Author: Badalian Vardan

WHAT ELSE TO EXPECT FROM TURKS

yerkir.am
15:47 – 27.09.2011

Leader of the orthodox church of Cyprus Khrizostomos the second pays an
official visit to Georgia and has asked for any possible aid against
Turks to Georgian patriarch Ilya the second.

“Over 500 orthodox churches that are in the occupied land are in
disastrous condition. Some of them have been destroyed; some have
been converted into mosques, night clubs and even to mews. Icons and
church property has been sold in Europe and USA”, said he.

According to the archbishop, church of Cyprus has demanded many times
the Turkish administration to allow them reconstruct churches; however,
there was no answer.

He added that in 1974 37% of the island was occupied by Turkey, which
wanted to acquire the rest territories, deporting the orthodox Greeks
and reestablishing Muslims that came from Anatolia.

ARMENIAN YOUNG THINKERS CLUB TO BE CREATED

ARMENPRESS
10:11, 27 September, 2011

The “Hawk” club of Armenia’s youth foundation in collaboration with
“Active Youth Citizens initiative” NGO and Avetik Isahakyan library
plans to create “Armenian young thinkers” club of young people fond
of reading.

“I think this initiative will promote the spread of reading among the
young people. In this case we view the young people not as participants
but those who will continue the program in their universities, working
places”, director of Avetik Isahakyan library Hasmik Karapetyan said,
adding that the launch of the program is a “resonance phenomenon”.

The goal of the creation of the club is to create a field where the
young people may meet, discuss and analyze the works of Armenian, world
classics, contemporary writers developing the analytical thinking,
negotiation skills.

“Of course preference is given to the works of Armenian authors”,
Karapetyan said, expressing conviction that the members of the club
will have interesting meetings and discussions.

MANVEL GHUMASHYAN: TURKEY TRIES TO TURN ARMENIAN-TURKISH PROTOCOLS INTO AN OBJECT OF TRADE

ARMENPRESS
14:29, 27 September, 2011

Turkey tries to turn Armenian-Turkish protocols into an object of
trade, political expert Manvel Ghumashyan told today a news conference,
referring to the Turkish step of recalling of the protocols to the
parliament.

According to the political expert, we should not expect an essential
change in the process of ratification of the protocols in the nearest
future. He said that there were two extreme opinions in regard to
the protocols: the first is that they gave nothing, and the second
is that they showed one more time what a Turkish diplomacy means.

“As before, now too, when the protocols have been recalled to the
parliament, Turkey will attempt to turn them into an object of trade,”
Mr. Ghumashyan said.

In his opinion, Turkey will try to keep the protocols in a suspended
state till 2015 ~V 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, but
the expert also does not rule out other scenarios of development of
the processes.

NO ONE CAN FORCE ARMENIA OR TURKEY, INSIST AMBASSADORS IN ARMENIA

epress.am
09.27.2011 17:41

No one from outside can force Armenia, Azerbaijan or Turkey to take
this or that step. These countries have to sit together and resolve
their problem, said former US Ambassador to Armenia John Marshall
Evans today at the “Assessing Independence in Armenia and the Region”
public forum organized by the Civilitas Foundation.

“As you know we often have difficult relations with Turkey, as, for
example, in the war with Iraq, Turkey refused to get troops into Iraq.

Thus, America can’t force, it can support processes through different
formats, but resolving the conflict is the problem of those countries,”
he said.

German Ambassador to Armenia Hans-Jochen Schmidt, also speaking on
the panel, likewise emphasized that the “outside world” cannot force
a decision.

“The EU also takes steps in the issue of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, as well as the normalization of relations with Turkey,
but they can’t force anything,” he said.

Schmidt said the most important step in Armenia-Turkey relations is
the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries,
after which discussions on other issues will begin.

“What’s important is that the parties understand that by establishing
diplomatic relations, no one is doing anyone a favor; it is a normal
process,” he said.

CONTRACT ALLOWS POISONOUS WATER SUPPLY?

01:05 pm | Today

Social

“It still hasn’t been proven that the massivie poisoning in Nubarashen
was from the water. The case is still being examined,” Head of Contract
Management and Legal Affairs of Yerevan Water Company Artak Malkhasyan
said during a press conference today.

According to him, based on Yerevan Water’s contraact, the company
could have had 5% flaws, including supply of polluted water, but
that makes up only 0.5 percent in the 5th year of the contract and
the case in Nubarashen” fits in that 0.5 percent”.

