An Azerbaijani court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by two bloggers jailed after satirizing the government with an Internet video that showed a donkey giving a press conference, their lawyer said. The bloggers' case intensified concerns about media freedoms in Azerbaijan, an oil-rich mainly Muslim republic on the Caspian Sea that has repeatedly been accused of curbing free speech. The ...

An Armenian soldier was killed in a clash with Azerbaijani forces near the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh amid rising tensions between the two foes, Armenia's defence ministry said on Tuesday. "On Monday the enemy committed another ceasefire violation. One serviceman was killed as a result," the ministry said in a statement, naming him as 29-year-old junior sergeant Sargis ...

Azerbaijan warned on Thursday that the threat of conflict with Armenia is rising fast and that a "great war" is inevitable if Armenian forces fail to pull out of disputed Nagorny Karabakh. "For 15 years diplomacy has not achieved any concrete results and Azerbaijan cannot wait another 15 years," Defence Minister Safar Abiyev said. "Now it's the military's ...