Australia

Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer begin their quest for five Australian Open titles while Serena Williams is chasing her 19th Grand Slam crown in the year's first major starting Monday.
      
World number one Djokovic looms as the player to beat in the men's draw having won four of the last seven Australian editions, and he holds an affinity with the hardcourts in Melbourne.

Israel is lobbying member-states of the International Criminal Court to cut funding for the tribunal in response to its launch of an inquiry into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, officials said on Jan. 18.
   

Two Romanian tennis players, doubles' specialists Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea, managed similar performances on Friday; each of them qualified in the mens' doubles final of two ATP tournaments, in Sydney and Auckland, respectively.

As part of Ankara's charm offensive ahead of the centennial anniversary of the mass killings of Anatolian Armenians, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has taken the unprecedented diplomatic step of extending an invitation to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to ceremonies marking the centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli in Çanakkale in late April, which coincides with the Armenian remembrance day.

SYDNEY - Serbia's Viktor Troicki reached the semi-final of the ATP tournament in Sydney after scoring a win over Italy's Simone Bolelli 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 on Thursday.

Troicki notched the win after two hours and ten minutes of play.

He is next to take on the winner of the match between Bernard Tomic of Australia and Gilles Muller of Luxembourg.

BELGRADE - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has appointed Miroljub Petrovic as the ambassador to New Zealand on a non-residential basis with the seat in Canberra, according to the latest issue of the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

Nikolic previously recalled Neda Maletic from this post.

Tsvetana Pironkova scored on Wednesday her 14th victory in a row, defeating Barbora Zahvalova Strycova in the Sydney International tournament in Australia.

Pironkova, currently No 67 in the ATP rankings, won over the Czech player 6:4, 6:1, making her way into the semi-finals.

A fourth ship with enhanced search capabilities has been commissioned to join the underwater hunt for missing flight MH370, Australian authorities said Jan. 14, with 14,000 square kilometres (5,405 square miles) of the sea floor scoured so far.
      

Archbishop to be released after Russian mediation

SKOPJE -- A court in Skopje has ruled that the head of the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, Jovan Vraniskovski, will be granted conditional release on January 19.

SKOPJE, MOSCOW - The criminal court in Skopje has ruled that the head of the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, Jovan Vraniskovski, be granted conditional release on January 19, while the canonically unrecognised Macedonian Orthodox Church (MPC) expects a dialogue with the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) on its status to begin afterwards, with mediation from the Russian Orthodox Church (RPC).