Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 19.08.2020:
- As of Wednesday morning, 210 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia—a total of 42,056 cases—whereas 244 more patients have recovered.
The death total has reached 833 cases, while 188,567 tests have been performed to date.
Armenia is now 13th in a number of COVID-19 cases per million population and 22nd in terms of deaths per million population.
- The third President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, was giving his first press conference Wednesday since his resignation in April 2018 to cover the topic of the April 2016 war.
During his press conference Wednesday, Armenia’s third President Serzh Sargsyan stated that the threat of war was extremely huge today.
He noted that "the April [2016] war is also connected with our foreign policy; that is why the events unfolding around our country today are very dangerous."
"The threat of war is extremely huge today. And every combat action, be it 4 or 7 days, needs a proper investigation."
The ex-president also noted that Russia is Armenia’s strategic ally, and accusing an allied country of inciting war is inadmissible, especially when Russia has provided a tremendous amount of assistance to Armenia as an allied state,” he said
- An Armenian from the village of Korkh in Akhalkalaki municipality was killed as a result of a shooting in the southwest of Moscow, Jnews reported.
31-year-old worker G. Makaryan was wounded in the thigh, he was sent to intensive care. The second young man, 32-year-old Atanyan N., was shot in the abdomen and died on the spot before the ambulance arrived.
The attacker fled the scene. A criminal case was initiated.
- In an interview with RFE/RL today, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Armenia Arayik Harutyunyan said schoolchildren will go to class with face masks and stated that the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport envisages splitting big classrooms into two in order to make it possible for schoolchildren to maintain social distancing.
The minister added that schoolchildren will have classes for six days instead of five.
- Yuri Sakunts, who is an Armenian athlete involved in power triathlon masterling and hand-to-hand combat, world champion and has set a record in the Guinness Book of Records, set two new records at the statue of Warrior Andranik near Komitas Pantheon in Yerevan today.
Sakunts performed the leaning-folding exercise with plates ten times, exceeding other athletes who have already set a record with that exercise. After that, he ripped 10 boxes of playing cards with his hands in his back.
Later, the athlete set another record that he hadn’t planned, leaning and folding 11 times on three bottles (another record-setting athlete had done this twice in the past.
