Author: Emil Lazarian

German pilot and four Armenians the only foreigners
EiTB, Spain
Aug 15 2005
There were also 12 Greek dead with the other 104 victims all Cypriots.
The German pilot and a family of four Armenians were the only
foreigners among 121 killed in a Cyprus airliner crash, a Cyprus
government announcement said.
There were also 12 Greek dead with the other 104 victims all Cypriots,
the announcement said in releasing the official passenger list of
Sunday’s crash in Greece of a Helios Airways Boeing 737 flight from
Larnaca in Cyprus to Prague with a stop in Athens.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri-US military ties seen as response to Russian deployment in Armenia
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow
12 Aug 05
The upcoming transfer of some of Russia’s military hardware from
Georgia to Armenia is creating serious problems for Azerbaijan’s
security, the republic’s military department believes. As Nezavisimaya
Gazeta was told by a source in the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry,
according to reports being received, “plots of land in Armenia’s
Tavush, Berdsk, and Idzhevan provinces, which border on Azerbaijan,
have been set aside for the stationing of Russian military
hardware”. According to the newspaper’s source, Russia’s 102nd
Military Base in Gyumri is currently incapable of receiving all the
military hardware being withdrawn from Georgia. In order to resolve
this problem the Armenian authorities have rented out new plots of
land near the border with Azerbaijan.
Baku is undoubtedly concerned about this prospect and is taking
appropriate measures. First of all, the budget item for the military
department’s funding has been reviewed. According to official
information, spending on strengthening the country’s defence capability
has been increased by almost 50m dollars and now amounts to 300m
dollars. Together with this, links are being strengthened with the
military department of Turkey, whose senior military officials have
become frequent visitors to Baku. Certain steps are also being taken
to establish military cooperation with the United States. The Baku
press maintains that the topic of the stationing of Russian military
hardware in Armenia was discussed in Washington at a recent closed
meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and the
Pentagon leadership. True, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry prefers
not to talk about this, but it confirms that the military-political
situation in the South Caucasus was among the matters discussed during
the minister’s Transatlantic trip.
Many Baku experts believe that cooperation with the United States will
not be restricted to technical and financial aid. Many US experts
believe the same. For example, Michael Baranick, a representative
of the US National Defence University’s Centre for Technology and
National Security Policy, is sure that “Azerbaijan is becoming a
very significant country for the United States”. In his analysis,
Baranick points out: “If we have to leave Uzbekistan, someone has to
kick-start talks on stationing bases in Azerbaijan.”
This statement was made against the backdrop of reports leaked to
the media claiming that Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld is to visit
Baku again in August. Local analysts predict that following this visit
official Baku may review its position and will consent to a US military
presence on its territory. Experts believe that the Azerbaijani
authorities will thereby achieve at least two objectives: they will
create a counterweight to Russian military might in Armenia and will
secure Washington’s endorsement of the results of the parliamentary
elections due in November.

‘The Prophet of Zongo Street’: Coming to America
By ELIZABETH SCHMIDT
New York Times
Aug 12 2005
Published: August 14, 2005
Six of the 10 stories in Mohammed Naseehu Ali’s moving, subtle and
ingeniously constructed first book are set in Ghana, and the rest
in and around New York. The locations alternate, permitting readers
to travel back and forth along one of the many routes that made up
the African diaspora, one that Ali, who has had homes on both sides
of the Atlantic, knows well. Raised in Ghana, he came to the United
States in 1988 at 16 to study at Interlochen and then Bennington and
now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.
Dan James
THE PROPHET OF ZONGO STREET
Stories.
By Mohammed Naseehu Ali.
212 pp. Amistad/ HarperCollins Publishers. $22.95.
First Chapter: ‘The Prophet of Zongo Street’ (August 14, 2005)
Forum: Book News and Reviews
“The Prophet of Zongo Street” deftly blends African folklore, dreams,
the wisdom of elders and the pranks of children, and pitch-perfect,
often wry dialogue. Ranging from Zongo Street, the noisy fictional
Muslim neighborhood where all the African stories take place, to the
climate-controlled “lily-white enclave of Southampton” to the hip,
trust-fund-backed art scene in Lower Manhattan, the collection is held
together by Ali’s abiding concern with the power of the human voice:
how people make themselves understood, how they sound in different
contexts and how, above all, Ghanaian immigrants struggle to converse
once they leave Zongo Street.