More than 60 residents of Nubarashen were poisoned this summer,
and doctors say the main reason was the polluted water.

The Yerevan Water official presented a report stating that the company
provides 88.6 percent of water supply in Yerevan.

Why is water supply interrupted or lacking in the Nubarashen, Erebuni
and Ajapnyak communities to supply water for car washes and villas,
according to the residents? In response, Malkhasyan said it was
because those subscribers receive water through the same water tube.

He added that there may be illegal acts and that the company is
working on revealing them.

The lower threshold for continuation of the average water supply
throughout the day is only 8 hours, but the company representatives
say it will be 22 hours within five years.

THE PR OF PARADE: ARMENIAN EXPERTS SAY YEREVAN’S MILITARY DISPLAY ATTRACTED MORE MEDIA ATTENTION THAN BAKU’S
By Gohar Abrahamyan, Nazik Armenakyan

ArmeniaNow
27.09.11 | 09:45

The military parade held in Armenia last week to mark the 20th
anniversary of the republic’s independence still continues to attract
attention from international media.

The nation’s fifth parade since the 1991 declaration of independence
held on September 21 was attended by about 4,000 troops and featured
300 pieces of modern military hardware. Most importantly, though,
the military demonstration for the first time featured Armenia’s
offensive arsenal, including modern sophisticated weaponry.

The military parade in the heart of the Armenian capital elicited
a broad response in the region and far beyond. Director of the
Yerevan-based Sociometer sociological center Aharon Adibekyan
cites surveys conducted by his staff, showing that within a few
days after the parade as many as 850 English-language websites
reported information. Meanwhile, he says, the military parade held
in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku in June was covered by less than 100
English-language websites.

“Unexpectedly, our military parade has created quite a stir in
international media,” says Adibekyan, adding that many reports also
focused on the comparison between the demonstrations of military
might by Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two regional arch foes locked
in a bitter dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Military psychologist Samvel Khudoyan says that psychologically
“neutral” countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, China, the
United States and others were interested in the demonstration by the
Armenian army.

“For example, the Brits admired the march of chaplains during the
parade, and the Russian side mainly focused on the participation of a
Russian military unit, expressing their satisfaction. They would also
mention that British and other military would participate in Russia’s
parade and that it is a normal practice,” says Khudoyan, referring to
the controversy that the news of the Russian military’s participation
in the Armenian military parade created among some hard-line opposition
factions that even attempted a protest in Yerevan that day.

Khudoyan thinks that psychologically the September 21 parade was very
important both for the people and for the nation’s foreign policy.

“A military parade is a visual form of subconscious influence that
inspires confidence and gives people a sense of tranquility and
security,” he says.

Military expert Artsrun Hovhannisyan, meanwhile, spurned the negative
assessments made by the Azerbaijani side of the Armenian military
parade, saying that they are improper both militarily and politically.

Hovhannisyan suggested that the two neighboring countries still
maintain a military parity

“I think that until the end of the year international experts will
make thorough analyses that are most likely to create a stir in the
Azerbaijani society, because their arsenal, despite the assurances
of leaders in Baku, is not up to date,” says the Armenian expert.

SYRIA ACCUSES WEST OF TRYING TO UNLEASH “TOTAL CHAOS”

PanARMENIAN.Net
September 27, 2011 – 11:51 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Syria denounced international intervention and
accused the West of trying to unleash “total chaos”, AFP reports.

China meanwhile expressed its concern at the wider implications of
the violence in Syria, even as the United States pressed Beijing,
a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, to back stronger UN
action against Damascus.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the West wanted chaos that
will lead to the break-up of the country. Anti-regime protests were
also a “pretext for foreign interventions”, he said at the UN General
Assembly in New York.

Foreign governments were trying to undermine co-existence between
Syria’s different religious groups, he added.

“How can we otherwise explain media provocations, financing and
arming religious extremism?” he said. “What purpose could this serve
other than total chaos that would dismember Syria – and consequently
adversely affect its neighbors?”

PETER BALAKIAN’S BLACK DOG OF FATE PUBLISHED IN FRANCE

Tert.am
11:23 27.09.11

Peter Balakian’s prize-winning memoir Black Dog of Fate has been
published in French by the Metispresses and translated by M. Georges
Festa.

