Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Community Leaders And Benefactors Rally For ANCA Telethon 2012

asbarez
Saturday, May 12th, 2012

Mr. & Mrs. Ara and Sandy Bedrossian hosted one of several events for
the ANCA Telethon

LOS ANGELES-With just a week until ANCA Telethon 2012, Armenian
American leaders and benefactors are rallying in support of the ANCA
Endowment Fund civic education mission at a series of benefit
briefings and community receptions.

`I am the Armenian Cause’ (Yes em Hai Tahd-uh) said guests gathered at
the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Vahe and Aida Yeghiazarian, Mr. and Mrs. Ara
and Sandy Bedrosian, and Mr. and Mrs. Hovsep and Elizabeth Boyajian,
who graciously hosted the first three of a series of receptions
leading up to the May 20th Telethon, which will be broadcast in major
Armenian American communities and streamed live online from 2pm to 8pm
PDT (5pm to 11pm EDT). The complete channel listing for the ANCA
Telethon is featured at

Mr. and Mrs. Vahe and Aida Yeghiazarian at their home during the ANCA
Telethon event

Hosts and participants alike stressed the importance of broadening
Armenian American civic participation as a top priority in advancing
community concerns. In his remarks at the first of these receptions
on May 3rd, Vahe Yeghiazarian spoke passionately about the Armenian
American community’s responsibility to defend Armenia and Nagorno
Karabakh against the onslaught of foreign government funded
disinformation campaigns in the media and within government.

His message was echoed by ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian, who
noted that `The Hai Tahd movement, with the ANCA at the forefront –
represents the second army of the Armenian nation – defending Armenian
American rights, and advancing our shared interests.’

Dr. Viken Hovsepian, a prominent community leader, stressed the
universal nature of the ANCA’s efforts, noting broad community support
for the fundamental goals the organization advances, include a strong
and democratic Armenia, self-determination for Karabakh and ongoing
efforts to secure justice for the Armenian Genocide.

ANCA Telethon reception hosts Hovsep & Elizabeth Boyajian (center)
with their daughters Talar and Silva

`May God bless all Armenians who work with the ANCA and its local
chapters in raising their voices to defend the rights of the Armenian
nation,’ his Eminence Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate of the
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Western United States,
told US Armenia TV. `As the May 20th Telethon approaches I urge
everyone to participate in this noble effort because you and I are the
Armenian Cause (Hai Tahd) and as children of the survivors of the
Armenian Genocide, for as long as we have not achieved justice for the
Armenian nation, the ANCA has much to do.’

Supporting Youth Participation in U.S. Civic life
A focal point of the ANCA Telethon’s efforts will be continued broad
based support for the national, regional and local internship programs
encouraging youth participation in U.S. civic life. Prominent
entrepreneur and longtime ANCA activist Ara Bedrosian placed
particular emphasis on the importance of the Capital Gateway Program
and its efforts to assist young Armenian Americans to pursue public
policy careers in Washington, DC. `My greatest wish is that more
Armenian Americans get involved in Armenian and American civic life –
move out to Washington, DC, explore careers in our nation’s capital.
And the ANCA’s Capital Gateway Program is an extremely important
effort in that regard.’

Mrs. Elizabeth Boyajian, who in addition to opening her home for the
third ANCA Telethon reception has taken a lead in the fundraising
campaign for the initiative, stressed the vital role the ANCA’s
efforts play in the daily life of the Armenian American community.
`From supporting youth education to inspiring broader civic
participation, the ANCA’s efforts have touched each and every one of
us in our quest to strengthen our local communities and advance our
national aspirations.’

ANCA National Board Member Raffi Hamparian concurred, in an interview
with Horizon Armenian Television. `The ANCA Telethon is all about
capturing the spirit of American democracy, the spirit of
participation, the spirit of engaging public officials. The ANCA, on
the local level, on the federal level is fighting the good fight…
Armenian Americans are saying Yes to the ANCA, Yes to Hai Tahd, Yes to
advancing our common Cause.’

Additional fundraising receptions will be take place throughout
Southern California and across the nation in the days leading up to
the May 20th broadcast. In addition, community groups are planning to
host an array of viewing parties and local events in support of the
nationwide campaign.

The ANCA Endowment Fund supports a broad range of educational, youth,
and civic programs that give voice to the views and values of the
Armenian American community, strengthening our presence in the
American civic arena, and empowering pro-Armenian stakeholders with
the information and resources they need to take on the powerful forces
aligned against the Armenian nation.

The first two ANCA Endowment Fund telethons, held in 2006 and 2009,
raised more than $4.5 million for Armenian American educational,
youth, and civic programs. Both programs touched a common emotional
chord, speaking directly to the devotion to the Armenian Cause that
rests in the hearts of Armenians from across the U.S., regardless of
organizational or political affiliations.

Countless organizations, volunteers, churches, community leaders,
local ANCAs, performing artists, Members of Congress, and state
legislators from across the nation participated in the telethons,
contributing to their enormous success. Both telethons featured
several documentaries that highlighted various ANCA programs and
numerous results the ANCA Endowment has achieved over the years,
largely through its volunteer and grassroots network.

ANCA Telethon donations may be made online at
or by calling (855) 208-ANCA.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
May 11 2012

France: a chance to restart

BERÄ°L DEDEOÄ?LU
[email protected]

The presidential elections in France were closely monitored in Turkey.
With the victory of socialist François Hollande, the most frequently
asked question now is how the election of this new president will
affect the future of French-Turkish relations. In order to improve
relations, both sides have to do their bit, which means Turkey mustn’t
just wait and expect steps to be taken by France.
What initiatives can Turkey take in order to accelerate the process of
improvement? First of all, we must emphasize that under Hollande’s
presidency, the main determiner of relations will not be whether or
not Turkey is a European nation, but whether or not Turkey respects
democratic values.

There were some people in Turkey who were `happy’ with Nicolas Sarkozy
because he had turned his attention away from Turkey, resulting in an
absence of criticism over Turkey’s problems with democracy. However,
from now on, Turkey should be ready to face much criticism, and it has
to be careful to avoid reacting harshly when it is criticized about
human rights, minority rights, transparency, the rule of law and the
Armenian `problem.’

If the two countries manage to build new bilateral relations based on
EU values, this will be beneficial and constructive for both of them.
Nevertheless, one has to admit that many ill intentions, prejudices,
misunderstandings and broken hearts have poisoned relations in the
last five years. In order to make a fresh start, one of them first
needs to show its goodwill.

Perhaps Hollande should include Turkey on his foreign visit list. We
recall that Sarkozy came to Turkey in February 2011, not as the French
president but as the head of the G20, and he stopped in Ankara for
only a couple of hours. His visit was so low profile that one might
think he was an illegal migrant and not a president. That’s why
President François Mitterand’s visit in 1992 is still considered the
last official visit paid by a French president to Turkey.

If it is necessary to find a reason (not to say an excuse) to explain
why Hollande has to visit Turkey as soon as possible, one can come up
with a few ideas. Maybe Hollande himself does not like the idea that
any visit to Turkey would eventually be described as a shift in
France’s policy regarding Turkey’s accession to the EU. Maybe it would
be wiser to find another reason to justify this visit, an issue not
directly related to the EU accession process but that could, later on,
be helpful with regards to accession.

One reason Hollande could use for visiting Turkey without signaling a
shift in French policy would be to discuss the resuscitation of the
Union for the Mediterranean project. This partnership was supposed to
be a cooperation initiative but, thanks to Sarkozy’s mishandling, it
has turned into a platform for rivalry and conflict. You may recall
that while describing the project, Sarkozy even made France’s closest
allies in Europe very angry, and he failed to convince many countries
in the Mediterranean Basin that his proposed projects were worthwhile.
Besides, as he preferred to present the project as a viable
alternative to Turkey’s EU membership, Turkey was furious over the
organization from day one.

If the Union for the Mediterranean is to be redesigned, not as an
alternative but as a starting point from which Turkey could join the
EU in the future, it can become a project for stability in which
France and Turkey can cooperate closely. In the EU enlargement process
towards Eastern Europe, Germany played a facilitating role in Poland’s
accession. Why won’t France do the same for Turkey? If it becomes the
country to carry Turkey into the EU, Turkey would not refuse France
with help in the Middle East in exchange. At a time when both
countries need to initiate rapprochement, the Union for the
Mediterranean may be a good place to start.

States News Service
May 11, 2012 Friday

MY MOTHER TOLD ME TO EAT ALL MY DINNER AND THE GLOBAL FOOD MARKET

WASHINGTON

The following information was released by the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS):

When I was young, my mother used to tell me to eat all my dinner and
would remind me that there were hungry children who would be happy to
have what I was leaving on my plate. I’m sure lots of you heard the
same thing. And if you were like me, it may have been the first time
you actually doubted your parents’ wisdom, since it was obvious that
whether I cleaned my plate or not, there was no way that the food
would go to those hungry children. It would end up in the garbage, or
at best in a plastic container for me to eat the next day. But it
certainly wouldn’t feed the hungry.

You probably had a similar experience, although exactly where those
hungry children were supposed to live likely has changed over the
decades. For me in the fifties I think they were in India; my
grandfather used to talk about “the starving Armenians”; my own
children remember hearing about famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, and
for my parents’ generation, brought up in Europe in the Depression,
they could have been just about anywhere. And I suspect that children
have reacted with the same skepticism for a long, long time, knowing
that their eating all their dinner would do nothing to prevent
starvation.

But actually, the idea underlying that perennial parental message has
gotten stronger in recent years. It’s not that there have been amazing
technological advances in food teleportation, but the global food
system has changed in a way that does link the plates of children
around the world a bit more closely. The kids are still all right, but
maybe the parents are right too.

Here’s why. The share of food production that is traded
internationally has become a larger and larger share of total food
production, particularly for meat, feed grains and oilseeds. Many of
our basic foodstuffs – corn from the U.S., soy from the Amazon and
palm oil from southeast Asia – are shipped around the world in
increasingly large quantities. This has created a global world food
market, in which consumption in one country affects prices in all the
others.

Thus, when 30% of the U.S. corn crop goes into ethanol, it pushes
prices upward and makes tortillas more expensive in Mexico. And when
Americans eat 225 pounds of meat annually, it creates demand for corn,
soy and other feeds, pulling up their prices as well as those of meat
all around the world.

This isn’t anything complicated; it’s what economists have been
explaining about supply and demand for centuries. It’s just that now,
what matters is global supply and demand.

In this way, children’s dinner plates all around the planet are
connected by the global food market. What we eat is part of the total
demand for food that makes it cheaper or more expensive for other
parents in other countries to give their kids three square meals a
day.

Now, I don’t see this as reason to feel guilty, and as I’ve said in a
previous post, I don’t think guilt is a very useful motivation for
deciding what to eat. Anyhow, my mother’s message wasn’t that I should
feel guilty about starving children elsewhere. It was that I was
fortunate to be well-fed and shouldn’t be wasteful, about food or
anything else. A valuable lesson to remember as we consider our
country’s food policies. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Posted in: Biofuel, Food and Agriculture Tags: agriculture

About the author: Doug Boucher is an expert in preserving tropical
forests to curtail global warming emissions. He has been participating
in United Nations international climate negotiations since 2007 and
his expertise has helped shape some of the U.N. policies. He holds a
Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of
Michigan.

Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join
us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and
a safer world.

Bako Sahakyan stressed the importance of the youth’s role in
strengthening the Motherland-Diaspora unity

11-05-2012 21:13:52 | | Social

On May 11 President of Artsakh Republic Bako Sahakyan received a group
of young people who had arrived in Artsakh from the Diaspora and the
Republic of Armenia by the initiative of the `Birthright Armenia’
foundation.

Bako Sahakyan stressed the importance of the youth’s role in
strengthening the Motherland-Diaspora unity and preserving the
Armenian national identity, as well underlined the necessity of their
frequent visits to Artsakh.

The Head of State rated high the activities of the `Birthright
Armenia’ foundation in this direction, considering invaluable the
experience the organization has accumulated in this field.

During the meeting the President also answered to various questions
raised by the young, the Central Information Department of the Office
of the Artsakh Republic President informs.

News from Armenia and Diaspora – Noyan Tapan

DIPLOMATIE-HAUT KARABAGH
La motion pro-azérie sur le Haut Karabagh a échoué au Parlement de Lituanie

La diplomatie azérie redouble son activité pour faire adopter des
textes favorables aux thèses de Bakou au sujet du Haut Karabagh. Mais
jeudi 10 mai, l’une de ses dernières tentatives fut un échec au
Parlement lituanien. Ce dernier a rejeté une motion titrée « Règlement
pacifique du conflit du Haut Karabagh » qui bénéficiait du lobyying de
Bakou et favorisait ses thèses. Mais grce aux efforts de l’Ambassade
d’Arménie, de la Commissions interparlementaire arméno-lituanienne et
de la communauté arménienne de Lituanie, le Parlement lituanien n’a
pas été dupe et a rejeté le texte lors de son vote. Pire, peu avant la
présentation du texte au Parlement de Lituanie, des députés Lituaniens
appellaient même à la reconnaissance officielle de la République du
Haut Karabagh.

Krikor Amirzayan

samedi 12 mai 2012,
Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

Arménie : trois partis dénoncent des infractions aux législatives

ARMENIE

Trois partis arméniens ont dénoncé vendredi des `infractions` aux
élections législatives du 6 mai en Arménie, qui ont été remportées par
le parti du président Serge Sarkissian et critiquées par
L’Organisation pour la coopération et la sécurité en Europe (OSCE).

`Les élections du 6 mai ont été marquées par des infractions
massives`, ont indiqué dans un communiqué le mouvement d’opposition
Congrès national arménien, le mouvement Arménie Prospère, ex-allié du
parti de M. Sarkissian dans la coalition gouvernementale, et la
Fédération révolutionnaire arménienne Dachnaktsoutun (nationaliste).

`Le Parlement formé à l’issue de ces élections ne reflète pas le
soutien accordé par le peuple à des forces politiques variées`,
souligne le communiqué.

Le Parti républicain de M. Sarkissian a recueilli 44% des voix aux
législatives et devrait obtenir la majorité absolue à l’Assemblée
nationale, avec 68 sièges sur 131, selon des analystes locaux.

Le mouvement Arménie Prospère, dirigé par un millionnaire et
ex-champion de bras de fer, Gaguik Tsaroukian, obtiendrait 36 sièges,
alors que le Congrès national arménien, dirigé par un ancien
président, Levon Ter-Petrossian, et la Fédération révolutionnaire
arménienne devraient se contenter respectivement de sept et six
sièges, selon les analystes.

Le scrutin de dimanche était considéré comme un test pour cette
ex-république soviétique du Caucase, dont c’est la première élection
au niveau national depuis la présidentielle de 2008.

A l’époque, la victoire de M. Sarkissian avait déclenché des
manifestations de l’opposition qui ont dégénéré en affrontements après
l’intervention de la police, faisant 10 morts.

Les autorités de ce pays de 3,3 millions d’habitants avaient promis
des élections transparentes et démocratiques pour éviter de nouveaux
débordements.

L’OSCE a salué une `ambiance pacifique et transparente` de la campagne
électorale, mais a estimé que les élections elles-mêmes avaient été
minées par des manquements à la démocratie.

samedi 12 mai 2012,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

More People Left Than Arrived

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 14:13:22 – 12/05/2012

In the past 4 months more people departed than arrived in Zvartnots
Airport. According to statistics published by the General Civil
Aviation Department, in the abovementioned period 238,406 people
departed from the airport against last year’s 222,650. Meanwhile, the
number of arrivals was 192,109 compared with last year’s 180,640. In
Gyumri’s Shirak Airport, 11,548 arrived and 7,814 departed in the past
four months.

Song and dance moves to Armenia

By The Armenian Reporter
Thursday, May 10, 2012

Boston – There has lately been some activity surrounding the cause of
what’s called “repatriation”, of having Diasporan Armenians move to
the Republic of Armenia or to Artsakh. Not that that cause is new by
any means, it’s just that a couple of concerted efforts over the past
months has highlighted some points that seem worthy of reflection.

A youth group in the Los Angeles area, for instance, held a seminar
recently that brought together interested parties and organisations
that do work in Armenia. Such activities are truly informative and
helpful to the community out there. But the sort of effusive
representation of life and times in Armenia that comes up and of
“repatriation” can sometimes be a little over the top.

It’s essential to note that many Armenians could never be
“repatriates”, really; they would not be “moving back” to Armenia at
all, but simply “moving to”. Many Armenians trace their ancestry to
homelands – patria in the form of cities, towns, villages, regions –
that lie outside the borders of today’s Republic of Armenia and
Artsakh. So the kind of connection that has to be made with that
country would in many ways be the same as the kind of connection one
would have to forge when moving to a whole new country anyway. Of
course, being Armenian, considering one’s self Armenian, speaking the
language (whatever the form), and the ideological and emotional drive
that goes with moving to Armenia is well-placed and meaningful. It’s
just that there is the danger of it being overwhelming to the
detriment of appreciating the realities on the ground in Armenia,
especially from afar.

Consider the case of the Armenia 3500 Project. It is a movement
spearheaded by some Diasporan Armenians who have made the move to
Armenia, aiming at attracting three thousand five hundred “Armenians
from the West (AFWs)” to pledge to move to Armenia and Artsakh in the
next three years. An “AFW” is “any Armenian from the European Union,
the United States, Canada or Australia/New Zealand”. The anonymous
people behind the idea state on their FAQ page that, “Having lived in
Armenia ourselves, we’ve seen the impact a few people can have, and
are convinced a larger group would create a butterfly effect that
would help create jobs, connections and better governance. We believe
an infusion of AFWs would be a rich contribution to the fabric of
Armenian society”.

I couldn’t agree more. It would be excellent to have all sorts of
Armenians living and working in Armenia. In fact, I would go so far as
to say that it would be excellent to have all sorts of people in
general living and working in Armenia. And I imagine that that will
happen some day. Even a generation ago, one would have been
hard-pressed to find an Irishman expecting an influx of immigrants
from Nigeria or Poland on the streets of Dublin. But the economic boom
and liberal policies of that country resulted in a more cosmopolitan
society. I think – I hope – Armenia is headed down that same path.

For now, though, the opposite is the case. A lot has been made of
emigration from Armenia, in the past year or two especially. If the
government itself has brought it up, then surely it has reached a
significantly higher rate than before. How could well-meaning
Diasporan Armenians expect anyone to pledge to move to a place that is
facing so many difficulties?

What is more, who is to stand in the way of the Armenian of Armenia
who has received a job offer elsewhere, whose career has the potential
to encompass wider horizons, whose children could end up with a much
broader worldview than what Armenia can currently offer?

To give another example, wouldn’t it be great if the Armenians of
Syria moved en masse to Armenia tomorrow? It certainly would. Could
the Republic of Armenia handle it? Not in the least. Not right now
anyway, as the handful of Iraqi-Armenians could testify.

Of course it would be helpful to move to Armenia and help surmount the
country’s difficulties. Who can deny that? More power to those who
already have and more on the way. But the onus of creating
attractiveness to move to Armenia lies with Armenia, with the people
of Armenia, with the leadership and policies of Armenia.

The truth is that there is a lot of corruption in that country. The
truth is that there is immense ineptitude. Videos that set aside these
facts and instead focus on how happy some immigrants to the Republic
of Armenia have been risk characterising themselves as one-sided.

There are indeed a lot of Armenians from the Diaspora who have made it
and who are really happy in Armenia. A lot of Armenians from the west,
north, south, and east have come to Yerevan and elsewhere, have set up
businesses, have dealt with whatever they have had to deal with, have
settled in, and they are leading successful, meaningful, even enviable
lives. It’s serious work, though. It’s not all the song and dance that
certain videos might make it out to be.

As of this writing, the Armenia 3500 Project has had twelve people
take the pledge since September. Its Facebook page has 165 “likes”.
No-one is denying that it’s a good idea, only that it is perhaps a
little unrealistic or misdirected. Diaspora youth in the United States
and elsewhere, and even older folks, can be enthusiastic about
Armenia, they can visit, they can participate in Birthright Armenia or
other programmes, all of that is sincerely welcome and very
encouraging. But to make the move – make no mistake – is to move to a
whole new country, to get used to a whole new set of circumstances.

Gharibian’s Study of Armenian Journalism a Valuable Resource
By Daphne Abeel – The Armenian Mirror-Spectator
Friday, May 11, 2012
Category:ArmeniaMedia

Special to the Mirror-Spectator

Jerair Gharibian, who died in 1991, made an important contribution to
Armenian culture in the Boston area, when, in 1980, he founded the
Boston Armenian Independent Radio Hour, which to this day broadcasts
news and commentary of interest to the Armenian community.

His widow, Yevgine Gharibian, who hosts the broadcasts, has now paid
further tribute to her husband’s legacy with the publication of
Armenian Journalism 1794-1977, written to fulfill his master’s degree
requirement at Boston University.

Gharibian had a rich and varied life as a writer and a journalist.
Born to Armenian parents in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1937, he began his
education there, but traveled later to London to study at a branch of
London University, where he studied industrial management. While in
London, he became a co-founder of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF) Navasardian Committee.

In 1964, following his graduation, he moved to Tehran, where he lived
for 10 years, immersing himself in the social and political life of
the Armenian community there. He was particularly

interested in the education of young people and established a youth
biweekly magazine, Alik Badanegan, which was published under the aus-
pices of Alik daily, where he served as assistant editor.

In 1975, Gharibian was invited to the United States to assume the
position of executive secre- tary of the Armenian Youth Federation of
the ARF. It was at this time while he was attending Boston
University’s School of Journalism that he wrote his master’s thesis on
Armenian journalism.

This relatively short text is of archival importance to the Armenian
community, if for no other reason than for the tables which list the
publication of vir- tually every Armenian newspaper and periodical,
dating back to 1794, when the very first newspaper, Aztarar, was
published by a priest, Rev. Haratune Shmavonian in Madras, India. The
tables list not only the title of the publication, but the date and
place of origin, the publisher, the editor and the nature of its
content. This is an invaluable resource for anyone who is engaged in
research on many subjects touching on Armenian history, culture and
politics.

As Dr. Khachig Tololyan of Wesleyan University notes in his
introduction, “Both in the homeland and in the diaspora, Armenians
have made their history in contexts that gave the press an uncom- mon
centrality in political and cultural life; furthermore, the lack of
universities and of institutional documentation in stable archives
made the Armenian press the best record of social history available to
us. Jerair Gharibian’s book is a refer- ence guide and a history of
the Armenian press from 1794-1977, but it is also a study of the
tight- knit relationship between the Armenian press and its
heterogeneous contexts, from Madras to Yerevan, and Tbilisi to
Fresno.”

Tololyan also notes that even this first publication served as a kind
of political rallying point, a characteristic that is reflected in
contemporary publications, which are now, in large part, owned by
various political parties.

Ara Ghazarian, curator of the Armenian Cultural Foundation, has
contributed a foreword in which he, too, comments on the importance of
the publication as “the first historical, analytical work on the
history of Armenian journalism written in English.”

In his own introduction, Gharibian points to the unique role that
Armenian journalism has played in the history of the Armenian people.
“Only rarely does one come across a nation which has been compelled to
publish newspapers and periodicals with the survival of the people as
its primary concern.”

Of course, there could be no publication of any sort without the
invention of the alphabet and Gharibian reviews the creation of the
Armenian script by the Armenian monk, Mesrob Mashtots in 404 AD. The
first text to be translated into Armenian, not surprisingly, was the
Bible, but it was followed by original works in the fields of history,
philosophy and religion and hence “The Golden Age of Armenian
Literature” was born. In spite of the fact that Armenia was subject to
many invasions, creative writers continued to produce works, which
included songs, most notably by the troubadour, Sayat Nova.

In the 16th century, as Armenians began to emigrate to other lands in
order to escape oppression by invaders, new writers in the diaspora
began writing in the language of the common people (krapar) rather
than the literary language of the clergy (ashkharapar).

Subsequent to the founding of that first paper in Madras, the growth
of Armenian publications increased gradually through the 19th century.
Thanks to European demands that the Ottomans ease up on restrictions
placed on the Armenian community, education received a push and
parochial schools and colleges were established by Armenian
missionaries in Constantinople, Kharpert, Marsovan, Aintab, Marash,
Konia and Tarsus. In the mid 19th century, three important Armenian
newspapers were published, Masis in Constantinople, Huisisapayl in
Moscow and Ardziv, founded in Constantinople, but later moved to Van.
Ardziv, established by Bishop Megerdich Khrimian, played an especially
impor- tant role in exhorting Armenians to press for their freedom.

Especially in the years 1905-1914 leading up to the Genocide,
Gharibian notes that censorship of Armenian journalism by the Ottomans
was particularly harsh. Such words as “freedom, “rights,”
“revolution,” and “justice,” were routinely stricken from any
publications. Particularly taboo were the words “Hayastan” (Armenian)
and “Hairenik” (Fatherland).

With the extermination in 1915 of over 600 scholars, writers,
journalists and other intellectuals, journalism nearly ceased to exist
In Ottoman Turkey and it was at this time the Diaspora became the
haven for Armenian journalism Throughout the Middle East and in the
United States, wherever a significant population of Armenians
immigrated to escape persecution, new vehicles for journalism were
formed. including some in the Soviet Union, although these latter were
very much under the book of the Communist regime.

It needs to be pointed out that Gharibian was writing long before the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the formation of the independent
Republic of Armenia and his criticisms of and references to the Soviet
influence on the Armenian press no longer have the same validity as
they did at the time of his writing in the late 1970s.

Gharibian gives a thumbnail sketch of the importance of the Armenian
press in Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Iraq, Iran and Egypt
and pays particular tribute to Lebanon which was the birthplace of
many outstanding Armenian journalists. The influence of Beirutis may
still be traced, for example, in the editorship of Azg, published in
Yerevan and headed by Hagop Avedikian, who was born in Beirut.

Papers were also started in France, Turkey and the United States where
the first publication was Arekag, founded in 1888 and published by
Haig Eginian in Jersey City, NJ.

Writing in 1977, Gharibian counted 52 Armenian periodical publications
in the US, including Hairenik, the organ of the ARF, and the Armenian
Mirror-Spectator, the publication of the Armenian Democratic Liberal
(ADL) Party. Both today, are located in Watertown, Mass. Gradually,
with succeeding generations of Armenians less able to read in the
Armenian language, there was an ever-increasing need to create an
Armenian press in English.

Gharibian notes that few editors of Armenian periodicals were trained
journalists, although that trend is changing both in Armenia and
abroad.

In his concluding chapter, Gharibian writes, “The future of the
Armenian-language press in the Diaspora is governed, however by
language and social factors. As assimilation by foreign cultures takes
its toll on those who can read the Armenian language, the need for
newspapers and periodicals printed in the Armenian idiom will continue
to decline. On the other hand, these same forces of assimilation may
give rise to a need for more publications in the languages of those
nations in which the Armenians have settled. But this in itself is
ruled by the ability of Armenian culture to survive under the attack
of foreign influence.”

Clearly, the rest of the story of Armenian journalism is yet to be
written. But there are signs of interest in the history of both
Armenian journalism and publication in general; witness the recent
exhibit at Harvard University’s Lamont Library of the history of the
Armenian book, organized by Prof. James Russell, which included books,
magazines and newspapers.

Copies of Armenian Journalism 1794-1977 may be obtained by contacting
[email protected] or by visiting the library at the National Association
of Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont.

In future American two-party model will be operated in Armenia:
political scientist

15:36, 12 May, 2012

YEREVAN, MAY 12, ARMENPRESS: The results of parliamentary elections
show that there two parties which have real power: they are RPA and
PAP. Armenpress reports that about this mentioned political scientist
Levon Shirinyan during the meeting with journalists on May 12. In his
words American two-party system will be operated in Armenia in future
and other parties gradually would disappear.

“As a party in internal political area of Armenia will remain
Republican Party of Armenia and Prosperous Armenia Party” he said.

Reverberating to the victory of Francois Hollande in Presidential
elections Shirinyan mentioned that during Hollande’s presidency the
settlement of Armenian issue can be delayed.

“Nicolas Sarkozy was the politician after Woodrow Wilson who dedicated
himself to the settlement of Armenian issue” he said.