Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President François Hollande, who have both named the killing of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I "genocide," attended ceremonies at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan April 24 commemorating the tragedy in 1915.

Armenia marks on Friday the centenary of the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians with commemorative ceremonies across the country.

Flowers were laid and a minute of silence was observed at the Armenian Genocide Memorial near Yerevan, the BBC reports.

Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov said naming "mass extermination" the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians caused by action of the Ottoman Empire was the only viable option.

"These are the Bulgarian words [in] the Bulgarian dictionary," BGNES wire service quotes him as saying.

Romanians Marius Copil and Adrian Ungur produced the day's surprise Thursday, defeating Florin Mergea and Rohan Bopanna in the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy doubles on the BNR Arenas of Bucharest and thus qualifying to the semifinal.

The hourglass measures time in a very strange way. Unlike our round watches, or digital timekeepers, it does not treat every sand particle equally. Towards the end it speeds up. Tiny sand particles that are left at the end drop so fast that one wishes to stop it at some point.

A decision by Education Minister Aristides Baltas to abolish the country?s only three English-language undergraduate faculties, in spite of the fact that foreign universities have expressed strong interest in the courses, is to be discussed at a session of university rectors on Friday.

BELGRADE - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has invited his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic to visit Moscow.

The invitation was extended to Vucic by Russian Ambassador Alexander Chepurin during a meeting in the Serbian government Thursday.

After recalling its ambassador to Austria on April 22, Turkey has now recalled seven ambassadors to Ankara over the last few years for various reasons, including bilateral political strain or security concerns in those foreign capitals. 

Energy officials from three Balkan countries on Wednesday signed an agreement on the construction of a gas corridor that will interconnect their natural gas networks and will have a capacity of 3-5 billion cubic meters per year.

NIS - The international science conference entitled "The Byzantine Empire and Orthodoxy" was opened in Nis on Thursday bringing together over 30 prominent scientists from Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Italy and Serbia.