Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Stockholm after the Swedish parliament voted to classify as genocide the World War I-era mass killings of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turkey.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to meet Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov in Ashgabat on March 15.
French insurance company Axa has reportedly provided life insurance premiums to descendants of Armenians killed during a 1915 bloody crackdown on ethnic Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, Armtown news agency reported on March 10.
Baku's Court of Appeals on March 11 turned down a petition to release jailed bloggers and youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli. The decision has sparked a fresh wave of criticism from human rights watchdogs about the pair's July 2009 detention on hooliganism charges.
Detailed reasons for denial of the appeal were not released.
Call it the power of positive thinking: In a televised speech on March 9, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili predicted that Georgia will become the Switzerland of the Caucasus with "elements of Singapore."
Azerbaijan has more than doubled its natural gas exports to Russia, shipping up to 3 million cubic meters of gas per day to its northern neighbor as of March 5, the Russian energy giant Gazprom announced on March 9.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank and European Neighborhood Investment Facility announced plans to provide a 15-million-euro ($20.4 million) low-interest loan to Armenia to help overhaul the capital city's 30-year-old subway system, the RIA Novosti agency is reporting.
Traders at the Siob Bazaar in Samarkand are on strike in protest against new tariffs imposed by the local government.
According to a report distributed by opposition website Uznews.net, rents and costs for services that traders use in the market, such as renting weights or even paying for use of toilets, have skyrocketed since March 5.
