Author: Andres-Papazian

Gor Harutyunian, Mikhail Malyutin to compete for ProFC Lightweight title

November 20, 2010 – 15:16 AMT 11:16 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

On November 21, Karen Demirchyan Sport and Concert Complex will host
ProFC Union Nation Cup in mixed martial arts with participation of
teams from Armenia, Russia, Ukraine and Serbia.

Fights will be held in the following weight classes: 70kg, 76kg, 84kg,
93kg and +93kg. Armenia will rival Serbia, while Russia – Ukraine.

Three sportsmen of Serbia have got injuries and will be unable to
compete in the championship. Thus, Armenia’s sportsmen will fight in
two weight classes – 70kg and +93kg.

Besides, Gor Harutyunian (Armenia) and Mikhail Malyutin (Russia) will
compete for the title of ProFC Lightweight Champion.

Harutyunian said that the fight in Armenia is of great importance for
him, thus, he will try to win the champion’s title. The Armenian
sportsmen competed in 8 fights and celebrated victory in all of them.

According to Vice President of ProFC league Victor Yeryomin, similar
championships aim to develop mixed martial arts. `We organized 19
international tournaments up to date. I think that Yerevan residents
will enjoy the tournament,’ he said.

From: A. Papazian

Human rights activists say children’s rights are not protected in Armenia

Human rights | 19.11.10 | 16:55

Photolure

Child Protection Network held a press conference on November 19.

By Siranuysh Gevorgyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

Yerevan-based members of the Child Protection Network (CPN), founded
to support children who end up in hard situations, stated at a press
conference on Friday that the issue of child abuse in Armenia is kept
behind closed doors.

November 19 is the International Day on Prevention of Child Abuse,
which is a social movement, created in 140 countries of the world.
Armenia has become a member of the movement since 2007. Twelve
organizations are working with children and families included in CPN,
founded in 2005.

`Our public prefers not to talk about violence, especially when it is
committed within a family,’ says Tatevik Bezhanyan, manager of the
`Prevention of Child Trafficking in Armenia’ of the People in Need
Organization.

Specialists state that no common methods have been drafted for
registration of child abuse cases in Armenia yet. The latest figures
from police are two years old, when 96 cases of sexual abuse of a
child were reported.

Mira Antonyan, Head of the Children’s Support Center of the Fund for
Armenian Relief (FAR), says that child neglect is the worst case of
child abuse. Physical violence in families, by children of the same
age and even by teachers is in the second greatest concern, while
sexual harassments are a third. Physical abuse is loosely defined in
Armenia, where most parents and teachers still consider it normal to
slap or spank children who misbehave.

According to the statistics provided by the FAR Children’s Support
Center, in 2008-2010, the overwhelming majority of 470 children who
had taken shelter in their the center, suffered from various abuse,
with 36 underage children suffering sexual abuse.

From: A. Papazian

Bako Sahakyan Visited Los Angeles City Council

LOS ANGELES, NOVEMBER 20, NOYAN TAPAN. On 19 November President of the
Artsakh Republic Bako Sahakyan delivered a speech at the World Affairs
Council of Orange County. After the speech the Head of the State
answered questions raised by the attendees.

Consular general of the Republic of Armenia in Los Angeles Grigor
Hovhannisyan, head of the Central information department of the
Artsakh Republic President’s Office Davit Babayan, NKR permanent
representative to the USA Robert Avetisyan, chairman of the Artsakh
Public TV and Radio company’s board Norek Gasparyan and other
officials partook at the event.

On the same day President Bako Sahakyan visited Los Angeles City
Council, met its members at the head of the Council’s president Eric
Garcetti. The Head of the State also partook at the City Council’s
meeting and in his speech expressed gratitude to the authorities of
Los Angeles for their stance towards our compatriots and assistance
provided in solving issues the Armenian people face.

The members of the City Council delivered speeches too. Welcoming the
President of the Artsakh Republic they underlined the importance of
independent, free and democratic Karabagh and its existence. According
to them there are numerous similarities between the history and state
building in Artsakh and the United States, which make better prospects
for developing and deepening bilateral relations.

