Author: Kalantarian Kevo

IT’S ETHNO-METAL, BUT MORE INTIMATE
By Mark Lepage, Freelance

The Gazette
July 31, 2008 Thursday
Montreal

Scars on Broadway
Interscope/Universal
Rating 3 1/2

If someone had told you five years ago that the most significant
band in metal would be a politicized crew of porn-fan Californian
Armenians who write in mangled altered English, you’d have sent him
home to take two Ozzies and call you in the morning.

Moreover, System of a Down are not just alt-metal but ethno-metal,
super-volting the music of their Near Eastern heritage with double-time
drums and guitar for an eye-bulging sound that has become the current
dissident-metal signature. They’ve got the box office. Now come
the sequels.

Who is SOAD? With singer Serj Tankian the first member to establish
a solo career, guitarist Daron Malakian (and drummer John Dolmayan)
make their own case in side project Scars on Broadway. Given Malakian
writes the SOAD music, they have a clear edge.

Now this is metal, and so before a volley of deranged critical praise
obliterates our context, let’s remember theirs: Malakian reassured SOAD
fans that the band wasn’t breaking up, simply releasing solo albums
"like Kiss did." This terrifying promise – the rock version of a Habs
GM promising to revive the Damphousse era – might have rendered SOB
DOA in this precinct. Instead, SOB turns out to be SOAD on E, more
intimate and less angular.

But, certainly, recognizable. With his inherent (and probably
Armenian-folk-meets-Wings) melodic sense, Malakian both expands
his regular band’s sonic palette while remaining true to its
identity. Thus, there is ample denunciation of sleaze culture and
"Turkish lies", even as his riffs revel in the former (not the
latter). At the risk of harping on Malakian’s heritage, it does
separate him from, say, Fred Durst (remember?). While not out to prove
the metal cred, half of these songs are riff-based, but the range,
from keyboards to balladry, makes it unlike anything it will outsell
this week. This praise comes despite a strong and sane desire never
to hear the song Chemicals again.

ARMENIAN AMBASSADORS’ MEETING TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN IN EARLY SEPT

ARKA
August 1, 2008

YEREVAN, August 1. /ARKA/. The executive staff of Armenia’s Ministry
of Foreign Affairs is to meet with Armenian ambassadors accredited
abroad in Yerevan on September 1-2, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandyan said.

Ambassadors and the Foreign Ministry executive staff will meet
in educational institutions on September 1 to discuss Armenia
– the outside world relations, the Minister told a press
conference.

EIGHTY-TWO ARMENIANS APPLY FOR 71 PLACES IN ACADEMIES OF GREECE AND RUSSIA

ARMENPRESS
July 30, 2008

YEREVAN, JULY 30, ARMENPRESS: Eighty-two Armenians have applied for
71 places available for Armenian cadets in 18 military academies of
Greece and Russia.

To become eligible the applicants will have to pass a series of
examinations, which are now underway. Armenian cadets will be majoring
in prestigious Russian military academies in Moscow, Ryazan, Voroniezh
(Russia) and in Greece.

Murad Isakhanian, head of a Defense Ministry department in charge of
military education and personnel, told Armenpress that many third-year
cadets from Armenian academies and officers continue their education
in Italy, Germany, China and USA.

HSBC TOPPING LIST OF BEST WORLD BANKS

July 28
ARKA

HSBC has jumped from third to first place in the latest annual Banker
magazine survey of the world’s top one thousand banks (Top 10001),
press office of the bank reports.

"HSBC is the first non-U.S. company to lead the survey since 1999
and tops the rankings by virtue of its Tier 1 capital and profit
before tax,

which last year reached a new high", the press report says.

The survey found that US banks now account for just 14 per cent of
aggregate Top 1000 pretax profits, down from 24 per cent last year,
while Asian banks rose to 19 per cent from 12 per cent. European bank
profits remained flat at 41 per cent of the total.

The press release also says that in April, HSBC also topped the Forbes
2000 list of world’s largest companies – the first non-U.S. company
to do so, having reached 26 percent growth in annual revenue and 31
per cent in net income over the past five years.

HSBC Holdings plc serves 128 million clients in 84 countries in Europe,
Asia, Pacific, Americas and the Middle East through its 10 000 offices.

HSBC, with its assets totaling $2.354 billion is the world biggest
organization providing banking and financial services.

HSBC Holdings plc serves over 128 million customers worldwide through
around 10,000 offices in 83 countries and territories in Europe, the
Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. With
assets=2 0of some US$2,354 billion at 31 December 2007, HSBC is one of
the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations. HSBC
is marketed worldwide as ‘the world’s local bank’. M.V.

Redlands Daily Facts, CA
San Bernardino Sun, CA
July 27 2008

Filmmaker claims censoring attempt

Wes Woods II, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/26/2008 11:57:05 PM PDT

CLAREMONT – A man who filmed a June 10 lecture by a Turkish diplomat
at Claremont Graduate University now has a Web site criticizing the
university, alleging it is trying to censor his film on the Internet.
In fact, he has created the site –
– describing his attempts to place his film on YouTube.

His reason for the Web site, which has a title of "Claremont Graduate
University Censorship," is that videographer Peter Musurlian’s YouTube
video about the lecture was blurred and briefly pulled down.

In the video, Musurlian comments on how the speaker, R. Hakan Tekin,
the consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles, at "age 41 he
mathematically could be the grandson of a perpetrator of the Armenian
genocide. … Instead he’s armed with rhetorical skills, a smile and
Turkish government talking points and propaganda."

During World War I, as many as one and a half million Armenians were
treated as possible enemies and killed after being forced into
concentration camps when Turkey joined the Central Powers against
Russia.

The conflict goes back to at least the 1800s when Armenians,
identified with the Christian religion, were placed at odds with
Turkey’s Muslim factions.

The Turkish government has denied there ever was an Armenian genocide.

Musurlian, 46, is a station manager for Burbank’s government access
channel and also a board member on the Armenian National Committee of
America’s Western Region.

He said he was not at the "The Role and Challenges of Turkey in a
Globalizing World" lecture on behalf of the national committee and
just wanted to tape the event for his channel.

Musurlian said he had a campus lawyer, identified as Paul S. Berra,
tell him to blur student faces or the university would have the video
pulled.

"He initially said some of the students were being harassed,"
Musurlian said.

But the video doesn’t focus in on students and he said he wasn’t given
a specific reason about the kind of harassment.

In a letter claimed to be from Berra posted on Musurlian’s Web site,
the lawyer wrote " … I asked you to voluntarily remove your video
from YouTube because you had no authority to publish it. I explained
that you needed to obtain, for starters, the students’ consent before
doing so."

When reached at his Santa Monica law office on Friday, attorney Paul
S. Berra said he had no comment.

The video, Musurlian said, was posted June 14, and about nine days
later Berra contacted him, he said.

A YouTube e-mail Musurlian sent from his account Friday shows the
video was removed June 25 "as a result of a third-party notification
by Claremont Graduate University claiming that this material is
infringing."

Musurlian e-mailed back a counter-notification and on July 10 the
video was restored.

When asked, Claremont Graduate University spokesman Nikolaos Johnson
said the campus had no comment on its filming procedures, the genocide
Web site or its use of a lawyer.

Rachel Matteo-Boehm, a partner at Holme, Roberts and Owen, is general
counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition.

Matteo-Boehm said that because no one had objected to Musurlian’s
attendance, there didn’t appear to be any potential privacy issues.

"I don’t see any legal basis to request student faces to be blurred
based on the facts as I understand them," Matteo-Boehm said.

Musurlian said he set up a large tripod, a camera and placed a
wireless microphone on the podium and was actually encouraged to ask a
question at the lecture.

"It was a pleasant experience," he said.

The Web site now has more than 5,800 hits. Musurlian said he has "no
plans" of taking the Web site or any of his videos down.

"The Web site, I paid for it to be up for a year," Musurlian said.

dinocounty/ci_10011187

Zaman Online, Turkey
July 28 2008

Shadowy network behind unresolved political murders, says indictment

An indictment into Ergenekon, a political crime gang allegedly making
preparations to topple the government, claims that the gang was behind
a series of unresolved assassinations and was readying to perpetrate
bloody attacks on several high-profile personalities.

The indictment, made public on Friday, said the Ergenekon network
incited the perpetrators of deadly attacks on some important public
figures. The victims include Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant
Dink, journalist UÄ?ur Mumcu, businessman Ã-zdemir
Sabancı and writer and scientist Necip HablemitoÄ?lu. The
gang was also planning to launch bloody assaults against several
high-profile personalities, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
ErdoÄ?an, Chief of General Staff Gen. YaÅ?ar
BüyükanÄ&#x B1;t, journalist Fehmi Koru and Nobel
Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk.
Cumhuriyet daily columnist Mumcu, a leading figure in investigative
journalism, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb placed under his
car on Jan. 24, 1993. He was long believed to have been assassinated
by Islamic extremists. However, the Ergenekon indictment stated that a
document found during a search of a ranch house belonging to retired
Brig. Gen. Veli Küçük, arrested in the Ergenekon
operation in January, showed that a six-member Israeli group, under
the direction of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), infiltrated
Turkey to assassinate journalists Mumcu and Mehmet Ali Birand to
prevent Turkey from being ruled by a religious administration. The
said document was undersigned by an official from the National
Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T).

Professor HablemitoÄ?lu was shot dead in front of his house on
Dec. 18, 2002. He was also believed to have been killed by an Islamic
group and the perpetrator of his assassination was never
identified. The indictment claims that HablemitoÄ?lu’s shooting
was inspired by the Ergenekon network. The document cited Internet
chat conversations of Habib Ã`mit Sayın — a lecturer at
Ä°stanbul University who was taken into custody earlier this
month for suspected links with the gang — with an individual whose
identity was not revealed regarding the HablemitoÄ?lu
assassination. Sayın told the mysterious individual on MSN
messenger that HablemitoÄ?lu might be killed in one year. "He is
afraid because neither the MÄ°T nor the police are behind
him. He will most probably be killed by next year," Sayın
wrote.

Top Turkish businessman Sabancı was shot dead in his
high-security office in 1996. Sabancı was killed by militants
of the extreme-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front
(DHKP/C). The indictment, however, said the assassination wasn’t
solely perpetrated by the organization. It stated that the names of
Fehriye Erdal, Mustafa Duyar and Ä°smail Akkol (the perpetrators
of the assassination) were noted in a document that was prepared eight
days before the shooting and later seized during a police raid at the
ultra-nationalist and anti-European Union weekly
Aydınlık. The indictment said it would be impossible to
turn a blind eye to the link between the document, the Sabancı
assassination and Ergenekon.

The indictment also noted that Küçük, believed to
be one of the masterminds of the network, had threatened Dink, the
Turkish-Armenian journalist slain by a teenager in 2007, before his
murder, a sign that Ergenekon could be behind his death as well. Dink
was shot dead in broad daylight outside the office of his bilingual
newspaper, Agos, in Ä°stanbul on Jan. 19, 2007, and an
investigation in the wake of his assassination revealed that a group
of ultra-nationalist youths were behind the murder. The indictment
revealed that some members of the group were closely monitored by
Ergenekon both prior to and after the Dink shooting.

28 July 2008, Monday
TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES Ä°STANBUL

DONORS TAKE A SWAB FOR PATIENTS

Glendale News Press
July 25 2008
CA

Participants in local drive give tissue to those in need of a bone
marrow transplant.

By Veronica Rocha Published: Last Updated Thursday, July 24, 2008
10:31 PM PDT

Jerry Pfau carefully swiped the inside of his mouth Wednesday with
four cotton swabs. The action made him an official member of the
National Marrow Donor Program.

The swabs will be sent to Minneapolis where scientists will analyze
cells and cross-match them with those of patients who need bone marrow
transplants, said Kim Ramos, City of Hope bone marrow recruitment
official.

Glendale Adventist Medical Center and City of Hope in Duarte hosted
a three-day bone marrow drive on Saturday and at Fire Station 21 and
the medical center on Wednesday and Thursday.

"They [donors] will be cross-matched with different patients until
they are 61 years old," Ramos said.

Pfau, a Glendale Fire Department employee, had heard about the drive
at the department.

The drive was sparked by medical center patient and 43-year-old
Glendale resident Asatour Gasparyan, who needs bone marrow. The
drive has been aimed at the Armenian community, because research has
indicated that an Armenian donor would be the best match for Gasparyan,
medical center spokeswoman Alicia Gonzalez said.

But donations are also needed for other bone marrow transplant
patients.

City of Hope, a cancer research hospital, helps patients look for
donors, City of Hope official Vivian Abernathy said.

"Once you need a bone marrow transplant, then you go to City of Hope,"
Abernathy said.

Bone marrow donations are generally given to local patients, so donors
don’t have to travel long distances, Ramos said.

City of Hope helps patients collect donations and conduct research
and transplants, she said.

Donors’ cell samples are registered with the bone marrow donor program,
Ramos said.

Donors’ personal information is kept private, so people who donate
for a specific patient won’t know if their cell samples went to that
person, Ramos said.

Some people who join the bone marrow donor programs have a change of
heart when their cell samples don’t match the person they had donated
for, she said.

"You have to be willing and able to donate to anybody," Ramos said.

Scientists take at least two months to process cell samples, she said.

Hasmisk Tovanyan drove from Ventura to Glendale on Thursday to donate
cell samples to the bone marrow donor program.

"I have always wanted to do it," Tovanyan said.

Tovanyan’s mother-in-law was ill several years ago and needed a bone
marrow transplant, she said.

Her mother-in-law was in the hospital for about five months until
she found a donor who matched her tissue type.

Tovanyan saw a flier about the bone marrow donor drive in Glendale
at a grocery store in Hollywood, she said.

"I could be saving someone’s life," she said.

On Wednesday, Pfau filled out a donor information form and was given
a membership card, indicating he was enrolled in the bone marrow
donor programs.

He was also given an envelope that contained a pamphlet with four
cotton swabs.

He used the cotton swabs to brush four spots inside his mouth.

"It’s just to get an accurate amount of cells," Ramos told Pfau.

Pfau said participating in the bone marrow donor program can help
many people.

"It just seems like the right thing to do," he said.

TEEN’S FILM TO HIT TOP FESTIVAL

Ottawa Citizen
July 24 2008
Canada

Class project makes shortlist of ‘one of toughest festivals in world’

There’s a good reason why Will Inrig’s first animated film is set in
partial darkness. "It’s easier to film," says Will, a 17-year-old
Canterbury High School graduate whose low-budget, low-tech effort
for his media arts class has been selected to compete in the Ottawa
International Animation Festival in September.

The Depose of Bolskivoi Hovhannes will compete in the high school
category against films from Sweden, South Korea, the United States
and a second from Canada.

The festival attracted a record number of submissions this year –
2,149 – and 105 were chosen.

Being selected is quite a coup, says Kelly Neall, the festival’s
managing director. "This is one of the toughest festivals in the
world to get into."

The story of how and why The Depose of Bolskivoi Hovhannes came to be
made is almost as quirky as the five-and-a-half minute film itself,
which tells the story of an Armenian shepherd on a wind-swept heath
whose sheep begin to mysteriously disappear.

Will admits it was a last-minute decision to enrol for a media arts
class at Canterbury last fall, instead of physics. Then he was dismayed
to discover he was expected to produce a piece of computer-generated
animation.

"It’s not the sort of person I am," he says Mr. Inrig, adding that
he doesn’t find it satisfying to create "with the click of a mouse"
and gets his best ideas from dreams.

Teacher Robert Perry allowed Will to opt for old-fashioned,
labour-intensive stop-action animation, but he issued a warning:
"We don’t have money, or studios or facilities."

The resourceful student kept it simple and substituted hard work
for technology. With the help of classmates, he constructed sets and
armatures (characters).

The characters moved on a metal track, held there by magnets in their
wooden feet.

The animation is actually thousands of still photographs strung
together. Will and his crew would take a photograph, then move the
action along by a fraction, and then take another photograph.

The most difficult scene was when the shepherd character, made of
clay, wire and putty, descends a long rope into a very deep hole in
the ground.

"It took an impossible amount of time," says Will.

The story is darkly humorous and the setting minimalist, so the dim
lighting is appropriate.

Will gained area attention last July when The Exceptional Jivatma
Valettas, his documentary about the family that lives next door,
was screened at Library and Archives Canada.

He is now in pre-production for The Fantastic Ballet of the Mind and
its Master.

This film will be an examination of autism, inspired by his younger
brother, who is autistic.

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS ISSUE STATEMENT ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH

A1+
22 July, 2008

Today the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs issued the following statement:

"The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs (Ambassador Yuri Merzylakov of the
Russian Federation; Ambassador Bernard Fassier of France; Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza of the United States)
welcome the constructive engagement of Presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan
following their June 6 meeting in St. Petersburg and the Co-Chairs’
June 27-28 trip to the region.

At this important juncture, the Co-Chairs call on all parties to
refrain from maximalist initiatives on the ground, at the negotiating
table, and in their public statements, and to avoid all belligerent
rhetoric, as we work together in pursuit of a peaceful settlement.

There is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both
Presidents called for invigorated Minsk Group talks during their
meeting in St. Petersburg. The Co-Chairs look forward to meeting again
with the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers in the coming
weeks to press forward with negotiations on the Basic Principles for
the peaceful settlement of the conflict."

Anatolia news agency, Turkey
July 18 2008

TURKISH PRESIDENT TELLS ENVOYS EU MEMBERSHIP REMAINS TOP PRIORITY

Ankara, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Friday [18 July] that
modernization project of Turkey as regards to European Union (EU)
membership should be one of the priorities of Turkish diplomacy and
other state institutions.

Gul met with Turkish ambassadors, currently in Turkey within the scope
of "1st Ambassadors Conference", over lunch at the Presidential Palace
in Ankara.

Gul said Turkish Republic strengthened its security, national unity
and integrity, upgraded its prosperity level and reached its goal to
become a "positive power" for peace and stability in its region.

Gul said Turkey launched initiatives on many regional problems
including the Middle East, assumed roles in multinational peace
protection forces, and played a significant role in peace and
cooperation activities in the world.

Turkish president said political, economic and cultural clashes in the
Middle East region deeply affected global peace and stability, noting
that the efforts exerted for the solution of the problems in question
could not yield results.

"We see that the actual situation was only in the interests of
fanatics, terrorists and speculators, so I think that mechanisms
should be established soon to prevent crises and to restore a new
confidence and cooperation atmosphere in the Middle East," he added.

President Gul said careful works and creative ideas of the ambassadors
contributed a lot for the solution of some problems, noting that UN
plan regarding Cyprus question was negotiated successfully.

Gul said Turkey launched many good-will initiatives to normalize
relations with Armenia since this country announced its independence,
adding "the initiatives in question and proposal of Turkey to
establish a "joint history commission" waits for response."

Commenting on relations with the EU, Gul said Turkey made important
steps on fundamental principles of democratic, secular and social
state for the past 85 years on the way to reach level of contemporary
civilization. "Full membership talks with the EU is the most important
phase of this," he added.

"Fundamental principles of the EU are based on democracy, supremacy of
law, protection of human rights, recognition of social rights, free
market economy, cultural diversity and respect. The values in question
are in conformity with the philosophy of our Republic and expectations
of our people. Thus, this project should be one of the most important
priorities of our diplomacy and other state institutions," he added.