“The Story of Day and Night” begins with the “30 of us kids,” who
lure their oldest and most respected grandmother, Uwargida, out of
her quarters to her storytelling spot in the central courtyard. In
our first glimpse of life in Ghana, children convey their respect
for Uwargida by listening, and her mythological tales captivate the
members of her extended family and bind them together.
The title story is narrated by a nameless, thoughtful 14-year-old
boy whose older friend gives him a book about the history of African
religious exploitation and instructs him to “always remember that we
human beings are what we say. . . . Our egos may reside in our minds,
but it is the mouth that makes them known to the rest of the world.”
As the collection unfolds, moving out from the family compound and
westward, Ali shifts from the “we” of all the kids in concert to the
increasingly self-conscious “I” of the adolescent boy who questions
the religious underpinnings of his community.
In “Live-In,” Ali takes us from bustling Zongo Street, where for better
or worse everyone knows everyone else’s business, out into the chill
of a “fully air-conditioned supermarket” in Southampton, where Shatu,
a Ghanaian live-in maid, has just realized she’s lost the $200 her
employer has given her to buy groceries. Shatu’s voice, severed from
its communal origins, loses the power to communicate; she “blurts”
the first words of the story — “The money … I can’t find it” —
to a group of “impeccably dressed women,” who “pat Shatu on the back,
offering halfhearted consolations, as if it were required of them,
and then go back to their own carts.” Her “childish and agonized tone”
couldn’t be farther from Uwargida’s in “The Story of Day and Night,”
which is “soft, yet commanding,” and keeps her family rapt. Shatu’s
employer, Marge, wants Shatu to be fired for stealing, but Marge
is 78 and senile, and her nephew and legal custodian likes Shatu’s
“sweet Caribbean accent” (mistaking her pronunciation of “Ghana”
as “Guy-anna”) and begins calling her at all hours of the night on
the private line he has had installed in her room. But Shatu has
no green card and needs the job to support her mother and three
children in Ghana. So she stays in the big, empty house with Marge
and thinks of her own grandmother back in Africa, an Uwargida-like
figure who “had become the repository of the community’s age-old
wisdom and knowledge. … In the evenings she was surrounded by
her many grandchildren, who begged her to tell them Mallam Gizo,
or Mr. Spider tales.”
Many of the Ghanaian characters here are unnamed, but they resemble
one another. This ambiguity provides a sense that no matter how cut
off and lonely they are, no matter how impossible it is to communicate
with their American bosses and school friends and lovers, their lives
elsewhere are intertwined. The reader is never sure, but Shatu’s
grandmother could be Uwargida. The young narrator holding fast to his
religious tract in “The Prophet of Zongo Street” could also be the boy
who contracts malaria in “Ward G-4.” And he could be the young man
who later comes to America, goes to college, becomes, in one story,
a painter and, in another, a Web-site designer by day and musician by
night and finds himself at 3 a.m. in a cab whose driver is hellbent
on proving that Armenians are the true source of world culture.
Alarmingly (and, it turns out, playfully) titled “The True Aryan,”
this last story turns the tables. The Ghanaian musician is full
of his own concerns and ambitions (“looking at the city’s skyline
always filled me with a sense of success and self-importance”)
and, desperate to get back to Park Slope, refuses to engage with
his driver’s barrage of clumsy mini-lectures presenting the case
for Armenians and relating to the plight of blacks. But Sarkis, the
driver, catches his passenger off guard by declining to take money
for the fare and saying: “In Armenia, the way we greet each other,
we say, Savat tanem. So I am telling you, Savat tanem! … You know
what that means, Savat tanem? … It means ‘I’ll take your pain.’
” It’s a gesture that breaks down the musician’s Western narcissism:
“With one foot already on the street, I knew there was only one
thing left for me to tell Sarkis. I looked into his eyes, and with a
sudden deep respect said to the man, ‘I’ll take your pain, too.’ ” The
cabdriver jolts the musician back into listening, as he had as a child
on Zongo Street, showing how even in the most unlikely and inhospitable
circumstances a sense of connectedness between people can be restored.
