Author: Parkev Tvankchian

Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in an air strike on a refugee camp in rebel-held northern Syria, monitors and witnesses say, the BBC reports.

Images on social media showed tents destroyed at the Kamounia camp near Sarmada in Idlib province, close to the Turkish border.

The strike comes a day after the extension of a truce was confirmed.

The Syrian military and non-jihadist rebel forces had agreed to a temporary truce around the the city of Aleppo, following pressure from the US and Russia.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition activist network, said more than 30 people had been killed and dozens more wounded in the Sarmada attack.

 

 

 

The Armenian Ministry of Transport and Communication has launched the .հայ domain, which will work along the English language .am domain name. Նախագահ.հայ  will be the first official website to be registered in the Armenian script.

The current .am domain was assigned to the Republic of Armenia in 1994, the Internet Society NGO got the right to register it in the same year. The same NGO retains the right to manage the .հայ domain.

The registration process started back in 2012, Vice-President of the Internet Society NGO Grigory Saghyan told reporters today. He noted that “writing in the Armenian script is compulsory for the system to recognize the website you are trying to access.”

For accessing websites registered on the .հայ domain from abroad it will be necessary to install an Armenian keyboard, and the Windows provides that opportunity.

The Ministry of Transport and Communication has offered all state bodies to register their websites on the .հայ domain. The cost is the same as with the .am – 9-10 thousand AMD for registration and 1,000 AMD monthly service fee.

150 applications have already been submitted for registration, of which 70 are government agencies.

A helicopter has crashed near the Norwegian city of Bergen with at least 14 people on board, and there are reports of people in the sea, the BBC reports.

Rescue officials told local media that the helicopter had been “totally destroyed”.

Photos from the scene showed thick smoke coming from an area of rocky islets.

Norwegian paper Aftonbladet reports that the helicopter was heading to the Brage oil field from Bergen.

Three Spanish cities will unanimously recognize the Armenian Genocide on April 27 and 28, thus bringing the total number to 17, head of the Armenian community of Valencia Ararat Ghukasyan told

He said the events commemorating the Armenian Genocide anniversary started on April 22. A conference on the Armenian Genocide was held at Valencia University, Fatih Akin’s film was screened in the evening of April 22.

Today the Armenians of Valencia will march in memory of the Genocide victims.

“What we want to stress here is Valencia is that today Azerbaijan continues Turkey’s policy, to make it clear that Azerbaijan is a terrorist state, and express our full support not only to Artsakh, but also to all Armenian soldiers,” he said.

Real Madrid have been paired with Manchester City in the Champions League semi-finals, while Bayern Munich will have to deal with Atletico Madrid if they are to make it to the final, Goal.com reports.

Friday’s draw in Nyon means City manager Manuel Pellegrini will take on his former team, having coached Madrid in 2009-10.

Madrid – who saw off Wolfsburg in the last round – made it to the final four in 2014-15, but Juventus eventually proved to too strong. They last won the competition in 2013-14, beating Atletico 4-1 after extra time for their 10th European Cup win.

Manchester City, meanwhile, are the rookies in the semi-finals, having never made it to this stage before. They failed to make it past the round of 16 in 2013-14 and 2014-15, but got the better of Dynamo Kyiv and Paris Saint-Germain to set up a clash with the Spanish giants.

Madrid and City have met twice before, with Los Blancos winning once and drawing the remaining game when they were paired in the group stages of the competition in 2012-13.

The tie between Bayern and Atletico will see Pep Guardiola return to his native country, having enjoyed so much success at Barcelona before his move to the Bundesliga champions.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today Nobel Prize winners in the area of medicine and adjacent areas Aaron Ciechanover, Ada Yonath, Dan Shechtman, John Robin Warren, and Ei-ichi Negishi.

These scientists, who were awarded the greatest prize in the area of science, have arrived to Armenia in the framework of the scientific event organized by the M. Heratsi State Medical University of Yerevan.

At the meeting, discussed were issues related to the development in Armenia of science, particularly of medicine and adjacent areas.

A team visited one of the artillery positions of the Nagorno Karabakh Army and spoke to the soldiers there.

A peacekeeping mission in the area of the Karabakh conflict may be possible only after a political settlement is achieved there, Russia’s Ambassador to OSCE Alexander Lukashevich said on Friday, TASS reports.

“The measures of supporting trust between the parties in the region of the Karabakh conflict is a key task after the ceasefire regime comes into force,” he said.

Speaking about a peacekeeping element in the conflict area, he said the “conflict in Nagorno Karabakh is an exclusive responsibility of OSCE, and all other organisations may only favour efforts of that organization.”

“The ideas of a peacekeeping mission, which may be possible only after a political settlement for supporting peace in the region, have been outlined a certain time ago,” he said. “A group of military planning, which unites experts, has put together parameters for a possible peacekeeping mission.”

“What it will be like, in what formats – as yet those are only areas on the maps, where experts show how the peacekeeping mission’s shape could look like,” the Russian diplomat said. “If it comes to that, it would be historic experience for OSCE. However, this all is in theory now.”

He said it would be more important now to enforce the monitoring teams in the area to fix how ceasefire is observed along the line of engagement.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan attended the prayer for Motherland and its Defender held at St. Grigor the Illuminator church on April 4, delivered by Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin has urged the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to step up efforts towards settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

“Concerned about the serious aggravation of the situation in Nagorno Karabakh. I urge the OSCE MG co-chairs to step up negotiations for a settlement,” Klimkin said in a Twitter post.

Занепокоєний серйозним загостренням ситуації в Нагірному Карабасі. Закликаю співголів МГ ОБСЄ активізувати переговори для врегулювання.

— Pavlo Klimkin (@PavloKlimkin)