Author: Badalian Vardan

EXCERPTS FROM A LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW KARANIAN

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 |

Posted by Matthew Karanian

Matthew Karanian (photo by Karine Armen)

The Los Angeles Times published a major feature last month on the book
‘Armenia and Karabakh: The Stone Garden Travel Guide.’ The story,
‘A Fresh View on Ancient Armenia,’ included an interview with author
Matthew Karanian. Excerpts from the interview are printed below.

LOS ANGELES TIMES: How many Americans visited Armenia last year?

MATTHEW KARANIAN: Not enough. That’s why I published the book. There
were about 850,000 tourist visas issued for Armenia in 2012. More
than half, maybe up to 70%, were issued to Diasporan Armenians. And
for the past several years, roughly 15% of all tourist visas were
issued to Americans.

LAT: What will I find on the sidewalks in the center of Yerevan?

M.K.: There are so many sidewalk cafes in central Yerevan, sometimes
it seems you can’t go for a walk without falling into one. But it’s
a seasonal thing. In the winter the only thing on the sidewalk is snow.

LAT: If I’m walking those sidewalks in summertime, why should I be
wary of children bearing buckets?

M.K.: Vardavar is a great day to be a kid. This is an ancient holiday,
and the essence of it is children dumping buckets of water on
strangers. With impunity. The impunity part is key, and it probably
keeps a lot of adults off the streets that day. Vardavar occurs once
a year, on the 14th Sunday after Easter. I learned about the holiday
the hard way, during my first visit to the country in 1995. Now I
pay more attention to the calendar.

LAT: Where do you go for the best view of Mt. Ararat?

M.K.: Ararat is huge! It dominates the psyche as well as the skyline.

When I lived in Yerevan, my favorite place to view was from the
balcony of my apartment. But for the best viewing, I recommend the
vantage from the monastery of Khor Virap, which is just south of
Yerevan and right on the frontier between Armenia and Turkey.

LAT: How’s the hitchhiking?

M.K.: Hitchhiking is common, and accepted, among people of all ages. I
usually stop. This is mostly a rural thing, though. In the city,
people who don’t own cars just take the bus.

LAT: If we can’t get to Ararat, what big, scenic mountain can we
get to?

M.T.: Aragats is a great place to visit during the summer, not just
for the hiking, but also to beat the heat of the city. There’s snow
on Aragats year-round, and you can climb almost to the top – 4,090
meters – without any special gear, as long as you’re in reasonably
good shape. It’s a great way to impress your friends: I climbed the
tallest peak of Armenia!

LAT: Armenia has more very old churches and monasteries than your
average European nation. Which ones make most sense for visitors?

M.K.: Echmiadzin is the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which
is Armenia’s national church. The structure dates back to AD 301,
when Armenia became the first state to accept Christianity. So going
to Armenia without visiting Echmiadzin would be kind of like going
to Rome and then skipping a trip to the Vatican.

But my favorite pilgrimage is to the monasteries of Sanahin and
Haghpat, in the northeast. Sanahin was founded in AD 966. Haghpat
was built right about the same time, in AD 977. They’re both UNESCO
World Heritage Sites. But these are just highlights. There are too
many ancient sites to mention. Armenia is a second Holy Land for
Christendom!

LAT: Yerevan and northern Armenia get more attention than the south.

If I go roaming in the south, what will I find?

M.K.: Tatev Monastery, which was founded in the 9th century, is the
cultural highlight of the south. It was built on top of a deep gorge
to deter invading armies and a variety of other plunderers. But [more
recently] the remote location mostly just deterred tourists. So a
couple of years ago they built an aerial tram – the world’s longest
– to make it easier for visitors to get there. The majesty of Tatev
never ceases to amaze me. I would walk there if I had to. But taking
the tram’s a lot easier.

I also love the geography of the south. The region around Spandarian
Reservoir is gorgeous. I’m in awe of Karahunj- a celestial observatory
that’s older than Stonehenge. And Shikahogh Reserve is a natural
treasure, with a grove of 2,000 year-old plane trees.

LAT: Tell me about the old shoe.

