Author: Kalantarian Kevo

ARMENIENS DE ROUMANIE
Varujan Vosganian nommé Ministre de l’Economie de la Roumanie

Le Parlement roumain a validé le 21 décembre la candidature du député
et leader de la communauté arménienne de Roumanie, Varoujan Oskanian
(54 ans) au poste de ministre de l’Economie du gouvernement de Victor
Ponta. Varoujan Oskanian aura par ailleurs le contrôle des ministère
de l’Energie et des Petites et Moyennes industries, des Affaires et du
Tourisme. « Nous pensons que Vartan Oskanian est l’un des membres les
plus compétents de la diaspora arménienne et à ces hautes fonctions il
fait honneur à notre communauté » dit l’un des responsables de la
communauté arménienne de Roumanie après cette élection. Un autre
arménien, Varoujan Pamboukdjian élu au Parlement roumain, en charge de
la commission sur les minorités est également leader de la communauté
arménienne de Roumanie.

Krikor Amirzayan

dimanche 23 décembre 2012,
Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

APA, Azerbaijan
Dec 22 2012

Leader of Turkey’s Jafari Community: `Yerevan is located 40 km far
from Turkish border, Armenians must take it into account in Karabakh
talks’

[ 22 December 2012 12:09 ]

`If military operations start, Azeri Turks living in Turkey will
totally support their homeland’

Baku. Ramil Mammadli – APA. `No Azeri Turk can keep head up, unless
Karabakh is liberated from occupation. The main issue is to liberate
the occupied territories and return the refugees to their homes. Other
issues will be solved through negotiations’, the leader of Turkey’s
Jafari community Selahattin Ozgunduz told APA.

He noted that the struggle in this direction should be sustainable and
effective, it must cover all spheres: `I say it in all my speeches. On
the last day of Ashura in Istanbul I declared that we expect peaceful
solution to the Karabakh problem. But if there is no place for hope,
if military operations start, Azeri Turks living in Turkey will
totally support their homeland – Azerbaijan’.

He expressed that besides Azerbaijan-born persons, there are millions
of Anadolu Turks in Turkey, who love Azerbaijan: `Armenian capital is
located 40 km far from Turkish border. Armenians must take it into
account and estimate peace negotiations. And first of all, they must
not forget that Armenia is surrounded by millions of Turks. It would
be better if they are committed to Turks, as it was formerly. It is
for their sake’.

Selahattin Ozgunduz added that Azerbaijanis living in Turkey also give
priority to peace: `But to proud peace. I have 3 sons. I am ready to
send all three to the war for the sake of Azerbaijan. If only our
pride isn’t trampled down’.

Toronto Star, Canada
Dec 22 2012

Christmas songs: Musicians share favourites, from Nat King Cole to The Messiah

By Oakland Ross
Feature Writer

What would Christmas be like without Christmas music?

Ask Gayane Bareghamyan. She can’t imagine Christmas in any other way –
or at least not the Christmases of her youth.

`During the Soviet regime, people weren’t too much connected to the
church,’ says Bareghamyan, who grew up in Armenia when the country
chafed under Moscow’s thumb. `There was no Christmas music in
Armenia.’

Yerevan and other Armenian cities pulse with carols at Christmastime
now, but that’s little consolation to Bareghamyan, who remembers a
time when a silent night at Christmas meant exactly that and nothing
more.

A violin teacher by profession, and a music lover by avocation,
Bareghamyan cannot name a single special piece of music she associates
with the Christmas season.

`I’m very sorry,’ she says. `Not a particular one.’

To many Canadians, such a predicament would seem unthinkable.

For them, music is to Christmas what oxygen is to life.

`We used to fight on Christmas morning about what music to listen to
during the opening of presents,’ remembers Mervon Mehta, executive
director of performing arts at the Royal Conservatory of Music, who
grew up in Montreal. `We were all dragged to our Christmas concerts,
to sing beautifully or badly. It was absolutely perfect.’

That is Christmas for most Canadians – a time for food and family, for
laughter and gifts, but also for music and song.

`When families come together, music can create a certain atmosphere,’
says Johannes Debus, music director of the Canadian Opera Company, who
grew up in a small town in Germany. `Those tunes create in me certain
feelings of home. It’s a certain nostalgic feeling.’

That feeling can be enjoyed and celebrated by means of any human sense
– whether taste or touch or sight or smell – but it may well be
through our ears and with our voices that we most fully experience
that thrill of community and communion that resides near the heart of
what we talk about when we talk about the spirit of Christmas.

In the paragraphs that follow, a handful of Canadians – all of whose
lives revolve around music – share their favourite songs of the season
and their fondest musical memories of the Christmas celebrations of
their youth.

Debus’s earliest Christmas memories centre on an 11th-century
Romanesque cathedral in his hometown of Speyer, Germany.

`It’s a stunning, remarkable building,’ he recalls. `Since I was 5, I
was singing in the chorale there. My favourite Christmas music is
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, which I often performed as
a choir boy. That piece will never lose its power.’

Among familiar Christian carols, he says he especially loves `Adeste Fideles.’

Like Bareghamyan, Hungarian-born Michael Remenyi grew up under the
long shadow of the Soviet Union, but he remembers Christmas as a happy
and songful time.

`If we start with childhood memories, music is as important as sights
and sounds,’ says Remenyi, an accomplished cellist and owner of the
venerable House of Remenyi musical instrument shop across Bloor Street
from the Royal Ontario Museum. `When you’ve played your first
Christmas carol, you are in the Christmas spirit.’

Music that spurs memories of Christmas for Remenyi includes Mozart’s
Coronation Mass in C as well as almost any choral work by 20th-century
English composer John Ritter.

`His choral music is just wonderful.’

If you prefer a more contemporary take on Christmas music, then Mehta
at the Royal Conservatory is happy to oblige.

`My tastes are all over the map,’ says the man in charge of organizing
concerts at Koerner Hall.

His all-time favourite Christmas song is perhaps best known as
`Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire’ – its formal title is `The
Christmas Song’ – as performed by late American crooner Nat King Cole.

`To me, there’s no better Christmas song than that,’ he says, praising
Cole’s `butter voice.’

Mehta recalls Christmas morning debates, when his mother would call
for German lieder to be played on the stereo, while her son insisted
on, oh, maybe `Santa Claus is Coming to TOWNEND’ by Bruce Springsteen
(`How cool is that?’) or else an a capella number by The Sounds of
Blackness, a U.S. gospel ensemble.

`I had moved away from traditional Christmas carols,’ he explains.

Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah – host of the Tempo classical
music show on CBC Radio 2 – agrees with Mehta on one musical point.
She, too, claims `Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire’ as her
quintessential Christmas song. But she favours the Mel Torme version,
which she used as a model when she first performed the piece in a
school choir as a child of Christian Lebanese immigrants in Ottawa.

`Out of the blue, this Lebanese kid with big hair belts it out,’ she
says, referring to herself. `It’s been on my list of faves ever since.
My next favourite, I would say, is `O Holy Night’ sung by Luciano
Pavarotti. It is moving. Oh, my God.’

Surprisingly, no one has yet mentioned that perennial musical emissary
of Xmas, Handel’s Messiah. So it’s a good thing that Gabriel Radford
is on the line. He claims the Christmas staple as his No. 1 seasonal
favourite.

`Handel’s Messiah and Christmas are totally inseparable,’ says
Radford, who plays French horn in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
`Hearing music from The Messiah instantly puts me in the Christmas
mood.’

On Christmas Day itself, however, Radford favours traditional carols
(`Nothing replaces them’), with one modern addition – an album by U.S.
jazz diva Ella Fitzgerald called Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas.

`Ella is awesome,’ says Radford. `That album is really great.’

Soprano Lorna MacDonald, who teaches music at the University of
Toronto, has two favourite carols, one of them familiar – `Away in a
Manger’ – and one of them less so. The unfamiliar piece is entitled
`See, Amid the Winter Snow,’ and it has a lovely, haunting melody.

`Majestic,’ she calls it.

And, like Radford, MacDonald is a grateful devotee of George Frideric
Handel’s greatest gift to the Christmas season.

`I can’t imagine a Christmas without listening to The Messiah.’

Fortunately, she doesn’t have to.

Interfax, Russia
Dec 20 2012

Armenian president speaks on foreign policy interaction issues in CSTO

MOSCOW. Dec 20

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said Azerbaijan’s stance on the
Karabakh issue remains a threat to regional security and raised the
question about the effectiveness of interaction in the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

“The destructive approach adopted by Azerbaijan on the issue of the
Nagorny Karabakh conflict settlement remains a serious security threat
to the Southern Caucasus region,” Sargsyan told the CSTO Collective
Security Council.

Sargsyan said it is manifested in the Azeri authorities’ unwillingness
or inability to follow the logic of the negotiation process, which is
clearly stated in the numerous statements by the presidents of the
countries co-chairing the Minsk OSCE Group.

“We are convinced that the only way to resolve the current conflicts
is through negotiation. We are working on the assumption that the
resumption of military action after a truce achieved by the parties
and even the threats of such resumption are direct violations of the
principles of international law and the most shortsighted way to a new
wave of violence,” Sargsyan said.

Sargsyan also addressed the issue of effectiveness of foreign policy
interaction in CSTO.

“It’s difficult to explain a situation when our numerous requests made
to our partners in CSTO to prevent Azerbaijan from passing a one-sided
wording essentially remain unanswered,” Sargsyan said.

Unlike Armenia, US Ambassador, U.S. State Department: On the Road to Nowhere

– December 19, 2012
By Berge Jololian
Watertown, MA
December 17, 2012

I attended the presentation by the US Ambassador to Armenia, John
Heffern, on December 13 at St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, MA.
Before his presentation, Ambassador Heffern shook hands with some
members of the audience. He approached a young boy who was sitting
with his mother. However, as the boy was busy playing a game on his
electronic gadget, he ignored Mr. Heffern’s offer to shake hands. The
ambassador asked the mother if she had ever taken her son to Armenia.
`No’, the mother replied.

The boy finally extended his arm, shook hands, and looked away without
ever making eye contact with Mr. Heffern. `You should take him to
Armenia,’ the ambassador told the mother. `It is a long trip. On the
way to nowhere.’

Heffern then laughed and happened to walk towards me. I grabbed his
hand and said `Mr. Ambassador, Armenia maybe on the way to nowhere,
but it is certainly in the way of energy pipelines.’ He walked away
laughing.

I think that the ambassador is frustrated and angry that Armenia is
not dancing to the U.S. State Department’s tune – for example, by
refusing to give away Artzakh (Karabagh) to Azerbaijan and by not
joining the Turkey-NATO sphere of influence. That is why he described
Armenia as `on the way to nowhere.’

If one is astute and `reads between the lines,’ here is what Heffern
said or implied in his presentation that night:

– The U.S. will continue military assistance to Azerbaijan.
– The U.S. will do nothing to change the status quo of Turkey’s border
closure until Turkey decides otherwise.
– The U.S. will not ask Georgia (a major U.S. aid recipient) to
facilitate trade routes for Armenia.
– The U.S will continue to exert pressure on Armenia until it stops
all trade with Iran, even as Turkey continues to do billions in trade
with Iran and spurn U.S. sanctions.
– The U.S. wants Armenia to spurn Russia and eventually join NATO
(even though the U.S. will never offer any security against Turkey and
pan-Turkism).

It is actually Ambassador Heffern and the U.S. State Department who
are on the road to nowhere.

Azeri killer’s practice becomes popular among murderers

NEWS.AM
December 19, 2012 | 22:41

BAKU. – A teacher murdered his colleague in Azerbaijan, Attorney
General’s Office informed APA adding investigation revealed that an
Azerbaijani resident Nizami Araz (born in 1949) was axed by his
colleague teacher Ali Ibrahimov.

The Office also informed that Aliyev and Ibrahimov worked at the same
school. On that morning Ibrahimov took Aliyev out of the home and
killed him. The murderer is arrested, a criminal case is instigated,
and circumstances are being clarified.

The reason of a horrible murder is not yet available. At the same
time, it is not surprising that the axeis a beloved murder tool for
Azerbaijani criminals.

To note, a notorious Azeri killer Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the
Azerbaijani military, was extradited on August 31 from Hungary, where
he was serving a life sentence – and with no expression of either
regret or remorse – for the premeditated axe murder of Armenian
lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan, in his sleep, during a NATO Partnership
for Peace program in Budapest back in 2004.

Armenia’s Chief Military Inspector against women military service

NEWS.AM
December 21, 2012 | 01:49

YEREVAN. – Armenia’s Chief Military Inspector Mikael Harutyunyan
believes it is inappropriate to require the military service for
women.

`I consider inappropriate the military service for women. Even more,
due to the lack of corresponding infrastructures,’ he told Armenian
News-NEWS.am.

At the same time Harutyunyan did not reject the fact that lots of
women do serve in the army. To note some countries do have military
service for women, including Israel, while Russian MPs prepare a bill
for the Russian girls to pass a willing service.

Animation of Hushang Moradi Kermani’s `The Big Clay Jar’ produced
Art Desk

On Line: 10 December 2012 15:53
In Print: Tuesday 11 December 2012

A scene from `The Big Clay Jar’

TEHRAN — An animation series based on Iranian children’s author Hushang
Moradi Kermani’s `The Big Clay Jar’ has recently been produced.

The 13-epidosod series was produced by the Saba Art and Cultural Institute,
which is affiliated with the Iranian Academy of Arts, the institute
announced in a press release on Monday.

The story is set in a school in a village near the city of Kerman, the
hometown of the author.

The students from all grades attend a common class, which is led by a
teacher. They all use the water contained in a big clay jar in a corner of
the school to quench their thirst.

The students find the jar broken when they attend the school in the morning
of a freezing winter day. A great controversy is aroused as they begin to
trace who is involved in the incident.

Finally, Principal Mr. Samadi finds out that the jar has been broken as a
result of freezing due to the cold weather. Then, the students and
villagers unite to repair the jar.

`The story also carries an intriguing mixture of incidents, which occur on
the sidelines,’ director Ali Ahmadi said.

He used cutout animation technique to make the series, which will premiere
in IRIB’s Channel 1 on Friday.

Moradi Kermani, 68, is an eminent writer of books primarily for children
and teenagers. However, his works also appeal to adults.

Several Iranian movies and TV-series have been made based on his works.
Kiumars Purahmad directed the TV series `The Stories of Majid’ and Dariush
Mehrjuii made `Mom’s Guest’ — both based on his novels of the same name.

His credits also include `Sweet Jam’ and `Like the Full Moon’, `The
Reservoir’, and `Cushion’, most of which have been translated into English,
German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Arabic, Armenian, Turkish and several other
languages.

The Children’s Book Council of Iran plans to nominate Moradi Kermani for
the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2014.

Book Purports to Reveal `Armenian Connection’ to Lebanese Drug Trade

14:09, December 20, 2012

There’s an article in today’s edition of YaLibnan, entitled `Lebanese
Drug Trade: Multiple Ethnicities and Political Rivalries’ by Ghassan
Karam that mentions Armenians vis-à-vis the drug trade inLebanon

The article is the 8th installment of the book: The Lebanese
Connection: Corruption, Civil War, And The International Drug Traffic
by Jonathan Marshall a fellow at Stanford Studies In Middle Eastern
And Islamic Societies And Cultures.

The book is described as a scholarly account of the Lebanese drug
trade based on previously classified documents of The DEA and
otherUSdrug related agencies. Karam says that the book is banned
inLebanon.

Here’s the excerpt from the book:

There was another ethnic group that played a relatively substantial
role in the promotion and distribution of Lebanese drugs although its
role has also been underreported. Many seem surprised when the
Armenian role is mentioned but in retrospect this appears to be a
natural development. When the Armenians were forced to flee the
Turkish massacres many came to Lebanon, Syria, Greece, France, Panama
and the US. The resulting ethnic gangs in each of these locations
acted as bridge heads for Lebanese drugs.

One Lebanese Armenian, Hagop Kevorkian, was a major drug and foreign
exchange runner and a partner of the notorious Sami Khoury while many
of the Marseille heroin labs were reputed to be owned by ethnic
Armenians. This drug role was eventually helped by the political
structure that emanated among the Lebanese Armenian community.

The Tashnaq, an anti communist party, received help from the CIA; the
SAVAK in the 1960’s and was able to transform the Beirut branch of the
party into a policy setting organization for the rest of the world.
Both the Tashnaq and its counterpart the Huchaq tried to avoid being
sucked into the Lebanese internecine civil war But that was not to be.
ASALA; Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, attacked
the World Council of Churches in Beirut for encouraging Armenians to
emigrate to North America. ASALA also had strong relationships with
Syria, PLO and Abu Nidal. As a result the Tashnaq had to respond to
this leftist challenge by forming the Justice Commandos Against
Armenian Genocide (JCAG).

But as expected such organizations require substantial funding and
both were drawn to the easy revenue from drugs. The significant drug
activities can best be seen through the numerous arrests that were
done by the Swedish, Danish and the French police against
drugsmugglers that were Lebanese Armenians. Noubar Soufian of JCAG was
the most notorious and was arrested by the NY police in 1981 for
smuggling Lebanese heroin to the US. Noubar Soufian managed to get
back to Beirut where he became a significant arms smuggler for the
Phalange and the Armenians in exchange for heroin.

PRESS RELEASE
December 20, 2012

Armenian Volunteer Corp
Contact: Tania Chichmanian
(374 10) 54 00 37
[email protected]

AVC Professional Corps: “If you can dream it, you can do it!”

Yerevan Armenia-Thirty years in corporate publishing was enough. But what
wasn’t enough for Suzanne Daghlian, 53, of New Jersey was the two weeks she
spent volunteering in Armenia each summer. She’d been travelling to Armenia
every summer since 2006 and building houses with the Fuller Center for
Housing. As a team leader, her time in Armenia was full attending to the
volunteers she’d recruited, organizing their days working on construction
sites, their evenings out on the town, and their touring days visiting the
great sights of Armenia. She felt the time always flew by and she was never
able to really enjoy the pace of Armenia, to learn the language, to really
relax into it. So when she lost her job along with many other veterans of
the old guard of New York publishing, she knew it was time to realize a
dream she’d always had to live somewhere outside of the US for a little
while and do something good for others.

Suzanne has lived in New Jersey her whole life, commuting to
Manhattan for work. Her parents were founding members of the Armenian
Church in Tenafly, New Jersey and Suzanne has always been active in her
church. Her travels have taken her from the Andes and the Amazon to Kenya
and Tanzania, from Scandinavia to Hawaii, as well as all over the
continental United States for her work. For the past seven years, however,
Suzanne’s heart has been in Armenia.

“I always dreamed of taking off and moving to a different place with a
different point of view. And then I fell in love with Armenia. I found the
Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC) website years ago and would leave it open on
my computer at work and fantasize about being a long-term volunteer in
Armenia. But I didn’t think I would ever have the guts to leave my life
behind and go. When I lost my job, the stars aligned for me and I just knew
I had to do it.”

Suzanne made all the arrangements-she produced a budget, arranged to pay her
bills online, found a house sitter to take care of things at home, and
applied to AVC. Once accepted, she began to tell people about her plan to
go to Armenia to volunteer for four months.

Her family and friends were ecstatic for her. Many of them knew of her
desire to live abroad for a time, all of them knew of her love for Armenia,
and some of them admitted that they dream of this kind of adventure
themselves. “It’s amazing how many of my friends and cohorts say they want
to do something like this, but they feel they can’t get away from their
responsibilities. But I haven’t left my responsibilities-I am paying my
bills and keeping in touch with all I need to, and I’m living here in
Armenia for four months. In this day and age, with all the technology we
have access to, it’s really easy to be in two places at once.”

The Armenian Volunteer Corps has coordinated her volunteer placements while
she is here. Suzanne is volunteering at the American University of Armenia
in their Extension Program. She’s helping them promote a new branch of the
program in Karabagh. She’s also working at the Fuller Center for Housing
Armenia, where she knows the mission and the need and is able to help them
with editing, writing, and marketing.

“Not only has AVC provided me with job placements that are in alignment
with my experience, but they provide me with an amazing community of friends
made up of the other volunteers in-country. We have language classes
together, go on weekend excursions out of the city, and attend cultural
events. In addition, the AVC office is a home away from home-a place where
we are always welcome and will always find a friend.”

“Armenia got inside me and called me back, over and over again. I love it
here-the pace, the people, the scenery, the very soul of it has me in its
sway and won’t let go. Having the opportunity to come here and work for
Armenia is a gift I gave myself. I’m learning so much, but the most
important lesson is that if you can dream it, you can do it!”

—
Founded in 2000, the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC) is Armenia’s premiere
volunteer placement organization. AVC invites individuals from all over the
world, 21 years and older, to volunteer in Armenia for service terms ranging
from one month to one year. AVC Professional Corps invites professionals 32
years of age and up with at least five years specialized experience to
volunteer in Armenia for a minimum of two weeks. To date, over 450
volunteers have served in more than 200 organizations throughout Armenia.
Individuals who are of Armenian heritage and between the ages of 20 and 32
may be eligible for sponsorship by AVC’s sister organization, Birthright
Armenia. For more information, visit

Tania J. Chichmanian
Executive Director
Armenian Volunteer Corps

[email protected]
Tel: (+374) 10 54 00 37

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