Month: October 2008

THE RIGHTS STUFF
Victoria Prais

The Lawyer
6-Oct-2008
UK

Victoria Prais travelled to Armenia to train newly qualified judges
on the ins and outs of Article 5 of the European Convention on
Human Rights – and found encouraging signs that the legislation
is making an impact In June this year I was invited by the Council
of Europe to train Armenian judges in criminal procedure under the
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and related extradition
issues. The training was to be co-sponsored by the Association of
­Armenian Judges.

I was both nervous and excited about going to Armenia. I had no real
prior ­expectations of what the country would be like and indeed
whether it would be safe.

I had worked in Kosovo for the UN ­peacekeeping mission and was used
to life in a tough environment. But I was pleasantly surprised to
feel entirely safe walking around the city on my own. The cityscape
is what you might expect to find of an ex-­Soviet republic: grand
marbled buildings, an aptly named Republic Square and imposing statues
of famous Armenians. The people, however, were wonderfully warm and
­hospitable.

Armenia is a constitutional republic with a population of approximately
3.2m. I arrived following a turbulent six months for the country. The
new president, Serge Sarkisian, was inaugurated on 9 April ­following
presidential elections. Post-­election violence in March had earlier
led to a 20-day state of emergency being declared.

Armenia joined the Council of Europe in January 2001 and ratified the
ECHR in April 2002. My remit was to train a group of first-instance
judges on the general ­principles of Article 5 of the ECHR, which
provides for the right to liberty and ­security of person. The judges
had been recently appointed and their knowledge of the ECHR ranged
from non-existent to fairly competent.

My training focused on such issues as the lawfulness of detention, the
right to bail and the provision of safeguards for those in detention. I
delivered the training alongside the head of the international law
department from the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, who
focused on ­extradition issues under Article 5.

There is a three-tier court system in ­Armenia, introduced on 1
January this year, that includes courts of first instance, the Court
of Appeal (criminal and civil), the Court of Cassation (similar to
the House of Lords) and a specialist economic court.

I soon discovered, as the training ­progressed, that some of
the current ­practices and procedures fell far short of being
compliant with Article 5. Pre-trial detention, for example, is a real
problem. The law provides that a suspect may not be detained for more
than 12 months, but some defendants were in pre-trial detention for
three or more years.

Convictions in absentia also raised ­problems for the judiciary. Some
30 per cent of detainees are, in fact, fugitives and wanted
persons. Such convictions are not per se inconsistent with Article
5 and do not conflict with the provisions of the ECHR. The judges
expressed concern, ­however, that making a decision to detain a
fugitive in his or her absence breached the terms of Article 5. We
examined the case law from the European Court of Human Rights for
guidance.

I was greatly encouraged by the judges’ enthusiasm. I found them on
the whole to be interested and receptive to the training and they were
keen to understand the general principles and jurisprudence of the
ECHR. I was asked many probing questions on both ECHR jurisprudence
and the ­implementation of Article 5 in the UK.

My second talk focused on Article 5, ­control orders and terrorism
– my current area of specialisation at the Treasury ­Solicitor’s
Department. The judges were particularly interested to know how they
could implement the principles into their own domestic legislation
so as to be ­compliant with the ECHR.

So what is the future for the Armenian legal system? Changes do
need to be made to ensure compliance with European human rights
standards. These changes will not happen overnight and progress will
be incremental and take time. But the will is there to forge ahead
and the human rights discourse has started.

Victoria Prais is a lawyer at the Treasury Solicitor’s Department
specialising in ­terrorism and national security cases

–Boundary_(ID_XWC38K41oATvOPGgPV6mUg)–

NKR PRESIDENT CONGRATULATED TEACHERS ON PROFESSIONAL HOLIDAY

DeFacto Agency
2008-10-06 16:11:00
Armenia

STEPANAKERT, 06.10.08. DE FACTO. Nagorno-Karabakh Republic President
Bako Sahakian congratulated teachers on their professional holiday.

