Cardinal Ratzinger: No place for Turkey in EU

Cardinal Ratzinger: No place for Turkey in EU

Aljazeera.net
11 August 2004

The Catholic Church’s most senior theologian says Turkey should not
attempt to join the European Union because it is a majority Muslim
country with Muslim roots.

Turkey should seek its future in an association of Muslim nations
rather than try to join a European community with Christian roots, the
Vatican’s Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in an interview distributed
on Wednesday.

The doctrinal head of the Roman Catholic Church said Turkey had always
been “in permanent contrast to Europe” and linking it to Europe would
be a mistake.

He also told a French magazine that the European Union should continue
to debate the issue of its Christian heritage, a discussion that
appeared to be closed in June when the EU adopted a constitution that
avoided any mention of Christianity.

Islamic heritage

A secular state with a majority Muslim population, Turkey has been
introducing political reforms to bolster its bid to open entry
negotiations with the EU, which is due to decide in December whether
to launch accession talks.

“In the course of history, Turkey has always represented a different
continent, in permanent contrast to Europe,” Ratzinger said, noting
that the Ottoman Empire once threatened Vienna and fought wars in
the Balkans.

“Making the two continents identical would be a mistake,” he said. “It
would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of the cultural to
the benefit of economics.”

The German-born cardinal said Turkey “could try to set up a cultural
continent with neighbouring Arab countries and become the leading
figure of a culture with its own identity”.

Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, said this would not exclude cooperation between such a
Muslim community and the European Union.

Both could work together to fight “fundamentalism”, he added.

Europe mistaken

The cardinal said the Vatican supported the separation of church and
state but thought the EU was wrong to ignore what he said was the
historical fact that its heritage was Christian.

“We should continue the debate on this question because I fear that
behind this opposition hides a hatred Europe has against itself and
its great history,” he said.

Asked about the force of secularism in France, which has recently
banned Muslim headscarves in state schools, Ratzinger said “aggressive
secularism” would provoke Muslims to become more religious, rather
than counter it.

“There is a rejection of a world that refuses to recognise God or
respect the sacred,” he said.

“This loss of the sense of the sacred and respect for others provokes
a reaction of self-defence in the Arab and Islamic world.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ECEE591F-A4ED-46BE-8784-1459F23710E2.htm

Governor Schwarzenegger signs two bills

US Fed News
April 21, 2005 Thursday 1:27 AM EST

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER SIGNS TWO BILLS

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., issued the following news
release:

Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed the following two bills:

SB 121 by Committee on Local Government – Validations.

SB 424 by Senator Charles Poochigian (R-Fresno) – Armenian Genocide.

See signing message below.

To Members of the California State Senate:

I am signing SB 424 which will permanently recognize April 24th as
the Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. This bill also
designates the period commencing the Sunday before April 24th and
concluding the following Sunday as the “Days of Remembrance of the
Armenian Genocide.”

Between 1915 and 1923, a systematic and deliberate campaign of
genocide by the Ottoman Turkish government resulted in the deaths of
over 1.5 million Armenians and the exile of a people from their
historic homeland. During this period, tens of thousands of displaced
Armenians took refuge in the United States, many in California. These
survivors embraced this country and this state. Among them and their
descendents emerged leaders in business, agriculture, sports,
academics and the arts. Today, a few survivors remain as a living
testament to the horror that took place 90 years ago. We must
recognize crimes against humanity if we are to prevent them; silence
in the face of genocide effectively encourages those who would commit
such atrocities in the future.

In 1981, President Reagan said, “Like the genocide of the Armenians
before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it and
like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples the
lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.” I am proud to
represent the people of the State of California in recognizing the
historical persecution of the Armenian people and join with them in
urging Turkey to acknowledge the fact of Armenian Genocide.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The planned, organized, & executed genocide of the Armenians

The PLANNED, ORGANIZED, and EXECUTED GENOCIDE of the ARMENIANS
by Jack Manuelian

PanArmenian News
March 27 2005

Were the plans of the 1915-23 Armenian Genocide actually drawn up and
were in place by the year 1910 or 1912? According to some sources
definitely yes.

