Author: Chatinian Lara

PRESS RELEASE
Contact:
Joy F. Noel
Two Cats Productions
(212) 929 2085
[email protected]

TH E ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO AIR ON SWISS AND SPANISH TV

New York, NY (January, 2007) — The Armenian Genocide, by Andrew
Goldberg, which received international critical acclaim and aired
nationally on PBS in the US has been licensed to Télévision Suisse
Romande in Switzerland and Televisió de Catalunya in Spain, both for
national broadcast. Airdates for both networks have not yet been
announced.

The film received extraordinary reviews and coverage in almost every
major newspaper in the US including The New York Times where it was
described as `powerful’ adding that it `…honors the victims of the
Genocide.’ It was also covered in the Wall Street Journal, The LA
Times, The Boston Globe and countless others. The NJ Star Ledger
called it `serious, literate and ultimately heartbreaking.’ The
Weekly Standard described it as `evocative and visually rich.’ In
addition the film has sold internationally to major networks in
Canada, Australia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Finland and other
countries. Narrated by Julianna Margulies, the film features
additional narrations from Ed Harris, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom,
Laura Linney, Paul Rudd, Jared Leto and others.

The Armenian Genocide is the story of the first Genocide of the 20th
century – when over a million Armenians died at the hands of the
Ottoman Turks during World War I. This unprecedented and powerful
one-hour documentary, scheduled to air April 17th on PBS, was
written, directed and produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Andrew
Goldberg of Two Cats Productions, in association with Oregon Public
Broadcasting.

Featuring interviews with the leading experts in the field such as
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Samantha Power, and New York Times
best-selling author, Peter Balakian, this film features
never-before-seen historical footage of the events and key players of
one of the greatest untold stories of the 20th century.

Filmed in the US, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey and Syria, the
program features discussions with Kurdish and Turkish citizens in
modern-day Turkey who speak openly about the stories told to them by
their parents and grandparents.

Two Cats Productions is a documentary production company in New York
City led by Andrew Goldberg. His television credits include PBS, ABC
News, E!, CNN, and countless others. In addition to documentaries, he
has also written and produced commercials for such companies as Bell
South, Sephora/Louis Vuitton, AT&T and PetSmart. Goldberg and Two
Cats’ recent documentary productions include, A Yiddish World
Remembered for PBS which won an Emmy in 2002, and The Armenians, A
Story of Survival, which aired on PBS stations nationally in 2002 and
was awarded the CINE Golden Eagle.

Major Underwriters: John and Judy Bedrosian, The Avanessians Family
Foundation, and The Manoogian-Simone Foundation.

Home Video Available: at

Photos for The Armenian Genocide are available online at
pressroom.pbs.org and

International Herald Tribune, France
Jan 28 2007

Unknown assailants break windows of Protestant church in Turkey
The Associated PressPublished: January 28, 2007

ANKARA, Turkey: Unknown assailants on Sunday stoned a two-story
building housing a Protestant church in the Black Sea port city of
Samsun, the pastor of the church said.

"The assailants broke at least 10 windows in an overnight attack,"
Mehmet Orhan Picaklar, the pastor of the Agape Church, told The
Associated Press by telephone. "This is the seventh or eight such
attack over the past three years. Separately, I am constantly
receiving death threats by e-mail."

Picaklar said the church had moved into the building just two weeks
ago. Uniformed police officers were deployed outside the church after
the attack, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The attack was the latest against Christians in this predominantly
Muslim country.

Ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who spoke out about the mass
killings of Armenians in the early 20th century, was gunned down
outside his newspaper on Jan. 19.

Last February, a Turkish teenager shot dead a Catholic priest, the
Rev. Andrea Santoro, as he knelt in prayer in his church in the Black
Sea port of Trabzon. The attack was believed linked to widespread
anger in the Islamic world over the publication in European
newspapers of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Two other Catholic
priests were also attacked last year.

Of Turkey’s 70 million people, some 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox
Christians, 20,000 are Roman Catholic, and 3,500 are Protestant,
mostly converts from Islam. Around 2,000 are Greek Orthodox and
23,000 are Jewish.

Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
Jan 28 2007

When reporting the truth is a deadly pursuit

A record number of journalists were killed worldwide in 2006 for
doing their jobs.
By Kate Parry, Star Tribune Reader’s Representative
Last update: January 28, 2007 – 12:39 AM

The caption explained that the young woman in the photo on Page A4
Wednesday was carrying a picture of her father as she walked ahead of
the hearse in his funeral procession in Istanbul, Turkey.
My eyes kept going back to that image. In the midst of an enormous
crowd — 100,000 mourners — Sera Dink looked so lost in thought, so
solitary. The word "carried" didn’t really capture what she was
doing. She was embracing that portrait of her father, an
ethnic-Armenian who had been gunned down just for doing his job.

Hrant Dink was one of the first journalists to die in 2007 simply for
telling the truth. Sadly, he won’t be the last. The 2006 tally was a
record, a spike up from an already horrific total the year before.

Fifty-five journalists died worldwide in 2006 because of what they do
for a living, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a
New York-based group that keeps this disturbing tally. Of those, 32
deaths occurred in Iraq. Just four involved being caught in
crossfire. Most were journalists targeted by insurgents.

These are brave souls who risk everything to reveal what’s really
going on in some of the world’s most troubled locales.

Local journalists in Iraq were particularly at risk as they tried to
provide the free flow of information a democracy requires. That’s
probably why they were targeted by insurgents bent on preventing a
Western-style democracy and all of its freedoms from taking root.
Since the war began in 2003, the committee reported, 92 journalists
have died in Iraq, along with 37 people who worked as support staff.

Why would a journalist volunteer for such an assignment? I put that
question to Mark Brunswick, a Star Tribune reporter at the State
Capitol who reported from Iraq embedded with the Minnesota National
Guard for four weeks in 2005 and volunteered for another six weeks in
Iraq in the fall of 2006. Brunswick said although Western journalists
are targeted by insurgents as valuable human currency, particularly
for kidnappings, he worked in relative security traveling with the
military.

But Brunswick and others have observed that the sense of immunity or
neutrality that helped safeguard journalists in past conflicts "goes
completely out the window in Iraq." The rule of thumb when reporting
on the streets of Baghdad, he said, was that a reporter had 15
minutes in any one place to do an interview before word spread that a
Western journalist was around and the risk grew too great.

Why did he want to work in that environment? "It’s the ultimate issue
of our generation," said Brunswick, 50. He knew even in college that
parachuting into a conflict to reveal what was happening was
something he wanted to do. Brunswick watched the Vietnam War define
public policy debate for years after it ended and said he expects the
Iraq war also will reverberate through policy debates for many years
to come.

"A lot of people were talking about Iraq. But I knew few people who
could say what it was like boots on the ground. There’s a certain
satisfaction to get a chance to be there. You can’t pass that up. I
wanted to tell what it was like to be Iraqi or a soldier. I was able
to accomplish a lot of that," Brunswick said.

The constant risk, he noted, required "putting yourself in a state of
denial or you would be paralyzed."

It’s likely each of those 55 journalists who died knew they were
taking a risk. They, too, must have slipped into denial or decided
reporting the truth was worth even more than their life.

Iraq wasn’t the only place it was deadly to be a journalist last
year. In Russia, one of the best-known reporters in the country, Anna
Politkovskaya, 48, was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building.

She had revealed acts of torture by Russian troops in Chechnya. In
the course of her tough reporting on the government of Russian
President Vladimir Putin, she had been poisoned, threatened until she
had to leave the country for a while and thrown into jail.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that once Politkovskaya
was "kept in a pit for three days without food or water, while a
military officer threatened to shoot her." But when she got out, she
kept reporting.

The official investigation of her death has produced no suspects. On
Monday, a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists went
to Moscow to press for further action. They were told investigators
were pursuing a lead that Chechnya police might have murdered her.
Later the Foreign Ministry denied those specifics, saying only that
several "theories" were under investigation.

Most murders of journalists are never solved, often because the
investigators work for the very people annoyed by the journalist’s
work, glad the bright light of scrutiny will be dimmer.

Why, beyond a basic sense of human decency, should this concern
readers of the Star Tribune in Minnesota?

The international wire reports you read in this newspaper are
possible only because reporters such as Politkovskaya take enormous
risks to let the world know what is going on in their countries.
That’s a sacrifice worth thinking about the next time you read a
story with a dateline from one of the world’s hot spots.

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: +374-10-517163
Fax: +374-10-517301
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website:
January 27, 2007

15th Anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia

On Sunday, January 28, on the occasion of Armed Forces Day and the 15th
Anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, a special Divine
Liturgy will be celebrated in the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin under
the presidency of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos
of All Armenians. Scheduled to commence at 10:30 AM, the liturgy will be
celebrated by His Grace Bishop Ararat Kaltakjian.

