Author: Kanayan Tamar

168 ZHAM: TRANSFER-DEPENDENT ARMENIAN ECONOMY IN PANIC

10:42 * 11.12.14

Armenia’s economy, which is heavily dependent on foreign transfers,
is now in a state of panic amid the national currency’s sharp decline.

While many today blame the Central Bank for the fluctuations on
the currency market, the problem appears to have deeper roots than
thought, the paper says, noting that most of the transfers come from
the Russian Federation.

“We rely on money coming from abroad, first of all from the Armenians
residing and working in Russia. We feel sad and worry every time over
the decreasing sent. But we never actuallt worry at all that we have
ceded our biggest resource, the human being to foreign [powers],”
writes the paper.

Citing the most recent statistics, the paper says that private
transfers accounted for 21% of Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product
in 2013.

AZERBAIJAN LOST THE WAR – KARABAKH OFFICIAL

12:42, 10.12.2014

YEREVAN. – The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR; Artsakh) twice expressed
in favor of independence. First, in the independence referendum 23
years ago, and second, in the 2006 referendum for the adoption of
the Constitution.

NKR Presidential Press Secretary Davit Babayan stated the aforesaid
commenting, at Armenian News-NEWS.am’s request, on the establishment
of the Karabakh state ever since the referendum.

“The decision on independence was irreversible and final” Babayan
stressed.

He noted that even though the NKR’s development as a state was
specific, Karabakh has remained a piece of the independent Armenian
state.

The Artsakh presidential spokesperson recalled that Karabakh had
preserved its autonomy even after the decision to annex it to
Azerbaijan.

Over the course of the next seventy years, Azerbaijan attempted to take
that statehood away from Karabakh, but it failed, Davit Babayan said.

Subsequently, Azerbaijan took advantage of the collapse of the USSR
and abolished the autonomy of Karabakh.

“The people of Karabakh, however, decided to develop the statehood. So
began the new phase, the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“In response, Azerbaijan began an aggression. [But] Azerbaijan lost
the war. As a result, the regional situation changed, the boundaries
were changed,” Davit Babayan said.

He added that the emergence of the second Armenian state was also
significant for the entire Armenian nation.

“The people of Nagorno-Karabakh stand ready to build and develop, [and]
also to defend if necessary, their state,” the Artsakh Presidential
Press Secretary stressed.

Armenia News – NEWS.am

ERDOGAN VOWS TO MAKE OTTOMAN TURKISH COMPULSORY IN SCHOOLS

Arutz Sheva, Israel
Dec 10 2014

Turkey’s President says he will make lessons in the Ottoman language
compulsory despite objections from secularists.

By Ben Ariel

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to make lessons
in the Arabic-alphabet Ottoman language compulsory in high schools,
despite objections from secularists, AFP reports.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, abolished
the Ottoman language in 1928, replacing its Arabic alphabet with a
Latin one.

He also purged the language of many of its Arabic, Persian and Greek
words to create a new “pure” Turkish closer to the language people
spoke.

Critics claimed Erdogan’s vow to reintroduce teaching of the language
“no matter what they say” was another bid to roll back Ataturk’s
secular reforms, which were based on a strict separation between
religion and state.

Turkey’s National Education Council, largely made up of members backed
by Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government, voted over the weekend to
make classes compulsory at religious high schools and an option at
regular high schools, noted AFP.

The council also voted to ban bartending classes at tourism training
high schools.

Erdogan argued the lessons were necessary to restore Turks’ severed
ties with “our roots”, with most unable to read the tombstones of
their ancestors.

“There are those who do not want this to be taught. This is a great
danger. Whether they like it or not, the Ottoman language will be
learnt and taught in this country,” Erdogan told a religious council
meeting in Ankara.

“It’s not a foreign language. It’s a form of Turkish that will never
age. Therefore it will be taught no matter what they say,” he declared.

And in one particularly emotive phrase, Erdogan compared Ataturk’s
abolition of the language to cutting Turkey’s “jugular”.

“History rests in those gravestones. Can there be a bigger weakness
than not knowing this? This (departure from the Ottoman language)
was equal to the severing of our jugular veins,” Erdogan said,
according to AFP.

Ottoman Turkish evolved as the administrative language of the
600-year-old multi-ethnic Ottoman empire, on whose ruins Ataturk
created Turkey’s modern republic.

But even at the time of the empire’s collapse after WWI, it was mostly
unintelligible to all but a tiny ruling elite.

“Hans in Germany can learn it and study the works (in the Ottoman
language),” Erdogan said, citing a typical German male name. “But
unfortunately this isn’t the case here.”

In comments which will give ammunition to critics who claim he is
becoming more overtly Islamist, Erdogan added, “This religion has a
guardian. And this guardian will protect this religion till the end.”

Supporters of compulsory Ottoman language lessons say they are
necessary so Turks can maintain their links to the past after the
brutal cleavage of Ataturk’s radical reforms.

The decisions need the approval of the education ministry to take
effect, but the ministry has in the past implemented the majority
of them.

Erdogan, who took over Turkey’s presidency in August after serving
as prime minister for more than a decade, has long been accused of
seeking to impose religion on Turkey’s mainly Muslim but officially
secular society, as well as Islamizing the education system.

Throughout his time in power there have been more signs of Turkey
turning more extremist. In 2013, the Turkish Parliament tightened
restrictions on the sale and advertising of alcoholic beverages.

A year earlier, a Turkish court formally charged internationally known
pianist and composer Fazil Say with insulting Islamic religious values,
in comments he made on Twitter.

Previously, Turkey’s Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was prosecuted for
his comments about the mass killings of Armenians, under a law that
made it a crime to insult the Turkish identity. The government eased
that law in an amendment in 2008.

In another incident in 2007, ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,
who received death threats because of his comments about the killings
of Armenians by Turks in 1915, was shot dead outside his office
in Istanbul.

Two weeks ago Erdogan stirred up controversy when he said women cannot
be treated as equal to men.

“You cannot put women and men on an equal footing,” he told a women’s
conference in Istanbul, adding, “It is against nature.”

Women cannot do all the work done by men, he added, because it was
against their “delicate nature”.

“Our religion regards motherhood very highly. Feminists don’t
understand that, they reject motherhood,” he charged, adding that
women needed equal respect rather than equality.

DUMA RATIFIES TREATY ON ARMENIA’S ACCESSION TO EURASIAN ECONOMIC UNION

Russia Beyond the Headlines
Dec 10 2014

13:40 December 10, 2014 Interfax

The Russian State Duma ratified a treaty on Armenia’s accession to
the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on Wednesday.

The accession treaty is the basic document regulating agreements
between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on the terms and conditions
of Armenia’s accession to the EEU and is aimed at forming the legal
foundation of the Union’s operations.

The agreements stipulate that Armenia becomes a full member of the EEU
at the moment of the treaty’s entry into effect upon the completion
of all national ratification procedures.

Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed the EEU treaty in Astana on
May 29, 2014, and it will take effect on January 1, 2015.

TULANE SHOULD ADD MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES DEPARTMENT, MAJOR, MINOR

Tulane Hullabaloo, Tulane University, LA
Dec 10 2014

by Kevin Young

The following is an opinion article and opinion articles do not
reflect the views of The Tulane Hullabaloo.

Tulane has failed to establish an academic program on the world’s
most tumultuous region – the Middle East – and it is time that Tulane
fixed this.

Students at Tulane University can major in a wide array of fields,
from more traditional disciplines such as mathematics and linguistics,
to unconventional areas like political economy and musical cultures
of the Gulf South. Tulane even does well in interdisciplinary area
studies – fields that did not gain prominence in Western academia
until after World War II – boasting renowned programs in African and
African diaspora studies, Latin American studies and Asian studies.

Though the Middle East is primarily home to the Islamic civilization,
many cultures call this region home.

Christians – though widely persecuted in the region – have lived in
the Middle East for millennia. This area, where their prophet Jesus
Christ was born, is very important to the religion.

The Levant, also known as the Eastern Mediterranean, is home to the
world’s only Jewish state – Israel – and is a recipient of Islamic
terrorists’ rocket attacks. Together, Christians and Jews make up
the overwhelming majority of Tulane’s religious population and thus
these events in the Middle East should be reason enough for Tulanians
to seek an education in Middle Eastern studies.

Aside from personal connections to the Middle East and desires to
learn more about the world’s most volatile region, there are also
more practical financial benefits to studying the Middle East. The U.S.

Department of Labor has reported that the amount of Arabic translators
needed is rapidly increasing. Many companies have reported that they
are often willing to pay up to $200,000 to employees who can speak
Middle Eastern languages such as Arabic, Persian and Pashto.

Outside of linguistics, professions that deal with human rights,
oil, diplomacy, security and academia are all within reach for Middle
Eastern studies students. This is especially true when students combine
a major in Middle Eastern studies with a more traditional major like
political science, economics, history or business.

Despite these reasons for establishing a Middle Eastern studies
program at Tulane, we must note that the process will be arduous.

European historians do not debate whether the Holocaust happened or
if Jews are people, but Middle Eastern historians do debate whether
the Armenian genocide happened or whether Kurds are people.

This reality shows how important it is that Tulane use scholars
with diverse views to work together to establish a Middle Eastern
studies program.

Tulane should join other prestigious American universities like Harvard
University and Vanderbilt University in establishing a Middle Eastern
studies program.

Kevin Young is a sophomore in the Newcomb-Tulane College. He can be
reached for comment at [email protected].

CONFLICT, TIME, PHOTOGRAPHY: TATE MODERN’S POWERFUL PORTRAYAL OF THE LASTING EFFECTS OF WAR

Culture 24, UK
Dec 10 2014

By Ben Miller | 10 December 2014

Tate’s survey of photographic responses to war shows the lasting
consequences of conflict

Tate’s huge display of photographers portraying war stems
from an inventive premise: rather than simply presenting these
works chronologically, curator Simon Baker takes his cue from
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical 1969 novel about
World War II, a book which was partly influenced by the author’s own
experience of the firebombing of Dresden but largely filtered through
the reflections of a fictional soldier, Billy Pilgrim.

Vonnegut’s narrative is non-sequential, flashing back to specific
memories of the war, and the exhibition follows suit by basing its
path around time elapsed. So Toshio Fukada – a teenager with a camera
always poised, staying at a nearby army barracks when the atomic
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima – provides one of the first works,
seeing the apocalyptic mushroom cloud just moments after it clouded
the sky over Japan in 1945.

Pierre Antony-Thouret, Reims After the War (1927). From Reims after
the war. The mutilated cathedral. The devastated city(c) Private
collection, London Hrair Sarkissian, an artist known for his Execution
Squares series showing the spots where public executions took place
in Damascus, Aleppo and Lattakia, reflects from the widest expanse
of time.

In 2011, almost a century after his grandparents fled what he grimly
terms the “systematic extermination” of Armenians in Eastern Anatolia,
Sarkissian visited the history sections of libraries in Istanbul,
finding stories of the Ottoman Empire and the forced resettlements
affecting his and many other families before Turkey was fully formed.

Rows of shadowy shelves prove as eerie as the smoke of a crippling
explosive.

This is an exhibition about memory, the power of time and our shifting
perceptions of the trauma of conflict. Much of the time no-one is
present in these pictures, a strange sensation given that those who
are, such as the pair of priests in pristine black robes sombrely
surveying the rubble of Notre Dame a few months after the end of the
First World War, enhance the sense of place and time.

The cathedral and its city, Reims, were repeatedly bombarded from the
nearby front line, illustrated by the architect Pierre Antony-Thouret,
who assembled a “luxurious portfolio” of photos he and other artists
had taken, publishing them in 1927 and putting the profits towards
the resurrection of the ravaged cathedral.

Holy sites, with their silent echoes of former communions, are some
of the saddest here. Simon Norfolk describes the “different layering”
of destruction in Afghanistan.

He points to a place where, unlike Dresden or Hiroshima, architectural
annihilation has been strewing the landscape for nearly 30 years.

Simon Norfolk, Bullet-scarred apartment building (2003). Building
and shops in the Karte Char district of Kabul(c) Simon Norfolk King
Amanullah’s Victory Arch, built to celebrate the 1919 Independence
from the British in Kabul Province, could not look less triumphant,
still intact but its top cracked and shelled.

Norfolk’s work, too, has layers, produced in an anachronistic large
format which creates a beautiful immediacy.

The ghostly feel of a government building close to the former
presidential palace at Darulaman, destroyed by fighting during the
1990s, only becomes truly apparent upon deeper contemplation.

Bunkers, conversely, seem alien, and there’s a wider debate over
whether they should be left as they are or removed from the coastlines
of northern France, where Jane and Louise Wilson picture them in
black and white, huge and incongruous upended blocks.

Jerzy Lewczynski, the Polish photographer who was consistently
compelled by history and celebrated for his distinctive creativity,
takes tiny photos of Hitler’s Wolf Lair, set up in occupied Poland
and pictured 15 years after the Second World War.

Observed as archetypal post-war ruins, the hideaway where an
assassination attempt occurred a year before the end of the war take
on an archaeological fascination, as do the Europe-wide bunkers seen
by Paul Virilio, the urban philosopher who produced a book on them.

Don McCullin, Shell Shocked US Marine, Vietnam, Hue (1968). Printed
2013(c) Don McCullin Seven months after the end of the Gulf War,
in 1991, Sophie Ristelhueber went overhead. Her aerial photography
has an even colder chill in the age of drones: cinnamon skeletons
of dismembered vehicles are stuck in sand, potholes pock fields,
lines and chasms intersect the charred landscape.

During the 16-year Lebanese Civil War which ended in 1991, 245 car
bombs were detonated. Walid Raad catalogues the engines which survived
each attack in an installation which chiefly stands out thanks to
the absence of any women in the pictures.

Don McCullin’s portrait of a shell-shocked US Marine, rendered
momentarily unhuman in Vietnam in 1968, is instantly recognisable
from the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition two years ago, and still
feels like a brush with death and a work of photojournalism so rare
it is almost incomparable.

Another incredibly influential photographer, Shomei Tomatsu, has his
best-known work, Melted Bottle, displayed as part of the aftermath
of the atomic assault on Nagasaki.

Chloe Dewe Mathews, Vebranden-Molen, West-Vlaanderen (2013). The
photo commemorates four soldiers executed on December 15 1914(c)
Chloe Dewe Mathews Taken during the 1960s, Tomatsu makes us flinch
at faces ripped and pulled, the skin of victims warped and twisted –
conflict portrayed at its most gruesome.

Chloe Dewe Mathews, a British artist, responds more poetically,
leaving more space – Matthews went to the locations where British,
French and Belgian soldiers were executed for cowardice and desertion
on the Western Front, finding huge ravines and withered trees across
snow carpets.

War, these barren scenes shout, has clear consequences for decades
and centuries to come.

Conflict, Time, Photography is at Tate Modern, London until March 15
2015. Open 10am-6pm (10pm Friday and Saturday, closed December 24-26).

Book online. Follow Tate on Twitter @tate.

HAYASTAN ALL-ARMENIAN FUND STOPS RAISING FUNDS IN RUSSIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Dec 10 2014

10 December 2014 – 1:45pm

The Hayastan All-Armenian Fund has not organized the annual
fund-raising in Moscow this year. The Fund opened an Armenian
cathedral in Moscow on September 17, according to an agreement of
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan with local businessmen of Armenian
origin. Hayastan collected $12.35 million for its construction,
Epress.am reports.

Donations worth a total of $12.399 million were collected in Europe
this year and $77,000 in Lebanon on Thursday.

WHY IS TURKEY DEMINING BORDER WITH ARMENIA?

Naira Hayrumyan, Political Commentator
Comments – 10 December 2014, 23:30

Today the foreign ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia met in
Kars. The meeting is passing under new realities, namely development
of new pipelines, Russia’s attempts to improve its relations with
Turkey and the EU plans to thwart the Russian-Turkish alliance.

Today the prime minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron visited
Turkey in an attempt to involve Turkey in more active fight against
the Islamic State. Yesterday Federica Mogherini, High Representative
of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in
Ankara too. The EU promised to do everything to accelerate Turkey’s
membership to the Union. A few days ago Putin also visited Turkey.

Like 100 years ago, Turkey is at the same time the most likely
candidate for strategic “tearing to pieces” and the most desirable
tactical partner. 100 years ago the Ottoman Empire had lost half
of its territories but was able to keep the core of its territories
thanks to tactical diplomacy.

Currently Turkey is trying to protect its integrity and strengthen its
defense and therefore can be allies with anyone. Russia could be a good
match for Turkey in case Ankara feels too much pressure from the West.

One of the tools of pressure is the Armenian issue, and if Ankara
feels that Russia can eliminate this issue, it may make a compromise
with Russia. For example, Turkey is said to have recently announced
bidding for demining the borders with Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Why is Turkey demining the border with Armenia? Is there a preliminary
agreement on opening the Armenian-Turkish border after the membership
of Armenia to the Eurasian Union? In fact, after membership Turkey will
border with the Eurasian Union, not Armenia. The fate of this border
will be determined by the Eurasian Commission, especially if Ankara
agrees to create a free trade area with the Eurasian Economic Union.

Interestingly, according to the Turkish press, Turkey may leave the
EU Customs Union. This sounded like a warning to the West and Cameron
immediately left for Turkey.

Notably, speaking about improvement of relations with Russia, Turkish
experts note that trade is hindered by too high customs duties set
by Russia. It is not known whether Putin promised in Ankara to review
the duties but obviously the Armenian-Turkish border may soon become
an indicator of Turkey’s strategic choice.

ARMENIAN AND KAZAKH PRESIDENTS DISCUSS BILATERAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION WITHIN EEU

YEREVAN, December 10. / ARKA /. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
had Wednesday a telephone conversation with his Kazakh counterpart
Nursultan Nazarbayev to discuss Armenian-Kazakh relations and
cooperation within the Eurasian Economic Union, Sargsyan’s press
service said.

On December 4 by a vote of 103 to 7 and one abstention the National
Assembly of Armenia ratified the agreement that makes the country
a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. The other members of the
Russia-led trade bloc are Kazakhstan and Belarus.

The agreement was endorsed by 5 of the six factions in the Armenian
parliament. The only party that voted against was Zharangutyun
(Heritage) of former foreign minister Raffi Hovhanisyan. The agreement
comes into force on January 1, 2015. -0-

GEORGIAN, TURKISH, AZERBAIJANI FOREIGN MINISTERS MEET IN KARS

15:30 * 10.12.14

The foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are meeting
in the eastern Turkish city of Kars on December 10, RFE/RL reported.

It is the fourth trilateral meeting of foreign ministers of the three
neighbors since the launch of this format in 2012.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said last week that the trilateral
meetings “contribute to the development of common understanding in
all areas on the basis of mutual interest, and to the consolidation
of regional stability and security.”

Georgian Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili arrived in Ankara on
December 9 and discussed bilateral ties with her Turkish counterpart
Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Their Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov, will join them in
Kars later on December 10.

Neighboring Armenia, whose ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey are severely
strained, is not part of the group.

With reporting by civil.ge