According to the Central Department of Information under the NKR
President, Bako Sahakian’s message runs, in part, "Dear teachers,
I congratulate you on a professional holiday, the holiday, which is
precious and memorable for us. On this day we recall our teachers
and our school with deep respect and homage. We recall and we wish
to say warm words of gratitude to all those, who spare no forces and
energy in difficult and hard work of education and bringing up young
generation, who contribute to the case of homeland’s development and
prosperity with every day laborious work.

The development of science and education is one of our state’s
priorities. To march in step with time we should give new momentum
to the sphere of education and science, prepare qualitative and
comprehensively developed cadres, raise the level of studies and
bring them in line with modern requirements.

Amendments being implemented in educational sphere are targeted at the
solution of all these tasks. The NKR authorities undertake necessary
steps to construct, repair, reequip new schools, and improve social
position and working conditions of teachers. The sums provided by
budget of 2008 for the sphere of education and science are higher
than the level of means allocated in 2007 by 27 percent. I also want
to note that in 2009 teachers’ salaries are to be increased by 30
percent. The processes will be of prolonged nature, while problems
existing in the sphere of education and science will be in the focus
of Republic leadership’s attention in the future as well.

Dear teachers!

I again congratulate you on this wonderful holiday and wish strong
health, happiness and great successes in your important and responsible
work".

DVORTSEVOY’S TULPAN TAKES DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR AWARD AT REYKJAVIK
Leon Forde in Reykjavik

Screendaily.com (subscription)
06 Oct 2008 17:32
UK

Story

Sergey Dvortsevoy’s Tulpan has picked up the Golden Puffin award for
Discovery of the Year at the Reykjavik International Film Festival
(Sept 25-Oct 5).

The film, which took the top prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes
earlier this year, tells the story of a man trying to build a new
life after discharge from the Russian navy. The film screened in the
festival’s New Visions section.

Blind Loves, from Slovakian director Juraj Lehotsky, received a
special mention from the jury which comprised Icelandic director
Baltasar Kormakur, Icelandic actress Margret Vilhjalmsdottir,
Finnish director Arto Halonen, Faroese director Katrin Ottarsdottir
and Canadian-Armenian actress Arsinee Khanjian.

The FIPRESCI Award went to Ursula Meier’s drama Home, which screened
in the New Visions category.

The Church of Iceland award went to Aida Begic’s Snow which was
recently announced as Bosnia Herzegovina’s submission for the best
foreign Oscar. The Queer Cinema award went to Bohdan Slama’s A Country
Teacher, with a special mention to Gwen Haworth’s documentary She’s
A Boy I Knew.

The audience award went to Arnar Jonasson’s documentary Electronica
Reykjavik, about the city’s rich dance music scene.

Held in the Icelandic capital and now in its fifth year, the Reykjavik
International Film Festival attracted almost 300 guests including
around 50 directors and producers. These included auteur Costa-Gavras,
in town to receive the festival’s lifetime achievement award, Danish
actress and director Paprika Steen and Iranian video artist Shirin
Neshat.

MOMENTS OF UNCERTAINTY
Simon Birch

NY Arts Magazine
Oct 6, 2008
NY

Simon Birch, Painting at the Brink of Death 3, 2008. Oil on canvas,
152 x 152 cm. Courtesy of 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

I’m a U.K.-born artist of Armenian descent who’s been living in Hong
Kong for many years. I came there by accident, and was able to make
enough money, working construction, to finance the staging of my
own exhibitions of figurative oil paintings. Within a few years I
was selling well enough to quit the day job and signed with a great
contemporary gallery, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, which I’m still
with today.

Though the bulk of my work is still figurative, large oil paintings,
over the last few years I’ve ventured into film and installation work
culminating in two particularly notable large-scale projects. They
are 2007’s Azhanti High Lightning at Singapore’s Nanyang Academy of
Fine Arts, an installation in seven parts squeezed into a 50-meter
long gallery, and This Brutal House in April of 2008 at 10 Chancery
Lane’s new project space in Hong Kong, a show spread over three
large galleries and divided into many parts. These large multiple
media projects included film, paintings, installation, sculpture,
and performance housed in many different spaces.

