Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

LA BANQUE MONDIALE SOUTIENT L’AMELIORATION DES SYSTÈMES D’IRRIGATION EN ARMENIE

ARMENIE

Le Conseil des Administrateurs de la Banque mondiale a approuve un pret
de 30 millions de dollars pour le projet d’amelioration du système
d’irrigation (ISEP) en Armenie. Ce projet aidera le gouvernement de
l’Armenie dans ses efforts continus pour assurer l’efficacite et la
maîtrise de la rendre l’irrigation efficace et durable grâce a une
reduction de la quantite d’energie utilisee et amelioree le timing
de l’approvisionnement en eau dans quatre systèmes d’irrigation
cibles. En outre, cela contribuera a ameliorer la disponibilite et
la fiabilite des donnees du secteur et des informations importantes
pour les decideurs et autres parties prenantes.

Le principal investissement sera destine a abaisser le coût
d’exploitation de l’eau en ameliorant les systèmes. Le projet financera
la construction de systèmes d’irrigation par gravite dans les regions
de Meghri, Gegardalich, Baghramyan-Norakert et Kaghtsrashen.

Environ 52 km de canaux avec 13 systèmes a pompe seront rehabilites
pour minimiser les pertes d’eau. L’investissement dans ces canaux
permettra de realiser des economies de plus de 20 millions de mètres
cubes d’eau pompee.

mardi 13 août 2013, Stephane ©armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian

LE RAPPEUR ARMENIEN JENEE (EVGUENI MELKOUMIAN) S’EST TUE A MOSCOU LORS D’UN TOURNAGE A BORD D’UNE BMW X5

CHANSON

Lundi au sud de Moscou le rappeur Jenee, l’Armenien Evgueni Melkoumian
(23 ans) s’est tue sur une voie rapide lors du tournage d’un clip
video. L’accident qui est survenu a 6 heures du matin a fait 9 victimes
dont 3 morts, lorsqu’une BMW X5 sur laquelle etaient fixees les
cameras, roulant a 130 km a l’heure a percute une voiture de marque
Ford. Les deux conducteurs sont morts sur le coup. La BMW X5 etait
conduite par Evgueni Melkoumian. Deux autres Armeniens furent blesses
lors du choc frontal entre les deux vehicules. Il s’agit de Victoria
Garabedian (15 ans) qui se trouvait dans la Ford et Garik Avetissian
(21 ans) qui etait a bord de la BMW. Une semaine avant l’accident,
le rappeur Jenee (Evgueni Melkoumian) avait ete prive de son permis
de conduire pour ” conduite instable “.

Krikor Amirzayan

mardi 13 août 2013, Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian

Le Télégramme, France
Vendredi 9 Août 2013

Roman. Isabelle Kevorkian en dédicaces demain

Auteur d’un remarqué premier livre « Cet enfant que tu m’as volé », en
2008, Isabelle Kevorkian vient de publier son second roman, « Les
enfants rouges », aux éditions Jérôme Do Bentzinger. L’intrigue, qui
part d’un fait réel et marqua personnellement l’auteur, se situe dans
les années 80 sur la plage du Trez-Hir, au son de David Bowie. Un chat
arménien se retrouve être un étonnant protagoniste. L’héroïne mène une
enquête étrange et insolite, pour comprendre ce tragique fait divers
qui remonte à la surface, 30 ans après son adolescence, à l’occasion
d’une réunion d’anciens élèves. À la fois thriller psychologique,
quête initiatique et madeleine de Proust, ce roman évoque les années
Kakikouka et Kana beach, une époque légère et insouciante, où les
nuits du Trez-Hir se terminaient au petit matin.

Isabelle Kevorkian sera en dédicaces demain, à l’Ananas café, à 11 h,
en compagnie de Louis Caradec qui présentera, pour sa part, son
recueil dédié au pays d’Iroise. Il sera également possible de la
retrouver à l’Hippocampe, dans les locaux de l’office du tourisme, ce
même jour, à partir de 15 h, ainsi que dimanche, de 10 h à 13 h.