There is the book “Inner Folds of the Ottoman Revolution” written by
Mevlan Zadeh Rifat and published in 1929, the author, a pro-sultan
Turk, claims that the “Armenian genocide was decided in August 1910
and October 1911, by a Young Turk committee composed entirely of
displaced Balkan Jews in the format of a syncretist Jewish-Muslim
sect which included Talaat, Enver, Behaeddin Shakir, Jemal, and Nizam
posting as Muslims. It met in the Rothschild-funded Grand Orient
loge/hotel of Salonika.” Syncretism means a combination of different
forms of belief or practice; masonism fits that description.

A 1994 conference paper/lecture by Joseph Brewda of Schiller
Institute entitled “Palmerson launches Young Turks to permanently
control Middle East ” claims the founder of the Young Turks to be a
certain Jew by the name of Emmanuel Carasso. He states: “Carasso set
up the Young Turk secret society in the 1890s in Salonika, then part
of Turkey, and now part of Greece. Carasso was also the grand master
of an Italian masonic lodge there, called ‘Macedonia Resurrected.’
The lodge was the headquarters of the Young Turks, and all the top
Young Turk leadership were members.”

Further on Mr. Brewda says: “During the Young Turk regime, Carasso
continued to play a leading role. He met with the sultan, to tell him
that he was overthrown. He was in charge of putting the sultan under
house arrest. He ran the Young Turk intelligence network in the
Balkans. And he was in charge of all food supplies in the empire
during World War I.” It is ironic that five centuries after the
Turkish sultans welcomed the expelled European Jews into Turkey,
certain Jews belonging to secret societies and to Zionism will kick
the sultan out of power early in 20th century, destroy the Ottoman
Empire, and celebrate their victory by massacring by proxy almost the
whole Christian Armenian people, one million and half Armenians; half
million Greeks; and half million Christian Assyrians & Arameans.
In 1982, after the Israeli army conquered Lebanon, they celebrated
their victory by massacring by proxy children and women in the
Palestinian camp of Shattila, in Lebanon, by allowing Lebanise
Phalange militia fighters to move into the camp for two days and
murder its inhabitants. Eighty percent of the camp were killed.
Nearly all of the dead were old men, women and children and all of
them had been unarmed. Not one gun, not one knife was found in their
possession, claims a Palestinian witness.
All this according to the percepts of the Talmud, the Satanic Bible
of the Jews, which encourages Jews to kill, directly or indirectly,
by sayings like: “Every Jew who spills the blood of the godless, is
doing the same as making a sacrifice to God.” Talmud: Bammidber Raba
c21 & Jalkut 772. In the eyes of Tamudists all non-Jews are godless.
And “It is the law to kill anyone who denies the Torah. The
Christians belong to the denying ones of the Torah.” Talmud: Coschen
Hamischpat, Hagah 425. Very neatly put sentence indeed.

Mr. Brewda writes: “Another important area was the press. While in
power, the Young Turks ran several newspapers, including ‘The Young
Turk,’ whose editor was none other than the Russian Zionist leader
Vladimir Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky had been educated as a young man in
Italy.”

Mr. Brewda, ignoring the possibility that Talaat could have been a
secret infiltrated Jew, writes: “Of course, there were also some
Turks who helped lead the Young Turk movement. For example, Talaat
Pasha. Talaat was the interior minister and dictator of the regime
during World war I. He had been a member of Carasso’s Italian masonic
lodge in Salonika. One year prior to the 1908 coup, Talaat became the
grand master of the Scottish Rite Masons in the Ottoman Empire. If
you go to the [archives of] Scottish Rite headquarters in Washington,
D.C., you can find that most of the Young Turk leaders were officials
in the Scottish Rite.”

Mr. Brewda also mentions the novel “Greenmantle,” whose hero is a
British spy who led the Young Turks, and that the book’s author, John
Buchan, later identified the novel’s hero as the English nobleman
Aubrey Herbert, who was the top British spy master in the Middle East
during WW I. And that Lawrence of Arabia later identified Herbert as
having been, at one time, the head of the Young Turks. According to
Mr. Brewda, Carasso also appears in that novel under the name
Carusso.
By 1916 the British and French, overpowered by greed, already had a
secret agreement to divide the Ottoman Empire between themselves.
Presently Hitler’s “Mien Kempt ” anti-semitic book is a best-seller
in Turkey, it is published by various Turkish publishers by thousands
and thousands. Are the Turks finally waking up and realizing that
their Sultan’s refusal to grant Palestine to the Zionist Jews as a
homeland had cost them their centuries-old empire?