I’m interested in ideas of transition, the ambiguous moment between
an initiation and a conclusion. I choose to represent this in an
environment of theater and spectacle. I want the environment where
my works are housed to envelop the viewer, so the process of viewing
becomes experiential. Painting is the foundation of the multiple media
works. I find the labor and energy involved in the oil and pigment
informs those other visual processes. It’s exciting for me to live
in a time where all these mediums are so accessible and possible,
with my imagination only limited by money and space.

I try to give the viewer the experience that I would want from an
exhibition: overwhelming and complex, a spectacle, an adventure and a
visual aesthetic. I work obsessively in my Hong Kong studio spending
half my time painting and the other half, planning and scheming,
designing and coordinating production, or hunched over my Mac editing
film. I’m currently preparing work for a number of upcoming art fairs,
including the Melbourne Art Fair, Shanghai Art fair, and the Armory
show in New York City, as well as producing a large installation
for the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and planning my next solo show,
which will be another multiple medium spectacle.

Further to this I’m finishing an autobiography/documentation in
collaboration with a couple of Chinese photographers, which focuses
on my survival of cancer this year, a condition from which I was
not expected to live beyond a few months, which I’ve now gratefully
overcome.

KICKING IT WITH KHLOE – MF CATCHES UP WITH BEAUTY KHLOE KARDASHIAN
by Elizabeth Sanchez

Men’s Fitness
Oct 6, 2008

A fan favorite of E!’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Khloe
Kardashian steals the show with her witty and tell-it-like-it-is
dialogue. In addition to sharing the spotlight with her two older
sisters, Kourtney and Kim, she manages DASH, a high-end women’s
boutique in Southern California. MF was lucky enough to catch up with
Khloe right after her show in New York City during Fashion Week, where
she dished about the next season of the show, her biggest turn-on,
and what it takes to keep up with this Kardashian.

Which male celebrities have the best fashion sense?

David Beckham has great style. George Clooney has an amazing style
too — he’s really handsome, classic and old school, which I love.

You’re currently filming Keeping up with the Kardashians. What
craziness will we see in the next season?

(Laughs) It’s honestly so much craziness. There’s footage of Kim and
Reggie [Bush] and the sides of them that people don’t get to see very
often. There’s footage of my DUI. It’s my sisters and I really coming
into our own and trying to venture out to do different things. For
me it’s fashion.

You’re extremely close to your sisters. Is it hard being away from
one another after a few days, or does it allow some freedom?

It’s actually really hard. We’re so used to spending time with each
other and relying on one another for support. If someone’s tired the
other one picks up the energy. When you’re by yourself it’s harder. But
it’s really good for us to do things on our own and that’s what, I
think, this season is about as well. It’s finding our own and being
comfortable being away from each other.

There’s been tons of buzz about you being a part of Celebrity
Apprentice. Do you care to elaborate?

I haven’t been approached to do it. I haven’t really thought about
it or signed anything. I’m still filming my show and doing a lot of
other things. Plus, I just don’t know if I have time. It’s really up
in the air.

On the show you’re always having fun and you don’t hold back from
saying what’s on you’re mind. Do you think that’s a turn-on for guys?

I think a turn-on for guys is a woman that’s comfortable in her own
skin. — a woman that’s not fake and phony. I don’t apologize for who
I am. I am who I am, and I love it! I’m very comfortable. Either you
love me or hate me. I’m not going to apologize for that or change my
ways to make someone else happy.

MFers are dying to know . . . what is your biggest turn-on?

(Laughs) I love attention. I love someone that can make me laugh. If
I can laugh, I’m yours!

Are your sisters still giving you a hard time about being single?

They are. They always will because they all have boyfriends. I am
dating, but I’m not serious with anyone at the moment. I’m really
trying to focus on finding my niche right now. And once I find
that then I’ll start seriously dating. But I feel like sometimes men
distract you from doing other things and I don’t want to be distracted
right now. (Laughs)

Speaking of dating — what’s a complete deal breaker for you?

You have to be able to laugh at yourself and know how to handle a
strong woman. I’m very strong and opinionated and I’m not going to
change for anyone, so if you can’t handle that then you have got to
go. You’ve got to be a strong individual to be able to handle a girl
like me.

Since this is Men’s Fitness, what’s your favorite part of a man’s body?