Agence France Presse — English
January 26, 2007 Friday

Two more suspects in court over journalist’s murder: report

Two more people suspected of involvement in the killing of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink were brought to court here
Friday to face possible charges, the Anatolia news agency reported.

One of them, Erhan Tuncel, is a university student close to an
ultra-nationalist group who reportedly agitated young people in the
northern city of Trabzon, where the suspected assailant, 17-year-old
Ogun Samast, comes from.

The second person who was to appear before court allegedly sent an
e-mail to Samast, congratulating him for Dink’s murder.

Samast, a jobless secondary school graduate, and four other suspects
were charged over Dink’s January 19 shooting in Istanbul and jailed
pending trial on Wednesday.

One of the accused, Yasin Hayal, 26, is believed to have frequently
met with Tuncel and allegedly instigated Samast to kill Dink, giving
him money and the gun.

Hayal served 11 months in jail over a 2004 bomb blast outside a
McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon.

The investigation so far has suggested that the suspects, most of
them from Trabzon, did not belong to any known underground
organisation and wanted to take the matter in their own hands against
what they believed to be rising threats to Turkey’s unity.

Trabzon, a nationalist stronghold, has come under the media spotlight
with a series of violent incidents, including the shooting of a Roman
Catholic priest by a 16-year-old boy last year.

Dink, editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and one of
Turkey’s most prominent ethnic Armenians, was branded a "traitor" by
nationalists for calling for on open debate on the massacres of
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire — a taboo topic until recently —
which he labeled as genocide.

He was last year given a six-month suspended sentence for insulting
"Turkishness."

But Dink also won respect as a sincere campaigner for
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and was critical of Armenian
fanaticism.

Some 100,000 protestors marched at his funeral Tuesday in one of the
largest public gatherings in Istanbul in recent years, brandishing
banners that read "We are all Armenians."

The murder of Dink, shot three times from behind outside the Agos
office in downtown Istanbul, has sparked a heated debate over rising
nationalism in Turkey.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Jan 26 2007

Armenians hold Tofig Hajibabayev in capture for 15 years

[ 26 Jan. 2007 15:11 ]

It was defined that the soldier of Azerbaijani Army Tofig Hajibabayev
who was missing during Dashalti operation in 1992 is in Yerevan for
15 years, soldier’s relative Gulnara Ahmadova said.

She noted that they considered him to be dead, but recently they knew
that he is being kept in Yerevan for 15 years.
`The chief of social unity for of `Hasrat Yolu’ Esmira Orujova said
that Tofig is in Yerevan. Up to now any of international
organizations did not take measures to find him,’ she said. /APA/

The Occidental Experts say a USSR reunion is possible

Moldova.org
Publication date: 23 January 2007

Moldova.ORG — The occidental experts suppose that USSR will be
reunified in the coming future. That is the conclusion of the "Novaia
Vremea" Russian newspaper which writes about the World Economic Forum
experts’ report issued at the end of January in Davoce.

"This may happen if the gas prices suddenly go up to $ 150 for a
barrel. This type of price increase corresponds to the actual world
situation," the report authors say.

"The lack of security in the coming future, the continuous struggle
with the international terrorism, the instability of the world economy,
all these can affect the sudden price raise of the energy resources,"
the report mentions.

According to the experts the possibility of a partial USSR reunion
is real due to the historical and cultural connections of the
ex-soviet countries. They consider the Union is real based on two
main principles.

"First of all, those countries which will need gas during the
gas crisis will unify back with Russia. They will be ready to
risk their countries’ sovereignty just to provide the population
with gas and energy. Uzbekistan, Armenia and Georgia are among
those countries. Besides that, there are a lot of chances for a
Russia-Ukraine union and the creation of a Russia-Belarus alliance
is 100 % real," the Russian newspaper says.

According to the same report, those countries as Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan will be ready to enter the new union
having the goal to firmly establish their positions on the gas market
and to use freely the ways of delivery.

The occidental experts qualify the possibility of a USSR reunion as
"the one of the 15 global risks".

ARMENIAN LADY CHESS CHAMPION TO BE DETERMINED IN ANDRIASIAN-AGHABEKIAN
ADDITIONAL GAME

YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, NOYAN TAPAN. Armenian ladies chess high league
championship ended on January 24 at Tigran Petrosian Chess-player
House.