According to The Armenian Weekly, Balakian will be part of the
Festival Armenie-Armenies sponsored by France’s National Center
for the Book. From Oct. 16-21, Balakian and about two dozen other
Armenian writers, artists, and musicians from Armenia, Europe, the
Middle East, South America, and the United States will tour France
on the Orient Express and do events in various venues in Marseilles,
Avignon, Valence, Lyon, and Paris.

The tour will begin in Marseilles on Sun, Oct. 16-at 339 Avenue du
Prado at 6 pm-and continue with the following schedule: Oct. 16-17:
Marseilles; Oct. 18: Avignon and Valence; Oct. 19: Lyon; Oct. 20-21:
Paris.

In Marseilles, Balakian will read from and lecture about his
great-uncle’s memoir of the genocide Armenian Golgotha. The English
edition of Armenian Golgotha was translated by Peter Balakian and
Aris Sevag and published to international acclaim in 2009 by Alfred A.

Knopf. Bishop Grigoris Balakian was bishop of the Armenian church
of Southern France from the mid 1920’s until his death in 1934,
and is responsible for the construction of the Armenian churches and
schools there.

SLAIN ARMENIAN CAPTIVE’S PARENTS TO SUE AZERBAIJAN AT EUROPEAN COURT

Tert.am
10:38 27.09.11

The parents of Manvel Saribekyan, an Armenian citizen caught and
tortured to death by the Azerbaijani armed forces in September 2010,
have decided to file a lawsuit against Azerbaijan at the European
Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

According to the First Armenian TV Channel, Saribekyan’s parents find
Azerbaijan in violation of several rights guaranteed by the European
Convention on Human Rights (including his right to life).

“The [General] Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia, as
well as the inquest body should do everything possible to protect and
reinstate Saribekyan’s rights and interests as a citizen of Armenia.

And the Prosecutor’s Office will furnish his relatives with all
the documentation necessary for applying to the European Court,”
Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan said.

Manvel Saribekyan was an Armenian shepherd who, due to foggy
weather conditions lost his orientation on September 11, 2010,
and inadvertently crossed into Azerbaijani border together with his
cattle. He had been caught by Azerbaijani armed forces and held in
captivity. Later in October he was reported to have committed suicide
~V something the Armenian side denies.

On November 4, 2010 Azerbaijan repatriated Saribekyan~Rs body in a
swap deal in pursuant of a recent agreement reached by Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents in Astrakhan, Russia.

A subsequent forensic examination revealed traces of torture on
Saribekyan’s body. To ensure impartiality of inquest procedures,
Armenia’s prosecutor general applied to his Azerbaijani counterpart
to find out whether the country is conducting an inquest. But his
request remained unanswered and even a motion filed by the Russian
prosecutor general did not help the process.

TRILOK GURTU AND TIGRAN HAMASYAN – REVIEW

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
John Lewis

guardian.co.uk
Monday 26 September 2011 17.45 BST

It’s not often Trilok Gurtu finds himself upstaged. For more than
three decades, the Mumbai-born percussionist has been one of the
most charismatic figures in jazz, always surrounded by a kit that
looks like the contents of Aladdin’s cave. If drum solos are often
an excuse for the audience to visit the bar, with Gurtu they are
the centrepiece to the show – a sonic voyage using tablas, gongs,
box drums, rattles, cowbells, shells and even a bucket of water. But
tonight, from the moment he was joined on stage by the 24-year-old
Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan, eyes were fixed elsewhere.

Dressed in black and looking like a young Bob Dylan, Tigran placed his
stool away from the piano and bent double while playing, his forehead
almost touching the keys. He mumbled into a microphone while soloing;
occasionally beat-boxing over the funkier tracks, sometimes singing
wordless, hymn-like compositions.

This performance – featuring two short solo performances and a lengthy
duet – served as Hamasyan’s London debut and showcased A Fable, his
first album on the Verve label. However, where that LP comprises quiet,
Satie-esque miniatures, here Gurtu pushed Tigran into wilder territory.

His piano style is strongly rooted in traditional Armenian music.

Tonight’s show opened with a fellow Armenian playing folk songs on
the oboe-like duduk, and you can see the link between those haunting
melodies and the melismatic phrases Tigran plays with his right hand.

But, egged on by Gurtu’s rabble-rousing percussion, he also dipped
into Keith Jarrett-style gospel, country and funk.

The duet was a little rough around the edges, but it was a chaotic,
exhausting, unrepeatable show that pushed two very different talents
to their limits.