From: Baghdasarian

Glendale News-Press (California)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
August 10, 2013 Saturday

Gabriel Tolmajyan falls on ‘Friday Night Fights’ via decision

by Grant Gordon, Glendale News-Press, Calif.

Aug. 10–CABAZON — With the vacant United States Boxing Assn. junior
lightweight title on the line, bigger fights in the future at stake
and an undefeated opponent across from him, Gabriel “The Ghost”
Tolmajyan rarely took a step back Friday night.

But after 10 hard-fought rounds, his budding career took a stumble, as
he was on the losing end of a unanimous decision to undefeated Jose
“Sniper” Pedraza at the Morongo Casino in Cabazon in the co-main event
of ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights.”

All three judges scored the fight 97-93 for Pedraza (14-0, nine
knockouts), who used a stiff right jab throughout to lead to the
victory.

“Always just a little bit off,” said George Bastmajyan, Tolmajyan’s
manager and cut man, as his fighter lost for the third time to an
undefeated foe, all via decision. “This time around, he was strong, he
wasn’t tired. We lost because we weren’t active enough.”

Tolmajyan (14-3-1, three KOs), an Armenian native who fights out of
Glendale and trains at the Glendale Fighting Club, was fighting an
undefeated opponent for the sixth time in his career and the second
fight in a row. Trying to follow up his defeat of the previously
unblemished Jorge Maysonet Jr. in April, Tolmajyan was unable to find
the same magic, although the two put on an exciting, back-and-forth
action fight.

“I know Gabe landed the cleaner punches, the harder punches,”
Bastmajyan said. “[Pedraza] was pop-shotting him and running away.”

Much of the story of the fight was Pedraza using his range and popping
out a stiff right jab that he began employing after losing the first
round while fighting right-handed. Pedraza contested the remainder of
the fight as a southpaw.

“He threw us off,” said Bastmajyan, who, along with lead trainer,
Edmond Tarverdyan, brought in both right- and left-handers to spar
with Tolmajyan. “We knew he switches, but you can’t spar a guy who
switches. We sparred with guys from both sides, but it’s different
when a guy switches.”

One surprise to Tolmajyan’s camp was Pedraza’s approach. Riding a
string of three consecutive knockouts into Friday’s bout, Pedraza
didn’t come out as aggressive as predicted, Bastmajyan said.

“We thought he was gonna come out and try to get the knockout,”
Bastmajyan said. “He boxed.”

And with a reach advantage, Pedraza’s boxing was key, along with
aggression. When it became a fight, Tolmajyan often got the better of
it, landing the more effective power punches throughout. In the end,
Bastmajyan believes the biggest factor was simply aggression and
activity.

“That’s it, that’s it,” Bastmajyan said. “When Gabe was initiating
action, he was catching the guy.”

The fighters opened slowly in the first, with Tolmajyan getting the
round, as he was more active and landed more. Pedraza landed the best
blow of the stanza though, connecting on a straight right counter and
nicking the bridge of Tolmajyan’s nose.

Action opened up in the second round, with Esparza landing the better
shots, though both had their flurries. Pedraza once more landed the
most effective blow of the round, coming on a counter left hook as he
switched to southpaw after fighting the first round from an orthodox
stance.

Working behind a stiff right jab, Pedraza looked to take the third
round, putting together two good flurries and ducking under the
majority of Tolmajyan’s offense.

Tolmajyan came out aggressively in the fourth round and used his right
hook well throughout. Pedraza’s output waned and a mouse began to form
under his right eye, as well.

In the fifth, Tolmajyan’s right hook was once again his best weapon,
but Pedraza fought with renewed aggression and worked his right jab
well, also scoring with uppercuts and flurries in tight.

