Author: Hambik Zargarian

Emmy-nominated host Laura McKenzie’s one-hour primetime special, LAURA MCKENZIE’S TRAVELER-ARMENIA in honor of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day will air April 23 in major U.S. markets, including KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles, the reports.

In the new primetime special, Laura gives a firsthand account of her explorations through Armenia, including destinations like the capital city of Yerevan, Tsitsernakaberd: The Genocide Museum and Memorial, the ancient Temple of Garni, and the Monastery of Tatev, featuring the longest gondola ride in the world. She also discovers local markets, learns to make ethnic cuisine, and tries her hand at the ancient art of carpet weaving. While there, she gets a personal account of the dismal conditions during the war years in Yerevan by the famed international conductor, Maestro George Pehlivanian.

“Armenia was a total surprise to me. I was not expecting it to be so incredibly fascinating, not only for ancient sites and natural beauty, but for the friendliness of the people,” Laura said. “Armenians love Americans and their hospitality is genuine.”

Laura McKenzie is the number one television travel expert in the country. She has received dozens of awards including two Emmy nominations and a Gracie Award for her Syndicated television series, “Laura McKenzie’s Traveler.” She’s written and produced 42 home videos on travel and appears on national talk shows as a travel expert. She co-hosted “World’s Funniest Moments” and 10 seasons of “American Adventurer” with Erik Estrada and is the permanent co-host of the annual Hollywood Christmas Parade.

She is also a contributing writer for “USA Weekend Magazine” and won the “Video of the Decade” award from Billboard Magazine for “Laura McKenzie’s Travel Tips-Hawaii,” distributed by Republic Pictures, broadcast on the Travel Channel and Discovery.

“Laura McKenzie’s Traveler,” the number one travel show on broadcast television, will air the special locally in all major markets across the US, including: Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and more. Check local listings for more information!

– A pride of starving lions on the brink of death are being nursed back to health after being freed from their tiny cages in which they were slowly being driven mad, thanks to the generosity of MailOnline readers.

For the first time in their miserable lives, lioness Mary and her two cubs Zita and Geeta padded tentatively into more space than they had ever known when they were released into purpose-built compounds in the Caucasus Mountains, constructed with £30,000 of donations.

Finally they had room to move, to stretch, to see beyond the single row of steel rods which imprisoned them in what was nicknamed ‘the saddest zoo in the world’ in Armenia.

The cuts on their heads – suffered from repeated banging against the bars and sides of their prison – are now gone.

Mary has piled on a massive 100lb in weight since January and her ribs no longer protrude through her thick, glossy coat.

And their eyes shine bright thanks to good food, added vitamins and a love they have never experienced before.

MailOnline’s story of their suffering in cramped, filthy cages built from truck containers touched the hearts of readers worldwide.

Alan Knight OBE, the CEO of East Sussex-based animal welfare charity International Animal Rescue (IAR), said in all his years of fundraising he had ‘never known of such a swift response’ to an appeal for help.

But while the lions are safe and will never endure such suffering again, more money is needed to get them to the end of their journey: England.

IAR needs to raise an estimated £15,000 to fly them home while the UK’s The Nature Foundation is appealing for more than £200,000 to construct an enclosure in a Peak District sanctuary where the lions can live out their days in peace.

But so much has changed for the beautiful lionesses already. When MailOnline reported their plight in January, there were fears that any help would come too late because the wheels of animal charities can often turn with sclerotic – and lethal – slowness.

Mary, seven, and cubs Geeta, four, and Zita, two, were among the seven residents of the private zoo that had fallen into decay and squalor in the city of Gyumri – the place where the family of Armenian-American superstar Kim Kardashian and her sister Khloe stem from.

Bears Masha and Grisha from the same zoo were taken under the wing of Libearty Sanctuary in Romania, funded by Foundation Brigitte Bardot, where they are now being cared for under the auspices of the Armenian government’s Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets.

Turkey’s any interference with the Karabakh conflict settlement can only harm the process, because of Turkey’s unilateral stance and its mania of supporting Azerbaijan at any cost, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan said.

“The aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact and Turkey’s provocative statements are the best proof of it,” he added.

Speaking at the Islamic Cooperation Organization, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speculated the ‘Islamic solidarity,’ thus trying to present Azerbaijan’s military actions against self-determined Nagorno Karabakh as a religious conflict. Kocharyan labelet it a “dangerous attempt.”

“The current policy of the Turkish authorities is a consequence of the wave of instability, terrorism and bloodshed both inside Turkey and outside its borders. With the above-mentioned provocative statement the Turkish Foreign Minister actually reveals its plans to extend the wave to the South Caucasus,” the Deputy Foreign Minister said.

“We’re confident that aware of the real goals of Turkey, our traditionally friendly Muslim countries, will not give in to Ankara’s provocations,” Shavarsh Kocharyan concluded.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides exchanged bodies of those killed in action near the Bash Karvend settlement.

The bodies of eighteen soldiers were handed to the Armenian side, Spokesman for the NKR President David Babayan told Public Radio of Armenia.

The exchange was carried out with the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman–in-Office.

