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.
Asbarez – On Friday, September 30, 2016, the 20th anniversary of enthronement visit of His Holiness Catholicos Aram I commenced with a youth gathering held at Glendale Civic Auditorium under the auspices of the Western Prelacy and organized by Homenetmen Western US Regional Executive Committee. Over 1,400 youth participated in the meeting with His Holiness, including Homenetmen scouts, Prelacy Schools’ and Sunday Schools’ students, and parishes’ youth group members. Clergy, Central Executive and Executive Council members, representatives of sister organizations, parents, and community members were among the guests in attendance.
The event began with the entrance of His Holiness in a procession guided by scouts. Following the flag ceremony by the marching band and scouts and the flag ceremony, the scouts’ choir sang the Pontifical anthem. Welcoming remarks were delivered by MC Moushegh Bedevian, after which remarks were delivered by representatives of Prelacy Armenian Schools, parish youth groups, Sunday Schools, and Homenetmen, all of whom welcomed His Holiness and touched upon the legacy of His Holiness as a prominent leader of our church, of ecumenical affairs, in the Armenian culture and the Armenian cause.
H.E. Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate, welcomed His Holiness and stated how pleased and proud he must feel to see the large gathering of youth and to hear them pledge their faithfulness to our faith and heritage. He then invited His Holiness to address the youth and guests.
His Holiness spoke in general on the absolute importance of preserving and fostering our religious and national values, in a Diaspora situation especially, emphasizing that “preserving the Armenian language is crucial to preserving and manifesting our Armenian identity, our particularity.” Addressing the youth representatives who earlier had delivered their remarks, His Holiness commended their self-understanding, self-perception, self-articulation, and self-expression as Armenians, of their sentiment that they are proud to be Armenians, stating that they are role models and exemplary examples of what it means to be Armenian. His Holiness spoke also on the pivotal role of the family in our identity and existence, stating that after the Genocide, when everything was lost, the family became a small Armenia. “Through our families, we not only preserved our Armenian identity, we also deepened our faith,” stressed His Holiness.
A question and answer session followed. His Holiness engaged closely with the youth, answering their questions in a serious yet witty manner on topics such as how the church can attract youth, the use of modern technology by the church, the role of the church in community life, the Sis lawsuit, and more. His Holiness iterated the importance of the church, school, and family triune; spoke on the vocation of the church to be with the people – to identity itself with the suffering, joy, concerns, expectations, and needs of the people; on the need for our schools to focus not only on education but on the Christian, moral, spiritual, and Armenian formation of our youth so that our youth comprehend the significance of our church in our history and today as our spiritual home. Speaking on the Sis lawsuit, His Holiness stated that the Catholicosate is committed to continuing the process, even though it is not a rosy one, for recognition and reparations are closely interconnected and it is high time to move our cause to the legal sphere.
The program concluded with the benediction by His Holiness and the Cilician anthem sung by the Homenetmen scouts’ choir.
Armenia has shown determination in fighting racism and intolerance, integrating refugees and supporting ethnic minorities. However, numerous legislation gaps, rise in hate speech and violence, and institutional shortcomings remain of concern, said the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) in its new report published today.
The report covering the period from December 2010 to March 2016 welcomed the efforts of the Armenian authorities to revise the Criminal Code and draft comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation, integrate a large influx of refugees from Syria and increase the financial support for the ethnic minorities.
However, the criminal, civil and administrative legislation and procedures still suffer from numerous shortcomings which make it impossible to adequately combat racism and discrimination. The report notes a rise in hate speech leading to violence, main targets being members of the LGBT community and non-traditional religious groups, and the stigmatisation of these groups in the political and public discourse.
As priority recommendations to be followed up in two years, ECRI calls on the authorities to streamline the various integration strategies for all vulnerable groups, and to amend the Armenian criminal law. The list of “prohibited grounds” should explicitly include colour, language, nationality, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation and gender identity. Besides, incitement to violence and to racial discrimination, as well as the public denial, trivialisation, justification or condoning of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes should be criminalised.
Other recommendations include making homophobic/transphobic motivation an aggravating circumstance; giving more powers to the Human Rights Defender to enable him/her to deal with discrimination in the private sector; establishing an independent mechanism for dealing with complaints against the police; and encouraging the adoption of a code of ethics for media and a code of conduct for parliamentarians.