Primate of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church
Archbishop Pargev Martorosyan, consular general of the Republic of
Armenia in Los Angeles Grigor Hovhannisyan, president of the United
Armenian Fund, vice-president of the `Lincy’ foundation Harout
Sassounyan and other officials partook at the events.

On 19 November President of the Artsakh Republic Bako Sahakyan visited
also residency of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church
and met its primate Archbishop Hovnan Derderyan, members of the
Diocesan Council and representatives of the local Armenian community.
According to the Central Information Department of the Office of the
Artsakh Republic President, the President considered important the
construction of the new St. Leon Cathedral noting that the church was
not only a masterpiece of Armenian architecture, but would also play a
significant role in preserving national identity in the Diaspora.

Issues related to socioeconomic situation in Artsakh and
Motherland-Diaspora relations were touched upon during the meeting.
Speaking about them Bako Sahakyan rated high the input of the Western
Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in backing up Artsakh.
Primate of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church
Archbishop Pargev Martorosyan, consular general of the Republic of
Armenia in Los Angeles Grigor Hovhannisyan, and other officials
partook at the meeting.

From: A. Papazian

Georgia holds four over dirty bomb fears
By Isabel Gorst in Moscow

November 19 2010 23:10

Georgia arrested four people on Friday and seized radioactive material
it said could be used to make a dirty bomb.

Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for Georgia’s interior ministry said
police had seized Cesium-137 in a residential district of Tbilisi and
arrested four people suspected of trying to sell the material.

The seizure, following the arrest in Tbilisi of two Armenian men in
March accused of smuggling weapons grade uranium into Georgia, will
add to concern about the risk of nuclear materials falling into the
hands of terrorist groups in the former Soviet Union.

Mr Utiashvili said Cesium-137, which was used to make
telecommunications batteries in Georgia during the Soviet era, was
`widely available’ in the country and frequently seized by police from
thieves.

From: A. Papazian

Peter Balakian’s Ziggurat: A Retrospective

asbarez
Friday, November 19th, 2010

BY HOVIG TCHALIAN

Peter Balakian’s latest offering of poetry, published in September of
2010 by the University of Chicago Press, is a collection intriguingly
entitled, Ziggurat, after the pyramids built by the Sumerians in the
ancient city of Ur.

Balakian is perhaps best known for his non-poetic writings – Black Dog
of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past (1998), a memoir;
and the book-length study, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide
and America’s Response (2004). Like those more explicitly historical
works, this collection, as its title suggests, is deeply informed by
the past. The book of poems is a retrospective of sorts, bringing
together some of Balakian’s recent work in a collection of just over
seventy pages. More significantly, those pages are informed by – one
might almost say, imbued with – a profound, visceral sense of the
presence of the past, both ancient and modern.

The date of the volume’s publication is no accident. The book is a
reflection on the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center,
nearly a decade on. Balakian witnessed the completion of the twin
towers some forty years before they came down in 2001. The moving poem
at its center, A-Train / Ziggurat / Elegy, deftly weaves together the
aftermath of the recent attacks with Balakian’s own experience as a
mail runner in the late 1960’s and 1970’s in and around the site of
the twin towers, New York’s lower Manhattan.

The poem, and by extension the entire volume, may be considered an
extended meditation on the meaning of the towers’ destruction and its
ushering in of what Balakian has elsewhere called an age of `anxiety’
and `uncertainty.’ The poem traces the historic rise and fall of the
Ziggurat of Ur by compressing it into the forty-year arc of the rise
and destruction of the twin towers, as witnessed by a mail runner. The
poem juxtaposes the ordinary experiences of construction workers and
employees in the tower, his speaker’s personal experiences – riding
the A-Train, going up and down the elevator, looking out at the
Manhattan skyline – and the discovery of the great pyramidal
structure. The result is the lyrical equivalent of vertigo, a feeling
simultaneously of a great ascent and a sudden fall.