M.K.: I think there’s a secret contest, where all the countries of the
world compete to have the oldest of something in every category. It’s
a contest that Armenia is really good at, maybe because Armenia is
itself so old.

In 2010, Armenia grabbed the titles for World’s Oldest Winery (6,100
years old, discovered in a cave) and World’s Oldest Shoe (5,500 years
old, discovered, perhaps not surprisingly, near the winery). Must
make all those 1,500-year-old monasteries feel quite young.

‘Confusion and inconsistencies’: How US plans to distract public from
real truth about Boston

RT.com
April 21, 2013

The initial questions about the Boston bombing are behind us, but
former FBI employee Sibel Edmonds believes the pursuit of truth will
eventually lead to a far more secret agenda by the US, which she
reveals to RT.

The United States is having to quickly wake up to the possibility that
Chechens are not the `freedom fighters’ Western media has been
categorizing them as, especially when it came to the Republic’s
relationship to Russia. But even the newly formed perceptions may not
be enough when it comes to investigating the motives and planning
behind the Boston bombing, according to Edmonds, who is also a founder
of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

With the dust somewhat settled after the capture of the younger
suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Edmonds believes there will only be more
unanswered questions in an investigation already plagued by obvious
inconsistencies and falsities, which she recounts at length.

RT: We’ve learned in the last hour that Russia warned the FBI about
the older Tsarnaev brother and his potential links with radical
Islamists, but the FBI found nothing suspicious. How is that possible?

Sibel Edmonds: Actually, we predicted that the unnamed foreign country
[Western media didn’t name the source immediately] was in fact Russia,
two days ago. We have too little facts, too much false information and
speculations. But just look at the period they are talking about. When
you listen to the suspect’s mother, she’s talking about a period of
three to five years. According to FBI officials, they received this
information, this warning, in 2011. So we have that inconsistency
right there. The other important inconsistency that we should pay
attention to is the mother’s description of FBI mannerisms and
conversation with the suspects and the family when they were visiting
them for the last three to five years. That fits exactly the
recruitment style of the intelligence community. When you go to the
suspects, and one moment you’re saying `We know you’re decent, we know
you’re doing nothing wrong, we know you’re good’, and the next minute
they’re saying `You can be dangerous’, right after receiving that
information from the Russian government, to threaten them with that
information for what purpose – to recruit them as informants or for
other agendas.

RT: We spoke to the mother last night. She said there is no way on
earth they could have been involved in a heinous crime like this, that
she knew everything about them and they could not have been potential
terrorists. However, could there be another side to these people that
they didn’t even let their mother know, is that not feasible?

SE: Well, again, we don’t have real information from our source in the
last 48 hours. I found out that they had been associating the brothers
– especially the older one =80` with very wealthy individual Turkish
persons, some of them students in Boston, some businessmen…really
modern people. And we haven’t received any information that they [the
brothers] had been associating with Chechens, even the radicals. So
that itself is another major inconsistency in this story.

RT: Similarities are being drawn between the ‘pressure cooker’ bombs
used in Boston and those which Al Qaeda gets English-speaking
terrorists to use. Just how much does this prove in terms of the
bombers’ links with the terrorist group?

SE: Again, it’s way too early to comment on this and I think that
whole notion right now sounds really, really weak. Because the US
government, when it is convenient, one minute talk about how
sophisticated Al Qaeda has become – in fact they’re as sophisticated
as the NSA [US National Security Agency] – they are talking about
their ability to obtain laptop, or suitcase bombs, nuclear bombs…and
the next moment they are talking about this amateurish home-made
ability. So, as far as the government is concerned, I think it’s too
early to buy this either from the US media or the government.

This situation is really similar to the Bin Laden shooting. Every day
the story changed. And this is what we are going to see in the next
few days. They are going to change the story, they are going to throw
so much confusion and inconsistencies and conflicting data that no one
is going to figure out what actually happened, especially if the
second suspect dies.

RT: There’s been a tendency in the Western media to portray armed
groups in the Chechnya as freedom fighters. Is that going to change at
all after this?

