Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of top news as of 18.03.2020:

·      The number of coronavirus cases climbed to 102 in Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during an interview with Shant television.

Meantime, Armenian PM noted on Wednesday that 444 people are quarantined in Armenia, “and we have urged 799 people to self-quarantine.”

By the way, 500 people working at sewing company self-isolated after one of the workers tested positive for coronavirus, epidemiologist of the health ministry Lusine Paronyan said on Tuesday. “All people who were in contact with the patients with coronavirus are either in Tsakhkadzor or in Dilijan,” she said.

·       A patient has died in Yerevan who was diagnosed with pulmonary edema, double pneumonia, respiratory insufficiency, Armenian health ministry spokesperson Alina Nikoghosyan wrote on her Facebook.

According to her, the patient has tested negative for coronavirus.

As the PM, in his turn, noted the patient aged 49 and given the current situation it is “necessary to state that the death of the person has nothing to do with coronavirus.”

·       Meanwhile, the Artsakh health ministry informs that no case of coronavirus infection has been reported so far in the republic.

Test samples were taken from 13 Artsakh citizens, and all the results were negative.

By the way, over 200,000 coronavirus cases have been reported globally as of Wednesday. The death toll is over 8,000.

·       The lawyer of the Armenian 2nd president Robert Kocharyan, Aram Orbelyan, has filed a lawsuit against the country's PM Nikol Pashinyan.

Sedrak Asatryan, the director of the Concern Dialogue CJSC, said that the reason was the unverified statements made by Pashinyan at a meeting with the YES campaign in Kajaran against the company's senior partner, lawyer Aram Orbelyan.

According to Pashinyan, the lawyer allegedly “was in the Constitutional Court several times when the CC was considering the case on March 1.”

Aram Orbelyan appealed to the court with a demand to refute the statement and to compensate for moral damage.

·       World-renowned musician and composer Serj Tankian has called out New Zealand FM Winston Peters’ reported appeasement of denialist Turkey. The FM, who also serves as the country’s Deputy PM, released a letter to MPs reiterating New Zealand’s position on the Armenian Genocide, which was defining it as a “tragedy” rather than “genocide.”

"There are dances around the word genocide because Turkey does not want nations to use that word,” Tankian has earlier told New Zealand’s Newshub.