Author: Khoyetsian Rose

Google has unveiled a new logo for its core search services, the BBC reports.

The change smoothes out some of the features in the letters that make up the well-known colourful logo spelling out its name.

It said the change was needed because people were now reaching Google on lots of mobile devices rather than just desktop computers.

The change comes after Google put its many divisions under an umbrella company called Alphabet.

It said that the logo, and its many variations, would work better on the many different-sized screens through which people used or encountered Google and its services. As well as the full logo of the company’s name, it also plans to use four dots in its signature blue, red, yellow and green colours and a single, multi-coloured capital “G” to represent it.

Google announced the change on its official blog and illustrated what was different via a series of animated gifs. It said the revamped logo was “simple, uncluttered, colorful, friendly” and represented the best of Google.

Artillerymen of the Russian military base in Armenia are training at the Alagyaz high mountain range, the Russian Ministry of Defense reports.

More than 300 servicemen and about 100 pieces of military hardware and armament, including Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, Grad MLRS, Podnos mortars and Konkurs antitank missile complexes, are involved in the training.

Artillery crews are practicing engaging different targets detected by Granat and Zastava UAVs at the altitude of 2,000 metres above sea.

The servicemen are to engage about 300 group and individual targets in the course of the combat training held at the Alagyaz range.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein has said he expects the coalition and opposition to come together to recognize the Armenian genocide, which he hopes to have the Knesset do officially soon, the reports.

He denied that the Knesset recognition of the Armenian Genocide has anything to do with flexing muscles at Turkey, the perpetrators of the genocide and the main reason the government has not yet recognized it. The move is not coordinated with the government, Edelstein added, citing separation of powers.

“The Armenians are not our greatest friends. They never vote with us in the UN. I don’t expect anything in return; this is not a political decision,” he explained.

Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has been found guilty of bribing a senator in 2006 in an attempt to bring down the then centre-left government, the BBC reports.

A Naples court sentenced Berlusconi to three years in jail and banned him from holding public office for five years.

The four-times prime minister denied the charges.

He will not have to serve his sentence because a statute of limitations comes into effect later this year, before any appeal can be held.

The billionaire was accused of giving 3m euros (£2.5m; $4m) in 2006 to Sergio De Gregorio, then a senator from the anti-corruption Italy of Values party, to switch to Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party and thus undermine the government of the time.

The trial was held in Naples as it was the seat occupied by Mr De Gregorio.

Italy’s former prime minister is appealing against a prison sentence for having sex with an under-age prostitute and abuse of office, and another for leaking a confidential police wiretap.

He was also found guilty of tax fraud last year – his first definitive conviction.

The visit took place on June 30, Ilaha Huseynova, head of Communication Department of the ICRC Baku Office told APA.

The Armenian was delivered a message from his family and his family will be informed about his conditions.

Azerbaijan’s court sentenced Arsen Bagdasaryan to 15-year imprisonment.

A British national working at the inaugural European Games was killed in a road crash in Baku, The Associated Press reports.

The Briton, who has not been named, was a passenger in a vehicle driven by an Azerbaijani, who was also killed in the incident on Tuesday, police spokesman Ehsan Zahid said.

Two more British nationals were hospitalized, and receiving consular assistance, British Embassy spokesperson Gunel Ahmedova told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

California-based company FiveCurrents, which is working on the opening and closing ceremonies for the games, said the Briton who was killed had been working for one of its subcontractors, and expressed “great sadness” at the death.

“Three other team members also required immediate hospital treatment after the incident, and will be repatriated so they can receive further medical attention,” FiveCurrents said in a statement released via games organizers.

Belgian Prime Minister said that the tragic events committed between 1915-1917 in the Ottoman Empire should be “considered a genocide,” reports, quoting Belgian .

Prime Minister Charles Michel acknowledged Thursday on behalf of his government, the Armenian genocide a century ago committed by the Young Turk government.

“The relationship between history and the future are occasionally complicated. My position is well known, I am of the view that the tragic events should be labeled as genocide, and that is the position of the Belgian government,” Charles Michel declared in the Parliament today.

Welcoming this statement, MP Peter De Roover (N-VA) announced the filing of a resolution allowing to move forward on this issue.

A Belgian municipal agent in charge of ”street peacekeeping” in Molenbeek, a commune of Brussels, will be fired after he said on Facebook that he would kill “each and every Jew,” the reports. 

“The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them,” Mohamed N., who used the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur, wrote on Friday during a debate on the social network.