SE: We all have to really look at the timing of this, because again
the US media is portraying this incident by itself. It’s not putting
it in the context of things that have been happening in the past –
let’s say one year so – or recent stuff – we had this case of NGOs
being shut down by the Russian government, which was a very smart
move, because we know that the majority of these NGOs have CIA
agendas, as they’re operated and managed by CIA people. And this is
one way of infiltrating Russia by the US government, the CIA.

So, if you start putting these in context and also add the fact that
Russia has been the biggest obstacle for the United States to get in
and directly attack Syria – that’s when you start to see the bigger
picture and that’s what the people should be paying attention
to. Again, the false information that is being put forth by US media
is that since the fall of the Soviet Union the United States has
refrained from intervening in the Russia-Chechnya situation. And that
is purely false. Since mid-1990’s, the US directly, or through Turkey
has been arming, training, managing, orchestrating not only Chechens
but also other factions in the region – and we are looking at Central
Asia and the Caucasus.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

OPPOSITIONIST: TIGRAN SARGSYAN IS THE CHIEF PICKPOCKET OF ARMENIA

ARMINFO
Tuesday, May 7, 17:42

Not the Council of Elders election were held in Yerevan but the
purchase and sale of votes, the head of the Social and Democratic
“Hchakyan” party, a member of the parliament from the ANC, Lyudmila
Sargsyan, said at today’s press-conference.

She did not want to understand that not only representatives of
Republican Party of Armenia were dishing out bribes, as members of
Prosperous Armenia Party too. As for the PAP, she said that “PAP is
neither the opposition nor the coalition, it is an alternative party
which has been demonstrating more the opposition stance”, – she said.

She also added that ANC welcomes the PAP joining the opposition field.

She thinks that at present an absolute consolidation of the out of
the power forces is necessary.

“The current authorities have picked the society’s pocket and are
robbing it without mercy, and Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan is
a chief pickpocket of the country”, she said. The politician said
that despite the efforts of the authorities, at present there are no
serious disagreements between ANC and the rest opposition forces.

FILMMAKER TALIN AVAKIAN’S ‘DEMI POINTE’ WINS BIFF AWARD

May 7, 2013

BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.)- “Demi Pointe,” a short film written and directed
by young filmmaker Talin Avakian, won the Indie Soul Best Picture
Award in this year’s Boston International Film Festival (BIFF) held
at the Boston Loews Cineplex/AMC from April 12-21.

Avakian (Center) with crew members after the screening at the BIFF.

“I feel very blessed and satisfied after winning this award. It feels
great, almost a year after finishing Demi Pointe, to be recognized
for all the work, energy, and time invested into this project,”
said Avakian in an interview with The Armenian Weekly.

“I can’t take full credit for this achievement, though. I am so
grateful for my cast, crew, family, friends, and Kickstarter supporters
who made the completion of ‘Demi Pointe’ possible,” she added.

The BIFF is the largest international film festival in Massachusetts,
and one of the largest in the United States. This year “Demi Pointe”
was chosen out of 2,600 entries, and was one of 100 films (both
feature length and short) in the program.

“Demi Pointe” (featuring Sydney Penny, Rachel Scott, Robin Ann
Rapoport, and Amy Freedman) is a short fictional narrative about a
young girl who struggles to speak. As a selectively mute child, Sydney
retreats to her vivid imagination during class and other situations
where she is expected to verbally communicate, as a way to escape
her anxiety. Sydney begins to see a speech therapist, who decides
to take an empathetic approach in therapy. As therapy progresses,
Sydney discovers her love for ballet, and uses that as an outlet
for communication.

BEST SAMPLES OF ARMENIAN NATIONAL MUSIC TO BE AVAILABLE IN ONE WEBSITE

18:14, 7 May, 2013

YEREVAN, MAY 7, ARMENPRESS: The best samples of the Armenian national
music will be available in the Armenian-language website namusic.net.

The presentation ceremony of the website was held on May 7 at the
Martiros Saryan House-Museum. As Armenpress was reported by the
founder and the chief administrator of the website Sergey Umroyan,
the Armenian national music website will contain exclusive recordings,
articles, interviews and videos.

