Month: October 2008

US DIPLOMAT RULES OUT MILITARY SOLUTION FOR KARABAKH CONFLICT

Mediamax
Oct 17 2008
Armenia

Yerevan, 17 October: US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried
stated in Yerevan today that the "Azerbaijani leadership very well
knows that a military solution to Karabakh conflict is impossible".

Mediamax reports that, speaking at a briefing in Yerevan today, the US
diplomat noted that August events in Georgia once again demonstrated
the destructive nature of efforts to solve conflict situations with
the use of force.

Commenting on the recent statement of OSCE Minsk Group US Co-Chair
Matthew Bryza, US Assistant Secretary of State stated that "yes, we
have said that the settlement of Karabakh conflict should start from
the principle of respecting the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,
but we have never said that this principle is the only one".

"There are other internationally recognized principles as well,
including the right for self-determination", Daniel Fried stated.

According to him, the "reconciling" of those principles is a difficult
task, however in the course of the recent years the sides have managed
to reach real progress at the mediation of OSCE Minsk Group. The US
diplomat stated that the US side intends to continue working within the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmanship format together with its colleagues
from Russia and France.

DIASPORA LEADER CONCERNED ABOUT PROSPECTS FOR ARMENIAN ECONOMY

Mediamax
Oct 17 2008
Armenia

Yerevan, 17 October: President of the Union of Russia’s Armenians (URA)
and the World Armenian Congress (WAC) Ara Abramyan expressed concern
today in connection with the possible influence of the international
financial crisis on Armenia.

Mediamax reports that, speaking at a news conference in Yerevan today,
he stated that the crisis, which has hit the USA and EU countries,
may not avoid influencing Armenia.

"We should pay more attention and make more efforts, since the
situation is really complex," Abramyan stated.

URA and WAC president admitted that as to many issues he is not
concordant with the policy, realized by Armenian authorities, and is
not content by the economic situation in Armenia. He spoke for stirring
up the process of attracting foreign and Russian investments into
the Armenian economy and expressed readiness to invest 150m dollars
and create new jobs. In particular, he meant the construction of a
hotel in Yerevan and a cannery in Vayots Dzor marz.

TABOO-FREE TURKISH WOMEN WRITERS STRIVE TO ACHIEVE EQUALITY
by Aurelia End

Agence France Presse
October 17, 2008 Friday 1:12 PM GMT

"Of course Turkish women are stronger than men," says Perihan Magden
with a laugh. Like her, many Turkish women writers provoke the wrath
of officials with uncompromising works.

"I’m the national bitch anyway in Turkey. I think they just want me
to shut up," she told AFP at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Silence obviously does not sit well however with the small woman in
her late forties, who was dressed simply in black and had tied her
hair up in a quick knot.

Asked about freedom of expression, persecution of Armenians and
the situation of the Kurdish minority, she launches into animated
discourse underscored by lots of gesturing.

She also quickly forgets to speak about her book "Two Girls" that
has been translated into German, which describes the tumultuous love
affairs of two Turkish adolescents.

In Turkey, Magden is as well known for her novels as for her commentary
in leftist media.

In late 2005, she took up the defence of an imprisoned conscientious
objector and was taken to court by the army as a result.

Booed by the public during her trial, she was nonetheless acquitted,
though several legal procedures are still ongoing.

Magden now has trouble hiding lassitude in the face of what she said
is chronic harassment.

The former communist militant, "I would even say I was Soviet," would
like to send her daughter to study in the United States "because in
Turkey it can be very claustrophobic."

While Magden has been attacked for her views on military service,
novelist Elif Shafak drew unwanted attention for comments made by
figures in her books on what Armenians charge is genocide by the
Ottoman Empire, a highly disputed subject in Turkey.

Armenia has campaigned for the the recognition of the mass killings
of Armenians during World War I as genocide.

Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000-500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops.

Shafak was prosecuted under Turkish law that prohibits "defamation"
of the state, but was also cleared of the charges.

The academic who was born in France now wants to turn the page.