(Laughs) Chest and arms! I just like touching them and lying on
them. The upper body is the sexiest part!

Last but not least: With your Armenian background, you’re an exotic
beauty. Why do you think women that are full of diversity drive
men nuts?

Exotic women are beautiful. I love some sort of exoticness in
women. It makes them sexy. Exotic women are very comfortable in their
own skin. They’re curvy and they just embrace themselves. I love
women that embrace their heritage and nationality. It’s the inner
confidence. And they just look so damn hot!

SONGS OF THE HOMELAND
Lloyd Dykk, [email protected]

Vancouver Sun
Monday, October 06, 2008
Canada

Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian goes back to her Armenian roots

She’s used to lending her ravishing soprano to Mozart all over the
world, but Isabel Bayrakdarian’s new interest is a virtually unknown
composer, at least to those outside her homeland of Armenia —
Gomidas Vartabed.

She’s just got off the plane from her home in Toronto and checked
into the hotel in Fresno, Calif., to begin a tour that includes San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Boston and New York’s Carnegie
Hall. Every concert will feature the songs of Gomidas, as arranged by
her pianist husband Serouj Kradjian for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
under its conductor Anne Manson. The concert comes to the Orpheum on
Oct. 7 at 8 p.m.

She says, "The program is woven around Gomidas and other nations and
cultures that have suffered persecution," so expect references to
Greece and Israel.

It’s called the Remembrance Tour. Dedicated to victims of all
genocides, it’s sponsored by the International Institute for Genocide
and Human Rights Studies. The concert virtually duplicates her new
Gomidas recording on the Nonesuch label with the Chamber Players
of the Armenian Philharmonic and Kradjian. Though some material was
recorded during the Soviet era, the release represents the very first
time that Gomidas’ songs have been presented on an international label.

I mention to Bayrakdarian that I’ve never heard Gomidas’s music. "It
may be a revelation," she says simply.

Gomidas, sometimes spelled Komitas, had a tragic life, a fact that
has no doubt gone into making him Armenia’s national composer.

He was born in 1869 to a musical, Turkish-speaking family, his mother
dying when he was one and his father when he was 11. He was brought
up by his grandmother. Educated in a seminary, he became a monk and
established a monastery choir. About 30 years before Bartok did the
same thing, he wandered about the countryside collecting the folk
songs of his Armenian people, notating it on paper, not recording it
like Bartok since recorders didn’t exist.

>From 1910 he lived in Istanbul. In 1915 at the beginning of the
Armenian genocide, he was arrested and deported on a train to central
Anatolia. He lived in concentration camp-like conditions for 15 days
until the intervention of highly placed friends had him released.

In 1935 he died in a psychiatric clinic in Paris, having spent the
last 20 years of his life like the walking dead. Bayrakdarian thinks
it was caused by all the death and horrors he’d seen.

He wrote far more music than that which exists and had planned to
write an opera. Much of what he’d written was destroyed, she says. "His
legacy went into obscurity. What’s left of his songs resonates in the
Armenian psyche. He seemed to capture the essence of Armenian music
and for survivors, it seems to enforce in us the function of hanging
on to our identity and our past."

His music isn’t complicated, Bayrakdarian adds. "They’re folk
songs, but very unique — about love, nature, children. We haven’t
reinterpreted them."

Her favourite piece of all is a children’s prayer with its haunting
melody. "It was the last piece he wrote."

MUSIC REVIEW: ISABEL BAYRAKDARIAN AT HERBST
Joshua Kosman, [email protected]

San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, October 6, 2008
USA

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many conservatory-trained
composers turned to their native folk traditions for inspiration,
collecting songs and dance melodies from the countryside and recasting
them in classical form. Bartok is the best-known example, but another
was the Armenian priest Gomidas Vartabed, whose music formed the
centerpiece of Saturday night’s transfixing recital by soprano Isabel
Bayrakdarian.

During the years before and after 1900, Gomidas (whose name is
sometimes transliterated as Komitas) assembled a large body of
traditional Armenian songs and arranged them for choir or solo voice
with piano accompaniment. They cover the gamut of folk expression,
from lullabies and love songs to moody reveries and vivacious jokes,
and to the unfamiliar listener they sound both comfortable and strange.

