bloody conflicts.”

Calling for “a new phase for stable peace in the region”, the pope invited all players “to grasp every opportunity to reach a satisfactory solution.”

Photo: EPA

 

At least 26 people have died after a tour bus caught fire in Taiwan’s Taoyuan city, according to local officials, the BBC reports.

The bus smashed into a roadside barrier on a national highway and caught fire, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

It had been bringing the group of Chinese tourists to Taoyuan Airport to catch a flight back to Dalian.

Officials said there were 24 tourists on board plus a local guide and driver.

“The fire moved very fast. All 26 died,” Lu Jui-yao, an official with the National Highway Police Bureau told Reuters.

Pictures from the scene showed thick black smoke and flames engulfing the bus.

The Spanish city of Paiporta officially recognized and condemned the Armenian Genocide on June 30.

All forces represented in the City Council voted to support the measure.

Paiporta thus joins the ranks of more than 20 Spanish cities that have adopted similar institutional statements.

Armenia attaches great importance to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the German Bundestag, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

“The resolution adopted on June 2 was the continuation of President Joachim Gauck’s statement of April 23,205.

“With this step Germany not ony makes a valuable contribution to the process of international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide and the international community’s fight for prevention of crimes against humanity, but also acknowledges its share of responsibility in the perpetration of the Armenian Genocide,” Minister Nalbandian said.

The Foreign said “Armenia values the support of the German Presidency of the OSCE to the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs targeted at the exceptionally peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

“From the first day of assuming the OSCE presidency, Germany has supported the Co-Chairs’ proposals to implement an investigation mechanism and enlarge the team of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office,” Minister Nalbandian said.

He reminded that the two above-mentioned proposals and the unconditional implementation of the 1994 and 1995 agreements were on the agenda of the meetings in Vienna and St. Petersburg.

According to Minister Nalbandian, implementation of the proposals will allow to create favorable conditions furthering the negotiation process.