Sergey Umroyan informed as well that no genre restrictions will be
in the website. According to him, today, in comparison with the pop
music, the national music is less propagated, whereas it should be
available to the wider circles of the society.

The founders intend to develop the English and Russian versions of
the website namusic.net.

NEW MINISTRY TO BE CREATED IN ARMENIA

ARMINFO
Wednesday, May 8, 17:00

A Government Staff Ministry will actually be created in Armenia, and
the former finance minister Vache Gabrielyan will lead that ministry.

At the May 8 session of the Government, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan pointed out that the creation of the new ministry is
conditioned by the reforms that will be controlled by the new
ministry. “We are at the stage of reforms and there is a need to
coordinate the reforms in various departments”, he said. Sargsyan
added that the new minister will coordinate the reforms in the state
governance sphere, education and healthcare. The relevant draft
amendments to the law on the Armenian Government’s structure will
shortly be submitted for consideration of the Parliament.

To enhance the efficiency of the Government’s work, the Prime Minister
suggested enlarging the institute of vice premiers. He recalled that
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has repeatedly stressed the need to
introduce constitutional amendments to increase the number of the vice
premiers.

CREDITOR BANKS AGREE TO WRITE OFF PENALTIES AND FINES OF ARMAVIA

YEREVAN, May 8./ARKA/. The creditor banks had agreed to write off
the penalties and fines of Armenia’s national air carrier, Armavia
company, Transport Communications officer Isabella Muradyan said in
an interview with ARKA news agency.

Muradyan is a deputy chief of Armenia’s Public Council of Air and
Transport Communications.

Armavia company has stopped operating flights on 1 April and declared
bankruptcy.

“We are aware that the banks agreed, and penalties were written off.

It refers to the debt amount only, which is covered by the air
company’s pledged property,” she clarified.

According to Russian “Kommersant” daily newspaper, Armavia’s debt
to some Russian banks, airports and Rosaviation stands at nearly
$25 million. Besides the Russian banks, the company owes money to
several large Armenian banks. Particularly, Armavia owes several
million rubles to Vnesheconomban, and $22 million -to VTB.

Chairman of VTB Bank (Armenia) Yuri Gusev earlier said the bank
together with its stockholder, Armenia’s Central Bank and Armavia’s
owner are seeking for the maximally painless solution to the debt
issues.

According to Muradyan, Armenia’s government should follow the creditors
in the write-off, because the company’s debt to the government is not
big, and the penalties and fines exceed the debt amount three times.

“I think, in the current situation, when the government can’t provide a
direct financial assistance to the company, it should at least write
off the penalties,” she noted.

Muradyan highlighted in order to solve the issues, it is necessary
to create an institute of a national air carrier where the government
will hold block of shares of the company.

“Armavia has submitted a list of proposals to the Public Council on
how the company can re-launch its operation, and I think, it is the
best solution, and it is important to follow the path of re-organizing
both: the sphere and the carrier,” she resumed.

In the list of proposals, Armavia mainly insists on rebuilding the
parity at the market. The company also requires to remove 10,000
drams (the so-called “tax on air”) from the ticket cost. Armavia also
proposes to the government to gain a part of shares of the company
thus restructuring the debt to the state budget.

Some other conditions are to define the clear criteria of “basic
airport” and “national air carrier” terms, and to introduce a 30%
discount on airport fees compared to the foreign companies.

The analogical discount is proposed for leased areas for basic air
carriers.

In addition, in order to avoid the collapse of the national air
deliveries, it is proposed that one and more air carriers should
operate, and air companies should buy air fuel themselves and pay
affordable fees for airport services. -0-

PROF. STEPHEN HAWKING JOINS ACADEMIC BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

May 8, 2013 – 11:47 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic
boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli
president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel’s treatment
of Palestinians, The Guardian reports.

Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted
an invitation to headline the fifth annual president’s conference,
Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international
personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will
celebrate Peres’s 90th birthday.

Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter
to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not
announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the
British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking’s
approval described it as “his independent decision to respect the
boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous
advice of his own academic contacts there”.

Hawking’s decision marks another victory in the campaign for boycott,
divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli academic institutions.

In April the Teachers’ Union of Ireland became the first lecturers’
association in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel, and in
the United States members of the Association for Asian American Studies
voted to support a boycott, the first national academic group to do so.

In the four weeks since Hawking’s participation in the Jerusalem event
was announced, he has been bombarded with messages from Britain and
abroad as part of an intense campaign by boycott supporters trying to
persuade him to change his mind. In the end, Hawking told friends, he
decided to follow the advice of Palestinian colleagues who unanimously
agreed that he should not attend.

By participating in the boycott, Hawking joins a small but growing
list of British personalities who have turned down invitations to
visit Israel, including Elvis Costello, Roger Waters, Brian Eno,
Annie Lennox and Mike Leigh.

However, many artists, writers and academics have defied and even
denounced the boycott, calling it ineffective and selective. Ian
McEwan, who was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 2011, responded to
critics by saying: “If I only went to countries that I approve of,
I probably would never get out of bed … It’s not great if everyone
stops talking.”

Hawking has visited Israel four times in the past. Most recently,
in 2006, he delivered public lectures at Israeli and Palestinian
universities as the guest of the British embassy in Tel Aviv. At the
time, he said he was “looking forward to coming out to Israel and
the Palestinian territories and excited about meeting both Israeli
and Palestinian scientists”.

Since then, his attitude to Israel appears to have hardened. In 2009,
Hawking denounced Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza, telling Riz
Khan on Al-Jazeera that Israel’s response to rocket fire from Gaza
was “plain out of proportion … The situation is like that of South
Africa before 1990 and cannot continue.”

The office of President Peres, which has not yet announced Hawking’s
withdrawal, did not respond to requests for comment. Hawking’s name
has been removed from the speakers listed on the official website.

JEUDI 25 AVRIL 2013, CHARENTON-LE-PONT, 98E ANNIVERSAIRE DU GENOCIDE DE 1915

La Municipalite de Charenton-le-Pont et l’Association Culturelle
Armenienne de Marne-la-Vallee vous invitaient a assister a la ceremonie
de Depôt de gerbe devant le Khatchkar de Charenton-le-Pont (94220)

La ceremonie a eu lieu en presence de M. Jean-Marie BRETILLON,
Maire de Charenton-le-Pont, Conseiller general du Val-de-Marne, de
M. Michel Herbillon. Depute-Maire de Maisons-Alfort, et de Mme Nelly
D’HAENE, adjointe au maire de la ville de Saint-Maurice representant
le Senateur-Maire Christian Cambon

Ainsi que d’autres personnaites civiles et religieuses

Lien direct vers l’affiche de cette ceremonie :

Lisez sur le site de l’ACAM, accompagne de photographies, le compte
rendu,de cette ceremonie commemorative

mercredi 8 mai 2013, Stephane ©armenews.com

UN ANCIEN PREMIER MINISTRE ARMENIEN CHOQUE PAR CE QU’IL A VU A LA FRONTIERE AVEC LA GEORGIE

Ancien Premier ministre et depute au prlement Hrant Bagratyan fait
part de ses preoccupations au sujet de l’emigration sur son mur
Facebook. Visitant le nord de l’Armenie et traversant la frontière
entre la Georgie dimanche, il a vu quelque chose qui l’a choque. Des
centaines de personnes traversent la frontière a pied,quittant
l’Armenie et emportant avec eux leurs bagages et leur lit. Ces
gens sont heureux de quitter l’Armenie. Seuls quelques-uns d’entre
eux etaient mecontents car ils ne peuvent emporter avec eux leurs
troupeaux raconte l’ex-Premier ministre d’Armenie.

Il dit qu’il a ete effraye par le nombre de personnes qui ont traverse
la frontière par le poste frontalier de Bagratashen. Le 21 Avril 6000
personnes ont franchi la frontière alors que generalement ce nombre
est de 400 a 500 personnes.

Le depute a parle a quelques jeunes hommes du village d’ Achajur. Il
a l’impression que les jeunes gens etaient contents de partir.

Ils ont dit qu’il y a des jours où 120 personnes quittent leur village
en un jour.

mercredi 8 mai 2013, Stephane ©armenews.com