World

(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis suggested it may be possible to bless same-sex unions in a newly public response to cardinals who questioned the pope’s affirmation of the LGBTQ community in the Catholic Church.

In the July letter, which is written in Spanish, he reaffirmed that “the Church has a very clear understanding of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to procreation,” according to the Vatican News.

However, he advocated for “pastoral charity.”

“The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity; it also includes kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot be judges who only deny, reject and exclude,” he said, according to Vatican News.

He added that “pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not convey a mistaken concept of marriage.”

New Ways Ministry, an LGBTQ Catholic outreach group, said in a statement that though his statement is not “a full-fledged, ringing endorsement of blessing their unions,” it is a significant advancement in the inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics in the Church.

In August, Pope Francis called on the hundreds of thousands gathered before him to yell that the Catholic Church is for “todos, todos, todos” — everyone, everyone, everyone.

When asked if “todos” included the LGBTQ community, he said that though the Church has its laws, it is still a place for everyone, including the LGBTQ community.

Pope Francis has also criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality.

News of the Pope’s comments come two days before the start of a major three-week meeting at the Vatican to discuss the state of the Catholic Church and its future. The three-week synod, or meeting, starts at the Vatican on Wednesday, Oct. 4 and will run until Oct. 29.

During this period, more than 450 people from around the world — cardinals, bishops, clergy, religious and laypeople — will take part in the worldwide gathering.

The meeting will address some hot-button issues like the role of women in the church and the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community. A number of advocacy groups are expected to come to Rome and the Vatican to gain attention for their cause throughout the synod. These groups represent issues such as ending clergy abuse, the women’s ordination conference and more.

Some Church watchers are calling this Synod on Synodality a historical event, while some conservative church leaders and commentators have speculated that the gathering could cause harm to the Church and undermine Catholic teaching.

LGBTQ advocates applauded the decision.

“Pope Francis’ response is both unprecedented and compassionate and continues to urge every Catholic and leader toward acceptance and recognition of LGBTQ people,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president and CEO.

About 71% of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Gallup recorded in 2022. Public support for legally recognizing gay marriages has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s.

The synod will begin with a mass with new cardinals in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Wednesday.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Virtually the entire ethnic Armenian population of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has fled, with the last buses carrying refugees having left on Monday, according to Russia’s peacekeeping force deployed there.

More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians left the enclave in the last week, according to local officials, abandoning their homes after Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, recaptured the region with a military offensive just over a week ago.

The exodus has emptied the enclave in what Armenia has condemned as “ethnic cleansing.”

A television news crew from Al Jazeera showed the region’s capital, known to Armenians as Stepanakert, completely deserted. The city, which had a population estimated at more than 50,000, appeared now to be a ghost town. The Al Jazeera crew showed the city’s central square abandoned and strewn with empty chairs, used by people waiting for evacuation.

Before Azerbaijan’s offensive, the enclave’s population was estimated at 120,000. But a spokesperson for the Karabakh Armenians’ unrecognized state’s emergency services ministry on Sunday said only a tiny handful of people now remained in the enclave.

Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president, Ilham Aliyev, announced plans for Nagorno-Karabakh’s reintegration into his country, signaling he intended to quickly restore strong control over it.

The region will now be overseen by special representative offices to Azerbaijan’s president and security will be handled by Azerbaijan’s interior ministry, Aliyev said. Azerbaijan’s currency, the manat, would be reintroduced.

Aliyev said the equality of rights and freedoms, including security, would be guaranteed for all residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, and it would be permitted to use Armenian there. He also pledged that religious freedoms would be guaranteed, and cultural and religious monuments protected.

The pledges appeared to ignore the fact that the enclave’s Armenian population had already fled. The Armenians fleeing have said they don’t believe Azerbaijan’s guarantees of their rights and fear they would face persecution.

