Month: February 2015

GURGEN YEGHIAZARYAN COMPARES NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WITH APPENDIX

17:35 27/02/2015 >> POLITICS

The position of Armenia’s National Security Council chairman has
been vacant for about nine months now, and this situation is just
disgraceful, Gurgen Yeghiazaryan, former deputy head of the National
Security Service, told reporters on Friday.

In his words, Armenia absolutely does not need the National Security
Council. He compared this organization with an appendix.

Referring to Armenia’s domestic political developments, Yeghiazaryan
said that the March 1 rally will be a kind of a test.

ZHOGHOVURD: PROSPEROUS ARMENIA CONGRESS TO BE CLOSED-DOOR

11:46 27/02/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

The upcoming special congress of Prosperous Armenia Party, due on
March 5, will be held behind closed doors, Zhoghovurd writes.

“The reason behind this decision is that the party’s elite fears that
the situation may become uncontrollable because after the latest
events, the party’s activists are very upset and they will try to
get an explanation from Gagik Tsarukyan,” the newspaper says.

From: A. Papazian

ZHOGHOVURD: SERIOUS VIOLATIONS REVEALED IN AKHTALA MINE ENRICHMENT PLANT

11:28 27/02/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

Armenia’s Ministry of Nature Protection has recently conducted checks
at Akhtala Mine Enrichment Plant, according to Zhoghovurd daily.

Serious violations have been revealed, the newspaper’s sources say.

The Ministry confirmed this report to the newspaper, but did not give
any details.

Source: Panorama.am

IRAVUNK: ZURABYAN TRIES TO PREVENT OUTFLOW OF YOUTH TO PASHINYAN-LED UNION

11:09 27/02/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

Levon Zurabyan is turning himself inside out to prevent the outflow
of youth from the party to Nikol Pashinyan-led Civil Contract union,
Iravunk writes. Reportedly, he shows the youth compromising evidence
concerning Pashinyan, who was an active player in Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s
team in 2008.

Source: Panorama.am

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HRAPARAK: VARTAN OSKANIAN TO WITHDRAW FROM PROSPEROUS ARMENIA

10:11 27/02/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

Mass withdrawals from Prosperous Armenia Party are gaining a new
momentum. According to Hraparak newspaper, MPs Rustam Gasparyan, Martun
Grigoryan and Arshak Mkhitaryan will leave the party’s faction soon.

Former Foreign Minister, MP Vartan Oskanian has told his inner circle
that he plans to renounce his mandate and quit Prosperous Armenia,
the daily adds.

WORLD-FAMOUS PAINTER TO JOIN URI ENSEMBLE IN COMMEMORATING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

US Fed News
February 24, 2015 Tuesday 8:42 AM EST

KINGSTON, R.I., Feb. 24 — The University of Rhode Island issued the
following news release:

Painting is usually a solitary craft, pursued in a quiet studio or
loft. World-famous artist Kevork Mourad paints in a public setting –
and to music.

Mourad will bring his unique style to the University of Rhode Island
March 1 during a concert to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide.

The Syrian-raised artist will paint to music performed by URI’s
Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the Armenian Folk Chamber Ensemble. The
concert, conducted by Gene Pollart, will start at 3 p.m. in the Fine
Arts Center.

“Kevork is a world-class artist and the opportunity to see him perform
at URI is unprecedented,” says Theodore Mook, publicity coordinator
and a cello teacher in the music department. “Also, we’re honoring
a terrible historical event that gets overlooked.”

Raised in Syria and of Armenian origin, Mourad, who lives and works
in New York, is known for spontaneously painting to music on a public
stage. His paintings are also exhibited in galleries and museums
throughout the world.

He is a teaching artist with cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road project
and has performed at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Brooklyn
Museum of Art, the Chelsea Museum of Art, Le Festival du Monde Arabe
in Montreal, the Stillwater Festival, the Nara Museum in Japan, the
Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central
Park’s Summerstage with the Silk Road Ensemble and Bobby McFerrin.