"I am too often assimilated" with the issue, she said in an interview
published Thursday by the German magazine Stern.

On the other hand, Shafak remains a staunch feminist. "We don’t
say enough about the history of women. History is always written by
men. Religion was written by men," she said.

Another Turkish writer, Fethiye Cetin also takes aim at taboos,
raising a fuss in the process.

In her novel "My Grandmother’s Book", a best seller in Turkey according
to the publisher, the human rights activist searches for Armenian and
Christian roots that had long been hidden from her by her own family.

Cetin, also a lawyer who represents the family of Hrant Dink, a
journalist of Armenian origin killed last year, tells the story of
how her grandmother escaped the early 20th century slaughter.

Invited to the stand sponsored by Germany’s Green party, she insisted:
"You cannot bury the past. It always rises back to the surface!"

KARABAKH SOLUTION NEEDED ‘AS SOON AS POSSIBLE’: US

Agence France Presse
October 17, 2008 Friday 5:11 PM GMT

Armenia and Azerbaijan need to resolve their conflict over the
breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh "as soon as possible" following
August’s war in neighbouring Georgia, a senior US envoy said Friday.

US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told reporters on a visit
to the Armenian capital Yerevan that the war between Georgia and Russia
had highlighted the dangers of unresolved conflicts in the region.

"We need to solve regional problems," he said. "We need to push for
a solution (to the Karabakh dispute) as soon as possible."

Fried said negotiations over Karabakh should continue through the Minsk
Group, which is under the auspices of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe and heads efforts to find a solution to
the conflict.

The group is co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.

Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in a tense stand-off over Karabakh,
which ethnic Armenian forces seized in the early 1990s in a war that
killed nearly 30,000 people and forced another million on both sides
to flee their homes.

A ceasefire was signed between the two former Soviet republics in
1994 but the dispute remains unresolved after more than a decade of
negotiations, and shootings between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces
in the region are common.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN NSC SECRETARY TO VISIT IRAN

Moj News Agency
October 18, 2008 Saturday
Iran

Secretary of the Armenian National Security Council Atrur Baghdassaryan
will pay a formal visit to Iran, the Republic of Armenia leader’s press
office reported. The agreement was achieved during a meeting between
Artur Baghdassaryan and Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Ali Saqaiyan. The
agenda of the visit includes a wide scope of issues referring to
bilateral relations, regional cooperation and security. 2008/10/18

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA HAILED RAIL LINK WITH IRAN

Moj News Agency
October 18, 2008 Saturday
Iran

The governments of the two countries have been discussing ways of
implementing it but have yet to reach final agreements. The lack
of a rail link between them is seen as a major hindrance to the
development of Armenian-Iranian commercial ties as well as the use
of Iranian territory in Armenia’s transport communication with the
outside world. Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian announced earlier
this month that work on the railway will get underway "in the coming
months," saying that this and other large-scale infrastructure projects
are vital for Armenia’s economic development.

But he said nothing about the likely cost of the construction and its
sources of funding. Sarksian likewise avoided commenting on these
specifics, saying only that the project has reached "the phase of
active studies" and that its implementation is a matter of time. He
said the Armenian government is currently considering three potential
routes of the Armenian section of the would-be railway. "After choosing
one of those variants we could switch to engineering design and cost
calculation, which will make construction possible," Sargsian told
RFE/RL in an interview. In any case, he said, the railway will be
approximately 400 kilometers long and will pass through Armenia’s
mountainous Syunik region bordering Iran. Citing Syunik’s difficult
landscape, economic analysts say building the railway would cost
Armenia at least $1 billion, a figure equivalent to about 40 percent
of its state budget for this year. Some have wondered if the project
is feasible at all. "We can not come up with concrete estimates today
because they would be meaningless without feasibility study documents,"
said Sargsian. "But obviously it will be an expensive project. In
terms of funding, we have a number of options." In his words, one
such option is to set up a consortium with Iran and Russia, whose
state-run rail company took over long-term management of Armenia’s
entire rail network earlier this year. He added that international
finance institutions such as the World Bank and the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development have also expressed interest in
partly financing the Iran-Armenia railway.