A United Nations mission also arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh Sunday to assess humanitarian needs, but it faced heavy criticism from local ethnic Armenian authorities who said they were far too late, given the civilian population was no longer there.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been at the center of a bloody conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades. Internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, it had been home to an ethnic Armenian population for centuries. As the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians tried to break away from Azerbaijan, declaring independence.

A bloody war, in which Armenia aided the separatists, saw hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians also driven out of the region and ended with ethnic Armenians controlling most of Nagorno-Karabakh with their own unrecognized state.

But Azerbaijan reopened the conflict in 2020, starting a full-scale war that decisively defeated Armenia and ended with a truce deal brokered by Russia, which deployed peacekeepers to enforce it.

Two weeks ago, after blockading the enclave for nine months, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive, swiftly defeating the ethnic Armenian authorities in two days. The enclave’s population started fleeing shortly afterward to Armenia.

There has been little international response to the crisis. Western countries, including the U.S. and France, have expressed concern and called for Azerbaijan to protect the rights of the Armenians. The Biden administration announced $11.5 million in humanitarian aid and dispatched the high-profile head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, to the region last week.

Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center based in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, said the international response was “too little too late” and had set a “dangerous precedent.”

“[This was] a seeming vindication of the use of force over diplomacy,” Giragosian told ABC News by phone. “A military victory of authoritarian power over a struggling democracy.”

But he said it had also shown the West has little influence over Azerbaijan. “What we see is Azerbaijan simply does not care about Western threats, pronouncements, and at the same time, the West has little leverage over Azerbaijan,” Giragosian said.

Armenia’s defense ministry on Monday also accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire on a car carrying food to an Armenian border post near the village of Kut.

Azerbaijani forces are likely to move into Nagorno-Karabakh’s now-empty capital, which it calls Khankhendi, in the next few days.

Russia’s peacekeeping contingent said a joint Russian-Azerbaijani patrol came under sniper fire inside Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, but that there were no casualties.

A meeting of representatives from Azerbaijan and the Karabakh Armenian leadership will take place for the first time in the capital in the “near future,” the news agency of the enclave’s unrecognized Armenian state reported Monday.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(TAMAULIPAS, Mexico) — Ten people have died following a roof collapse at a church in Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities.

The collapse, which trapped between 30 to 40 people, happened at the Iglesia Santa Cruz Church, a Catholic church in Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Mexican officials confirmed to ABC News. A baptism was being celebrated at the time with approximately 100 in attendance.

Seven adults and three children were among the dead. A total of 60 people were injured, with 23 still in the hospital on Monday.

Following the tragic accident, the Tamaulipas Government released a statement confirming the church collapse and an initial total of seven fatalities, which later increased to 10.

“Today at 2:18 pm, there was a collapse of the roof of the church of the Holy Cross in Cd. Madero, presumably due to a failure in its structure, security and civil protection corporations arrived at the scene, in addition to the municipal authorities that since that moment are taking care of the situation,” the statement read.

“Following this accident, unfortunately the death of 7 people is confirmed, in addition, 10 people have been rescued who are injured and have been transferred to hospitals, 3 to the Civil Hospital and the remaining 7 to the General Hospital Dr. Carlos Canseco. Debris removal continues for rescue efforts,” the statement continued.

“Governor Américo Villarreal Anaya, has instructed the General Secretary of Government, the coordinator of Civil Protection of the State and the authorities of the Health sector, to head to the scene of the events to coordinate the work and personally attend to the affected families.”

Federal and state security forces, civil protection and rescue corporations are on site, according to officials.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Pro-Russia hackers have claimed responsibility for a cyber attack that crashed the British royal family’s website over the weekend.

The website, royal.uk, went down for over an hour on Sunday morning due to a denial-of-service attack, a tactic for overwhelming a machine or network to make it unavailable, a royal source told ABC News.

The source said the website was not hacked because no access was gained to systems or content. It was unclear who was responsible fort the denial-of-service attack, according to the source.

There was no official comment on the matter from Buckingham Palace.

