Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of top nows as of 06.02.2020:

·       Armenian parliament should have discussed Thursday two controversial bills over the Constitutional Court. However, the author of the bills, My Step ruling bloc MP, Vahagn Hovakimyan has recalled them amid some technical reasons.

The bill had stipulated that amendments to the Constitution could be made without obtaining the respective CC conclusion.

According to Hovakimyan, My Step faction won’t adopt the bill in the first reading, but will propose to hold a referendum for the bill. This is exactly what direct democracy is all about, he said.

The only draft included in the current special session proposes a draft on constitutional amendment, which provides for the suspension of the powers of CC members, elected before April 2018.

Meanwhile, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan was heading to Armenian parliament to deliver a speech.

·       An Armenian serviceman was killed on February 5, during the Syrian army’s battle in Saraqib town, Aleppo's Kantsasar daily reported on Facebook. The deceased soldier is Jean Katanjian, born in 1988. His funeral will take place today at the Armenian Holy Cross Catholic Church in Aleppo.

·       The Appeal Criminal Court of Yerevan, chaired by Judge Sergey Marabyan, has rejected the attorney’s group’s complaint about the court’s ruling to extend the term of the arrest of Armenian SRC ex-head, ex-finance minister Gagik Khachatryan.

Gagik Khachatryan, who is accused of abuse of power and embezzlement, has been under arrest for 7 months now.

·       New arrests have been carried out over the case of Armenian soldier Vahram Avagyan’s death in Artsakh. Conscripts, Privates D. M., Kh. G., and A. S. have been arrested in this regard charged on violating the code of conduct of relations between servicemen, which negligently caused grave consequences.

Earlier, ex-MP Arakel Movsisyan’s son, who was also one of the detainees, was arrested.

·       MEP Costas Mavrides hosted a conference on Wednesday at European Parliament on Anti-Armenian pogroms of Baku. The conference was co-organized by the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy and the Armenian mission to the EU.

The keynote speakers were the former deputy speaker of the House of Lords the Baroness Caroline Cox, an American-Armenian author and human rights advocate a  Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte as well as David Babaev, a lecturer at “Université Libre de Bruxelles”. The latter are both survivors of the Baku pogroms.

The Baroness Caroline Cox pointed out the genocide of Armenians continued in Baku, Sumgait and Nagorno Karabakh-Artsakh and needs to be recognized so that it does not continue with impunity.

 

·       The coronavirus death toll has reached 565. The total number of infected is 28,276, of which 3,863 (14%) are in critical condition. The number of cured is 1173.

Meanwhile, according to Armenian embassy in China, another 8 Armenian citizens who are in China's Wuhan city have refused to be evacuated. According to the statement, as of February 6, two Armenian citizens were evacuated.

By the way, a newborn baby was diagnosed with coronavirus in China.

The baby was born on February 2 in Wuhan has become the youngest person to be diagnosed with the virus. The diagnosis was made 30 hours after the birth.

·       The US Senate on Wednesday acquitted President Donald Trump of both charges in his impeachment trial as it found him not guilty of obstructing Congress.

In the second of two impeachment votes, the Republican-controlled Senate cleared the Republican president of Democrats’ accusations that he obstructed Congress’ investigation into whether he acted improperly in withholding US security aid to Ukraine.

The Senate’s 53-47 vote on the second article of impeachment brought the proceedings to an end.

·       American actor Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103, said his son, actor Michael Douglas.

"To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years," commented Michael Douglas.

Kirk Douglas suffered a stroke in 1996.

He is famous especially for his role in Spartacus and many more movies and the actor has been nominated for an Oscar three times.  The Academy Awards also honored him with an honorary Oscar in 1995.