Armenia will host Belarus in a friendly today. The match will be held at the Republican Stasium after Vazgen Sargsyan, the kickoff is at 7 pm.

The fixture will be the farewell match of Armenia’s long-time goalkeeper Riman Berezovsky.

The legendary keeper decided to quit international football after a Euro-2016 qualifier against Portugal.

Berezovsky had been playing for the Armenian national team since 1996. On club level he played for Russian “Zenit,” Torpedo” and “Dinamo” and holds the Russian and USSR record of denying penalties.

Tensions were high at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan over the weekend despite the agreement between the parties to refrain from escalating the situation.

The rival fired more than 2,400 shots from weapons of different caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions over the weekend, the NKR Ministry of Defense reports.

The Azerbaijani side used artillery weapons of different caliber, as well as 60 and 82 mm mortars in the southern, southeastern and northern directions of the line of contact.

The NKR Ministry of Defense said in a statement the Defense Army keeps control of the situation all along the line of contact, simultaneously trying to prevent any provocative action by the rival.

Three Bulgarian municipalities will have their access to cross-border EU funding cut as Turkey has banned any partnership with them, reports, quoting private bTV station reported.

Haskovo, Burgas and Svilengrad, municipalities whose central cities lie near the border with Turkey, have been barred from cooperating with local authorities in Edirne, the Turkish municipality on the other side of the border, as Ankara has prohibited that they work together.

Edirne Mayor Recep Gürkan has told bTV that the Foreign Ministry of Turkey had explicitly forbidden any interaction with Haskovo due to what it perceives as a controversial position about the mass killings of Armenians in the 20th century. Separately, the local administrations of Haskovo and Burgas earlier adopted statements deploring the Armenian genocide.

Last April, the sister cities of Haskovo and Edirne froze ties over the decision of Haskovo that the park will bear the name “Armenians”.

Local authorities in Haskovo decided to rename the park in the days when Armenians around the world were marking a centenary since the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire began.

Mayor Gürkan then called the decision of Haskovo a result of a “unilateral, selective and divisive view of a period that is tragic for the entire population of the Ottoman Empire.”

Now he can be heard suggesting in bTV’s report that the respective local administrations should reverse their decisions as “Yambol did”. Yambol is another municipality located at the Bulgaria-Turkey border with which cooperation was suspended, but then restored.

However, Haskovo Mayor Dobri Belivanov is adamant that “no-one can interfere” to make authorities change the name of a street or a park. (The decision to name a park “Armenians” was taken under his predecessor, Georgi Ivanov.)

As an external border of the EU, Bulgaria is part of the bloc’s cross-border program whose total worth for the 2014-2020 is an estimated EUR 1 B.

A total of EUR 11 M potentially available to the three regions of Bulgaria under the cross-border cooperation program. As regards Turkey, the bulk of this sum has been earmarked for environment preservation and disaster management.

The Aurora Prize and the Public Radio of Armenia team up to present a new project titled “With gratitude from Armenian Genocide survivors.”

The program launched on March 10 will air twice a week on Tuesdays (5:12 p.m.) and Thursdays (5:27 p.m.) and will be repeated on Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.12 a.m. and 11.27 a.m. respectively.

In the leadup to the inaugural award ceremony scheduled for April 24, 2016, the program will present the goals and mission of the initiative and will tell stories of Armenian Genocide survivors.

The co-founders of 100 LIVES and the Aurora Prize Selection committee – co-chaired by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian George Clooney – will honor the Aurora Prize finalists for their exceptional acts of humanity with a weekend of events from April 22 through April 24, 2016.

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, and in gratitude to their saviors, the Aurora Prize celebrates the strength of the human spirit that compels action is the face of adversity.

Recipients will be recognized for the exceptional impact their actions have made on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes. On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate will be honored each year with a US$100,000 grant as well as the unique opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by nominating an organization which inspired their work for a US$1,000,000 award.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 of each year in Yerevan, Armenia.

Newly minted Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio partied so hard after his big win he reportedly left his Oscar at a bar.

He attended the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, followed by Ago restaurant in WeHo.

Long-time pal Tobey Maguire was there along with Leo’s mates Vincent Laresca, Lukas Haas and nightclub honcho, Richie Akiva.

captured the moment a man ran out after Leo’s car with his Oscar, as if he’d forgotten it.

Azerbaijan will additionally supply 500 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas a year to Georgia, according to Rovnag Abdullayev, president of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR.

Abdullayev made the remarks speaking to Trend at the second meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Baku Feb. 29.

“Previously, we supplied 800 mcm of gas a year to Georgia from the Shah Deniz,” he said. “We have managed to increase the supply through that route to 1.5 billion cubic meters (bcm), as well as to 1.5 bcm via a pipeline connecting the two countries in Azerbaijan’s Gazakh district.”

He also said that at present, there is an opportunity to additionally obtain 500 to 700 mcm of gas from the Shah Deniz consortium.

Azerbaijan exports gas to Georgia via a pipeline linking the two countries in the Azerbaijani district of Gazakh.

This pipeline can pump more than 2.5 bcm of gas a year.