That fall, both literal and metaphorical, acts as the poem’s central
structural feature. Ziggurats were built with steps on the outside
whose very purpose, the poem suggests, was to act as both vehicle and
emblem of soaring ambition: `O house of heaven rising / O foundation
of earth / O elemental zigzag.’ Likewise, the twin towers, an
engineering and architectural marvel in their day, were built to
feature their great, glass elevators. The original, mythic archetype
of the Ziggurat, the tower of Babel, instead housed its steps on the
inside: `Peter Brueghel [the late Renaissance Flemish painter] had it
all wrong: / there was solid masonry in the middle, / a winding path
circling eight towers, / baked brick glued with asphalt.’ The more
modern counterparts of the tower of Babel, it seems, proudly display
their ambitions. In Balakian’s poem, that misguided ambition is itself
a shallow, feeble echo of an earlier rise and fall, eerily recast in
the towers’ own framing: `twenty-eight grillages supporting the
columns of the elevator core of the North Tower, / core box-shaped
columns and box beam framing. / Who had ever heard of anything like
this?’ The question is, of course, more than rhetorical – the elevator
core is already `embedded’ in the very structure of the original
staircase, both a foreshadowing of the twin towers and itself a
perverse emblem of `modernity.’

The collection is deeply retrospective, then, in this sense as well –
emblematic of a modernity rent by cataclysmic events both personal and
historical, human and mythic, of a post-lapsarian (what the poem calls
`post-diluvian’) existence burdened by self-consciousness: `You forget
that Nebuchadnezzar inherited the region [of the Ziggurat] a
millennium later. / You forget because it’s just an excavation now. /
like [sic] my mind when it blanks into itself, / like the horizon when
it goes black and the flame / of one oil refinery flickers out at the
Syrian border / where once I picked Armenian bones out of the dirt.’
Like reels of film hurriedly spliced together, the ambitions of the
biblical tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar, fade into the ancient Ziggurat, the
ominous `excavation’ of the twin towers, and the rupture of
consciousness, the emptying out of the speaker’s `mind when it blanks
into itself,’ returning finally to the primal act of excavating the
bones of Armenian victims of the genocide, strewn across the Syrian
desert of Der-el-Zor. The antidote to modern self-consciousness, it
seems, is a forgetting of the past that dislodges history and,
ironically, dooms its victims into the Sisyphean task of endlessly
repeating it.

What makes segments such as these remarkable is their ability to
repeat the lyrical vertigo, to yoke the mythic to the mundane, in
original and thought-provoking ways. Like the Warhol lithos that other
poems in the collection return to again and again, the series of
juxtapositions form a strange palimpsest, an agglomeration of myth,
history and personal narrative.

In the end, it is that personal experience that most closely ties this
collection with Peter Balakian’s other works. Whether as a poet, a
historian, or a memoirist, Balakian has consistently cast himself as
the modern observer, the consummate `witness’ – a New Jersey native of
Armenian descent, straddling the line between cultures, between past
and present, and translating that experience into poetry. Ziggurat
redefines that act of bearing witness as an act of retrospection in
its deepest sense, of a looking back that is as much about the
experience of a fractured consciousness as it is about what it
observes.

So while Ziggurat is ostensibly inspired by the events of September
11, it speaks to an experience even larger but no less human. If we
are to take seriously the proposition that it is a modern `historical’
poem, then the volume serves as a partial answer to what remains an
overwhelming question – how do we even begin to write such a history,
in such an age?

From: A. Papazian

The ARF at 120: The History and Ideology

Friday, November 19th, 2010
by Asbarez

This year marks the 120th anniversary of the founding of Armenian
Revolutionary Federation-one of the oldest and most influential
political organizations in Armenian history. On this occasion, the USC
Institute of Armenian Studies and the Armenian Review have organized a
commemorative academic conference on the ARF’s history, current
activities and future prospects.

The conference titled `The ARF at 120: History in the Making’ will be
held on December 4 at the Davidson Conference Center on the campus of
University of Southern California (Driving Directions). The conference
will critically examine such key issues as socioeconomic aspects of
ARF’s activities in Armenia; role of women in the ARF; the challenge
of functioning as state-based political party and a Diaspora-wide
political movement; and assessments of historical developments and
issues of current relevance.

The day-long event will feature academics, researchers, professionals
and activists from Armenia, the Middle East, Europe and the United
States, who will present nuanced and multi-disciplinary analyses of
ARF’s activities in celebration of its 120th anniversary.

The conference will be webcasted live on the day of the event on
arf120.com. The event is free and open to the public but the
organizers are strongly recommending attendees register ahead of time.
Register online at arf120.com.