A pro-Russia hacktivist group that calls itself Killnet claimed to be behind what it described as an “attack on paedophiles,” apparently referring to Britain’s Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who was accused of sexually abusing an American woman when she was 17, claims the prince has denied.

Killnet has been active since at least 2022, around the time that Russia launched an invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The group has become known for its distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against countries supporting Ukraine in the ongoing war, especially NATO members, according to an analyst note released earlier this year by the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“While KillNet’s DDoS attacks usually do not cause major damage, they can cause service outages lasting several hours or even days,” the note states. “Although KillNet’s ties to official Russian government organizations such as the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) or the Russian ForeignIntelligence Service (SVR) are unconfirmed, the group should be considered a threat to government and critical infrastructure organizations including healthcare.”

Sunday’s cyberattack came days after Britain’s King Charles III voiced support for Ukraine during a speech at the French Senate in Paris. He referred to Russia’s “military aggression” as “horrifying.”

“Together, we are unwavering in our determination that Ukraine will triumph and our cherished freedoms will prevail,” Charles said in his remarks on Sept. 21.

The British monarch has spoken out against Russia’s war in Ukraine previously several times.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(TAMAULIPAS, Mexico) — Seven people have died following a roof collapse at a church in Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities.

The collapse, which trapped between 30-40, happened at the Iglesia Santa Cruz Church, a Catholic church in Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Mexican officials confirmed to ABC News. A baptism was being celebrated at the time with approximately 100 in attendance.

Following the tragic accident, the Tamaulipas Government released a statement confirming the church collapse and the total of fatalities.

“Today at 2:18 pm, there was a collapse of the roof of the church of the Holy Cross in Cd. Madero, presumably due to a failure in its structure, security and civil protection corporations arrived at the scene, in addition to the municipal authorities that since that moment are taking care of the situation,” the statement read.

“Following this accident, unfortunately the death of 7 people is confirmed, in addition, 10 people have been rescued who are injured and have been transferred to hospitals, 3 to the Civil Hospital and the remaining 7 to the General Hospital Dr. Carlos Canseco. Debris removal continues for rescue efforts,” the statement continued.

“Governor Américo Villarreal Anaya, has instructed the General Secretary of Government, the Coordinator of Civil Protection of the State and the authorities of the Health sector, to head to the scene of the events to coordinate the work and personally attend to the affected families.”

Federal and state security forces, civil protection and rescue corporations are on site, according to officials.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(KORNIDZOR, Armenia) — Over 100,000 ethnic Armenian refugees have fled Nagorno-Karabakh as of Saturday, local authorities said, with it now appearing that virtually the entire Armenian population from the enclave will leave, abandoning their homes after Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, recaptured the region last week with a military offensive.

About 85% of the population has now fled in less than a week, in what Armenia has condemned as “ethnic cleansing”.

Evacuation buses carrying thousands of residents unable to make own way were observed leaving for Armenia on Saturday.

Once the Armenians have left, Azerbaijani forces are likely to move into the region’s capital and celebrate their victory.

Families packed into cars and trucks, with whatever belongings they can carry, have been arriving in Armenia after Azerbaijan opened the only road out of the enclave on Sunday. Those fleeing have said they are unwilling to live under Azerbaijan’s rule, fearing they will face persecution.

“There will be no more Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh in the coming days,” Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a televised government meeting on Thursday. “This is a direct act of ethnic cleansing,” he said, adding that international statements condemning it were important but without concrete actions they were just “creating moral statistics for history.”

The United States and other western countries have expressed concern about the displacement of the Armenian population from the enclave, urging Azerbaijan to allow international access.

Armenians have lived in Nagorno-Karabakh for centuries, but the enclave is recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. It has been at the center of a bloody conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia since the late 1980s when the two former Soviet countries fought a war amid the collapse of the USSR.

That war left ethnic Armenian separatists in control of most of Nagorno-Karabakh and also saw hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians driven out. For three decades, an unrecognized Armenian state, called the Republic of Artsakh, existed in the enclave, while international diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict went nowhere.