WOMAN SETS HERSELF AFIRE ON THREAT TO DEPORT PARTNER FROM FRANCE

Agence France Presse
October 18, 2008 Saturday 5:49 PM GMT

A woman suffered serious burns Saturday after setting herself on fire
to protest threats to repatriate her partner from France to Armenia,
police said.

Josiane Nardi, 60, was being treated for third-degree burns at a
hospital in Tours, central France, after dousing herself with a
flammable liquid in front of a detention centre in nearby Le Mans,
regional officials said.

"We are very worried about her state of health," regional administrator
Michel Camux told reporters.

Nardi had arranged to meet local media about the fate of her
companion. But they said they were unaware of her intention to set
herself alight and unable to prevent her from doing so.

One reporter was taken to hospital suffering from shock, another with
slight burns to a hand.

"She took out a bottle of alcohol, and when we approached her, it
was too late," said a witness.

An illegal immigrant, Nardi’s 31-year-old partner Henrik Grujyan had
been serving a two-year jail sentence for different crimes before
being transferred Saturday to a pre-deportation centre.

His expulsion has been delayed by at least 48 hours owing to Nardi’s
action.

NEW FILM FOLLOWS A WITNESS TO HISTORY US AMBASSADOR REPORTED GENOCIDE OF THE ARMENIANS
by Leslie Brokaw

The Boston Globe
October 19, 2008 Sunday

New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is the man best known
for the criminal case he built against Tyco International CEO Dennis
Kozlowski, who was convicted in 2005 of stealing $150 million from
the global manufacturing firm.

After the decision, Morgenthau wrote, "This verdict is an endorsement
of the principle of equal justice under the law. Crimes committed in
corporate offices will be treated according to the same standards as
other crimes."

The concept of equal justice is hardwired into the Morgenthau
bloodline. His grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was the US ambassador to
the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, and in that role he was witness
to the rise of nationalism in Turkey and the deportation and massacre
of Armenians. Henry Morgenthau brought news of the genocide to the US
government, which declined to get involved. He published his accounts
in 1918 as "Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story" and dedicated himself to
providing privately funded resettlement help to Armenian and Greek
orphans and other refugees.

Morgenthau is a hero in the Armenian community, and his story has
been given a new telling in the documentary "The Morgenthau Story,"
by Peabody filmmaker Apo Torosyan.

Torosyan is a native of Istanbul whose father was Armenian and whose
mother was Greek. He came to Boston in 1968 and launched a visual
design company; he sold the company in 1987 and devoted his full
attention to art – drawing and painting first, then multimedia. He
pulled from his family history: his grandparents, who starved during
the Armenian genocide; his father, who as a 5-year-old child had to
look through garbage cans for food.

In 2003, Torosyan picked up a camera. He visited Edincik, a Turkish
village where his father grew up, and made his first movie, "My
Father’s Village." "Voices" and "Witnesses" followed; both are
collections of interviews with Armenian survivors.

That brought him to Henry Morgenthau’s story, one of the few bright
lights in a sea of darkness.

Interviewed in the 56-minute film are Henry Morgenthau III, born in
1917 and the grandson of Ambassador Morgenthau. He’s a television
producer who spent the later part of his career at WGBH-TV. District
Attorney Robert Morgenthau also appears, as well as Dr. Pamela Steiner,
the ambassador’s great-granddaughter and a senior fellow at the Harvard
Humanitarian Initiative and project director of HHI’s Inter-Communal
Violence and Reconciliation Project, where she focuses on improving
the relationship between Turkish and Armenian populations.

Last month, Torosyan traveled to Athens for the world premiere of
his film at the Cultural Center of Constantinopolitans.

"I felt on top of the world," says Torosyan of the trip. Over 200
people attended the gathering, which included discussions about
Morgenthau and about current reconciliation efforts.

"I told the crowd how proud I was with my Turkish and Kurdish friends,"
he says. Their ancestors may have killed his, but people today are
open to talking about the injustice. "Let us hope and not hate."