Mourad will paint during the entire concert at URI, and his work
will be projected on a screen while he paints. His paintings will be
displayed later in the Fine Arts Gallery.

The first half of the concert will feature the Armenian chamber
ensemble, a seven-member New England group that performs traditional
Armenian songs.

In the second half, the URI ensemble will perform the world premiere
of “Wind Chimes for 1915,” composed by Kenneth Kalajian, of East
Greenwich, whose son, Charles, is a graduate student in conducting
at URI. (Charles, as well as Kenneth’s other son, John, will perform
with the Armenian ensemble, as will Kenneth.)

“It’s an honor to have the Symphonic Wind Ensemble perform the world
premiere of my piece,” says the elder Kalajian. “Just as the wind
is eternal, it gently breaks the darkness of the past and forever
propels the memory of our ancestors.”

The wind ensemble will also perform Frenergy by John Estacio, Amazing
Grace by Frank Ticheli, Armenian Dances by Alfred Reed and Puszta by
Jan Van der Roost.

Pauline Getzoyan, of Lincoln, and Kenneth’s wife, Esther, approached
the music department about having a concert to commemorate the
genocide. Pauline and Esther are teaching an honor’s seminar at URI
about Armenian history.

Between 1915 and 1918, up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman authorities in what is now eastern Turkey. Many Armenian
men were arrested and killed, and women and children perished during
forced marches to the Syrian desert.

The massacre was carried out during and after World War I amid fears
that Christian Armenians in the Muslim Ottoman Empire were a threat
to the state for allegedly siding with the Russians, at war with
the Turks.

OSCE AND UNISON NGO PRESENT REPORT ON ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION IN ARMENIA FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

States News Service
February 24, 2015 Tuesday

YEREVAN

The following information was released by the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE):

The findings and recommendations of an OSCE-supported survey exploring
the main obstacles encountered by people with disabilities in accessing
Armenia’s higher education system, was presented today in Yerevan.

The report commissioned by the OSCE Office in Yerevan was produced
by the Unison NGO that supports people with special needs. It
provides comprehensive statistical data and focuses on physical
and programmatic, as well as the academic inclusiveness of higher
education.

“The report is a good example of innovative thinking. It analyses
the system of higher education from the perspective of students with
special needs. The report’s recommendations and the effort invested
are positive steps toward increasing the integrity of higher education
in Armenia,” said Oliver McCoy, Democratization Programme Officer at
the OSCE Office in Yerevan.

The report finds that only one of the 29 higher education institutions
surveyed is physically accessible to people with mobility issues. The
majority of universities think that inclusiveness of higher education
should be guaranteed only to young people with mobility, sight,
hearing, speaking or general disabilities, excluding those with mental
issues. There are no set mechanisms within universities to adapt the
educational process to the needs of people with disabilities. It is
only the good will of faculty members and fellow students to make
the learning process favourable to disabled students, the report notes.

Armen Alaverdyan, Executive Director of the Unison NGO, said: “The
survey outcomes show that Armenian universities mostly lack inclusive
policies, facilities and academic programmes for students with
disabilities. I strongly believe we should fill this gap by heavily
promoting equal opportunities to get a decent education in Armenia.”

The survey is based on opinions of students with and without
disabilities, administrative and academic staff of higher education
institutions and young persons with disabilities, as well as the
general public. Twenty-nine universities in Yerevan, Gyumri and
Vanadzor were included in the survey which was conducted during
September-November 2014.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT RECEIVES CREDENTIALS OF QATAR’S AMBASSADOR

Qatar News Agency
February 24, 2015 Tuesday 12:48 PM EST

Yerevan, February 24 (QNA) – Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on
Tuesday received the credentials of HE Ali bin Hamad Al Sulaiti as
Qatar’s non-resident ambassador to Armenia.