Elizabeth Schmidt teaches English at Barnard and is a contributing
editor for the literary magazine Open City.

Turkish Company, ‘We are No. 1 in Armenia, US is Next’
Journal of Turkish Daily
Aug 14 2005
The Akdas Group, owner of the Crispino label is targeting
international markets.
With success in Armenia, the group plans to enter the US and Chinese
markets with 2010 as its target.
Ready-Made Manager Fatih Akdas says that as long as you train younger
generations, there is no need to worry about the Chinese threat,
adding that they started the business with the dream: “Make all men
wear Crispino”.
Established as a family company in Malatya 30 years ago, the Akdas
Group is now in second place in suit sales in Turkey. They plan to
increase the number of stores in Turkey to 50 by the end of this
year, to 70 in 2007 and along with plans to open 250 new stores in
several countries around the world.
Crispino is currently sold in 210 sale-points in Turkey and 17 stores
abroad.
Akdas notes they will use the factory built in Catalca as a base and
are preparing infrastructure to become a worldwide trademark.
“We have recovered from the 1999 earthquake and 2001 economic crisis.
We now create four new collections annually. We realized $5 million
in exports in 2004. We expect $60 million turnover this year,” said
Akdas, enumerating the achievements of the group.
After Crispino, which is the first Turkish brand to enter Armenia,
four new Turkish stores have also opened in this country. The Akdas
Group, determined to grow in Turkey, does not export apart from their
own brand.
Despite serious offers from abroad, Akdas does not want custom
manufacturing. “We do not give credit to them.” The company produces
Crispino itself in the institutions that it hires abroad. Giving a
message of “Turkey first”, Akdas has called for support from the
government: “If the government supports us we want to establish
factories in eastern and southeastern parts of Turkey.”
When sales of Crispino increased dramatically, the Akdas group
increased number of its dealers to 200. The Akdas Group is looking
for a second trademark in order not to harm Crispino as they grow
bigger.
“Sometimes we have two dealers in one city and while one of them
sells a lot the other may not. We designed Suess and sent it to our
stores. Crispino will be sold in retail sector.”
The price of Suess will be less than Crispino. Suess will have
similar lines to Crispino. The company will include sports models in
its 2006 collection.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Fri Aug 12 08:08:18 2005 Pacific Time
Five New Universities Asked to Submit Proposals for Curriculum
Enrichment as Part of Carnegie Corporation’s Initiative on Journalism
New York, Aug. 12 (AScribe Newswire) — Vartan Gregorian, president of
Carnegie Corporation of New York announced today that five additional
journalism schools at major research universities have been asked to
submit proposals for curriculum enrichment and to join an initiative
begun this year to revitalize journalism education. The five schools,
which will present proposals for the approval of the Corporation’s
board, are the College of Journalism and Communications, University of
Florida; Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland;
Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri; S.I. Newhouse
School of Public Communications, Syracuse University; and the School
of Communication, University of Texas at Austin.
At the launch of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of
Journalism Education in May 2005, the deans of leading journalism
schools at four of America’s top research universities-Berkeley,
Columbia, Northwestern and USC-in partnership with Carnegie
Corporation of New York, laid a foundation for developing their vision
of what a journalism school can be at an exemplary institution of
higher education. The goal of this curriculum enrichment is to
encourage experimentation within the journalism school and to forge a
greater integration with other departments in order to offer students
the riches of the larger university community. While training
tomorrow’s reporters, editors, writers and producers, the initiative
is focused on attracting and preparing top students to become the
journalism leaders of tomorrow, prepared for a more complex and
intellectually challenging world and news business.
“Schools of journalism at exemplary American research universities,
where the academic disciplines still coexist, are positioned to draw
upon the full intellectual and educational resources of the university
environment to help produce the skilled, responsible, expert,
knowledgeable and highly proficient journalism leaders that our
society-indeed the world-has need of, especially in these complex and
challenging times,” said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie
Corporation. “Our democracy depends on journalism to keep its
institutions challenged and responsive to the public’s needs, and the
quality of the profession demands the best a university can offer.”