"The Morgenthau Story" will screen at a half dozen venues in the
region over the next month including Salem State College on Monday
and Endicott College, in Beverly, on Friday; the National Association
for Armenian Studies and Research, in Belmont, on Nov. 6; and Studio
Cinema, in Belmont, on Nov. 10. Visit

NETWORKING EVENT: The Massachusetts Production Coalition holds its
Fall Member Meeting on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Boston University
Photonics Center on St. Mary’s Street. The program includes a
legislative update from state film office executive director Nick
Paleologos and IATSE local 481 manager Chris O’Donnell, a presentation
about the state tax credit by Powderhouse Productions president Tug
Yourgrau, and production insurance info from Jerome Guerard. Details
are at

SILVA ON SCREEN: A lot of the time, Jeff Daniel Silva is on the
planning side of film events: He curates the Balagan Film Series that’s
held at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. But Silva is a filmmaker, too,
and the region is finally getting to see what audiences at MoMA in
New York City got to view last February: his latest work.

"Balkan Rhapsodies" will be at the Harvard Film Archive tomorrow
at 7 p.m., with Silva attending. He’ll also present footage from
a work-in-process.

Silva says he was the first US citizen to visit Serbia in the weeks
after the NATO bombing campaign in 1999. The people he met there,
he says, were caught between a rock and a hard place: a government
they didn’t like and bombs that were not making their lives any easier.

The subtitle of his film is "78 Measures of War," a reference to the
78 days of bombings. For more details, call 617-495-4700 or visit

CONVERSATIONS WITH: Mel Stuart, director of the original "Willy Wonka
& the Chocolate Factory," will be at the BU Cinematheque on Thursday
and Friday at 7 both evenings. The talk will be politics, however, not
chocolate. Thursday he’ll be presenting his "Making of the President
1960" (1963), which looked at John Kennedy’s victory over Richard
Nixon, and Friday he’ll be presenting his "Making of the President
1968" (1969), which documented Robert Kennedy’s assassination, the
Chicago riots, and marches against the war in Vietnam. That’s at the
BU College of Communication at 640 Commonwealth Avenue, Room B-05.

German filmmaker Doris Dorrie will be at the Museum of Fine Arts
on Friday and next Sunday, the Wasserman Cinematheque at Brandeis
University on Saturday, and the Goethe-Institut Boston on Oct. 28
as part of a partial retrospective of her work presented by the
institute. Included are a collection of her comedies and relationship
films from 1985 through this year. Details are at

SCREENING OF NOTE: The Coolidge Corner Theatre’s Europe’s Grand Opera
series, which presents high definition versions of current productions,
usually meets just once a month on a Sunday morning, but this week
there are two chances to see the featured show: "La Traviata" plays
this morning at 11 a.m. and again tomorrow at 7 p.m. The series
is co-presented by Boston Lyric Opera. Call 617-734-2500 or go to

ARMENIANS’ TIES TO TRASH HAULING ARE DEEP-ROOTED
By Amanda Baumfeld

San Gabriel Valley Tribune
October 19, 2008 Sunday
California

MONTEBELLO – For a portion of the Armenian community, trash hauling
is a serious family business with deep roots in the past.

Most of the city’s independent haulers took over rubbish and trash
yards that their ancestors started when they migrated to the city
more than 100 years ago.

Their roots and their ties to family and employees run deep.

Many of these men and women attended Montebello High School. They
attend church in the city, eat at local restaurants. And, most
importantly, they pick up trash.

Like most haulers, Aron Petrosian has much pride in the family
business.

"Few people really know about the industry," Petrosian said. "I was
always proud of my father being a trash man and some people would
laugh about it. But all these small haulers are part of the community
and we have such a dramatic impact on Montebello."

But some haulers like Petrosian say their livelihood is in jeopardy
over an exclusive trash hauling contract their hometown recently
signed with Athens Services.

The 15-year agreement, worth $7.8million annually, grants Athens
exclusive rights to all trash hauling in the city. It phases out
contracts with the 13 independent haulers who currently collect trash
in commercial areas.