During the credentials presentation ceremony, held at the presidential
palace, HE the ambassador conveyed to the Armenian president greetings
of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani as well as his wishes
of welfare to the president and the friendly Armenian people.

The ambassador stressed that he won’t spare any effort to enhance
friendship and cooperation ties between the two countries on all
fronts.

For his part, the Armenian president expressed his appreciation and
sincere greetings and wishes of health and happiness to HH the Emir
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and the people of Qatar. He wished
success for Ambassador Al Sulaiti in his post and more development
and growth to relations between the two countries, stressing that HE
the ambassador will receive the best care and attention. (QNA)

A M,OM

ANZAC VOICE: A SOLDIER’S RECORDING LIVES ON AT THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL NEARLY A CENTURY AFTER HIS DEATH

ABC Regional News (Australia)
February 24, 2015 Tuesday 1:18 PM AEST

by Louise Maher

The voice of a young Anzac who was killed in France in 1916 lives on
in a recorded message he sent his family for Christmas.

Twenty-four-year-old Private Henry Miller Lanser recorded his letter
on a hand pressed shellac disc in late 1914 or early 1915 at the
Cairo studio of Armenian businessman Setrak Mechian.

He was training in Egypt with the First Australian Infantry Battalion
in the lead up to the Gallipoli landing.

Lanser’s disc ‘the only one of its kind’

Concept leader for the development of the new World War I galleries
at the Australian War Memorial (AWM), Nick Fletcher, said the private
wished his family “good luck” during the recording.

“He speaks very much as though he were in the room with the family,”
Mr Fletcher said.

“He speaks quite clearly, which is nice, but there’s none of that
informality that you would get in a modern recording.”

Private Lanser began his three-and-a-half minute recorded letter by
greeting his “dear” mother and father, and Ethel, Beattie and Basil.

“This is rather a novelty to come to Australia this way,” he said.

“But here I am, can’t see and can’t be seen or welcomed in the usual
way with a hug or a kiss.”

He spoke about the training which was getting “heavier every day”
and wished his family “a real, jolly good Christmas”.

He signed off with “goodbye and good luck”.

The Lanser disc is the only known recorded letter made by an Australian
soldier during WWI and is believed to be the only one of its kind in
the world.

A missing chunk indicates it may have been dropped at some time.

But the AWM has been able to copy the original recording from the
metal master disc, which had also been sent to Private Lanser’s family.

Listening to a legendary figure in history

Private Lanser enlisted in Sydney in September 1914, just weeks after
the war was declared.

He was wounded twice at Gallipoli but made a full recovery, and was
eventually promoted to Second Lieutenant and sent to fight in France.

He was killed in action on the Western Front in November 1916, mowed
down by German gunfire in the mud of the Somme.

After Lanser’s death, Mr Fletcher said, the sound of his recorded
voice would have been, for his loved ones, both a consolation and,
at times “a terrible thing to suffer through”.

“You would think that as the years passed, particularly for his
parents, it must have become a more and more treasured possession,”
Mr Fletcher said.

“Through his voice we can get so close to [Henry] Miller.

“We feel like we know him because we’ve heard him speaking.

“To listen to the voice of a man who wasn’t yet aware that he was
going to become an Anzac, one of the sort of legendary figures of
Australian history, is an astonishing thing, I think.”

HISTORY RISKS REPEATING ITSELF AS OBAMA TIPTOES AROUND ISIS THREAT

The Oakland Press
Feb 25 2015

In this Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014, photo, released by the U.S. Air
Force, a pair of U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle flies over northern Iraq,
after conducting airstrikes in Syria. U.S.-led coalition warplanes
bombed oil installations and other facilities in territory controlled
by Islamic State militants in eastern Syria on Friday, Sept. 26, 2014,
taking aim for a second consecutive day at a key source of financing
that has swelled the extremist group’s coffers, activists said. (AP
Photo/U.S. Air Force, Matthew Bruch)

By Mitch Kehetian, Special to Digital First Media

When it comes to America’s foreign policy in the troubled Middle East,
presidents George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama sure messed it up,
and it’s getting to be a threat to western civilization through the
creation of a radical Islamic State.