The Corporation, under Gregorian’s leadership, has made journalism
education, one of its key priorities and it will invest in the
initiative over the next three years. Schools invited to become part
of the initiative must reflect the following criteria: – Freestanding
journalism programs at research universities. – Schools with graduate
programs. – Schools with established deans. – Universities that have
the institutional and financial commitment of the president to support
this project.
The initiative is expected to include more journalism schools in
curriculum enrichment efforts by the fall of 2006. The five schools
currently submitting proposals for consideration will be able to
receive up to $250,000 for two years for expanding, and developing
specific courses that offer students a deeper understanding of issues,
content and context. The university must agree to underwrite the third
year of the enrichment program.
“A key feature of this curriculum enrichment focus is to offer
students a deep and multi-layered exploration of complex subjects like
history, politics, classics and philosophy that will undergird their
journalistic skills,” said Susan King, vice president, public affairs
at the Corporation and national director of the Carnegie- Knight
Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. “The Corporation
hopes to encourages journalism schools to go beyond their current
boundaries-to be expansive about the kind of courses and information
their students should absorb while attempting to raise the profile of
journalism education and its place within the university.”
The five universities announced today will not be part of a second
element of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism
Education: News 21 Incubators, which are annual national investigative
reporting projects overseen by campus professors and distributed
nationally through both traditional and innovative media. The
invitation to submit curriculum enrichment proposals likewise does not
convey immediate membership in the third part of the Initiative: The
Carnegie-Knight Task Force, which is focusing on research and creating
a platform for educators to speak on policy and journalism education
issues. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is partnering with
Carnegie Corporation of New York in supporting both News 21 and The
Carnegie-Knight Task Force. Information about the Initiative can be
found on the Corporation’s web site, and on the
Knight Foundation’s web site,
Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in
1911 to promote “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and
understanding.” As a grantmaking foundation, the corporation seeks to
carry out Carnegie’s vision of philanthropy, which he said should aim
“to do real and permanent good in the world.” The Corporation’s
capital fund, originally donated at a value of about $135 million, had
a market value of $1.9 billion on September 30, 2004.
The Corporation awards grants totaling more than $80 million a year in
the areas of education, international peace and security,
international development and strengthening U.S. democracy.
Contact Information:
Carnegie Corporation of New York Office of Public Affairs 212-207-6273

Home Grown: Many newer homes were built on old Andover farmland
Andover Townsman (Andover, Mass.)
Thursday, August 4, 2005
By Rita Savard
Garabed “Red” Dargoonian remembers when Andover’s landscape was an
endless canvas of emerald green fields.
That was before industry and interstates helped change Andover into the
upscale bedroom community it is today.
“House after house, developers kept them coming,” recalls Dargoonian,
squinting in the sun as he fixes his gaze across the road from his
property at 23 Blanchard Ave., where 32 acres of his family’s farm once
stood.
“I crawled on that land on my hands and knees for over 40 years,” he
whispers. “To see houses over there, it hurts.”
The disappearance of Andover’s farms was the town’s single greatest
change during the last century, say Andover historians. Tucked away on a
shelf at the Andover Historical Society, the yellowed pages of a 1920
Town Directory list the names and addresses of 206 working farmers. By
1950, fewer than half remained. Today, the town assessor’s office shows
five parcels of land listed as paying a farmland tax.
Those chapter 61A records, according to Assessor Bruce Symmes, do not
necessarily include all the town’s remaining farmers. For instance,
Peter Loosigian, 84, is not on the list but he continues to work his
land religiously each day despite a never-ending train of offers to buy.
Loosigian has a 10-acre farm on Lowell Street.
Nevertheless, the significant decline in Andover’s farming community is
clear. Richard Nabydoski is selling his farm following lawsuits and
neighbors’ complaints about seagulls eating food meant for cows. When
Nabydoski’s land is sold, Bob Parks, owner and operator of Parks’
Piggery at 141 Chandler Road, will be the town’s only livestock farmer.