The issue has divided many in the city with trash haulers fighting
for a shot at bidding on the same contract that was granted to Athens.

The division stings, because Athens’ owners, the Arakelian family,
sprang from the same roots.

"This has turned out to be Athens verses these independent haulers,"
said Musid Minasian, an Armenian resident. "None of these guys have
disrespect towards Athens. Athens is trying to put themselves in front
of the Armenian community and they are trying to take someone’s roots
away from them."

The Arakelians did not comment for this story.

Many of Montebello’s Armenian families belong to the Holy Cross
Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Montebello.

One man inside the church, who only referred to himself as Carl,
explained how divisive the issue has become in recent weeks.

"Both sides belong to the church," Carl said. "They are very good
people. The Arakelians are a great family."

The Armenian community’s strong ties to the trash industry began in
the early 20th century.

For example, Denise Hagopian, owner of Heavenly Choices, recalled
how her grandfather immigrated to Los Angeles in 1906. He worked as
a laborer and eventually became a farmer raising hogs and chickens.

"The first rubbish was picking up leftover food from a restaurant
to feed to the cattle," said Hagopian. "They would pick up all the
leftovers, that’s how rubbish hauling started."

Then packaged food began appearing in the early 1940s along with
paper plates, plastic silverware and that created more rubbish,
said Hagopian.

"Already having a route picking up rubbish, they picked up the
next things," Hagopian said. "It was just a natural progression
of business."

Petrosian, of Commercial Waste Services, says his family businesses
started with raising hogs. As a fourth generation resident, he has
formed many relationships in the city.

"Our social circle is in Montebello; that’s our community," Petrosian
said. "Me and the rest of the haulers, we all have relatives here
and central ties in the city."

Jack Topalian of Nasa Services said he believes Montebello’s entire
economy will suffer if the traditional trash haulers no longer did
business in town.

"Just the local business that we do," Topalian said. "We do a lot
with local auto shops, the fuel we purchase; there would definitely
be a major trickle down effect that would happen."

Despite the recent debate, many in the Armenian community remain
hopeful that they will be able to stay close to their Montebello roots.

"It’s the most precious thing to the Armenians to maintain their
culture," Hagopian said. "But if you don’t have business in the city
you have to move and you lose those bonds that are hundreds of years
old. What a terrible thing to lose."

KEENE STATE GENOCIDE AWARENESS LECTURE: ‘GENOCIDES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE’

Targeted News Service
October 20, 2008 Monday 7:47 AM EST

Keene State College issued the following news release:

Professor Donald Bloxham will give Keene State College Cohen Center for
Holocaust Studies’ 2nd Annual Genocide Awareness Lecture: "Genocides
in Comparative Perspective: Does the Holocaust Fit?" on Monday,
October 27. The lecture is free and open to the public and will
start at 7:30 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room of Keene State College’s
L. P. Young Student Center.

An expert in Holocaust and genocide studies, with focused work on
the Armenian genocide, Bloxham is professor of modern history at
the University of Edinburgh and has authored nearly 50 articles and
book chapters. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of
Genocide and serves on the editorial board of the journals Holocaust
Studies, Patterns of Prejudice, and the Journal of Genocide Research.

Professor Bloxham was the 2007-08 J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro
Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, where he completed his forthcoming book, The Final Solution:
A Genocide and Its Contexts. He is the recipient of the 2007 Raphael
Lemkin Award for genocide scholarship.

The Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies, recognized as a "center of
excellence" by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, has a strong
collection of print and media resources, holds a biennial residential
summer institute for educators, and supports a minor in Holocaust
studies at Keene State College.

One of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers, it is a
nonsectarian organization dedicated to teaching the lessons of the
Holocaust. It fulfills founder Dr. Charles Hildebrandt’s charge,
"to remember … and to teach," through annual community programming
and educational outreach activities.

For a schedule of workshops, in-service training, classroom
presentations, and individual curriculum consultations, visit
For more information, contact Margaret Barney,
[email protected], or call the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies
at 603-358-2490.