Author: Badalian Vardan

Rudaw, Iraqi Kurdistan
Oct 12 2014

In Washington, Protesters Demand Kobane Intervention

By Yerevan Saeed

WASHINGTON–Kurdish Americans led demonstrations in front of the White
House and the State Department this week, demanding the US act to stop
an Islamic State (IS/ISIS) takeover of the besieged Kurdish city of
Kobane.

During the three days of demonstrations, protesters called on the US
not only to increase strikes on IS, which is closing in on Kobane, but
also to press its allies such as Turkey to intervene on behalf of
Kurdish fighters.

“People are here because they are trying to ask for help from the
United States and its allies to break the siege on Kobane and get it
out of the hands of IS,” said Parvez Barraghi, a 36-year-old Kurd from
Harrisonburg, Virginia.

“The US has been slow, but they have been moving; however its ally in
the region which is Turkey is watching while women and children being
killed and not doing anything (to help) them,” he added.

Powered by advanced US armory seized in Iraq and weapons seized in
Syria, IS last month launched a major assault on Kobane. The United
Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) reports that 170,000 people have fled
to nearby Turkey from the border city of Kobane, which is being
defended by People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The Syrian Kurdish militia is outgunned by IS but not receiving
weapons from Turkey or the west largely because it is tied to the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which is deemed a terrorist organization
by the European Union, the US and Turkey.

The demonstrators delivered a letter to State Department officials,
asking for US military assistance for the Kurdish fighters and
increased US airstrikes to halt the IS advance.

Demonstrators chanted “Arm Kurdish fighters, Stop ISIS, Down with
ISIS, Mr. Obama Save Kobane.”

Carrying Kurdish and American flags with signs for Kobane, the
protesters marched toward the White House, where they caught the
attention of passers-by.

“We want the United States to be more assertive with its allies, “Barraghi said.

He also urged Turkey, which has tanks a few kilometers away from
Kobane on the Turkish side of the border but has not intervened, to
act to prevent killing women and children. Turkey has said it would
intervene if the Kurds commit to ousting Syrian leader Bashar
al-Assad.

“We want Turkey to do something because they are the biggest ally and
the second biggest force of NATO. They should do something at least to
protect the women and children. They should put the Kurdish problem
and political problem away to protect humanity.”

“We are standing here in solidarity with the Kurds everywhere,
especially in Kobane and its struggle because of possible genocide and
massacre. We want to prevent that from happening,” said Omer Pacal, a
Washington-based Kurdish American.

Pacal said that while US-led international coalition has played a role
in helping Kobane, “Unfortunately the airstrikes were late. If the
airstrikes would have started weeks ago, it would not have been at
this stage.”

Pacal accused Turkey of dragging its feet in acting against IS, saying
that Ankara “will be responsible” if a massacre occurs. He noted that
at least 31 Kurdish civilians have been killed in several days of
protests in Turkey, which is still debating how to deal with IS.

The gathering included non-Kurds in solidarity with the people and
Kurdish fighters of Kobane.

Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director Aram
Hamparian said he joined the protest because he believes the future of
Kurds and Armenians, both persecuted minorities in Turkey, are tied.

He claimed Turkey’s reluctance to act on Kobane was driven by Ankara’s
“anti-Kurdish” stance.

“Turkey has a very clear responsibility. They have an opportunity to
help and they are not,” he said. “Why? Because they have an
anti-Kurdish agenda. All you need is to look at the history of the
last 30 years to see how they have tried to destroy Kurdish
nationalism and destroy Kurdish cultural identity.”

Gorran Rahim, another Kurd from northern Virginia, called on the US to
step up military intervention against IS.

“Thousands of people are trapped and we ask America to save them,” Rahim said.

ARMENIA’S ACCESSION TO EURASIAN UNION NOT OBSTACLE FOR EU – ENVOY

01:20, 11.10.2014

YEREVAN. – The Treaty of Accession of Armenia to the Russia-led
Eurasian Economic Union signed on Friday is not an obstacle for the
development of future relations between Armenia and the European
Union, said EU Ambassador to Armenia Traian Hristea, Armenian News
-NEWS.am reports.

According to the EU envoy, the parties will work on legal instruments
for the development of future bilateral relations.

