Category: News

Maria Sharapova has been banned for two years by the International Tennis Federation for using a prohibited drug, the BBC reports.

The Russian was provisionally banned in March after testing positive for meldonium at January’s Australian Open.

The heart disease drug, which 29-year-old Sharapova says she has been taking since 2006 for health issues, became a banned substance on 1 January 2016.

The five-time Grand Slam winner said she “cannot accept” the “unfairly harsh” ban – and will appeal.

Sharapova will challenge the suspension, which is backdated to 26 January 2016, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

The Rhode Island Senate on Wednesday unanimously adopted a bill, which mandates in middle school or high school the teaching of the Holocaust and other genocides in, but not limited to, Armenia, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda and Darfur, the  reports.

Seven states — California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — have similar legislation. A current law in Rhode Island only encourages the awareness education.

If approved, teaching is required to begin in the 2017-18 school year. The House passed a duplicate bill in early May.

A coalition made up of members of the Armenian community, Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island State Council of Churches, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center have been meeting since last fall to research and draft the legislation.

The lead sponsor of the bill is Sen. Gayle L. Goldin, D-Providence, who said on Monday: “When we look at what’s going on globally, the impact of war and strife, it’s important to place them in a larger historical context, so our children understand the long-term impact of genocides and the Holocaust, so we don’t repeat that history.”

Sen. Donna M. Nesselbush, D-Pawtucket, North Providence, said her district was recently hit by anti-Semitism: a spray-painted swastika was found outside an Orthodox synagogue in Pawtucket.

“There is no room for that kind of hatred in our communities,” Nesselbush said before the vote, “and we will do everything, in addition to this bill, to root it out of our communities.”

Gala Concert of the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra, dedicated to the Russia Day and the 25^th anniversary of the Commonwealth of Independent States will take place on June 12 with the support of the CIS Interstate Fund for Humanitarian Cooperation  Fund (IFESCCO) and the Russian Government. The orchestra will perform under the direction of the Honored artist of RA Sergey Smbatyan who is also the special guest of the event. The concert will be held in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The gala evening will be decorated with the musical pieces of composers of Russia and CIS.

Among the honored guests of the concert will be the leaders of musical educational institutions of CIS, deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation as well as the ambassadors of different countries.

First performance of the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra was held in November 12, 2007 under the leadership of famous conductor, People’s Artist of Russia, Kazakhstan and Tatarstan Fuat Mansurov. Over the years well known conductors such as Yuri Simonov, Vladimir Spivakov and Mark Gorenstein were heading the orchestra.

Eventually the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra became a platform for the youngsters of the Commonwealth to demonstrate their achievements in the area of performing art. The orchestra united the musicians from different performing schools, following various styles, genres and trends. The entire generation of young musicians from the Commonwealth got a huge support in the very beginning of their professional career through the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra.

A trilateral summit on the settlement of the situation in Nagorno Karabakh will be held in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports.

The issue was discussed during Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin’s meeting with French Ambassador Jean-Marc Ayrault and French Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Pierre Andrieu.

“Issues related to international efforts towards the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine and preparations for a trilateral summit on Nagorno Karabakh in Saint Petersburg were discussed,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry did no clarify the concrete date of the summit.

Photo: AFP

 

Two Palestinian gunmen killed four people and wounded six others after opening fire at a popular open-air shopping and restaurant area of central Tel Aviv, Israeli authorities say, the BBC reports.

The attacks took place in two locations in Sarona Market, close to Israel’s defence ministry and main army HQ.

Police said the gunmen were from Yatta, a Palestinian village near the West Bank town of Hebron.

Both are in custody. One is undergoing surgery in hospital, police added.

There has been a rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis since last year, with a series of shootings, stabbings and car rammings, although the number of incidents had dropped in recent months.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the scene of the attack late on Wednesday, called it “a savage crime of murder and terrorism”.

“HIV/AIDS is worse than a war. But this war can be won,” Nelson Mandela once said.

“What’s worse – AIDS or war?” Armenian Minister of Healthcare Armen Muradyan asked, addressing the UN General Assembly High-level Meeting on ending AIDS.