The turmoil is for real. Obama must cease playing checker board policy
games that amount to appeasing the radical Islamic dream at forcibly
shrinking Christian Europe.

To begin with the ISIS movement, at carving out an Islamic State out
of Syria and Iraq, rests with the White House.

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It started with young Bush when he took us to war with Saddam’s Iraq
on the false claim the Iraq dictator had a stockpile of weapons of
mass destruction. When UN observers failed to find the so-called
weapons, they were told to get out before American warplanes attacked
the country.

We never found the weapons of mass destruction. But a greater threat
was looming when Obama moved into the White House with the vow to
fulfill a peace pledge to get us out of Iraq. He even sent out his
time table on our “boots on the ground” departure much to the to the
glee of the radical ISIS movement.

In essence, the president told ISIS to wait until we get out. But
Obama went further by getting us involved in the civil war in Syria
by supporting the moderate rebels to oust dictator Assad. Soon, all
of northern Syria was under ISIS control and linked to huge swaths
of land in neighboring Iraq.

Obama said Syria’s Assad must go. But his failed intelligence surfaced
again. Assad may have been a dictator, but he kept the Shite and
Sunni Muslims apart and protected the country’s large Orthodox
Christian community.

Meanwhile, the radical Islamic movement has taken over Libya with
chaos sweeping the country after we helped the rebels topple Ghaddafi’s
rule. Then just weeks ago, Obama praised the democratic process taking
place in Yemen. Shortly after his victory pledge, our former ally’s
regime collapsed to rebel forces. We evacuated our embassy as the
extremist Muslims seized control.

Meanwhile, Obama and his liberal loyalists look upon ISIS as a mere
organization we can subdue with air power. You don’t win wars with
just air power. History tells us so. We also recall Obama tagging
ISIS as just a mere “junior varsity” team.

When Germany swept through Europe at the height of World War II,
the government was under the rule of Hitler’s Nazi Party. The Nazis
murdered millions of people, while sending six million Jews to Nazi-run
concentration camps where they perished in what is remembered as
the Holocaust.

Then let’s look at the old Soviet Union. The turning point came when
the Bolsheviks seized power after killing the czar. It too was an
organization eventually absorbed by the expanding Communist Party to
match the Nazis in mass killings and slave labor in Siberia.

So let’s stop the false belief that ISIS is just an organization.

Remember how the Nazi and Communist movements took over. As for the
ISIS goal at creating a radical Islamic State, it comes from the
pages of ancient history. When the Ottoman Turkish sultans and their
armies sought to forcibly convert Christian Europe to Islam, they were
stopped at the gates of Vienna and at the Gibraltar straits to Spain.

But the Islamic movement did not give up in its plan to convert the
“infidels,” as witnessed in World War I when Ottoman Turkey joined
forces with the Austria-German Empire to regain lost lands. Again,
Europe was horrified when Turkey plotted the genocide of more than
one million Christian Armenians in its eastern provinces of historical
Armenia.

When Obama asked Congress for the authority to wage war against ISIS,
he again broadcasted “no ground troops.” Nor did he use the proper
term that we now face a radical Islamic State.

Our president might know his law, but he fails history.

I’m not surprised. In his remarks at the most recent national prayer
breakfast in Washington, Obama cautioned Christians should not get on
their high horses in criticizing Islam by the actions of the radical
element. He did by stressing that during the crusades Christians
committed sins by using the name of Christ in their defense.

Mr. President, that was more than a thousand years ago.

Enough said.

Mitch Kehetian is a retired editor of The Macomb Daily and former
board trustee at Central Michigan University.