Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia’s top news as of 21.10.2019.

• The Armenian Embassy in France reported an attack on the editorial office of Nouvelles d’Arménie French-language Armenian magazine being published in that country.

According to the magazine, the attack took place in the early morning hours on Sunday, and the criminals broke the door of its editorial office, and stole video cameras and three computers where confidential information was kept.

The Embassy of Armenia condemned “this despicable attack” and called it “a serious attack on freedom of expression and republican values.”

• The fourth annual Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity was awarded to Mirza Dinnayi, a Yazidi activist who has found a way to overcome numerous bureaucratic and logistic obstacles to help the most vulnerable members of the Yazidi community during numerous conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Mirza Dinnayi, who will receive a $1,000,000 grant, said he was happy to get the prize from Armenians, grandchildren of the survivors of another genocide.

The Aurora Prize is granted by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors.

• Armenia’s former defense minister Seyran Ohanyan, who is accused of overthrowing the constitutional order along the lines of the criminal case into the tragic events that occurred in capital city Yerevan in March 2008, on Sunday left for Germany.

On September 20, the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction had granted the motion by Seyran Ohanyan’s legal defense to allow him to go to Germany for medical treatment, his attorney said.

• The three-day annual Teach For All Global Conference has kicked off Monday in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as well as Education, Science, Culture and Sport Minister Arayik Harutyunyan are also in attendance to this event. 

The conference is being held in Armenia for the first time; it was last held in Nepal.

The event has brought together 450 representatives from 75 countries, and prominent delegates from around the world.

• No taxpayer money will be given to Ryanair airline, Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tigran Avinyan told reporters.

“We have set the ‘air fee’ exemption for all [airline] companies that will service new destinations that haven’t been serviced in the past 12 months. No other exemptions were granted. There was only talk of additional assistance [to Ryanair]—with the joint efforts of the European Union and Gyumri airport—which again the taxpayers [of Armenia] will not pay,” he said.

Also, Tigran Avinyan stressed that a country like Armenia has a task of strengthening its connections by air and increasing the number of direct flights, and the second direction it needs to develop is to promote a domestic airline program which, however, can be discussed in about one or two years.