Category: News

Photo: Reuters

 

Amnesty International has accused the world’s wealthiest nations of shirking responsibility towards refugees, saying they host the fewest and do the least, the BBC reports.

Ten countries which account for just 2.5% of the global GDP are sheltering more than half the world’s 21 million refugees, says a report by the charity.

Salil Shetty, Amnesty’s secretary general, called for wealthier nations to take in many more people.

Mr Shetty called the UK a “sad example” of the failure to take responsibility.

The UK has accepted about 8,000 Syrian refugees since 2011, according to the UN. The US has taken just 12,000.

And according to recent UN refugee agency data, no Syrian refugees have been resettled by China, Russia or any Gulf states.

By comparison, Jordan, which has a GDP just 1.2% the size of the UK’s, hosts nearly 655,000 Syrian refugees.

With more than 2.7 million refugees in total, Jordan is sheltering more than any other nation. Turkey has taken in more than 2.5 million people; Pakistan 1.6 million; Lebanon more than 1.5 million.

The other nations with the largest refugee populations are:

• Iran (979,400)
• Ethiopia (736,100)
• Kenya (553,900)
• Uganda (477,200)
• Democratic Republic of Congo (383,100)
• Chad (369,500)

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded for discoveries about strange forms of matter, the BBC reports.

Three Britons, David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, will share the 8m kronor prize.

They were named at a press conference in Sweden, and join a prestigious list of 200 other Physics laureates recognised since 1901.

The Nobel Committee said this year’s laureates had “opened the door on an unknown world”.

In this mysterious realm, matter can exist in strange states.

Their discoveries had helped scientists designing new materials.

Prof Haldane commented: “I was very surprised and very gratified.”

He said the work had been carried out a long time ago, but that its applications were only now starting to be seen.

Maria Sharapova’s two-year doping ban has been reduced to 15 months following her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), the BBC reports.

The five-time Grand Slam winner, 29, was initially banned by the International Tennis Federation for two years after testing positive for meldonium at the 2016 Australian Open.

The Russian will be able to return to the tennis court on 26 April, 2017.

“I am counting the days until I can return,” she said on Tuesday.

The first plane carrying humanitarian aid from Armenia to Syria has landed at Hmeinim airbase, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs  assisted in the transportation.

Armenia’s Consul General was at the site to receive the humanitarian aid.

Photos by Pierre Suu/Getty Images

 

Reality television star Kim Kardashian, Russian model Natalia Vodianova and others showed up at the launch for Armenian-American jewelry designer Siran Manoukian in Paris, according to

The Los Angeles-born designer and socialite, a longtime friend of Kardashian, was launching her own clothing label Maison Siran.

Attending the event were Portuguese model Sara Pinto Sampaio, German model Toni Garrn, Elton John’s husband David Furnish and Siran Manoukian’s friend Emiliya Kazandzhyan, American Armenian writer and president of a charity fund.

Kim Kardashian was tied up and robbed at gunpoint at a luxury Paris residence by assailants disguised as police who made off with millions in jewelry after she made a series of high-profile appearances at Paris fashion week.

 

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has proposed expanding the World Cup finals to a 48-team tournament – a larger number than his election promise, the reports.

The Italian suggested 16 of those teams would be eliminated after one knockout match – before the group stages.

The rest of the tournament would be the same as it is now, with 32 teams competing in group stages followed by knockout rounds.

One of his election promises was to expand the finals to 40 teams.

Infantino said a decision would be taken by the governing body’s council in January.

“These are ideas to find the best solution, we will debate them this month and we will decide everything by 2017,” said the 46-year-old.

“They are ideas which we put forward to see which one is the best.”

Infantino took charge of football’s world governing body in February after the disgraced Sepp Blatter resigned.

Under his proposal, a preliminary knockout round in the host country would involve 32 teams with the winners reaching the groups, while a further 16 seeded teams would get a bye to that stage.

“It means we continue with a normal World Cup for 32 teams, but 48 teams go to the party,” he added.

“Fifa’s idea is to develop football in the whole world, and the World Cup is the biggest event there is. It’s more than a competition, it’s a social event.”

Egypt’s short film Wintry Spring (Rabie Chetwy) scooped-up the Best Short Film Award at the Sose 2016 International Film Festival, which took place between 23 and 30 September in Yerevan, Armenia, according to Ahram Online.

Released in 2015 and directed by Mohamed Kamel, the 16-minute film depicts a relationship between a father and his daughter Nour. In an apparently otherwise regular relationship and life, typical youth problems emerge with Nour and create a rift between the two.

The film screened across over 90 film festivals around the world and received many awards.

Sose International Film Festival highlights women’s rights in the language of art. This year the festival featured 104 films from 38 countries. For the complete list of winners click .

“The U.S. supports a negotiated settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Elizabeth Trudeau,Director of the State Department PressOffie, told a daily briefing.

“We continue to engage actively with the sides. We’re co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. Our longstanding policy shared by the Minsk Group co-chairs is that a just settlement must be based on international law, which includes the Helsinki Final Act, the principle of non-use of force or the threat of force, territorial integrity, and self-determination,” she added.

“The responsibility for peace rests on the leaders of both countries, and we would reiterate their importance in finding a negotiated peace,” Elizabeth Trudeau said.

Pope Francis visited the earthquake-hit towns of central Italy in a surprise journey on Tuesday morning, praying with the residents of Amatrice on the feast day of his namesake, St. Francis, telling them to ‘move forward’ together for ‘there is always a future,’ reports.

His first visit was to the newly constructed ‘Capranica’ school, where the Pope met with elementary and middle-school aged children, who gave him several of their handmade drawings.

Pope Francis hugged them one-by-one and listened to their stories of the deadly earthquake in Amatrice where 231 of the total 297 people died.

During his visit, Pope Francis told the residents of Amatrice, “I thought long and hard in the first days of these many pains that my visit, perhaps, would be more of a hindrance than a help, a greeting. I didn’t want to be a bother so I let a little time pass, so that some things could be resolved, like the school. But from the first moment, I felt that I needed to come to you! Simply to express my closeness to you, nothing more. And I pray, pray for you! Solidarity and prayer: this is my offering to you. May the Lord bless you all; may Our Lady watch over you in this moment of sadness, pain, and trial.”

After blessing them, he said, “Let’s move forward; there is always a future. There are many loved ones who have left us, who fell here under the rubble. Let us pray to Our Lady for them; let us do it together. Always look ahead. Courage, and help each other. One walks better together, alone we go nowhere. Forward! Thank you.”

The Holy Father then went to the heavily damaged centre of Amatrice accompanied by the Mayor Sergio Pirozzi. There he paused for several minutes to pray.

A press release by the Holy See Press Office said, “Already on Sunday, during his inflight press conference on the flight from Baku to Rome, Pope Francis had said he would make this visit ‘privately, alone, as a priest, as a bishop, as Pope. But alone. This is how I want to do it. And I would like to be close to the people.’”

Nearly 4,000 people are living in tents near Amatrice after their homes were destroyed in the 6.0-magnitude earthquake.

Afterwards, the Pope stopped to have lunch with around 60 elderly people living in the ‘St. Raphael Assisted Living Facility’ in Rieti, whilst on his way to nearby Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto to bring his message of hope and solidarity to them as well.