But in 2020, Azerbaijan reopened the conflict, decisively defeating Armenia and forcing it to abandon its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia brokered a truce and deployed peacekeeping forces, which remain there.

Last week, after blockading the enclave for 9 months, Azerbaijan launched a new military offensive to complete the defeat of the ethnic Armenian authorities, forcing them to capitulate in just two days.

The leader of the ethnic Armenian’s unrecognized state, the Republic of Artsakh, on Thursday announced its dissolution, saying it would “cease to exist” by the end of the year.

Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev has claimed the Karabakh Armenians’ rights will be protected but he has previously promoted a nationalist narrative denying Armenians have a long history in the region. In areas recaptured by his forces in 2020, some Armenian cultural sites have been destroyed and defaced.

Some Azerbaijanis driven from their homes during the war in the 1990s have returned to areas recaptured by Azerbaijan since 2020. Aliyev on Thursday said by the end of 2023, 5,500 displaced Azerbaijanis would return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

Azerbaijan detained another former senior Karabakh Armenian official on Thursday as he tried to leave the enclave with other refugees. Azerbaijan’s security services detained Levon Mnatsakanyan, who was commander of the Armenian separatists’ armed forces between 2015-2018. Earlier this week, Azerbaijan arrested a former leader of the unrecognized state, Ruben Vardanyan, taking him to Baku and charging him with terrorism offenses.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Over 93,000 ethnic Armenian refugees have fled Nagorno-Karabakh as of Friday, local authorities said, meaning 75% of the disputed enclave’s entire population has now left in less than a week.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians have been streaming out of Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s successful military operation last week that restored its control over the breakaway region. It’s feared the whole population will likely leave in the coming days, in what Armenia has condemned as “ethnic cleansing.”

Families packed into cars and trucks, with whatever belongings they can carry, have been arriving in Armenia after Azerbaijan opened the only road out of the enclave on Sunday. Those fleeing have said they are unwilling to live under Azerbaijan’s rule, fearing they will face persecution.

“There will be no more Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh in the coming days,” Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a televised government meeting on Thursday. “This is a direct act of ethnic cleansing,” he said, adding that international statements condemning it were important but without concrete actions they were just “creating moral statistics for history.”

The United States and other western countries have expressed concern about the displacement of the Armenian population from the enclave, urging Azerbaijan to allow international access.

Armenians have lived in Nagorno-Karabakh for centuries but the enclave is recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan. It has been at the center of a bloody conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia since the late 1980s when the two former Soviet countries fought a war amid the collapse of the USSR.

That war left ethnic Armenian separatists in control of most of Nagorno-Karabakh and also saw hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians driven out. For three decades, an unrecognised Armenian state, called the Republic of Artsakh, existed in the enclave, while international diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict went nowhere.

But in 2020, Azerbaijan reopened the conflict, decisively defeating Armenia and forcing it to abandon its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia brokered a truce and deployed peacekeeping forces, which remain there.

Last week, after blockading the enclave for 9 months, Azerbaijan launched a new military offensive to complete the defeat of the ethnic Armenian authorities, forcing them to capitulate in just two days.

The leader of the ethnic Armenian’s unrecognised state, the Republic of Artsakh, on Thursday announced its dissolution, saying it would “cease to exist” by the end of the year.

Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev has claimed the Karabakh Armenians’ rights will be protected but he has previously promoted a nationalist narrative denying Armenians have a long history in the region. In areas recaptured by his forces in 2020, some Armenian cultural sites have been destroyed and defaced.

Some Azerbaijanis driven from their homes during the war in the 1990s have returned to areas recaptured by Azerbaijan since 2020. Aliyev on Thursday said by the end of 2023, 5,500 displaced Azerbaijanis would return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

Azerbaijan on Friday detained another former senior Karabakh Armenian official on Thursday as he tried to leave the enclave with other refugees. Azerbaijan’s security services detained Levon Mnatsakanyan, who was commander of the Armenian separatists’ armed forces between 2015-2018. Earlier this week, Azerbaijan arrested a former leader of the unrecognised state, Ruben Vardanyan, taking him to Baku and charging him with terrorism offenses.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Friday marks six months since Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested and detained by Russian authorities on espionage charges, allegations that Gershkovich, the WSJ, the U.S. government and dozens of international news organizations have vehemently denied. Gershkovich remains behind bars in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

In March, Gershkovich, who was an accredited correspondent in Russia, was on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg, when he was arrested by the country’s powerful FSB domestic intelligence service. The U.S. government has declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained and most experts believe Russia has seized him as a bargaining chip to use as leverage with the United States, similar to other Americans held hostage by the Kremlin, such as the WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan.

The Biden administration and the Kremlin have confirmed they have held talks seeking to find a deal to free Gershkovich.

In July, Gershkovich’s mother Ella Millman spoke to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos about a conversation she said she had with President Joe Biden about his efforts to bring her son home.

“President Biden spoke to us and gave us a promise to do whatever it takes,” Millman said in an interview with Good Morning America.

But as the war in Ukraine continues, the Biden administration has cautioned that the talks to free Gershkovich are difficult. Last week, the White House said it was engaged in “very active” discussions to free him and Whelan, but that it was “tough.”

Gershkovich, 31, last appeared in court on Sept. 19 to appeal an order for his pre-trial detention. The court declined to hear his appeal, citing unspecified procedural irregularities and sent the case back to a lower court to resolve, according to a statement on the court’s website. A new hearing on extending his detention is likely to happen before it is set to expire on Nov. 30.

If convicted at trial, Gershkovich could face up to 10-20 years behind bars.

Back in the U.S., Gershkovich’s family and others continue to advocate for his release.

Standing before world leaders last week at the United Nations in New York City, Gershkovich’s parents and sister pleaded for international calls on Russia to release him. The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets also continue to publish stories highlighting the reporter’s wrongful detention, and his unwavering commitment to his craft.

The outpouring of support also extends to Gershkovich’s alma maters including Princeton High School in New Jersey where just this week the boy’s soccer team hit the field for a match, donning T-shirts emblazoned with the hashtag message, #IStandWithEvan. The team dedicated their victory in the game to Gershkovich.

Additionally, Bowdoin College, the university where Gershkovich studied, a panel was held Tuesday and discussed the detained journalist, his work and his lasting impact on the university.

While Gershkovich continues to hold out in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, strangers are penning encouraging letters to him from around the world — a campaign springboarded by his friends immediately following his imprisonment.

Despite his imprisonment, those who have corresponded with Gershkovich have relayed his good spirits. That includes the journalist’s parents who told Stephanopoulos in July that Gershkovich spends his days meditating, exercising, reading and writing. Last week, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, visited Gershkovich in prison and reiterated his strength, writing on the platform X (formerly known as Twitter) that the journalist is also managing to keep up with the news as he is held in detention.

Gershkovich has worked in Russia since 2017, first with the local outlet The Moscow Times and then Agence France Presse, before joining the WSJ in March 2022. Born to two Soviet Jewish emigres, Gershkovich grew up in New Jersey, speaking Russian at home.

Most experts believe a prisoner exchange is the most likely way of freeing Gershkovich. Brittney Griner was freed last December after nine months in detention in a trade for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was jailed in the U.S. on terrorism charges. Trevor Reed, another former Marine who was held prisoner for nearly three years on charges the U.S. said were trumped up, was also freed last year in an exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted on drug smuggling charges.

Paul Whelan, the Marine Corps veteran has been detained in Russia since 2018. He was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges, which the U.S., Whelan and his family also say were fabricated.

These six months mark 184 days of Evan’s family and friends missing him dearly. They tell ABC News they will not stop fighting to get him back home. To learn more about Evan’s case please visit www.freegershkovich.com.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — At least 75,500 ethnic Armenian refugees have now fled Nagorno-Karabakh, more than half the disputed enclave’s population, according to local authorities, as the exodus from the region continues to accelerate.