Bayrakdarian, the brilliant Armenian Canadian singer who has shone
here in music by Mahler, Handel and Jake Heggie, has made a project
of Gomidas’ songs in partnership with her husband, pianist Serouj
Kradjian. Saturday’s program, presented in Herbst Theatre by San
Francisco Performances, was a wondrous showcase for singer and
composer alike.

Accompanying Bayrakdarian was the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, an
excellent string ensemble conducted with crispiness and verve by Anne
Manson. Kradjian was on hand as a piano soloist for some numbers,
and Hampic Djabourian played the duduk, a traditional Armenian
double-reed instrument whose deep, mellow sound is like that of a
bassoon on Quaaludes.

But the evening’s main focus was Bayrakdarian herself, whose vivid,
dark-hued tone and sumptuous phrasing imbued every piece of music with
warmth and urgency. Her singing reached great heights of oratorical
splendor when necessary, but the simplicity of some of the more
straightforward songs was equally touching.

What’s striking about this material is how unpredictably the musical
elements go in and out of sync with Western expectations. Some of the
numbers, like the tiny "Song of the Partridge," are uncomplicated
ditties that draw on the same tonal harmonies of any European folk
song. Others venture off into distinctive melodic scales, as in the
"Lullaby," or unusual metric patterns, as in "Without a Home."

Kradjian’s arrangements of the songs for string orchestra are superbly
resourceful – sometimes answering the music’s twists and turns
with surprises of his own, sometimes content to serve as backdrop
to Bayrakdarian’s lustrous vocal turns. In one of the more overtly
dramatic songs, "The Crane," he inserted an eloquent solo for the
concertmaster, beautifully delivered by violinist Karl Stobbe.

Gomidas’ music represented the main body of work on the
program, but there were other offerings too that complemented it
nicely. Bayrakdarian delivered a majestic account of Ravel’s "Two
Hebrew Melodies," and Manson led the orchestra in three handsomely
varied sets of ethnomusicological dances.

Bartok’s "Romanian Folk Dances," arranged by Arthur Willner, led
off the evening in a spirited reading. They were followed later by a
set of "Greek Dances" by Nikos Skalkottas and, after intermission,
by the central movement of Gideon Klein’s "Partita for Strings"
(an arrangement of his String Trio), which is based on a Moravian
folk song.

OFFICIAL BAKU INSISTS ON PACE MISSION’S VISITING OCCUPIED LANDS THROUGH AZERBAIJAN

Trend News Agency
06.10.08 11:56
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, 6 October/ TrendCapital, corr J. Babayeva/ Official
Baku insists on PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe)
mission’s visiting Azerbaijani lands occupied by Armenia through
Azerbaijan’s territory.

"Azerbaijan insists on PACE cultural heritage mission’s visiting
occupied lands through Azerbaijan’s territory as this territory is a
constituent part of Azerbaijan," Abulfaz Garayev, minister of culture
and tourism of Azerbaijan said to journalists.

Official Baku insists on simultaneous arrival of a mission in an
equal composition. This is indispensable condition of Azerbaijan,
minister said.

Azerbaijan has proposed PACE to send its cultural heritage mission
to the occupied lands to study the conditions of historical and
cultural monuments.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began in
1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenia
has occupied 20% of Azerbaijan’s lands including Nagorno-Karabakh and
surrounding seven regions. The occupation began in 1988. Azerbaijan
lost the Nagorno-Karabakh, except of Shusha and Khojali, in December
1991. In 1992-93, Armenian Armed Forces occupied Shusha, Khojali and
Nagorno-Karabakh’s seven surrounding regions. In 1994, Azerbaijan
and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active
hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia,
France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful, but fruitless
negotiations.

Visiting region at different times can lead to distortion of facts,
he said.

Azerbaijan has already submitted the mission a list of monuments that
were subject to destruction. "Armenia offers a different list. There
are no facts of destruction of Armenian monuments in Azerbaijani
territory. We offer to study both lists," minister said.