Talaat was a living witness to the Genocide and history.

He should not have been assassinated. His silencing for good by
hot-tempered Armenians only served those who planned and executed the
Genocide. Had he been left alone, who knows he might have confessed
everything at his old age or at his deathbed.
Another source is the lengthy article “The Armenian & Jewish Genocide
Project: Eliminating Ethnic Conflict Along the Oil Route From Baku to
the Suez Canal Region ” written by Clifford Shack and posted in his
web-site.

Mr. Shack writes: “In the 1880’s, the French branch of the Rothschild
family acquired interests in Russia’s Baku oil fields in an effort to
supply their refinery on the Adriatic with cheap Russian oil. In
exchange for these interests they built a railroad linking Baku to
the newly acquired Black Sea port of Batum. This opened up the Baku
oil, a major world supply, to the world. With the success of the new
railroad, the Rothschilds had more oil than they could actually sell.
Overcoming their fear of competing with the giant Standard oil [of
USA], they sought out the huge [Far East] markets east of Suez.”

Further on Mr. Shack makes his point: “The decision by the shrewd
French Rothschild branch to diversify into other areas of oil
exploitation was, presumably, a calculated one. Three years after
they joined Royal Dutch, production at Baku would come to an abrupt
halt in 1905. Although shaken by political activity, the principal
disruption was due to the violence of the ethnic conflict between the
region’s Muslims and the minority population of Armenians who are
Christians. This ethnic conflict caused the first interruption of oil
distribution to the world market. Standard oil was quick to supplant
the needs of the effected markets as its source was operating under
the blanket of peace. The Royal/Dutch/Shell Group (and the Nobles)
watched their Baku investments go up in flames. Ethnic conflict was
at the root of the matter. It could be safely assumed that they were
taking measures to eliminate the possibility of that happening in the
future.” Oil corporations seem to have learned their lessons from
history because before the construction of present-day Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline has began, someone has made sure that no Armenians were left
in Baku anymore. Although the Armenian threat to that pipeline has
been neutralized, yet there is still a Turkish ultra-nationalist
revival threat, and a threat from Iran if Iran comes under attack
from USA or Israel. There is a very clean prophecy of Nostradamus
stating: “By firepower of armies, not far from the Black Sea, he will
come from Persia/Iran to occupy Trebizond.” Trebizond is located at
the shore of the Black Sea and its occupation will virtually cut the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in half. Another prophecy of Nostradamus
reads: “Toward Persia/Iran a sizable army of a million. The serpent
Satan invading Byzantium and Egypt.” Byzantium & Egypt could be a
mystical name for modern Istanbul as Sodom & Egypt is the mystical
name given for Jerusalem in the book Revelation 11:8.

Mr. Shack notes that “the mere elimination of the Armenian population
of Baku would not solve the problem of ethnic conflict in that
region. The surrounding areas would provide reservoir effect in
resupplying the conflicting minority element.” And he asks: “was the
removal [in 1915-23] of a small minority like the Armenians [from
historical Armenia] a fair price to pay for the peace in a region so
crucial to the development and investment of the Far East?”
Apparently Mr. Shack ignores the factor of revenge raging in the
heart of human beasts.

Mr. Shacks answers his own question by stating in his article about
the big business or big corporations: “It would be fair to say that
the genocide of a group of a million or so, to serve the benefit of a
billion or so [in the Far East], is less of a question of should it
be done, than how it could be done. So as not to reveal any plausible
motive which could link the actual planners to the genocide, the
scheme involved a proxy party [namely the muslim Turks, Kurds &
Azeris] , which was manipulated through layers of influence,
providing sufficient cover for the planners.”

The fool said in his ignorance, “There was no planned and organized
and executed genocide of the Armenians.”

In chapter 30 of the book of Isaiah we read God speaking by His
prophet: “Woe to the rebellious children, who execute a plan, but not
Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin
to sin;…For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who
refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord.”

P.S. For Joseph Brewda’s article go to : SchillerInstitute.org then
put the name of the author or title of his article in the search tab
of the web-site of the institute. For Clifford Shack’s article put
his name in the search tap of Yahoo in order to find his web-site
where his article is posted.