The comment came during a discussion about a Brussels MP of Turkish origin who was excluded from her party for not acknowledging the Armenian genocide.

Mohamed N. tried to divert the conversation over to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was reprimanded by the thread’s initiator.

His comments caused an uproar.” This is very serious and unacceptable ”, said Francoise Schepmans, mayor of Molenbeek, a commune with a large Muslim population,” adding that the anti-Semitic remarks are all the more unacceptable that they are made by a person who plays the role of mediator in the streets of the town. ‘’They are the image of communal authority.’’

“It is obvious that we cannot tolerate that and I have launched a dismissal procedure,’’ she said.

I decided to launch a dismissal procedure,” she added

The Armenian national team will play Euro-2016 qualifying round match against Portugal on June 13. The team will hold a training campaign from 5^th  to 13^th of June in FFA Technical centre/Football academy. Armenian national team interim head coach Sargis Hovsepyan called up 25 players to take part in training campaign:

Goalkeepers

Roman Berezovsky Dinamo (Moscow, Russia)

Gevorg Kasparov (FC Mika)

Arsen Beglaryan (Ulisses FC)

Defenders

Robert Arzumanyan Amkar (Kazakhstan)

Hrayr Mkoyan Esteghlal (Iran)

Gael Andonyan Olimpic (Marseille, France)

Levon Airapetian FC Pyunik

Taron Voskanyan FC Pyunik

Varazdat Haroyan FC Pyunik

Kamo Hovhannisyan FC Pyunik

Artur Avagyan FC Gandzasar

Midfielders

Henrikh Mkhitaryan Borussia (Dortmund, Germany)

Gevorg Ghazaryan Kerkyra (Greece)

Marcos Pizzelli Aktobe (Kazakhstan)

Aras Ozbiliz Spartak (Moscow, Russia)

Rumyan Hovsepyan Metallurg (Donetsk, Ukraine)

Norayr Aslanyan Almere City (Netherlands)

Artem Simonyan Zurich (Switzerland)

Zaven Badoyan FC Pyunik

Karlen Mkrtchyan FC Pyunik

Artur Yuspashyan FC Pyunik

Forwards

Yura Movsisyan Spartak (Moscow, Russia)

Artur Sarkisov Volga (Russia)

Ruslan Koryan Lokomotiv (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

Artur Miranyan FK Vardar (FYR Macedonia)

A post-screening discussion of the Armenian genocide has been cancelled after NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian, a senior figure in the Armenian-Australian community, withdrew, allegedly in response to the presence of Turkish “genocide deniers” on the panel, the reports.

The panel discussions had been planned to accompany screenings at the German Film Festival in Sydney and Melbourne of the film The Cut, from acclaimed German-Turkish director Fatih Akin.

The Cut opens in 1915, just before the events that led to the death of more than a million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. The film focuses on the story of an Armenian blacksmith searching for his two daughters, years after he was separated from them.

The atrocities depicted have come to be known as the Armenian genocide, but that is a term rejected by many Turks.

According to Dr Arpad Solter, director of both the film festival and the Goethe-Institut, “the minister was concerned about appearing on a platform with genocide deniers”.

A spokesman for the Treasurer refused to confirm that was the case. “It’s fine for the organisers to say that, but we’re not actually commenting on it at all,” the spokesman said.

Dr Solter said that once the minister pulled out, other Armenian representatives did too. “If there’s no dialogue possible, and that’s what we were aiming for, then the decision had to be made to cancel.”

He said the panel was “meant to offer Armenians and Turks in Australia a forum to share and discuss their most painful history and to open new, fresh avenues for exchange, open debate and mutual understanding”.

The need to cancel, Dr Solter said, indicated that the subject is, after 100 years, “still a minefield”.

“It’s too sensitive, and too painful, most of all. I believe at the end of the day, reason and research and enlightenment will prevail, but it will take time.”

The CEO of the Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance, Ertunc Ozen, who was to be one of the Sydney panellists, said he was disappointed at the cancellation, and the missed opportunity for “open and respectful dialogue with people of a different point of view”.

He said no one was disputing the fact that “hundreds of thousands of civilians lost their lives and were uprooted and moved throughout this period. There’s never been any denial of that.” However, he added that he “absolutely” disputed the term “genocide”.

Author and historian Robert Manne, one of the Melbourne panellists, said he regretted the cancellation.

“Given that the Armenians have been trying for 100 years to have the astonishing crimes committed against them acknowledged, the fact that a panel discussion about a straightforward film on the genocide is cancelled, that’s a matter of great dismay.”