Siranuysh Andriasian (Etchmiadzin) and Liana Aghabekian (Vanadzor)
gained 7 out of 9 possible points. An additional game will be held
between them for determining the winner. And Lilit Galoyan (Yerevan)
took 3rd place with 6 points. Karen Asrian gained 6 out of 8 possible
points in men’s tournament.

Tigran L.Petrosian and Tigran Nalbandian have 5 points each. Four
participants gained 4 points each and share 4-7th places.

MURDERER SUFFERS FROM ALCOHOLISM

A1+
[05:05 pm] 25 January, 2007

The person murdering Sonya Veranyan, a notar of Vanadzor, is registered
in the Lori insane clinic, Gayane Kalantaryan, chief doctor of the
clinic reports. She says that Kamo Papyan suffers from alcoholism.

Just immediately after the assassination Kamo Papyan was seen in
St. Mariam Astvatsatsin church. The cleaner of the church has known
Kamo for two years.

Kamo used to go to church 1-2 a week, put a candle and talk to the
priest. He was there on the eve of the murder.

While cleaning the church, she heard a shooting and rushed out the
moment Kamo had already entered the yard. Kamo had a bag with him;
he looked rather strange. The cleaner got the impression that Kamo
must have picked up a raw with his family, packed his belongings and
left the house. The cleaner saw Kamo enter the church, lit a candle
and leave it. Then he spoke to bishop Ter Sepuh Chuljyan. Only some
time later, the cleaner learnt that the police surrounded the church,
arrested Kamo who had pleaded guilty without further resistance.

Kamo was strangely dressed, there were crosses on his clothes and the
words "count Kamo" on his hat. "I was always afraid of him as he was
a queer person; he often brought letters to the priest addressed to
Pope of Rome, Catholicos, etc", added the cleaner.

There were other people who saw Kamo inside the church that day. A
woman from Vanadzor, who doesn’t want to divulge her name, was there
just the moment Kamo entered. Kamo stood in the corner and prayed
murmuring odd words. When the woman entered a separate cell and saw
a sheet of paper with the following words, "On January 24, 2007,
I killed….", a drawing of a knife, some awkward words, names,
that she didn’t managed to read. Seeing a man in strange clothes
approaching her she immediately left the cell. While leaving the
church the woman saw the stranger taking something out of the bag put
in the corner. She couldn’t see what exactly it was as she was scared
to death and wanted to leave the building as soon as possible. Then,
she learnt that the man was the murderer of Sonya Veranyan. Kamo
Papyan’s cottage where he worked as a tailor was closed. The glasses
were broken. People knowing Kamo say that he had mental drawbacks,
strange behavior, often made mistakes but they were not afraid of
him. They also mention that Kamo was the master of his work. Kamo
used to work with a woman. Kamo is married, has two children-a son
and a daughter but he always spends the nights in his workshop.

Naira Bulghadaryan

SOCIAL DISCONTENT OF SOCIETY CANNOT BECOME BASIS OF OPPOSITION’S
FURTHER STRATEGY, ARMEN AGHAYAN SAYS

YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, NOYAN TAPAN. Coordinator of In Defence of
Liberated Territories public initiative Zhirayr Sefilian had exact
programs in connection with the preelection period, which became the
cause of his arrest. Initiative member Armen Aghayan stated this at
the January 24 roundtable.

In A.Aghayan’s words, some representatives of ruling coalition long
before Z.Sefilian’s arrest knew about arms kept at Vahan Aroyan’s
place in the village of Lusarat. In A.Aghayan’s words, this makes
clear that the last circumstance was deliberately connected with
Z.Sefilian’s case. "After January 10, when they saw that they cannot
fluently turn over the case in the direction beneficial for them,
in some circles they started to whisper that indeed, the arms found
in Lusarat have no connection with Sefilian," A.Aghayan said.

In connection with opposition’s further struggle A.Aghayan reminded of
the statement voiced lately at the meeting of Forum of Intelligentsia,
that there is social discontent in the society and the opposition
should build its stratagy in consideration of this circumstance. But
as A.Aghayan affirmed, social discontent is a phenomenon controllable
by material resources: any financially powerful party can reduce it
to silence. So, in his words, it cannot be a basis for opposition’s
further strategy.