Highlighted by a terrific left cross in the waning seconds, Tolmajyan
looked solid in the sixth, slipping Pedraza’s punches well and landing
effectively on offense, as Pedraza had blood running down from his
nose into his mouth by round’s end.

The seventh round was close, but Tolmajyan dictated the pace and
landed the better power punches, as Pedraza’s activity regressed.

The back-and-forth feel continued with the eighth, as another tight
round saw Pedraza work his jab well again and increase his output,
landing more than Tolmajyan, though the latter landed three solid
lefts, one a hook and two straights.

An all-action ninth round went back and forth with Pedraza landing
more, but Tolmajyan landing the more powerful shots.

Pedraza closed the fight well in the 10th round, dancing and boxing
well, sticking and moving as he appeared to be the much fresher
fighter.

From: Baghdasarian

Totally Unofficial Brings Lemkin the Man into Focus

ARTS, HISTORY | AUGUST 6, 2013 4:19 PM
________________________________

By Gabriella Gage

Mirror-Spectator Staff

The recently-released Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael
Lemkin begins with an introduction by editor Donna-Lee Frieze into the
life of the `Insistent Prophet,’ international crusader against
genocide, Raphael Lemkin. The chapter opens with Lemkin’s death from a
heart attack, as he stands alone at the 42nd Street bus stop in New
York City on August 29, 1959. This tragic opening sets the tone for
Lemkin’s own narrative – the story of a single man, on a crusade to
change the world against all odds and with tremendous sacrifice.

Born in 1900, Lemkin was the son of Polish-Jewish parents. He was a
gifted child with a keen interest in literature and the ability to
read and converse in multiple languages. He spent the first 10 years
of his life on a farm called Ozerisko in what is present-day Belarus.

As a young man, Lemkin was keenly interested in events surrounding the
massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks and the subsequent
suppression of these events in public consciousness.

He studied at the John Casimir University in Lviv and then the
University of Heidelberg in Germany, returning to Lviv eventually to
earn his law degree. He then began work as a public prosecutor in
Warsaw and started to develop language and case studies for
presentation on what he would later deem `genocide’ to present at
various global assemblies, including the League of Nations conference.

Lemkin served in the Polish army during World War II, narrowly
escaping German capture only to find that he had lost dozens of
relatives during the Holocaust. He continued his work for justice
after the war and lectured as a professor in the US and provided
advice to several human rights-oriented trials.

Chapter Nine of his autobiography provides a firsthand account of the
events in Geneva and later Paris during his presentation before the
United Nations General Assembly proposing the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948.

The UN adopted this convention which used Lemkin’s case-study of the
Armenian Genocide and his language for defining the term genocide as
`acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.’

The convention came into force when the 20th nation ratified the
treaty in 1951. Currently 142 states have ratified the convention.

While at times the work seems more hagiography, than autobiography,
Lemkin’s dedication to this cause and accompanying indignation place
this reverence for his legacy in an understandable context.

As editor, Frieze seems to understand Lemkin’s overwhelming dedication
to his task and to recognize the notion of his own self-importance in
the appropriate context and marry it with his personal sacrifices. As
a narrative, Lemkin’s unfinished biography can at times be a heavy
read and the notion of one man’s journey to change the world can at
times neglect surrounding geopolitical circumstances and key players
that contributed to Lemkin’s success.

The strength of the text is in its personal historical utility and
understanding of both a hugely influential historical figure and his
struggles. Despite tendencies into what can seem indulgent
self-awareness, it is impossible to argue with Lemkin’s dedication and
ultimate impact. Indeed, it is this honesty and accurate depiction of
Lemkin’s psyche – both the dedication and the understanding of his own
self-importance – that is so unique as a resource for understanding
the humanity behind historical heroes, as opposed to removing them
from criticism or avoiding study at the personal level. It also serves
as a reminder that there is still much left to be done in order to
prevent further atrocities around the world.

Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin

Edited by Donna-Lee Frieze

Yale University Press

– See more at:

From: Baghdasarian

Extremely rare Armenian manuscript book of Narekatsi put up for Internet auction

16:50 – 10.08.13

An extremely rare manuscript of Grigor Narekatsi, an Armenian monk,
poet, mystical philosopher and theologian, has been put up for the
eBay auction, the starting price being $30,000.

Director of the Armenian Institute of Ancient Manuscripts
(Matenadaran) Hrach Tamrazyan told Tert.am that the Armenian side is
now verifying the information.

`We are always interested in such information and, if we can, acquire
valuable manuscripts. We have recently found two of Narekatsi’s
manuscripts,’ Tamrazyan said.

The deadline for the sale of the ancient Armenian manuscript is August 26.

From: Baghdasarian

Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Fresno to celebrate grapes blessing

August 10, 2013 – 16:46 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church will celebrate one of its
oldest traditions — the blessing of the grapes — for the 100th time
Sunday, Aug 18, The Fresno Bee reports.

The downtown Fresno parish, which was established in 1900, held its
first grape blessing in the summer of 1913.

Special events for the 100th anniversary of the Traditional Blessing
of the Grapes and Festival are scheduled at California Armenian Home.

His Eminence Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, prelate of the Western
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America in La Crescenta,
will celebrate Badarak divine liturgy at 10 am and the grape blessing
at 11:30. The festival is noon-5 pm, featuring traditional Armenian
food, music and dancing.

Menu items include shish kebab, chicken kebab and peda burgers. There
also will be a farmer’s market with fresh Valley fruits as well as
baked goods.

The blessing of the grapes is a tradition dating to ancient Armenia at
the beginning of harvest in mid-August, marking a time of rebirth and
regeneration.

Priests went into the vineyards to conduct solemn ceremonies. They
carried a pair of clippers in their right hand and a cross in their
left hand. They asked God to bless the grapes and save the vineyards
from natural disaster. After the ceremony, parishioners exchanged best
wishes.

Levon Baladjanian, chairman of the Holy Trinity picnic committee, says
the grape blessing in Fresno captures an important part of Armenian
faith and culture.

“It’s quite a tradition — the blessing of the soil, the harvest, the
hope in praying for the success of the harvest,” Baladjanian says.
“The grape was symbolic of the homeland. When Armenians came here in
the 1890s, a lot of them brought their agrarian life here and they
farmed grapes.”

From: Baghdasarian

Retro. The `Elite’ decided to become a little bit richer

August 9 2013

Yesterday, I was in the fixed-run minibus number 8 (which, by the way,
did not have a note saying AMD 130) and paid 150 AMD but the driver
did not give me the change of AMD 20. Naturally, I felt shame at
arguing with him for AMD 20. I can allow myself not to squabble with
the drivers, but there are people, for whom this 20 drams is vital,
and this uncertain 130 drams is going to create unnecessary tension
among our citizens. The price rise of fixed-run minibuses, in general,
is an immoral step people whose income is 15-20 thousand drams, and
the loss of additional 2-3 thousand drams per month is substantial for
their family budget. There are prices that cannot be increased in
these social conditions. It’s one thing when the price of the VIP
service `Limuzin’ per hour is increased, or the trout served in a
luxurious restaurant. The bread or fixed-run minibuses are another
thing. The latter does not have an alternative, the buses `cover up’
the minor part of minibuses, a resident of millionth city cannot do
without using public transportation. With regard to increase of
transport fare, free but responsible TV companies vent all their anger
on the Mayor. This, of course, is a `permitted’ courage. The mayor is
not the President of Armenia, nor the Minister of Defense, he can be
criticized on the air, Armen Gevorgyan will not call him to the
presidency because of that and will not give him a `severe reprimand’.
And, objectively the City Hall has its own share of the blame, because
it did not refuse the owners who applied with the issue of increasing
the prices. But the most important thing is why it did not refuse.
Because, the business of fixed-run minibuses is one of the most
profitable businesses in Armenia, and the `lines owners’ are not
random people, the ministers, generals, deputies and oligarchs do not
avoid to be engaged in this business. And so the whole `elite’,
probably thinking that they do not `squeeze’ too much income from the
route lines, decided to become a little bit richer at the expense of
the pensioners. The City Hall cannot refuse the claim of such
influential people. Consequently, the problem, as it is accepted to
say, is `systematic.’ In fact, it is well understood by our fellow
citizens. In the same minibus, an elderly man told me,- `Ay, we so
complain about how bad they are. In reality, we are bad, because we
give this 30 drams to them.’

