Author: Nahapetian Zhanna

BIOGRAPHY OF RENOWNED SURGEON FULFILLS DESTINY
By Pamela H. Sacks Telegram & Gazette Staff

Worcester Telegram, MA
May 29 2007

Doctor aided soldiers disfigured during World War I

Dr. Hagop Martin Deranian says he was destined to write a biography
of the man who pioneered the specialty of plastic and reconstructive
surgery.

Certainly the fact that Dr. Varaztad H. Kazanjian was a fellow Armenian
created a bond between the two men. And having Worcester in common
could only have strengthened the ties. After escaping oppression
in Ottoman Armenia, Dr. Kazanjian, who was 16 at the time, came to
Worcester and worked in the wire mills. Dr. Deranian is a Worcester
native.

But there’s little question that, as a dentist, Dr. Deranian has a
special appreciation for Dr. Kazanjian’s extraordinary, far-reaching
accomplishments.

Dr. Kazanjian became a dentist and then gained widespread renown
for his innovative methods of repairing severe facial wounds on the
battlefields of northern France during World War I. He then returned
home and earned a degree from Harvard Medical School. He went on to
become a world-famous plastic surgeon.

In 1931, Dr. Kazanjian was called to Vienna to make an appliance for
Sigmund Freud, who had lost a large section of his jaw to cancer. The
hand-made appliance was so much lighter and more comfortable than
previous models that Freud was prompted to call Dr. Kazanjian
"a magician."

Dr. Deranian started working on his biography of Dr. Kazanjian 30 years
ago. Last month, "Miracle Man of the Western Front" was published
by Chandler House Press of Worcester. The book is filled with rare
old photographs, as well as illustrations of medical procedures. It
is a profile that combines the personal and professional lives of
the kindly and unassuming surgeon, who, in Dr. Deranian’s view,
experienced the ultimate fulfillment of the American dream.

"It’s a passion I just had to do in life," Dr. Deranian, 84, said of
his book. "It’s like a fulfillment of my life."

During a recent interview in his dental office on Main Street,
Dr. Deranian proudly handed over a framed photograph of himself with
Dr. Kazanjian. The picture was shot 40 years ago at the centennial
of the American Academy of Dental Science, and both men are clad
in tuxedoes.

The two had first met years earlier. Dr. Deranian, a graduate of Clark
University, was in his final year at the University of Pennsylvania
School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Kazanjian was in Philadelphia lecturing
on oral surgery to graduate students. Dr. Deranian enthusiastically
introduced himself, having, as a child, heard stories about
Dr. Kazanjian’s years in Worcester.

"Meeting him was almost anticlimactic," Dr. Deranian remembered. "He
was a hero to the immigrant."

Later, Dr. Deranian practiced dentistry in Boston, just a few doors
down from Dr. Kazanjian. Dr. Deranian had an interest in complex
dental repairs using custom appliances. On several occasions, he
scrubbed in with Dr. Kazanjian on cleft-palate surgeries.

After serving in the Navy, Dr. Deranian returned to Worcester
and set up his practice. He would see Dr. Kazanjian from time to
time. "He was very interested in keeping abreast of Worcester news,"
Dr. Deranian said.

Even as a young man, Dr. Deranian had it in mind to write a book on
Dr. Kazanjian. After Dr. Kazanjian’s death in 1974, his widow wrote
to Dr. Deranian, saying, "Dr. Kazanjian always felt very close to
you and spoke of you often."

Dr. Deranian dug in. To tell the story of Dr. Kazanjian’s early life,
Dr. Deranian read correspondence and articles in Armenian and searched
for pictures of the town where he grew up. He tracked down people who
knew Dr. Kazanjian in different phases of his life and spent hour upon
hour poring over a wide range of material, including the classic text
"The Surgical Treatment of Facial Injuries," written by Dr. Kazanjian
and Dr. John M. Converse.

Dr. Kazanjian’s World War I experiences, starting in 1915, are
particularly fascinating. As a member of a unit sent by Harvard to
help the British medical team, Dr. Kazanjian began by treating British
soldiers for a host of dental problems. The British were astounded at
the American "dentist-doctors," whose treatments cleared up a range
of related health issues.