John Buchan’s novel “Greenmantle” is available from Amazon.com. The
Turkish book “Inner Folds of the Ottoman Revolution” has no known
English translation. It was translated into Armenian in 1939 in
Beirut, Lebanon, by Donigian Press.

Jack Manuelian is the author of the book “Nostradamus: Predictions of
World War III” ISBN: 0938294520.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Miners killed

MINERS KILLED

Daily Post (Liverpool)
April 21, 2005, Thursday

TWO miners have died in a rock fall at a gold mine in north-eastern
Armenia.

The miners died on Monday at the Mergadzor gold mine some 40 miles
north of the capital, Yerevan.

One of the miners was killed on the spot and the other died on the
way to hospital

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Chirac calls on Armenian president to improve ties with Turkey

Chirac calls on Armenian president to improve ties with Turkey

Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2005 Friday 6:44 PM GMT

PARIS April 22 — French President Jacques Chirac urged Armenia Friday
to improve its ties with Turkey, the country Yerevan blames for the
genocide of hundred of thousands of its people 90 years ago.

“The president asked President (Robert) Kocharian (of Armenia) about
the development of his dialogue with Turkey” in particular on the
genocide issue, a French presidential spokesman said after a meeting
between the two leaders.

The two men hald talks for an hour before leaving the Elysee Palace
to lay a wreath at a paris monument commemorating the victims of the
massacre, conducted under the Ottoman empire.

Chirac “hoped that Armenia would develop this dialogue with Turkey with
a view to improving relations” with Ankara, the spokesman said, and
encouraged Kocharian “to look for elements of improvement with Turkey.”

He pointed out that French support for Turkish membership of the
European Union was conditional on Ankara’s sharing the values of
the EU, and membership “naturally required a duty of remembrance”
on the genocide issue, the spokesman said.

The talks also touched on the disputed Caucasus enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh, where long-simmering tensions have flared recently,
sparking fears that the escalation of hostilities along a ceasefire
line between Armenian and Azeri forces could lead to a new war.

Armenia has controlled Karabakh and seven surrounding regions which
make up 14 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory
since the two former Soviet republics ended large-scale hostilities
with a ceasefire in 1994.

Chirac said that “France was very attached to a lasting solution of
the problem and supports the principles of settlement that have been
worked out,” the spokesman said.

The two presidents discussed the idea of staging an ” Armenian cultural
year in France” in 2007.

Armenia will this weekend mark the 90th anniversary of what it calls
the genocide perpetrated between 1915 and 1917.

Some 1.5 million people may have died in the massacres, though Ankara
puts the figure at between 250,000 and half a million.

The French parliament adopted a controversial law in 2001 which states
that “France publicly recognises the Armenian genocide.”

France has a large community of Armenians, estimated at around 400,000.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Key stages of the Armenian ‘genocide’

Key stages of the Armenian ‘genocide’

Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2005 Friday 2:35 AM GMT

YEREVAN April 22 — On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turk government
arrested hundreds of Armenian community leaders and intellectuals in
eastern Anatolia.

Over the course of the following two years, according to Armenian
authorities, some 1.5 million Armenians were killed and many others
deported by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in what Armenia views as
an act of genocide.

Here are some key stages in the mass killing which Turkey denies was
a genocide.

– July, 1914: The Ottoman authorities create a task force comprised
of violent criminals released from prisons around Anatolia who will
escort hundreds of thousands of Armenians along their brutal forced
marches through the Der El Zor desert.

– August 1, 1914: World War I breaks out pitting the Ottoman and
Austrian empires against Europe’s great powers; almost immediately
Turkish forces suffer a great defeat at the hands of Russia and turn
their efforts to the “internal enemy.”

– April 24, 1915: Hundreds of Armenians arrested, many later killed.
Date is viewed by Armenia as start of systematic effort by Ottoman
Turks to eradicate Armenian people. Orders are soon drafted to
deport the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia through the Der
El Zor desert.

– 1916: By this time most of the Ottoman empire’s Armenian population
of 3.2 million had either died or fled to Mesopotamia or present-day
Armenia, where they fortified and were later to declare independence.
Today, only 40,000 Armenians continue to reside in Turkey.

– May 28, 1918: Incorporating territories granted to it by Russian
conquest, Armenia declares independence.

– November, 1918: World War I Armistice signed; as Western powers vie
to dismember the Ottoman empire it is reorganized by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk into the modern Turkish state.