“I do not think it will be an obstacle,” said Ambassador Hristea.

“Together with the Armenian authorities, we are in the process of
identifying areas for sectoral cooperation.”

Armenia News – NEWS.am

AZERBAIJAN APPRECIATES BRITAIN’S POSITION ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Oct 10 2014

10 October 2014, 14:43 (GMT+05:00)
By Sara Rajabova

Baku’s ambassador to the United Kingdom has said London’s reputation
and position on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
are highly appreciated in Azerbaijan.

Given the economic and political interests of the United Kingdom, it
has a natural interest in the conflict resolution, Tahir Tagizade said.

Reminding that on the eve of the NATO summit in Cardiff, the UK has
expressed a consistent, logical and fair position on the conflict,
the diplomat said as one of the leading forces in Europe, the UK has
the opportunities.

Tagizade said the British leadership and the Foreign Office stressed
the importance of the territorial integrity principle in the regional
conflicts.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in
conflict which emerged over Armenia’s territorial claims against its
South Caucasus neighbor.

Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied
20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and
seven surrounding regions. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since
1994, but long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators
have been largely fruitless so far.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country’s territories.

PUTIN PRAISES ARMENIA’S ACCESSION TO POST-SOVIET TRADE BLOC

Focus News, Bulgaria
Oct 10 2014

10 October 2014 | 21:46 | FOCUS News Agency

Minsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he believed
Armenia was ready for joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and
expected a positive macroeconomic effect from its accession to the
post-Soviet trade bloc, TASS reported.

“We believe Armenia is ready for work in the EEU on an equal footing
with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan,” Putin said at a meeting of the
Higher Eurasian Council at the level of the heads of state in Minsk.

WHAT MAKES A MAN: A REVUE OF CHARLES AZNAVOUR THAT’S OUT OF FOCUS

The Globe and Mail, Canada
Oct 10 2014

J. Kelly Nestruck

What Makes a Man is Charles Aznavour as you’ve never heard or seen
him before.

Those uncertain the French-Armenian chansonnier needed reinvention,
however, will be left unconvinced by this poorly focused show that
makes you yearn for the original’s vibrato and bravado.

Director Jennifer Tarver and musical director Justin Ellington have
fashioned a revue out of a couple dozen of songs from Aznavour’s
melancholic catalogue Рfrom well-known world hits like La Boh̬me
and Take Me Along (Emmenez-Moi), to lesser known tunes like The Times
We’ve Known (Les Bon Moments) and Take the Chorus (Prends le Chorus).

We’re firmly in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
territory here. As with that long-running off-Broadway revue,
two men and two women sing songs in English translation – and act
them as fiercely as they croon them. (Andrew Shaver has provided
new translations for several songs – but they are mostly ones the
multilingual, international singer has used himself.)

Aznavour’s gravelly tenor is iconic, and the way he spins out long
lyrical lines like he’s auctioneering battered hearts and broken
dreams is inimitable. No one tries to copycat here, thankfully.

After the six-member band plays an overture, Kenny Brawner, a
jazz-funk bandleader, is the first interpreter to take the stage
(a set of steps in black and blue designed by Teresa Przybylski).

Brawner, known for his Ray Charles tribute act in New York, sits down
behind his keyboard and breaks into an enjoyably bluesy rendition
of Yesterday When I was Young (Hier Encore) – sometimes speaking
the lyrics, sometimes singing them: “The thousand dreams I dreamed,
the splendid things I planned, I always built, alas, on weak and
shifting sand.”

>From the sands of time behind him, three other singers emerge. Andrew
Penner plays an eager young country-inflected busker, his hat on the
ground, his suitcase his drum.

Saidah Baba Talibah, who gives her songs a jagged, gospel flavour,
plays an angelic youngster at first – but later delves into more
devilish territory.

And then there’s Louise Pitre, the Tony nominee dressed here in
an androgynous outfit, all vehemence and barely suppressed anger,
throwing in the occasional line in the original French.

Are these four performers, moodily moving about, meant to represent
different parts of the same personality? Are we looking at four
separate lives? Or are we simply watching four performers in the
theatre, here and now?