“Many farmers sell the land because they simply cannot afford to farm
anymore,” said Town Planning Director Steve Colyer. “Small farms have
almost become obsolete as a result of economic change. For farmers,
staying in their profession becomes a decision between putting bread on
their own families’ tables or putting bread on the tables of others. In
the meantime, property taxes increase, the values of land go up and
returns on produce or livestock fall.”
From farmhouses to cul-de-sacs
Before the turn of the last century, farming was a vital force in the
area’s economy, with Andover farmers helping to nourish the industrial
boom that put Lawrence on the map.
“Andover was known as the home of the hill, the mill and the till,” said
historian Juliet Mofford. “It was the farmers in town who supplied the
food to feed all the thousands and thousands of mill workers in Lawrence
and beyond from 1845 into the 1950s.”
Colombo Yogurt started in Andover in 1929, in the kitchen of the
Colombosian family.
But the very advent of industry in the area eventually led to many
Andover farms’ demise. Factory towns provided the perfect location for
major throughways. During the 1950s and 1960s, the emergence of Route
495 and Interstate-93 led to more industry in Andover.
“Everything in West Andover was pretty much farmland,” said historian
James Batchelder, whose own family owned and operated Rolling Hills, a
120-acre dairy farm on Argilla Road. “After I-93, we became more of a
bedroom community, with Boston being 25 minutes down the road instead of
an hour-long drive along Route 28.”
This construction of major throughways increased Andover’s accessibility
to commerce, trade and out-of town jobs – and lessened the demand for
homegrown produce. Highways also made Andover a more attractive place to
live.
Home developers began clamoring for Andover land. Farmers who did not
stop work during earlier construction waves were later approached with
attractive payouts for their land.
“When I came to Andover it still seemed like the last frontier,” jokes
Colyer, who moved to West Andover in 1984.
Today Andover is a town of more than 30,000 people, and there is little
land left to build on.
“If a guy gets a good price for selling, you can’t blame him,” said
Benjamin “Ben” Dargoonian, Red’s brother. The Dargoonian brothers sold
their 32-acre lot on Blanchard Street in the mid-1990s, when produce
profits were no longer enough compensation for labor-filled days in the
fields, they said. Ben Dargoonian’s son, Tom, is continuing the family
farming tradition on close to 40 acres of state-owned property he bought
across the road from the old Dargoonian farm.
As new housing developments continue to spring up throughout town, some
business-minded farmers such as the Sarkisian family, which owns
Sarkisian Farms and Driving Range on 153 Chandler Road, have managed to
remain by adding new services. The Sarkisians now have an ice-cream
stand and a golfing range alongside their active greenhouses.
Whatever their secret to survival, a handful of residents are now part
of a distinctive breed. They are Andover’s last farmers.
[Profiles of the farmers are published in the printed edition.]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian premier discusses local election with members of communities
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
12 Aug 05
[Presenter] Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan received
representatives of the Council of communities today. The meeting
discussed issues on the active participation of the Council of
communities in the process of constitutional amendments and
forthcoming election of local government bodies.
The Armenian prime minister welcomed the initiative of the Council of
communities in these two important issues and expressed his readiness
to discuss all problems and concerns of the heads of
communities. Touching on the decision to accept Yerevan as a
community, the prime minister pointed out that the issues concerning
the capital, including the law on Yerevan, will be discussed at the
National Assembly, where the representatives of the Council of
communities will also take part.
Speaking about the election of the local government bodies, Markaryan
said that it can play a role as the base for the forthcoming
presidential and parliamentary elections. The prime minister assured
that he will be make every efforts to protect parties running in the
election and conduct it in line with the democratic standards.
[Markaryan] During the election, the party affiliation should not be
significant with regard to the heads of the communities. Every elected
head of the community has to work with authorities irrespective of
their party affiliation, and party affiliation should not be
prioritized during the election and impact this process. I will also
try that members of my party are elected, but not at all costs. This
should be only within the framework of law.
[Video showed the meeting]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Toronto Star
Aug. 12, 2005. 01:00 AM
Trying to understand genocide
CAROL GOAR
There could scarcely be a grimmer way to spend a summer vacation than to
study the worst atrocities of which humanity is capable.