Today, we introduce the speakers and present some of the topics to be
addressed during the first panel of the conference, titled `ARF in
History and Ideology.’

Richard Hovannisian (Moderator)

Prof. Hovannisian was born and raised in Tulare, California. He
received his BA (1954) and MA (1958) degrees from the University of
California, Berkeley, and his PhD (1966) from University of
California, Los Angeles. He was an Associate Professor of History at
Mount St. Mary’s College, Los Angeles, from 1966 to 1969. In 1987,
Professor Hovannisian was appointed as the first holder of the
Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian
History at the UCLA. Hovanissian is a Guggenheim Fellow who has
received numerous honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and
advancement of Armenian Studies. His biographical entries are included
in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World among other
scholarly and literary reference works.

——————————————————————————–

Houri Berberian

Houri Berberian is Professor of Middle Eastern History at California
State University, Long Beach, where she also serves as Director of the
Middle Eastern Studies Program. She is the author of a number of
articles and a book, Armenians and the Iranian Constitutional
Revolution of 1905-1911: `The Love for Freedom Has No Fatherland’
(2001).

Connected Revolutions: The ARF and Russian, Ottoman, and Iranian
Revolutions in the Early Twentieth Century

Using the concept of `connected histories,’ this paper explores the
Ottoman, Iranian, and Russian Revolutions of the early twentieth
century through the circulation, interaction, and relationships of
Armenian revolutionary elites, particularly Dashnaks, who
simultaneously operated in each of these political and social
upheavals. This study is interested in the connectedness of all three
revolutions, which have helped shape the history of the states and
societies in which they occurred. One of the most interesting and
significant aspects about the three revolutions occurring
approximately at the same time in regions bordering each other is the
circulation and flow of revolutionary elites, activists, and
intellectuals as well as revolutionary literature and arms throughout
the three regions before and during the revolutions. In the case of
the Dashnaks, they traveled from one Armenian community to another in
the Ottoman, Russian, and Qajar empires, taking advantage of a network
of already established political party branches or communities of
like-minded activists. Dashnaks played an interesting and at times
important role in the events leading to revolutions in the Russian,
Ottoman, and Iranian empires and in the course of the revolutions
themselves.

——————————————————————————–

Elke Hartmann

Elke Hartmann, has studied History and Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies
in Berlin specializing on Modern Ottoman history. Her MA thesis
examines the German military mission to the Ottoman Empire during the
reign of Abdulhamid II, while her dissertation analyzes conscription
in the late Ottoman Empire in the context of modern state and nation
building. The topic of her current research within the research group
`Self-Narratives in Transcultural Perspective’ at Free University in
Berlin are the memoirs of Armenian fedayis, focusing mainly on Roupen
Der Minasian’s `Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary.’

`The Turks and Kurds are our fate`: ARF Concepts and Strategies of Self-Defense

Roupen Der Minasian, fedayi, minister in the first Armenian republic
and member of the ARF Bureau, was undoubtedly one of the important
figures in the ARF in the first decades of the 20th century that were
so crucial in Armenian history. But Roupen’s prominent status among
contemporary ARF leaders is the result especially of his writings. His
memoirs, printed in seven volumes and totaling more than 2,700 pages,
is the most voluminous single report about life in Western Armenia
before the Armenian Genocide and the fedayi movement in particular. In
this paper they will serve as a starting point for the analysis of ARF
concepts and strategies of self-defense in Ottoman Western Armenia.

The paper gives a short introduction to Roupen’s `Memoirs of an
Armenian Revolutionary’ as a first-person narrative, followed by a
summary of what this text tells us about Armenian self-defense. The
`Memoirs’ reflect the differences within the party and between Eastern
(Russian) and Western (Ottoman) Armenian functionaries. They are
testimony of Roupen’s own position of extreme pragmatism. They show
that the ARF self-defense agenda went beyond armed struggle, also
including political methods, notably the cooperation with the Young
Turkish movement. But, most importantly, Roupen’s memoirs point out
the Ottoman context of the Armenian fedayi movement.

Accordingly, in its main part, this paper offers an analysis of the
ARF self-defense, placing it in the context of the Ottoman system of
administration and rule in its Eastern provinces and of the local and
regional power relations in the Eastern Ottoman borderlands. This
paper argues that the Armenian fedayis and the ARF were themselves
part of the highly complex tangle that characterized Ottoman rule in
the Western Armenian provinces, becoming one of the actors involved
locally in controlling the villages and their populations, Armenian
and non-Armenian alike.

——————————————————————————–

Ara Sanjian

Ara Sanjian is an Associate Professor of Armenian and Middle Eastern
History and the Director of the Armenian Research Center at the
University of Michigan-Dearborn. From 1986 to 1991, he studied for his
master’s degree in history at Yerevan State University. From 1991 to
1994 he did his PhD in modern history of the Middle East at the School
of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London. From 1996
to 2005, he was the Chairman of the Department of Armenian Studies,
History and Political Science at Haigazian University in Beirut. His
research interests focus on the post-World War I history of Armenia,
Turkey, and the Arab states of Western Asia. He is the author of
Turkey and Her Arab Neighbors, 1953-1958: A Study in the Origins and
Failure of the Baghdad Pact (2001), as well as a monograph and a
number of scholarly articles. He is currently working on a book-length
project on the Armenian quest for Mountainous Karabagh under Soviet
rule in 1923-1987.

The ARF & Land Reform in Eastern Armenia, 1917-1920

The paper will discuss the ideological position taken and the policies
implemented by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) as regards
the introduction of land reform in Transcaucasia and Armenia in
particular from the February Revolution in Russia in 1917 to the
sovietization of Armenia in late 1920. It thus covers the successive
interim, Transcaucasian regional administrations – the Ozakom, the
Commissariat, and the Seim – followed by the periods of the
independent Transcaucasian Federation (1918) and the independent
Republic of Armenia (1918-1920).

The paper is based on research conducted in the documents of the
legislature, the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Agriculture
and State Properties of the Republic of Armenia (1918-1920), all
housed at present in the National Archives of Armenia in Yerevan, plus
on an extensive use of Armenian language newspapers and periodicals
published between 1917 and 1920 in Yerevan, Etchmiadzin, Kars, Shushi,
Baku, Tiflis and Akhaltsikhe.

The paper will argue that the ARF considered itself as the carrier of
the ideals and social and political objectives of the February
Revolution of 1917, even after the proclamation of Armenia’s
independence the following year. As the ruling political party, it
remained committed to the eventual socialization of land in Armenia,
although successive internal and external political crises permitted
only the adoption and implementation of some interim measures toward
that end.

With the collapse of the independent Armenian state, the leaders of
the ARF were forced into exile, where they were obliged to adjust
their politics to overwhelmingly urban settings in the Armenian
Diaspora and work mostly with a younger generation forcibly
`alienated’ from agricultural land. Under these new conditions, issues
related to agrarian reform seemed remote and uninteresting to new
generation of ARF activists and supporters and, from then on, the
founding fathers of the independent republic of 1918-1920 were
evaluated primarily from a nationalist and irredentist perspective.
Their social agenda was mostly ignored, perhaps unconsciously. This
paper will constitute a humble attempt to remind the academic and lay
public of an understudied aspect of the social and ideological
dimensions of the history of the ARF.

——————————————————————————–

Khatchik Derghougassian

Khatchik DerGhoukassian received his PhD in International Studies from
the University of Miami, Florida, and a MA in International Relations
from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. Currently he teaches international politics
and security at the Universidad de San Andrés and the Universidad de
San Andrés -FLACSO-Universidad de Barcelona joint M.A. program in
International Relations and Negotiations. He is also a Visiting
Adjunct Professor at the American University of Armenia. Before
starting an academic career, he worked as a journalist for Aztag daily
newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon (1982-1987) and as the editor of Armenia
the Armenian newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1987-1997).

The Dialectical Dynamics of Socialism and National Liberation: The
Historical Evolution of ARF Ideology

The aim of the paper is to analyze the evolution of the
ARF-Dashnaktsutiun ideology since the foundation of the party to the
present from a systemic approach. The main argument sustains that the
official ideology of the ARF has always been socialism in its
reformist/non-Marxist version known as social-democracy. Yet the
evolution of socialism on the ARF’s political agenda is closely linked
to the national liberation struggle in its successive historical
phases; hence in its practical aspect the ARF ideology should be
understood in the dialectical dynamics of the socialist universalism
and the practical decisions of a national political agenda in their
interaction with systemic conditions. The paper, therefore, proposes a
novel approach to the ARF ideology, which, so far, has been portrayed
as a pragmatic balance of socialism and nationalism. This new approach
combining political philosophy and international analysis allows not
only critically studying the past but also foreseeing the current
challenges the party’s ideology faces.

From: A. Papazian

EuroVisionary
Nov 20 2010

Armenia win 2010 Junior Eurovision Song Contest

Posted 20 November, 2010 – 21:33 by Ian Fowell

Armenia have won the 2010 Junior Eurovision Song Contest with the
song, Mama, performed by Vladimir Arzumanyan. This proved a popular
choice in the Minsk Arena, Belarus.

Vladimir and his dancers gave a great stage performance. In a close
and exciting voting it was down to the FYR Macedonia vote to confirm
the winning song as Russia were leading up until the last set of votes
were cast.

The junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest featuring 14
participating countries was a spectacular success at the Minsk Arena,
Belarus.

All the artists made an amazing show in front of the watching millions
at home and in the arena. All acts were well received but there extra
special applause for the songs from Russia, Latvia, Belgium, Malta and
of the course the home nation, Belarus.

Alexander Rybak performed his recent release, Europe Skies, as part of
the interval act.

Dmitry Koldun performed a special song, A Day Without War, for the
UNICEF charity along with all the 14 participating acts.

All the previous winners of the Junior Eurovision then performed an
impressive medley of their winning songs.

Congratulations to Armenia on their great success

From: A. Papazian

EuroVision TV
Nov 20 2010

ARMENIA WINS 8TH JUNIOR EUROVISION SONG CONTEST!
2 Posted by Jarmo Siim on 22:17

Above: Vladimir won the hearts of Europe tonight – congratulations!
Photo: Giel Domen (EBU)

Minsk, Belarus – Voters and juries from 14 countries have made up
their mind and it’s Vladimir Arzumanyan from Armenia to win the 8th
edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest! Congratulations!!

Tonight, the show opened with Ksenia Sitnik (winner of the 2005
contest) and Alexey Zhigalkovich (winner in 2007) and Alexander Rybak
(winner of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest).

But most of all, it featured the 14 young stars representing their
countries, making them the real stars of this year’s Junior Eurovision
Song Contest!

After a very exciting voting it was Vladimir Arzumanyan from Armenia
to win the 8th edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest,
broadcast from the capital of Belarus – Minsk, by just one point!

Here’s the full scoreboard of the contest:

1.Armenia – Vladimir Arzumanyan – Mama – 120 points
2.Russia – Liza Drozd & Sasha Lazin – Boy And Girl – 119 points
3.Serbia – Sonja Skoric – Carobna Noc / Magical Night – 113 points
4.Georgia – Mariam Kakhelishvili – Mari Dari – 109 points
5.Belarus – Daniil Kozlov – Muzyki Svet – 85 points
6.Lithuania – Bartas – Oki-doki – 67 points
7.Belgium – Jill & Lauren – Get Up! – 61 points
8.Moldova – Stefan Roscovan – Ali Baba – 54 points
9.The Netherlands – Anna & Senna – My Family – 52 points
10.Latvia – Sarlote & Sea Stones – Viva La Dance – 51 points
11.Sweden – Josefine Ridell – Allt Jag Vill Ha – 48 points
12.FYR Macedonia – Anja Veterova – Eooo, Eooo – 38 points
13.Malta – Nicole – Knock Knock!….Boom! Boom! – 35 points
14.Ukraine – Yuliya Gurska – Mii Litak – 28 points

“Congratulations to the winner, and to the other 13 other contestants
who all delivered magnificent performances, they’re all winners in our
eyes,” says Svante Stockselius, Executive Supervisor from the EBU. “We
also thank BTRC, the Host Broadcaster for delivering an amazing show
tonight.”

!