Aram ABRAHAMYAN 12.08.2005
Read more at:

From: Baghdasarian

Turkey’s Summer of Discontent: Ergenekon Blues

by Steven A. Cook
August 7, 2013

Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug (Umit
Bektas/Courtesy Reuters).

Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug (Umit
Bektas/Courtesy Reuters).
With the dramatic developments in Egypt over the last month, Turkey
has fallen out of the news even though it has been an eventful summer
along the Bosphorus. The opposition to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan that began after authorities tried to clear Istanbul’s Gezi
Park in late May has proven more durable than virtually everyone
predicted. The government has responded to this political turbulence
with a variety of coercive measures making Erdogan’s illiberal turn
appear to be downright authoritarian. At the same time, Ankara’s
strategic position in the Middle East continues to crumble. The prime
minister’s reaction to Egypt’s July 3 coup d’état may be principled,
but his harsh and oddly emotional rhetoric has alienated yet another
important Middle Eastern country. In an irony of ironies, the
Egyptian press recently reported that if Erdogan makes a much-delayed
visit to Gaza in late August, he will have to do it through Israel.
That makes Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq the major regional
powers with whom Turkey is at odds.

If all this was not enough, earlier this week a Turkish court handed
down verdicts in the controversial `Ergenekon case,’ which is sure to
roil Turkish politics further. There is not much discussion of the
verdicts here in Washington. The Washington Post ran an AP story
about the case on Monday, but nothing since. The White House has been
silent. Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, offered an
anodyne comment about Turkish law permitting appeals and (groan)
`watching the process.’ It is August, and maybe people in Washington
care more about getting a reservation at State Road than high policies
of state. Maybe officials believe that Washington needs Ankara on a
variety of important issues (though I can only think of Syria) so it’s
not in anyone’s interest to upset Erdogan. Maybe it is hard to get
the administration and Congress riled up over a case that at one time
promised to uproot Turkey’s deep state and the dark underside of the
country’s national security establishment. Even so, there are aspects
of the Ergenekon case that are troubling even if one quite rightly
believes that the Turkish military has historically been a force of
authoritarianism and repression.

Just to review. In June 2007, Turkish police discovered a cache of 27
hand grenades on the roof of a building in the Istanbul neighborhood
of Umraniye. The explosives were linked to a non-commissioned officer
in the Special Forces named Oktay Yildirim. He was subsequently
connected to other officers (retired and serving), members of criminal
gangs, ultranationalists, and intelligence officers ultimately
numbering about 300 people. It seemed that the Istanbul cops had
uncovered Turkey’s mythical and much discussed `deep state’ red-handed
trying to sow violence in Turkey’s streets in an effort to bring down
Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The Ergenekon organization was subsequently alleged to have been
responsible for a 2006 attack on the Council of State, played a role
in the murder of prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist, Hrant Dink,
and various other murders and plots. Turkish liberals were delighted.
Until that time, Erdogan had practiced a pragmatic, reformist,
consensual style of politics that made many (though not all) Turkish
democrats and most foreign observers swoon. For Turkish liberals and
their friends abroad, prosecuting members of Turkey’s deep state and
in the process helping to bring the Turkish military to heel would be
an important step in the country’s transition to democracy.