Yet every August, top students from around the world come to the University
of Toronto for a two-week course called Genocide and Human Rights. Its aim
is to equip young scholars to do what no generation has yet achieved: turn
the words “Never Again” into a reality.
Since the world made that solemn vow in 1948, it has failed to prevent
ethnically motivated slaughters in Cambodia, Burundi, Bosnia, Iraq and
Rwanda. It is now watching impotently as thousands of Darfuris are murdered
in western Sudan.
This year’s class, which holds its final session today, is a fascinating
group. There are three Rwandans, two of whom lost parents in the genocide of
1994. There is a Tanzanian lawyer who has set up a voluntary organization to
train human rights monitors. There is an Iranian expatriate, struggling to
understand how people can turn on their neighbours. There are grandchildren
of Holocaust survivors and great-grandchildren of Armenians whose families
were almost wiped out in the massacre of 1915. And there are Canadian and
American students, searching for a way to reconcile what they’ve learned
with the butchery they see in the world.
What they share is a willingness to look squarely into the face of evil and
an impatience with stock answers.
Let me take you into their classroom earlier this week.
Maj. Brent Beardsley, who served as personal staff officer to Maj.-Gen.
Roméo Dallaire in Rwanda, has just delivered a harrowing account of the
near-extermination of the nation’s Tutsi minority. Eric Markusen, an
American sociologist who served on a human rights panel interviewing Darfuri
refugees, is comparing the two African tragedies.
But the students are restless, troubled, tired of listening.
Markusen points out that the West has paid more attention, devoted more
resources and learned more about the atrocities occurring in Darfur than in
any previous genocide. “The U.S. and U.N. have gone in and done
investigations during the time of killing,” he says.
A hand shoots up. “What good is an investigation if there’s no action?” asks
Simon Maghakyan of Colorado.
Markusen politely acknowledges the importance of the query and presses on,
talking about the role Rwanda played in alerting the world to the crisis now
unfolding in Sudan.
But he is interrupted again. Lisa Ndejura, a Montrealer born in Rwanda,
wants practical guidance. “When we talk among the youth, we feel terrible
that we’re not doing more,” she said. “I want to know how we can do things
at the community level.”
Markusen’s presentation soon turns into a free-for-all, with students asking
tough, unanswerable questions: Is a black life worth less than a white life
in the eyes of the international community? Is it worse to ignore a genocide
or to study it and not stop it? Is the use of deadly force justified in
protecting innocent people?
No one minces words. The debate is stimulating, unflinching and ultimately
inconclusive.
The lack of tidy solutions does not bother Greg Sarkissian, president of the
International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, which
launched the program in 2002.
“It is designed primarily to raise awareness of the most gross violations of
human rights,” he says. “People thought there would never be another
Holocaust, but the same thing keeps happening and the world is barely aware
of it. More than 69 million people have been killed in various genocides.
“It shouldn’t just be the responsibility of the victims and their
descendants to stop these heinous crimes,” says Sarkissian, who lost many
relatives in the Armenian genocide. “We want to produce a generation of
scholars that will understand the warning signals of genocide, talk about
the issue and convince governments that it is in our national interest to
intervene before genocides take place.”
The students live together in a U of T dormitory. They form friendships
across racial and geopolitical lines, talk about traumas most outsiders
could barely imagine. “One of our goals is to turn that emotional energy
into an intellectual force,” Sarkissian says.
Although Ndejura finds it draining to talk about death from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m., she is glad she came. “These are questions that have haunted me for a
long time,” the Rwandan immigrant says. “It’s a relief to talk about them.”
As the segment on Rwanda and Darfur ends, Roger Smith, director of the
program, leaves the students with one last thought: “A genocide is not an
accident. It is a choice. It occurs because human beings make it happen and
let it happen.”
(Further information is available at )
Carol Goar’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
;c=Article&cid=1123797013924&call_pageid – 0599109774&col=Columnist969907622164&DPL=I vsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA: ROUNDTABLE ON VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN
YEREVAN, 27 July – UNICEF, Council of Europe and representatives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labour and Social Issues
and State Police called today for immediate action to put an end to
violence against children in Armenia.
“In Armenia we need to give the issue of violence against children in
homes, schools and other places in their community the visibility and
public attention this deserves,” Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in
Armenia said, addressing a round table organized on the heels of the
Regional Consultation on Violence Against Children held in Ljubljana on
5-7 July 2005. “It is essential that polices and procedures are in place
to help prevent violence against children, support child victims and
strengthen reporting, referral and response mechanisms.”
Studies in many countries have repeatedly shown that victims of physical
abuse during childhood have an increased risk of becoming violent
offenders themselves.
“Violence against children can occur everywhere, in every family and in
every society. In Armenia, as in almost all countries, it is often a
hidden problem that is vastly under-reported,” Yett said
A 2003 UNICEF Armenia survey found that poor living conditions,
unemployment and the psychological stress of poverty had resulted in an
increase in the number of cases of abuse and neglect not only in the
family but also in schools and children’s institutions.
The study revealed that in many families slapping and beating are
perceived as a “means of upbringing”. In many children’s institutions as
well as in schools corporal punishment is still a common practice.
The Ljubljana conference was hosted by the Government of Slovenia and
organized in close consultation with UNICEF, WHO the Council of Europe,
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the NGO
Advisory Panel on the UN Study on Violence Against Children. The
consultation is one of nine worldwide that will feed into a major study
mandated by the UN General Assembly on Violence Against Children.
Representatives of 40 countries as well as 24 child delegates
participating in the Regional Consultations in Ljubljana adopted a final
document called “Ljubljana Commitment”. By adopting this document, the
Government of Armenia and other countries in the region pledged to take
immediate steps to tackle the problem of violence against children in
their respective countries and to adopt measures to prevent such cases
from happening in future.
For more information:
Emil Sahakyan, Communication Officer, UNICEF Armenia: (+374 10) 523 546,
[email protected]
—
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Lraper Church Bulletin 11/08/2005
Contact: Deacon Vagharshag Seropyan
Armenian Patriarchate
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ARMENIAN PATRIARCH TO ATTEND 20TH WORLD YOUTH DAY IN GERMANY
<; (Click the "ENG" button on the left hand side corner of the page) The Chancellery of the Armenian Patriarchate announced that His Beatitude Mesrob II, Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and All Turkey, will be leaving for Cologne, Germany, on Tuesday, 16 August, and will be returning to his See on Monday, 22 August. The Patriarch has been invited to Germany by Their Eminences Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Bishop of Mainz & President of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference, and Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, in order to participate in the 20th World Youth Day. On Tuesday, 16 August, Patriarch Mesrob will be joining the youths from the Catholic Students' Parish of Muenster. On Wednesday, 17 August, the Patriarch will be taking part in a stage programme titled "Study for Love and Justice" - a talk focusing on Christian-Muslim dialogue and reconciliation with Martin Buchholz of the West German Broadcasting Corporation. On Thursday, 18 August, the Patriarch will be taking part in another public talk, this time with His Excellency Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff of Aachen, aboard the "Friend-Ship" of the Catholic Students' Parish of Muenster. The theme of the talk will be: "We are all children of Abraham: Christians and Muslims - can we live together in peace? Inspired by the Gospel, reconciliation can be found." On Friday, 19 August, His Beatitude the Patriarch will be participating in the International Conference of Delegations for Pastoral work at Universities, along with His Eminence Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of Catholic Education, Vatican, and His Excellency Bishop Mussinghoff. On Saturday, 20 August, in the late afternoon, the Patriarch will attend the Vigil with the youth and with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. On Sunday, 21 August, in the morning, His Beatitude will attend the Holy Mass celebrated by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. On Monday, 22 August, in the afternoon, His Beatitude the Patriarch will be returning to Istanbul. In Cologne, Patriarch Mesrob will be assisted by the Revd. Fr. Drtad Uzunyan, His Beatitude's staff-bearer; Ms. Jaisy Manthuruthil and Mr. Michael Bruening, both young guides have been assigned to accompany him. He will also have a chance to meet His Grace Archbishop Karekin Bekciyan, Primate of the Armenian Diocese of Germany - a graduate of the Holy Cross Patriarchal Seminary (Surp Hac Tbrevank) in Istanbul.