In her program note, Tarver – Necessary Angel’s new artistic director
and better known for her meticulous work on plays by Samuel Beckett
and Harold Pinter – suggests that even she is not quite sure what she
has created. Originally, she wanted to paint a picture of Aznavour’s
divided self – poet, lover, performer and survivor. But now she writes,
“the lens of the performer has become the central focal point for
the story.”

When your lens is also your focal point, it’s going to be hard to see
what’s right in front of you. And What Makes a Man is ultimately not
much more than a cabaret/concert – and taken on that unpretentious
level it has its charms.

There are stories within the songs to latch onto. The title of the show
comes from a sensitive one written by Aznavour about a gay man in a
time when that would have been risque; What Makes a Man is sung here
by Penner and anchors a night otherwise ever-shifting in its sexual
point of view. “So many times we have to pay for having fun and being
gay,” he sings, sensitively. But, though the song was progressive in
its time, Aznavour’s lyrics about a man with a passion for sewing who
lives with his mother and cats now seem out of tune with the times, and
with no attempts to contextualize them by Tarver, Penner’s rendition –
like much of the evening – seems painfully earnest.

Aznavour’s performances were full of theatrical flourishes and winks
when he was young – on YouTube, you’ll still find the youthful singer
performing a pirouette all the way off stage at the Olympia music
hall in Paris at the end of Emmenez-moi.

There’s still something in his more contained performances today – at
90, he continues to tour, though he was hospitalized for an infection
on Friday – that suggests he is both serious and unserious at the
same time, a Gallic quality that tempers potential sentimentality.

Brawner captures that spirit of Aznavour best, letting out a knowing
smile that shows he’s aware he’s being a bit much.

Stuck off in a corner, the band occasionally overpowers the singers
in this acoustic nightmare that is Berkeley Street Theatre. Speakers
hanging high above the singers try to compensate for this, but
it undercuts the intimacy of their performances. There’s a lot of
disconnect – in language, style, time and sound – in What Makes a Man.

SPEAKING FOR A PEACEFUL FUTURE

YWCA Australia
Oct 8 2014

Arda Aghazarian from Jerusalem will be visiting Australia in September
and October, sharing her experiences and vision for a just and peaceful
future for Israel and Palestine.

We’re delighted to invite you to join Arda for a cup of tea as she
talks about the work of the YWCA of Palestine and life for Palestinian
Christian Women.

Arda Aghazarian is an emerging Christian leader committed to shine the
light of truth and understanding on her occupied homeland. Arda is an
Armenian Palestinian Christian from the Old City of Jerusalem. Growing
up through violence and military occupation, she has become an advocate
for justice and peace in the Holy Land, with particular emphasis on
conflict resolution and women’s rights. Arda has been an international
peacemaking partner with the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and has
played a key role in program development and implementation in the YWCA
in Palestine. She guides pilgrims through the streets of Jerusalem,
as well as delivering public talks and lectures.

Where: Melbourne City Mission Cafe 164-180 Kings Way, South Melbourne

When: Wednesday 15 October 2014, 4 – 5pm

For further information please contact Jenny Davidson, [email protected]

TIME TO SHARE JUST PEACE

The Chronicle (Toowoomba, Queensland)
October 7, 2014 Tuesday

OH JERUSALEM – if you only knew the things that would bring you peace!

These are the words of Jesus as he wept over Jerusalem just before
he was crucified. However, this lament seems just as relevant more
than 2000 years later.

In 1947, the UN in its partition plan envisaged Jerusalem as an
international city to be shared by all; however, this has not come
to pass.

Israel took military control over East Jerusalem in 1967, a move
that is celebrated as the reunification of the eternal capital of
the Jewish people in Israel, but condemned by the international
community who maintain that East Jerusalem is under an illegal
military occupation. In Jerusalem, there are two starkly different
narratives about the hopes and dreams for this city. And underneath
every political story is a human one.

Whilst Israel has control of all of Jerusalem, most of the Palestinian
residents do not have citizenship, leaving 300,000 Palestinians
stateless and holding only flimsy residency permits that are often
revoked.