In time, however, Turkish liberals started having second thoughts
about what was then the Ergenekon investigation. Erdogan began to use
Ergenekon against his political opponents. The conspiracy became a
conspiracy within a conspiracy. Along with military officers,
journalists, academics, politicians and other critics were hauled off
to Turkish jails and detained indefinitely while state prosecutors
conducted investigations. In 2008 and 2009, Turks were in a panic
that the government was listening in on their telephone conversations
and that everything they said would be used against them. People
began taking the batteries out of their mobile phones in certain
situations or leaving them outside meetings rooms. It actually became
kind of `a thing’ after a while. If you were not ostentatiously
removing your cell phone battery while sitting down for a meal at
House Café in Ortakoy, you were clearly not all that important.

Then in early 2010, state prosecutors launched a related investigation
directly into the military over what was called `Operation
Sledgehammer,’ which was believed to have been plans for a coup d’état
in 2003 that then Chief of the General Staff, Hilmi Ozkok, stopped.
Given the military’s history of coups (1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) as
well as various other routine interventions to ensure the republican
political system that Mustafa Kemal founded in 1924, the accusation
that the senior command was plotting to overthrow Erdogan seemed
entirely plausible. At the time, Washington yawned and regarded
rooting out coupsters within the ranks was yet further testament to
Erdogan’s efforts to create a more democratic polity.

It was clear to some analysts well before, but by late 2010 and 2011
it was obvious to virtually everyone paying attention that the
investigations were much bigger politically. The conduct of the
inquiries, the quality of the indictments, and the profile of people
who were being detained in the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer
investigations after the initial discovery of weapons in Umraniye
together became even more ambitious and cynical than the already bold
effort to undermine the deep state. Many in Turkey – including the
media – and foreign analysts have either decided to look the other way
or determined that Erdogan and the AKP were so entrenched that there
was little to be done, but much of the evidence contained in the
ludicrously long and incomprehensible indictments in both cases was
clearly fabricated. In the Sledgehammer investigation, the
government’s case was based on a single CD (among a set of 19) that
came to light in January 2010. The CD allegedly contains incriminating
evidence of the plot to overthrow Erdogan. Yet forensic analysis of
the CD indicates that the information on it was created after the coup
was supposed to have taken place. The courts ignored this devastating
evidence of government malfeasance and last year 322 military officers
were sentenced to prison, some for as long as twenty years. Similar
kinds of chicanery went on in the Ergenekon case, leading to this
week’s verdicts that sent former Chief of Staff, General Ilker Basbug,
and ten other retired officers to prison for life. All in all,
approximately 250 people (of 275 indicted) were found guilty and
sentenced to various terms behind bars. They include journalists,
doctors, politicians, and academics.

Regardless of what one thinks of the views of those convicted in the
Ergenekon (and Sledgehammer) case, they deserve due process – a hallmark
of democratic polities. They did not get it in Turkey.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIE
Tous les domaines de l’économie en Arménie sont dans les mains des
plus riches selon un journal

Selon les indicateurs officiels délivrés par le Service national des
statistiques, plus de 1143 très petits magasins dans la capitale
Erevan ont cessé leurs activités au cours de la dernière année affirme
le quotidien Haykakan Jamanak.

« A la date du 1er Juillet de cette année, 6768 magasins étaient
exploités à Erevan contre 7911 à la date du 1er Juillet de l’année
dernière. En d’autres termes les magasins d’Erevan ont diminué
d’environ 15 pour cent ».

« La situation est la même dans le cas des très petits magasins qui
fournissent des services. [Un total de 390] ces entités à Erevan a
cessé ses opérations en un an.

« C’est une autre preuve que tous les domaines de l’économie en
Arménie sont entre les mains de plusieurs riches. Et nos concitoyens
qui perdent leurs petites entreprises quittent le pays » écrit
Haykakan Jamanak.

dimanche 11 août 2013,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian