FRENCH lawmakers have easily passed a measure to make it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide.

Turkey has retaliated against France after MPs there passed a bill to make it a crime to deny the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide.

French MPs have passed a measure that would make it a crime in France to deny that the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 amounted to a genocide.

TURKEY swiftly condemned a US House panel’s approval of a bill describing the World War I era mass killings of Armenians as genocide, accusing lawmakers of distorting history.

Police today detained about 40 members of a Turkish nationalist party who occupied one of Istanbul’s most famous buildings, the Haghia Sophia, to protest against the visit next week of Pope Benedict XVI.

Movie house Miramax Films has said it meant to address the issue of abuse of women with its planned distribution of the critically acclaimed film The Magdalene Sisters.