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, over
three-quarters of Palestinians in Jerusalem live in poverty, with
grossly inadequate public infrastructure – a shortage of 2000
classrooms; only 50kms of sewage lines; inadequate health, water
and other services. Most Palestinians are prevented from accessing
Jerusalem, which is hemmed in by a wall more than twice the height
of the Berlin wall on the West Bank side.

Arda Aghazarian, in Toowoomba this week, is one of those
Jerusalemites. She lives in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City,
which was established in the Fourth Century by Christian pilgrims.

The Christian Quarter sits beside the Armenian one, housing the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is believed to have been crucified.

However, the Christian population of Jerusalem has decreased rapidly –
from 20% of the population 70 years ago to only 2% now.

One of the greatest challenges for Christian Palestinians is that they
feel invisible to most of the many thousands of Christian pilgrims
who visit the city.

They watch the bustling crowds walk the Via Dolorosa (translation:
Way of Sorrows) – marking the last steps of Jesus.

However, most pilgrims do not stop to hear from the Palestinian
Christians and their current day Via Delorosa.

Many visitors only hear one narrative of the situation, the Israeli
one.

As Palestinian Christians were the first-ever Christians, they have
many stories to share – of life and faith and hope.

West Bank Baptist minister Alex Awad said: “The Christians in the
west, most of them, they don’t know the realities here. They don’t
know who is occupying who, who is oppressing who, who is confiscating
whose land, who is building walls to try and separate people from
one another.”

Each year the World Council of Churches sponsors the World Week for
Peace in Palestine and Israel, which has just been marked globally.

The message from this week is that the time is now for Palestinians
and Israelis to share a just peace – which must include freedom from
occupation and equal rights. Then we can heal together.

We invite you to hear from Arda this week as she shares her vision
for a peaceful future in Toowoomba.

She will be giving a public talk at 7pm tomorrow at St Patrick’s
Cathedral Parish Centre.

NKR is presented at international tourism fair in Italy; Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister misinforms citizens

13:39 11/10/2014 >> REGION

Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, disseminated
information allegedly due to the intervention of the Azerbaijani
embassy in Italy the participation of the NKR in the exhibition, which
was held in Italian city Rimini, has been prevented.

NKR representation, together with the representative of Armenia, is
participating in the touristic exhibition “TTG Incontri – The
International B2B Fair for the Tourism” since October 9 to 11. This
proves the photos taken during the exhibition.

The Head of the Department of Tourism at the NKR government Sergey
Shahverdyan has also confirmed the participation of the NKR delegation
at the exhibition being held in Italy. He has also noted that the
pavilion is of a great interest among the experts in the field of
tourism.

This is an accomplished fact: opinions on Armenia’s accession to EEU

20:52 * 10.10.14

This is an accomplished fact Armenia has actually been moving to for
over a year, Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) parliamentary group
member Gagik Minasyan told Tert.am as he commented on the signing of
the treaty on Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union
(EAU).

All the expectations that the treaty might not be signed have proved
disappointed.

As regards the delay in the process, Mr Minasyan said: “We are
following the timetable to join the Eurasian Economic Union along with
the others.”

With respect to Armenia being a founding member of the Eurasian
Economic Union, he said:

“Among the documents related to the Eurasian Economic Union, I have
not read a single document that would describe privileges of a
founding member over the one that is not a founding member.”

Political scientist Alexander Margarov said that like any integration
program the treaty envisages the creation of more favorable conditions
in a common economic area, a more efficient process of deeper
integration.

“The integration program’s efficiency depends on how well the
member-states will be able to achieve the goals incorporated in the
document,” he said.

Armenia has chosen accession to the Eurasian Economic Union because it
implies not only economic integration, but also consolidation of
strategic cooperation, Mr Margarov said.

Armenian News – Tert.am

VIDEO – Members of the House of Commons of Canada Condemn the
Desecration of the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Der Zor

October 11, 2014

Ottawa РHarold Albrecht, MP (Kitchener-Conestoga) with H̩l̬ne
Laverdière, MP (Laurier-Ste-Marie), prelate Bishop Meghrig Parikian,
former Prelate of Aleppo Archbishop Souren Kataroyan, and
representatives of the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC)
held a press briefing today to condemn the targeted attack and
destruction of the Armenian Genocide Church-Museum in Der Zor, Syria
by ISIS, aided by Turkish forces.

Watch related video