Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of top news as of 17.03.2020:

·       The total number of people diagnosed with coronavirus in Armenia has reached 72.

Meanwhile, Deputy PM Tigran Avinyan, who also heads the coronavirus prevention activities in the country, noted that due to the tense epidemiological situation caused by the spread of coronavirus in many countries, he has decided to ban the citizens of 16 countries from entering Armenia. These countries include China, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK.

The Armenian MFA has issued a statement and advised citizens to refrain from traveling abroad.

·       Given the situation in the country, Armenian PM referred to the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments.

 “The referendum will take place not earlier than in 50 days and not later than in 65 days after the end of the state of emergency,” he said.

However, there are no cases recorded in Artsakh, and there is no need to postpone the presidential election in Artsakh, PM said.

·       More than 187,000 coronavirus cases have been reported globally as of Tuesday. The death toll has reached over 7,400.

Meanwhile, US and China are blaming each other for the coronavirus outbreak.

According to State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, Pompeo “conveyed strong U.S. objection to [China's] efforts to shift blame for COVID-19 to the United States” in a phone call with the director of China's Office of Foreign Affairs, Yang Jiechi. In turn, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted the US is responsible for the outbreak of coronavirus.

And according to French President Emmanuel Macron, France is in a health war. He has warned people to "severely restrict movements for the next 15 days at least.”

·       Ex-deputy head of the Armenian Investigative Committee Vahagn Harutyunyan, who was wanted by Armenia over the criminal case on March 1 events, has been released in Russia, his lawyer Mher Poghosyan said. Harutyunyan was detained on March 15.

The accusation brought against Vahagn Harutyunyan within March 1 case was supplemented in December last year. Harutyunyan is involved as an accused of abuse of power, resulting in negligent grave consequences and abuse of power, accompanied by violence, the use of weapons or special equipment.

·       The Yerevan court of general jurisdiction did not accept for proceedings the first lawsuit filed by Shushan Pashinyan, a daughter of Armenia’s PM, against Narek Samsonyan, President of the "Civil Consciousness" NGO, Samsonyan said.

The court found that when filing this lawsuit, the plaintiff's legal representative had failed to comply with the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code, which constituted grounds for the return of the lawsuit.

On March 13, a second lawsuit was filed.

In the lawsuit, the PM’s daughter petitioned that the court obligate Narek Samsonyan to publicly refute the information about her that is considered slander.