“Where is the justice, when an innocent baby is born with immunodeficiency? Where is the justice, when children willing to live and study in their Motherland, to learn their language, to believe their God, respect the traditions of their parents and ancestors are being bombarded? Where is the justice, when 90-year old people, willing to live their old age at home, are being killed? I’m speaking about the events in Nagorno Karabakh a month ago. What is worse – AIDS or the infection of inhumanity and hatred that affects even the highest-ranking official, clouds his consciousness, turns a civilized person into a barbarian, who orders to kill children and elderly people? It’s hard to answer this rhetoric question,” Minister Muradyan said.

He noted that the coming generations may not know what AIDS is and what war is, if we give a clear answer to the question.

“I’m confident that the coming generations should compare which one is better – peace or prosperity,” Armen Muradyan concluded.

The situation was calm at the line of contact between th armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan last night , NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The parties remained committed to the agreement on ceasefire.

 

From June 24-26th,  Pope Francis will visit the land where tradition says that Noah’s Ark stopped after the Flood, at the foot of Mount Ararat.

Armenia is a country of rich and ancient history, full of joys and sorrows like the genocide of 1915. The Pope defined it as the first genocide of the twentieth century. During his trip, he is expected to honor the Yerevan memorial, on behalf the 1.5 million victims who perished as a result of hatred.

“The Armenian nation, the entire Armenian people is preparing to welcome the Pope on this special occasion and show their gratitude for having taken into account and commemorate, as he did the centennial of the Armenian genocide, ” Monsignor Boutros Marayati, Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo (Syria), said in an interview with

In April last year, Pope Francis presided over a mass in St. Peter’s to honor the victims of genocide to mark the centenary. His words infuriated Turkey and even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who filed a complaint. But for Boutros Marayati, the Pope’s next trip should not be looked at in the light of any political interest.

“The Holy Father will come to Armenia as a pilgrim, as a pastor, as a promoter of unity because he will visit an ancient Apostolic Church. He will also come as an apostle of peace because he will pray for Armenia to be in a place of peace with its neighbors,” the Archbishop said.

Besides the tension with Turkey, the situation on the border of Armenia with Azerbaijan remains committed to the territorial dispute of Nagorno-Karabakh, as it is a site of reoccurring conflict, especially in the last few weeks.

Referring to the recent escalation of tensions at the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Monsignor Boutros Marayati said: “We need to do a reading of peace, openness, a reading that says that everyone should live together. The problem of Nagorno-Karabakh has to do with Azerbaijan, which is a problem because we still don’ know how the Pope is going to face this. It is a very, very delicate problem.”

Rome Reports reminds that Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD, even before the Roman Empire with the Edict of Milan in 313 at the hand of Emperor Constantine.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz, a German Social Democrat, has written an open letter to Erdogan, saying differences of opinion among elected officials should not prompt allegations of terrorist sympathies.

“Such an act constitutes a complete breach of a taboo, which I condemn as strongly as possible,” Schulz wrote. “As the president of a multi-national, multi-ethnic and multi-faith parliament, allow me to make the following point: MPs’ freedom to carry out their mandate as they see fit is a fundamental pillar of our European democracies.”

Turkey is one of several countries recognized as a candidate for potential EU membership one day. Schulz sought to defend both German MPs and those in Turkey opposed to Erdogan’s policies.

“A string of the German Bundestag MPs you have personally attacked, but also Turkish parliamentarians affected by measures which you support, are amongst longstanding colleagues of mine, some of them are very close to me personally,” Schulz said. “I feel obliged to protect these colleagues wherever I can.”

Germany’s speaker of parliament has sharply criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, following threats against German-Turkish MPs. Norbert Lammert said top Turkish politicians had fuelled the fire, reports.

Norbert Lammert expressed the outrage in Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday, over comments made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Lammert also denounced the “sometimes hate-filled threats and smears” targeting the 11 German lawmakers with Turkish heritage.

“I would not have thought it possible in the 21st century, that a democratically elected head of state would criticize members of the German Bundestag by voicing doubts on their Turkish heritage, by labeling their blood as impure,” Lammert told parliament on Thursday.

He was criticizing Erdogan’s reaction to last week’s contentious Bundestag resolution, which repeatedly referred to the killings of Armenians in Ottoman-era Turkey during World War I as genocide. Turkey disputes this definition of the massacre of Armenians.

Erdogan had said the German-Turkish parliamentarians were a “mouthpiece for the PKK,” the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party seeking an independent Kurdish state. The president also suggested that the 11 lawmakers should undergo blood tests, to see “what kind of Turks they are.”

“Also, I reject in all its forms the insinuation that members of this parliament are terrorist mouthpieces,” Lammert said.