As the war progressed, increasing numbers of soldiers were engaged
in trench warfare and suffering from horrendous facial wounds. The
injuries often were so disfiguring and the methods of repair were
so elementary that some victims wore tin masks for the rest of
their lives.

Dr. Kazanjian was eager to help; he was ambidextrous and worked very
fast. His techniques were brilliantly creative. His three-month stay
was extended to three years.

Dr. Deranian quotes from a letter that Dr. Ferdinand Brigham, an
American dentist serving with Dr. Kazanjian, wrote to his father:

"We naturally call our cases ‘fractured jaws’ but … there usually
goes with this condition a mutilation of the face, nose, head, throat,
etc. which can easily result in a bad deformity for life." A high
ranking British medical officer "was very insistent that we remain,"
realizing "that if Dr. Kazanjian will stay, countless men can be
saved from mutilation and even death."

The British expressed their gratitude to Dr. Kazanjian by bestowing
on him in 1919 the highest honor given a foreigner, investiture into
the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

Yet, as an immigrant, Dr. Kazanjian had to prove himself over
and over. Dr. Deranian noted that even after returning to the
U.S. following World War I, Harvard Medical School did him no
favors. Dr. Kazanjian had to follow the same curriculum as students
20 years his junior.

"I wanted to make sure it would be a realistic biography, but there
also had to be an appreciation of his clinical accomplishments,"
Dr. Deranian said.

What set Dr. Kazanjian apart was his ability to perform surgery
and make innovative oral appliances. "He rose and crossed borders,"
Dr. Deranian said. "It’s that link between two specialties."

Dr. Deranian spent seven years writing "Miracle Man of the Western
Front" and then turned the manuscript over to Worcester lawyer Edward
Simsarian for editing. Dr. Robert M. Goldwyn checked the text for
medical accuracy, and Nobel laureate Dr. Joseph E. Murray wrote the
foreword. Dr. Deranian had the book and its jacket designed and then
approached Lawrence Abramoff, who owns Chandler House Press.

The book costs $39.95. The Worcester District Medical Society has
provided a grant for distribution of copies to Central Massachusetts
libraries.

As Dr. Deranian held a copy of his book, he smiled and said, "I wanted
it to be first quality. The man and the occasion deserved it.

I keep thinking of the word ‘dignity.’ He gave the profession dignity,
and he represented the American dream."

l/article?AID=/20070529/COLUMN46/705290341/1102

A FINAL APPEAL: SAVE CHRISTIAN IRAQ
By Sandro Magister

Assyrian International News Agency
May 28 2007

Rome (AsiaNews) — In Iraq’s bloody war, which is being fought
primarily by Muslim groups against other Muslims and "infidels,"
the Iraqi Christians are the only ones who are not using weapons or
bombs, not even to defend themselves. There aren’t any armed Christian
militias in Iraq. In fact, they are the most vulnerable and persecuted
group. In 2000, they were more than a million and a half, 3 percent of
the population. Today it is estimated that fewer than 500,000 remain.

In an official statement released on May 24, the Iraqi government
promised protection for the Christian families threatened and chased
out by terrorist Islamic groups. Some Muslim exponents have expressed
solidarity. The government’s action — which, however, is devoid of
concrete initiatives — follows the dramatic appeal issued on May 6
by Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of the Chaldeans, the most numerous
Iraqi Catholic community, in the homily for the Mass celebrated in
the church of Mar Qardagh, in Erbil, Kurdistan.

The Kurdish region, to the north of Baghdad, is the only place in
Iraq where Christians today live in relative security. The Chaldean
seminary of Baghdad, Babel College, was transferred to Erbil together
with its library, and its buildings in the capital are now a stronghold
for American troops in spite of the patriarchate’s protests.

Christian refugees from the center and south of the country are
streaming into the Kurdish cities of Erbil, Zahu, Dahuk, Sulaymaniya,
Ahmadiya, and the Christian villages of the surrounding area.

But just a short distance to the north, in the region of Mosul and
the plain of Nineveh, the danger becomes palpable once more. This is
the historical cradle of Christianity in Iraq. There are churches
and monasteries that go back to the earliest centuries. In some
villages an Aramaic dialect called "Sureth" is still spoken, and
Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is used in the liturgies. There are
communities of various rites and doctrines: Chaldeans, Syro-Catholics,
Syro-Orthodox, Assyrians from the East, Catholic and Orthodox
Armenians, Greek-Melkites.

But the Christian villages are surrounded by hostile Muslim
populations. And life is even more dangerous for Christians in the
capital of the region, Mosul. Kidnappings are extremely common. The
victims are released after their families have paid a sum of 10,000
to 20,000 dollars, or after they have agreed to hand over their homes
and leave the city. But kidnapping can also end in bloodshed. In
September of 2006, after Benedict XVI’s address in Regensburg,
a group called "Lions of Islam" kidnapped Father Paulos Iskandar,
a Syro-Orthodox priest. The kidnappers demanded that thirty fliers
apologizing for the offenses brought against Islam be posted on the
churches of Mosul. Then they decapitated him. On the same day, in
Baghdad, another priest was killed, Father Joseph Petros. A sister
told the Vatican news agency Fides: "The imams preach in the mosques
that it is not a crime to kill Christians. It is a hunting of men."

Pascale Warda, an Assyrian Christian and the immigration minister for
the Iraqi interim government, believes an autonomous province must be
created in the plain of Nineveh, a sort of protected area not only for
Christians, but also for other religious minorities like the Yazidi,
the devotees of an extremely ancient pre-Zoroastrian religion. But
the intensification of aggression on the part of Muslims living in
that same region makes this hypothesis impracticable. Last April, 22
Yazidis were forced off a bus and killed on a street near Mosul. In
2005, a terrorist assault massacred the four Assyrians who were
escorting the minister Warda.

In Mosul, Islamic groups have begun to demand from Christians the
payment of a tax, the jiza, the tribute historically imposed by Muslims
on their Christian, Jewish, and Sabian subjects who accepted to live
in a regime of submission, as "dhimmi."

But it is above all in Baghdad that the jiza is being imposed upon
Christians in an increasingly generalized way. In the neighborhood
of Dora, ten kilometers southwest of the capital, with a high
concentration of Christians, groups tied to al-Qaeda have installed
a self-proclaimed "Islamic state in Iraq" and are systematically
collecting the tax, set at between 150 and 200 dollars a year, the
equivalent of a month’s expenses for a family of six. The exacting
of the tribute is being extended to other neighborhoods in Baghdad,
toward al-Baya’a and al-Thurat.

Some Christian families in Dora have been told that they can remain
only if they give a daughter in marriage to a Muslim, in view of a
gradual conversion of the entire family to Islam. A fatwa forbids the
wearing of the cross around the neck. As for the churches, warnings
accompanied by grenade blasts have forced the removal of crosses from
bell towers and facades. In mid-May, the Assyrian church of Saint
George was burned down. So far, seven priests have been kidnapped
in the capital. The most recent victim, in the second half of May,
was Father Nawzat Hanna, a Chaldean Catholic.

According to estimates from the Iraqi government, half of the
Christians have left Baghdad, and three quarters have left Basra and
the south. Those who do not stop in Kurdistan leave the country. It
is calculated that in Syria there are up to 700,000 Christians who
have left Iraq, an equal number in Jordan, 80,000 in Egypt, and
40,000 in Lebanon. Most of them are stuck where they are, without
any assistance or recognized rights, waiting for an unlikely visa
for Europe, Australia, the Americas.

In Iraq, Christians are traditionally present in the professions.

Many are doctors and engineers. In the schools, they are — or were
— 20 percent of the teachers. They are active in the sectors of
computing, construction, lodging, specialized agriculture. They
manage radio and television outlets. They work as translators and
interpreters, a particularly vulnerable profession that already
numbers three hundred victims.

The Iraqi constitution establishes for all religions an equality of
rights that has no rival in the legislation of other Arab and Muslim
countries. But the reality is the opposite. The magazine of geopolitics
"Limes" wrote in an article in its latest issue, the third of 2007:

"The annihilation of the small yet great Iraqi Christian people,
heirs of the hope of the prophets, would correspond to the end of
the possibility that the new Iraq could become a free and democratic
nation."

And this would be a dramatic defeat for the Church as well.

CBS 2, CA
May 26 2007

LA’s Richest Are Named: You’re Not One Of Them

(CBS) LOS ANGELES L.A.’s rich are getting richer.