– September – December, 1920: Armenia resists fresh Turkish attacks
commanded by Ataturk in the Turkish-Armenian war; losing much territory
Armenia signs a peace treaty but is immediately incorporated into
the Soviet state.

– October 13, 1921: Armenia’s present day borders are confirmed
as a Soviet republic by the treaty of Kars, signed by the Soviets
and Turkey.

– 1975: The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia,
a guerrilla group responsible for the death of a number of Turkish
diplomats, is formed. Now defunct, ASALA sought to force the Turkish
government to admit to the Genocide.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Colombia vs. Venezuela: Big Oil Turns Up Heat in Border Region

New California Media, CA
April 22 2005

Colombia vs. Venezuela: Big Oil Turns Up Heat in Border Region

Pacific News Service, News Analysis,
Bill Weinberg, Apr 22, 2005

Editor’s Note: Longtime U.S. involvement in Colombia may be
transforming and expanding from a “war on drugs” into a Washington-led,
oil-company fueled destabilization campaign against Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez.

“Oilmen are like cats; you can never tell from the sound of them
whether they are fighting or making love,” said the famous Armenian
entrepreneur Calouste Gulbenkian, as oil companies and Western
governments at a post-World War I summit in Ostend, Belgium, carved
up oil rights in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

Now, even as world attention is riveted on Iraq, military and oil
company agendas seem to be converging in South America’s Orinoco
Basin, which holds the greatest proven reserves outside the Persian
Gulf. The region is split by the border between Colombia, Washington’s
closest South American ally, and Venezuela, ruled by a left-populist
government sharply at odds with the White House.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez would do well to heed Gulbenkian’s
warning. Chavez has just entered into an agreement with ChevronTexaco
for a natural gas project that will span the Colombian border.

The Colombian oil heartland of Arauca is one the country’s most
violent regions. It lies just across the Rio Arauca from Venezuela’s
own Orinoco Basin oil heartland.

Arauca’s main oil field is Caño-Limon, run by California-based
Occidental Petroleum. Many of the 800 U.S. military advisers in
Colombia are assigned to Arauca, where they oversee a new Colombian
anti-guerilla army unit especially created to police Caño-Limon. This
project, for which Occidental lobbied heavily, markedly departs from
the U.S. policy of only assisting “narcotics enforcement” in Colombia.

Some fear the oil field could become a base for aggression against
Venezuela. Oscar Cañas, adviser to Colombia’s Central Workers Union,
told Venezuelan journalist Alfredo Carquez, “They are transforming
the Caño-Limon facilities into a small military fort.” Claiming U.S.
advisers and surveillance planes are now based there, Cañas notes
Caño-Limon’s proximity to the border and reports of Colombian
paramilitary attacks on the Venezuelan side. “Who is to guarantee
that all this is not being used against Venezuela?” he asks.

Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after
Israel and Egypt, and U.S. training of Colombian military personnel
is rapidly escalating. Meanwhile, Washington is launching a major
propaganda push against Venezuela.

A March statement from the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs (JINSA), “South America — the Next Swamp?” warns that even as
the United States is “draining the swamp” in Afghanistan, “ideological
killers are regrouping with the aid of leftist governments and drug
lords” in the western hemisphere. The principal “leftist government”
in question is that of Chavez.

JINSA, a top advocate of the Iraq adventure, cites a London Times
report (actually based on Colombian government allegations) that mortar
experts from the Irish Republican Army have set up a training camp for
Colombian guerillas on Venezuelan territory in the Sierra de Perija,
a mountain chain that forms the border north of Arauca.

Another salvo comes from Otto Reich, who was Bush’s assistant secretary
of state for hemispheric affairs, a former ambassador to Venezuela
and a key figure in the Reagan-era covert destabilization campaign
against Nicaragua. Reich, in the April 11 National Review, writes:
“The first task of the U.S., and whatever coalition of the willing
it can muster in the region, is to confront the dangerous alliance
posed by Cuba and Venezuela.”

Chavez is inviting new multinational investment for the oil zone. In
August 2001, Venezuela, Colombia and Texaco agreed to sponsor a
study on a new pipeline linking natural gas fields in La Guajira,
on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, to Maracaibo, Venezuela’s main export
terminal.

