Sixteen minutes after the take off Tupolev with 153 people on board crashed near Qazvin province of Iran and burned at once. Evidently the crew of 15 died. The aircraft of the Caspian Airlines was following Tehran – Yerevan route flight 7908. No concrete details from the spot are yet reported.

Yerevan today gave the start of the sixth Golden Apricot International Film Festival. Movie makers from 65 countries had sent their films to Armenia for the participation in this festival. Only 110 movies from 450 applications will be screened in Armenia this time during the Festival.

BY ALLEN YEKIKAN

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on Tuesday hailed what he called progress in the ongoing talks to normalize his country's strained relations with Armenia. His remarks come amid growing concern in Yerevan that Ankara's increasingly uncompromising preconditions on Armenia may be guiding the negotiations in an untenable direction.

YEREVAN--In a letter to the chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Howard Berman, the Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Armen Rustamian on Thursday expressed his strong support for US affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, stressing that US recognition would be the greatest contributor to the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.

The capital of Armenia Yerevan will celebrate 2790th anniversary.

At least eight people were killed and dozens of others injured in the violent standoff between security forces and thousands of opposition protesters in Yerevan that ended early Sunday following a state of emergency declared by President Robert Kocharian.

After the police dispersed the peaceful rally in the morning of March 1 at the Square of Freedom in Yerevan, people gathered for a rally at the square in front of the statue of Miasnikyan, the French embassy and the City Hall.

For the many ArmeniaNow readers abroad just awakening to their Saturday morning news, we offer this update to summarize events this March 1 in Yerevan.

International structures have responded to the ongoing events in the Armenian capital Yerevan today, strongly condemning the use of force by Armenian authorities.

"I am very concerned about reports of injuries during the security forces operation to disperse protesters in Yerevan this morning.

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan was reportedly placed under house arrest early Saturday after the Armenian police and other security services used force to disperse his supporters camped in Yerevan’s Liberty Square.

Police in Armenia have forcibly cleared demonstrators who had been camping out in central Yerevan for the past 10 days to protest against the results of last month's presidential election. All major Armenian opposition news sources yerkir media, azatutyun, a1plus.am, are down due to high demand for alternative information from Armenia. Azatutyun.am and Aravot is up and running.