And once again self-made mogul Kirk Kerkorian is the richest of them
all. That’s according to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s annual
list of the 50 wealthiest Angelenos, which hits newsstands Monday.

Kerkorian’s estimated wealth nearly doubled to an estimated $16.1
billion, compared with an estimated $8.3 billion on last year’s list.

Born in 1917 in Fresno to Armenian immigrants, Kerkorian never
attended college and has made billions in investments in Las Vegas
casinos, airlines and the famed MGM studios — which he later sold.
Reports this week that Kerkorian was interested in buying the
Bellagio Hotel & Casino sent casino shares soaring.

Media mogul Sumner Redstone placed second for the second consecutive
year, with an estimated worth of $8.5 billion. Redstone is executive
chairman of Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp.

The civic-minded Eli Broad moved up the rankings on this year’s list
with an estimated $6.5 billion. Broad has invested heavily in
revitalizing Los Angeles, from revamping the Disney Concert Hall to
financing charter schools.

Last year, he was in fourth place with an estimated worth of $5.6
billion.

Full details of the list will be published in the Business Journal
Monday.

GREECE PRESSES CHARGES OVER BURNING OF TURKISH FLAG

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
May 25 2007

A prosecutor in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki has pressed
charges against unidentified persons who burned a Turkish flag during
a Greek-Armenian demonstration in front of Turkey’s consulate in the
city last month.

The perpetrators are to be brought to justice under the charge of
insulting the symbol of another state after they are identified via
photographs and video shot during the demonstration, a local justice
source said on Wednesday.

The incident took place on April 24 during a demonstration to mark
the 92nd anniversary of an alleged genocide of Anatolian Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire era during the World War I.

Turkish consular officials complained to Greece over the flag burning.

SERGE SARGSIAN ANNOUNCED IMPEACHMENT TO RA PRESIDENT TAKING PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY, NDP PARTY LEADER STATES

Noyan Tapan
May 24 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 24, NOYAN TAPAN. It will be wrong to conclude that
the authorities through falsifications took away victory from the
opposition: the opposition from the very start was doomed to failure,
as they failed to take part in the May 12 parliamentary elections
with a united ideological front. Shavarsh Kocharian, Chairman of
National Democratic Party, expressed such opinion at the May 24 press
conference. In his words, "in case of committing the same mistakes"
the oppositionists will also fail in the 2008 presidential elections.

According to S. Kocharian’s observation, in the years of Armenia’s
independence the international observers never registered elections
meeting European standards in the country. In comparison with the
previous elections this time monitoring missions registered some
progress, which in NDP leader’s words, indeed happened. S. Kocharian
reminded that the 2003 elections were accompanied by cases of "beating,
arrests, throwing out empowered persons from polling stations."

Touching upon the activity of Impeachment bloc, S. Kocharian said
that for him it is not clear whom this political force wishes to
announce impeachment.

"It is impossible to announce impeachment to any RA MP or RA Prime
Minister," he said and added thaat if members of this bloc strive
for removing RA President, "Serge Sargsian has already announced
impeachment taking parliamentary majority."

EVENT DEDICATED TO NAGORNI GARABAGH HELD IN UTAH UNIVERSITY

Ïðaâî Âûaîða, Azerbaijan
demaz.org – Azerbaijan
May 24 2007

Information received from Consulate General of the Republic of
Azerbaijan in Los-Angeles reads that May 18 at Utah University
discussions on "Nagorni Garabagh issue" were held.

Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los-Angeles, Elin Suleymanov,
specialist on Azerbaijan and author of "Azerbaijani diary", Thomas
Golz, author of several documentary films about South Caucasian,
Dodge Billingsly etc. attended the event.

In his speech, Elin Suleymanov, drew attention of participants to
the facts of destruction of historical monuments after occupation of
Azerbaijani towns by Armenians. He stressed inadmissibility of such
facts in XXI century.

Consul General having underlined that Azerbaijan is endeavoring to
regulate Nagorni Garabagh conflict on the basis of international law
and territorial integrity and that our people want to live in peace
and in good neighborhood with our neighbors, said that in this field
great tolerant traditions exist in our country.

Professor from Montana University,Thomas Golz, demonstrated maps
concerning Caucasian region. He told about disunity of nations during
the reign of the Byzantines, Ottoman and Albanians and about frontier
frames within which they are living today. He also touched upon
theoretical aspects of difference between principles of territorial
integrity of state and right of nation to self-determination. Radio
broadcast of discussions held in Utah University is envisaged.