In May 2003, Venezuela announced new oil finds of up to 2.4 billion
barrels in the Orinoco. Texaco (which merged with Chevron in 2001)
proposed another pipeline to pump the crude to the coast. On April 1,
2005, ChevronTexaco announced a multibillion-dollar investment in
the new oil field.

But oil companies have a sweeter deal in Colombia, where Uribe is
moving to free the industry from public oversight. Chavez, in contrast,
has boosted royalties companies must pay to fund his ambitious social
programs.

La Guajira is another of Colombia’s most violent regions, with a string
of assassinations of indigenous leaders, presumably by paramilitary
forces, already reported this year. The new cross-border pipeline
may bring human rights abuses to Venezuela as well as gas.

This pipeline would cross the Sierra de Perija, where Uribe and
JINSA now claim Colombian guerillas are based. On April 4, hundreds
of indigenous peoples’ representatives from the Venezuelan side of
the mountains marched in Caracas, demanding a halt to coal mining on
their traditional lands by such companies as ChevronTexaco and Shell.
The new pipeline would add to the military and ecological pressures
they face.

Chavez is in a difficult position. He needs oil and gas revenues
to fund the populist programs that guarantee his popularity. But
cooperating with the multinational agenda in the border zone may
cost him support among indigenous peoples. And, some critics warn,
he may be welcoming the very oil companies that are complicit in the
destabilization drive against him.

PNS contributor Bill Weinberg is editor of World War 4 Report. He is
working on a book about Colombia for Verso Books.

–Boundary_(ID_QhXs2sp4OpqAqLKPwoE1Iw)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=141c7d84bf2dc0a00a9af42fa9253d40

Will the Armenians be able to stay in Russia without a visa ….

WILL THE ARMENIANS BE ABLE TO STAY IN RUSSIA WITHOUT A VISA FOR 90 DAYS?

A1plus
| 17:06:24 | 22-04-2005 | Official |

On April 22 NA President Arthur Baghdasaryan received RF State Duma
deputy President Georgy Boos. The RF State Duma deputy President
gave the NA President the condoling message of Boris Gryzlov, RF
State Duma President, in connection with the 90th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide.

On RA President Arthur Baghdasaryan~Rs offer the possibilities
of the regulation of the status of Armenians living in Russia in
the legislative or law field were discussed. As a result of this
Armenians may be able to live in Russia without a visa not 3 but 90
days. Mr. Boos offered to discuss the issue in the law field.

The sides found the re-operation of the companies given to Russia
according to the agreement ~SProperty for the Debts~T extremely
important.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Rawlings Foundation honors four in education

Rawlings Foundation honors four in education
By Lisa Coffey Mahoney

Contra Costa Times, San Francisco
April 22 2005

STAFF WRITER

“Inspirational.” “Dedicated.” “Creative.” “Remarkable.”

School board President Ronnie Caplane used these words to describe
the 2005 Lois Blair Rawlings Educational Inspiration Award winners.

They are Piedmont Middle School Principal Carol King, Piedmont Middle
School teacher Debby Sorenson, Wildwood Elementary School kindergarten
teacher Andrea Weidkamp, and Mandarin language federal grant program
director Linda Lei.

“These people, by their work and example, are inspirational to
students,” said Caplane, who is a member of the Lois Blair Rawlings
Foundation Board.

Caplane said she and other Rawlings Foundation Board members sifted
through more than 50 nominations, “which speaks volumes about our
schools that there are that many people that other people felt worthy
of the award.”

Nominations were received from school administrators, teachers,
parents and students, Caplane said.

Rawlings’ son, Ken, created the awards to honor his mother, a teacher
in the Oakland School District for many years.

Established in 2000, the awards were designed to recognize individuals
in the Piedmont education community who have demonstrated exceptional
ability to inspire, motivate and encourage the youth of the city in
their education, character development and personal growth.

This includes, but is not limited to, the faculty and staff at each
Piedmont school, administrators, coaches and Recreation Department
employees.

A teacher at the middle school since 1981, Sorenson said she was
“completely shocked and surprised” to learn she had been selected as
a Rawlings Award winner.

“It’s pretty overwhelming,” she said. “Getting singled out and rewarded
for something I love doing is amazing.”

Sorenson teaches eighth-grade history and English.

Sorenson’s former and current students were excited to hear she is
being recognized.

Rachel Zimmerman, 27, a graduate of Piedmont High School in 1995,
still feels Sorenson’s influence.