From: A. Papazian

Journal of Technology & Science
November 28, 2010

TECHNICAL AND SYSTEM SOFTWARE COMPANIES;
Synopsys in Armenia Among Twelve Finalists to Receive U.S. Secretary
of State’s 2010 Award for Corporate Excellence ACE

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS), a world leader in software and IP for
semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing, announced that
the U.S. State Department has recognized Synopsys in Armenia among 12
finalists worldwide for the U.S. Secretary of State’s prestigious 2010
Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE). The finalists were chosen from a
record number of 78 nominations submitted by American ambassadors
around the world. ACE finalists are international business leaders who
recognize the vital role that U.S. businesses play abroad as good
corporate citizens. The Secretary of State has awarded the ACE since
1999 to recognize U.S. businesses for advancing good corporate
citizenship, innovation and democratic principles.

Synopsys is recognized for the software company’s “promotion of U.S.
and foreign investors by showcasing Armenia as a potential
informational technology (IT) hub; collaboration with universities on
IT training programs; and reduction of pollution levels by planting
hundreds of trees to counter recent deforestation.”

On November 10, 2010, Honorable Marie L. Yavanovitch, Ambassador of
the United States of America, revealed a special plaque at the
Synopsys Armenia R&D Center in Yerevan. The plaque is signed by Under
Secretary of Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs Robert Hormats.
The special citation was offered to Synopsys “in recognition of
corporate citizenship, innovation and exemplary business practices in
Armenia.”

Other finalists are Alta Ventures in Mexico, Cisco in Israel,
Coca-Cola in Swaziland, Denimatrix in Guatemala, Fiji Water in Fiji,
GE in India, Intel in Costa Rica, Mars, Inc. in Ghana, PepsiCo in
India, Qualcomm in China, and Tang Energy in China.

“Synopsys is committed to bringing the best technology solutions to
our customers and to improving the communities where our employees
work and live. Synopsys Armenia exemplifies how our business practices
throughout the world reflect our company values of leadership,
customer success and integrity,” said Rich Goldman, vice president of
corporate marketing and strategic alliances at Synopsys. “Whether it’s
helping ensure engineering students have access to the most advanced
tools available, or planting trees in areas devoid of greenery,
Synopsys’ investments are intended to encourage growth. We thank the
U.S. Secretary of State for recognizing these achievements by choosing
Synopsys Armenia as an ACE finalist, and hope this recognition will
inspire other companies to promote corporate social responsibility.”

From: A. Papazian

Journal of Technology & Science
November 28, 2010

STATISTICAL MECHANICS;
Research from K. Hovhannisyan and co-researchers provides new data on
statistical mechanics

According to recent research published in the Journal of Statistical
Mechanics – Theory and Experiment, “Situations where a spontaneous
process of energy or matter transfer is enhanced by an external device
are widespread in nature (the human sweating system, enzyme catalysis,
facilitated diffusion across biomembranes, industrial heat-exchangers
and so on). The thermodynamics of such processes remains, however,
open.”

“Here we study enhanced heat transfer by using a model junction
immersed between two thermal baths at different temperatures T-h and
T-c (T-h > T-c). The transferred heat power is enhanced via
controlling the junction by means of external time-dependent fields.
Provided that the spontaneous heat flow process is optimized over the
junction Hamiltonian, any enhancement of this spontaneous process
demands consumption and subsequent dissipation of work. The efficiency
of the enhancement is defined via the increment in the heat power
divided by the amount of work done. We show that this efficiency is
bounded from above by T-c/(T-h-T-c). Formally this is identical to the
Carnot bound for the efficiency of ordinary refrigerators which
transfer heat from cold to hot bodies,” wrote K. Hovhannisyan and
colleagues.

The researchers concluded: “It also shares some (but not all) physical
features of the Carnot bound.”

Hovhannisyan and colleagues published their study in the Journal of
Statistical Mechanics – Theory and Experiment (The thermodynamics of
enhanced heat transfer: a model study. Journal of Statistical
Mechanics – Theory and Experiment, 2010;():6010).

For additional information, contact K. Hovhannisyan, Yerevan Physics
Institute, Alikhanian Bros St. 2, Yerevan 375036, Armenia.

The publisher’s contact information for the Journal of Statistical
Mechanics – Theory and Experiment is: IOP Publishing Ltd., Dirac
House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, England.

From: A. Papazian