Persecution

Hungary has become the first country whose government is opening a special office tending to Christians persecuted in the Middle East and on European territory, reported Front Page Magazine.

BELGRADE - Ensuring a sustainable return to Kosovo-Metohija calls for greater engagement on returnee safety and security, as well as on the internally displaced persons' exercise of property rights, Chaloka Beyani, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, said Monday.

The concept of the Sunny Valley returnee settlement in Kosovo has been presented a UN special rapporteur.

The shocking images brought to light show student Vangelis Giakoumakis, aged 20, who was pushed by bullies to take his own life, being tortured by his fellow students at the Dairy School at Ioannina.

The photos published by Eleftheros Typos newspaper are taken from a video showing the eight young men accused of causing grievous bodily harm to Giakoumakis torturing him.

Turkish Foreign Ministry has urged the U.S. administration to adopt an objective and constructive approach in evaluating historical realities on the basis of a memory after U.S. President Barack Obama's "Meds Yeghern" remarks on the killings of Armenians in 1915.

U.S. President Barack Obama avoided using the word "genocide" in his remarks to commemorate the killings of Armenians in 1915, describing it as "Meds Yeghern," an Armenian term meaning "great calamity." 

Obama has chosen to opt for this wording in all his commemorative statements on April 24 since he came into office.

Three Bulgarian municipalities will have their access to cross-border EU funding cut as Turkey has banned any partnership with them, private bTV station reported.

The LGBT community in Sarajevo has called on the Bosnian authorities to punish the perpetrators of an attack last Friday on the Kino Kriterion, one of the few LGBT-friendly clubs in the capital.

"Authorities need to prosecute this homophobic attack as a proper hate crime," Emina Bosnjak, from the Sarajevo Open Center, which promotes LGBT rights in Bosnia, told BIRN on Monday.

Bulgaria will made voluntary contributions to the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF amounting to a total of EUR 150 000.

The humanitarian aid will be used to provide food for refugees in the countries neighbouring Syria and improve access to education of Syrian children, the government's press service informs.

According to estimates of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the number of people subject to forced displacement will exceed 60 million for the first  time in 2015.

This means that one in every 122 people in the world has been forced to flee their home.