“Junior high school is not easy. Debby Sorenson got me through it,”
said Zimmerman, now a Hollywood producer. “I often think of her.
She’s always had a special place in my heart.”

Sorenson turned eighth-grader Paul Strauch into a history lover.

“I was never too interested in history, and now it’s my favorite
class,” he said. “She really puts a lot of energy into the class, so
you really want to give her answers and be a part of the conversation.”

Strauch, of Armenian descent, was particularly impressed that Sorenson
took him up on his suggestion that she attend a local conference
about Armenian genocide.

“She went and was eager to learn something new and will be putting
(information about the topic) in her curriculum next year,” he said.

Lei was also shocked to learn she had been selected as a Rawlings
Award winner.

“It’s a great honor. I’m really speechless,” she said.

During the years her daughter Adrienne attended Piedmont schools,
Lei volunteered for various positions on parent club boards and served
on boards for support organizations like Dress Best For Less, PAINTS
(Promote Art in the Schools), and the Piedmont Educational Foundation.

Lei also has served on the Piedmont Asian American Club board.

Lei has also taught Mandarin at Piedmont Middle School.

Two years ago, on behalf of the Piedmont school district, Lei
spearheaded the effort to secure a three-year federal Mandarin language
grant worth nearly $300,000.

“The goal of the grant is to improve and expand the curriculum,”
Lei said. “And we will produce a model K-12 curriculum for other
schools to duplicate.”

Mandarin is taught at the middle and high schools and is part of
the Piedmont Language School’s after-school enrichment program for
younger students, Lei said.

Each Rawlings Award recipient receives $5,000, half of which will be
donated on the recipient’s behalf to a nonprofit of their choosing
that has been approved by the Lois Blair Rawlings Foundation Board.

A special ceremony honoring the award winners is scheduled for May
6 at Ken Rawlings’ Piedmont home.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

UCLA: March recalls genocide

Students remember deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 with campus rally
By Neal Larkins

The UCLA Daily Bruin, CA
April 22 2005

March recalls genocide

DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
[email protected]

For a week now, students walking along Bruin Walk may have seen
grotesque images of the Armenian Genocide – emaciated children,
dismembered bodies and dead Armenians swinging from the noose.

These images were displayed in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.

Thursday, Armenian and non-Armenian students at UCLA mourned and
condemned the genocide with a silent march throughout campus and a
rally at Bruin Plaza.

A bill recognizing the genocide was passed in the state Senate on
Thursday.

Armenian Student Association President Raffi Kassabian said the
graphic images are needed to inform students of the genocide.

“Many political science and 20th century history classes don’t talk
about the genocide,” he said. Approximately 50 students quietly
carried signs in memory of those killed in the genocide.

“Genocide unpunished is genocide encouraged,” read one commemorator’s
sign. Another called Mount Ararat “Turkey’s prize from the genocide.”

Armenians identify Mount Ararat with their 3,000-year-old historic
homeland.

On a very hot and bright day, for an hour-long outdoor march, all
participants wore black to remember what happened 90 years ago, as
their ancestors began a 19-day, 215-mile forced march through the
arid deserts of Syria.

This act began nine years of violence that Armenians say killed 1.5
million of their people.

The marchers were solemn, yet willing to answer the questions of
passersby, especially if in regard to the continuing Turkish denial
of genocide and the United States’ and other countries’ refusal to
classify the events as genocide.

“The unrelenting denial by the Turkish government deprives it of
moral standing in the international community,” said Armenian history
Professor Richard Hovannisian in an e-mail. He is currently in Armenia
for a genocide conference.

Some students feel that the Turkish denial both insults their past
and makes the world more hospitable to other perpetrators of genocide.

“By saying it didn’t happen, you deny our history,” said Johnny
Apikian, a fourth-year business economics student. “It may be cliche
to say history repeats itself, but it does.”

Armenian Americans have tried unsuccessfully to get the United States
to recognize the events as genocide.

Naz Koulloukian, a fourth-year communication studies student, said
he has been attending the annual protest at the Los Angeles Turkish
consulate since he was eight years old, and would be there again
this Saturday. He said his family’s history was forever altered
after his grandmother’s parents were killed by the Ottoman Turks,
and his grandmother was then raised in a Syrian orphanage.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress