Azerbaijan ranks second in Europe for the number of imprisoned journalists, following Belarus, as highlighted in a recent report on political repression and press freedom.
Baku has announced plans to close the International Committee of the Red Cross office. Authorities claim this does not mean a halt in cooperation with international organizations.
Though Armenia is a CSTO member, it successfully cooperates also with NATO. Armenia, represented by the Foreign Minister and Defense Minister, participated in the Lisbon NATO summit in November 2010, as part of which opinions were exchanged with respect to the bilateral relations. Newly appointed NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai commented toPanARMENIAN.Net on the current level of NATO-Armenia relations, outlooks for boosting the relations within the framework of IPAP, as well as the organization’s position on the Karabakh conflict settlement and the Armenian-Turkish normalization.
Italian photojournalist Sergio Ramazzotti has seen the worst of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, followed the escalation of the Libyan Civil War, and has been covering the war in Afghanistan in the past 13 years. The rapidly spreading novel coronavirus, though, is particularly close to home: Italy, his native country, is among the epicenters of the pandemic today.