It is feared the enclave’s whole population will likely flee in the coming days, unwilling to remain under Azerbaijan’s rule following its successful military offensive last week that defeated the ethnic Armenian separatist authorities and restored Azerbaijan’s control after over three decades.

The leader of Nagorno-Karabakh’s unrecognized Armenian state, the Republic of Artsakh, on Thursday announced its dissolution, signing a decree that it will “cease to exist” by Jan. 1, 2024.

De facto President Samvel Shahramanyan signed the decree declaring that “all state institutions” will be dissolved.

A statement describing the decree said based on the ceasefire agreement last week, Azerbaijan would allow the unhindered travel of all residents, including military personnel who laid down their arms. The local population should make their own decisions about the “possibility of staying (or returning),” the statement said.

The decree marks an end to Armenian control over the enclave, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan and has been at the center of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts for 35 years.

Ethnic Armenians have lived for centuries in Nagorno-Karabakh. The current conflict dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Armenian separatists declared the republic and tried to break away from Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a bloody war over the enclave that saw hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians driven from the region and ended with the ethnic Armenians in control of most of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan reopened the conflict in 2020, defeating Armenia and forcing it to distance itself from the Karabakh Armenians. Russia brokered a peace agreement and deployed peacekeepers, who remain in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Last week, after blockading the enclave for nine months, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive that defeated the Karabakh Armenian forces in two days. Since Sunday, tens of thousands of ethnic Armenian civilians have left Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan opened the road out to Armenia.

Those leaving say they fear life under Azerbaijan will be intolerable and that they will face persecution.

Shortages of food, medicine and fuel have been reported inside the enclave. Those fleeing describe spending 30 hours in traffic jams to leave.

Siranush Sargsyan, a local freelance journalist living in Nagorno-Karabakh, told Reuters it was impossible for ethnic Armenians to remain.

“Of course I’m going to leave, because this place is too small for both of us. If they are here, we have to leave. We don’t want to leave, but we don’t have [any] other choice,” she said.

Azerbaijan charged a former leader of the Karabakh Armenians with terrorism offenses on Thursday after detaining him a day earlier when he tried to leave the enclave with other refugees.

Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire who made his fortune in Moscow, moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and served as the head of its government for several months before stepping down earlier this year. A court in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku charged him on Thursday with financing terrorism and creating an illegal armed group, which carries a potential maximum 14-year sentence.

The United States and other Western countries have expressed concern for the ethnic Armenian population. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev this week and urged him to provide international access to the enclave.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Authorities in England have arrested a 16-year-old boy after one of the most famous trees in the world was cut down overnight Thursday.

The “Sycamore Gap tree,” also sometimes known as the “Robin Hood tree,” was found deliberately cut down early Thursday, according to officials.

“Northumberland National Park Authority can confirm that sadly, the famous tree at Sycamore Gap has come down over night,” the park wrote in a statement. “We have reason to believe it has been deliberately felled.”

A 16-year-old boy was arrested “in connection with the incident,” according to Northumbria police.

“He remains in police custody at this time and is assisting officers with their enquiries,” Northumbria police wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Given our investigation remains at a very early stage, we are keeping an open mind.”
MORE: Historic banyan tree in Maui shows signs of growth after wildfire damage

The statement continued, “We are working with the relevant agencies and partners with an interest in this iconic North East landmark and will issue more details once they are known.”

The tree, which is about 300 years old, was located next to Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Romans beginning in 122 A.D. to mark the northern limits of Roman Britannia.

The tree is sometimes called the “Robin Hood tree” because it was featured prominently in the Kevin Costner-led film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” released in 1991.

“I can’t express how angry I am at the vandalism of the tree at #SycamoreGap,” North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll wrote on X, prior to the arrest. “People have had their ashes scattered there. People have proposed there. I’ve picnicked there with my wife and kids. It’s part of our collective soul.”

The tree was voted the English Tree of the Year in 2016.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.