ON THE SCRAP HEAP: HISTORY
By Roger Alford

Kentucky.com
Mon, Oct. 06, 2008
KY

FRANKFORT — Gene Ray cringes at the irreverence of thieves who would
steal historical markers to sell as scrap metal.

Ray, a great-great-great-great-great grandson of famed frontiersman
Daniel Boone, is calling for tougher sentences for people caught
plundering the bronze, brass, copper and aluminum plaques displayed
across the country to commemorate places of historical significance.

The issue arose after a man was sentenced in August to only four
months in jail for stealing a $10,000 plaque marking the original
Missouri burial site for Boone. Cut into pieces, the Boone marker
sold as scrap for less than $100.

"We were all just horrified," said Ray, an Atlanta resident. "That this
would happen, especially to someone of such historical significance,
infuriated many of us."

In the Western Kentucky city of Henderson, investigators are trying
to find out who took a cast aluminum marker that stood in front of
the onetime home of Gov. Augustus Owsley Stanley, who was elected in
1915. The newly refurbished marker disappeared about two months ago,
said Ronnie Browning, a superintendent in the state transportation
office in Madisonville.

In California, thieves stole a 160-pound bronze plaque last year
from the base of San Francisco’s Mount Davidson Cross. The plaque
honored victims of Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1918. Police notified
recycling plants in the San Francisco area to be on the lookout for the
marker. So far, it hasn’t been found. The Council of Armenian American
Organizations of Northern California paid $11,000 for a new marker.

Browning said the markers make easy targets for thieves because they’re
accessible and can be easily ripped from their posts or foundations. He
said he is convinced metal salvagers took the 60-pound aluminum marker
commemorating Gov. Stanley. Though such markers cost more than $2,000
to make, Browning said they probably would fetch relatively little
cash at scrap yards.

Copper was bringing $2.25 per pound on Friday at Baker Iron & Metal
Co. in Lexington. Aluminum, depending on its quality, was bringing
43 cents to 55 cents a pound. Copper alloys like brass and bronze
were just over $1 a pound.

Prices have been declining in recent months, said Bob Garino,
commodities director for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries
Inc. in Washington.

"We’re seeing some lows that we really haven’t seen in quite some
time," he said.

Garino said wholesale prices for copper have fallen since September
from $3.15 a pound to $2.65 a pound, and aluminum is down from $1.17
to $1.04. He said the prices still are higher than five years ago,
when the average price for copper was 80 cents a pound and aluminum
was 65 cents a pound.

Cashing in with stolen scrap is risky in Kentucky and more than 30
other states where legislators have passed laws in recent years
requiring recyclers to notify police if they suspect someone has
dropped off stolen metal.

State Rep. Mike Denham, D-Maysville, said he thinks Kentucky’s law,
which went into effect July 15, has discouraged metal theft. The law
requires scrap dealers to record the names and addresses of people
who cash in recyclable metals.

Utility companies had pushed for the new law primarily to combat the
theft of copper, which has been stolen from power and telephone lines,
electrical substations and construction sites. Its ramifications
reach beyond copper wire to bronze grave markers, urns and flag
holders that can be melted down for quick cash.

Jerry Raisor, curator at Fort Boonesborough in Madison County,
said all kinds of monuments, even statues, are at risk of being
destroyed. Raisor said judges need to be tough with people who plunder
anything of historic value.

"It’s pretty pathetic," he said. "These are national treasures

MCCAIN AVOIDS SPEAKING ABOUT GENOCIDE

AZG Armenian Daily
07/10/2008

Armenia-USA

Senator John McCain addressed the Armenian community of the
United States looking for their support in his presidential
campaign. Nevertheless in his message he failed to express his point of
view regarding certain issues that are most important to the Armenians
of Diapsora.

The Senator appreciated the Armenians’ contribution to the development
of the American society, their support to the coalition actions in
Iraq and to the peacemaking mission in Kosovo.

The Presidential candidate avoided speaking anything about Karabakh,
Armenia’s blockade by Azerbaijan and Turkey, and Armenia-USA
relations. With a specific American "politically correct" manner he
mentioned the "great tragedy" which suffered the Armenian people,
omitting such terms as "genocide", "Ottoman Empire" or even "Republic
of Turkey".