Upon completion of discussions, Elin Suleymanov, met with leadership
of state and Mormon Church.

Utah State has its economic interests in the Caucasus.

–Boundary_(ID_Qu2Eiip9/NF8GQspDWdtfw)- –

OSCE/ODIHR MISSION TO OBSERVE PROCESS OF CASES TO BE SUBMITTED TO RA CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Noyan Tapan
May 24 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 24, NOYAN TAPAN. On May 24, RA Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian received Head of monitoring mission of elections of OSCE
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Ambassador
Boris Frlec. B. Frlec presented mission’s observations of elections and
post-electoral processes. In his words, this process is evidence that
Armenia in general registered progress in the issue of organization of
elections and their holding. The mission has worked out instructions
in the direction of improving the current shortcomings and faults.

As Noyan Tapan was informed from RA Foreign Ministry Press and
Information Department, V. Oskanian attached importance to objective
evaluation of international monitoring missions to elections. The
Minister expressed confidence that the upcoming presidential elections
will be one more important step in the issue of strengthening democracy
in Armenia.

B. Frlec handed the Minister the first post-election interim report of
OSCE/ODIHR mission, by which summing up of results and examination of
complaints were observed. He reaffirmed that the facts included in the
document are based on exact observations and the mission will follow
the process of cases to be submitted to the Constitutional Court.

UNESCO WORKS ON SENDING OBSERVERS TO NAKHIJEVAN

AZG Armenian Daily
24/05/2007

UNESCO works on sending observers to Nakhijevan to examine the state
of Armenian monuments in Nakhijevan.

Rony Amelan, UNESCO worker of the Department of public information,
announced that they were working with Armenian and Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministries on making more exact the time and the route of
this special mission.

A reminder, in 2005 the Azerbaijani soldiers demolished the Armenian
cemeteries of Old Jugha, destroyed and threw into the river thousands
of khachkars and tombstones. And when an issue was raised about
organizing observers’ mission to examine the state of Armenian
monuments in Nakhijevan, Azerbaijan demanded to involve also Nagorno
Karabakh in this mission. The worker of UNESCO Department of public
information informed that it was not clear yet if the Azerbaijani
demand would be satisfied.

BLAIR: WHY DID HE DO IT?
By Gwynne Dyer

AZG Armenian Daily
23/05/2007

It has been the longest good-bye in modern politics, and there are
still another six weeks to go before Tony Blair finally hands the
prime ministership over to Gordon Brown on 27 June. After he finally
quits, most people in Britain assume, Blair will go off and make a
living on the lecture circuit in the United States (where he is far
more popular than he is at home). They won’t miss him much.

It is strange that a prime minister who has presided over an
unprecedented surge of prosperity in Britain should be so deeply
unpopular, but the answer lies in a single word: Iraq. Support for
that war in Britain is even lower than it is in the United States,
and the popular conviction that the public was misled into invading
Iraq by a leader who ruthlessly manipulated the "evidence" to get
his way is even stronger. The argument is only about why he did it —
and the consensus answer is that it was religion.

In "post-Christian Britain" — the phrase dates from the 1970s, but
is even truer today — Blair is what was once known as a "muscular
Christian": a person who believes that his faith requires him to act,
and justifies his actions. Only a minority of British prime ministers
in the past century have been Christian believers (Winston Churchill,
for example, was a completely irreligious agnostic), and even the
ones who were personally devout felt that religion should remain a
private matter.

In terms of spin-control, this phenomenon extended even into Blair’s
government, as the prime minister was under strict instructions not
to speak in public about his faith. "We don’t do God," as spin-master
Alastair Campbell once put it. But in fact, Blair did "do God." That
was what led him into Iraq.

Columnist Geoffrey Wheatcroft got it exactly right in "The Independent"
last Sunday: "In some ways (Blair) is more innately American than
British. Blair may not have prayed with the born-again George Bush,
but their shared faith was certainly a bond, and (Blair’s) wearing
his faith on his sleeve would not have seemed too odd or embarrassing
in the US, where more than half the population goes to church and
where supposedly grown-up politicians can say they approach difficult
problems by asking: ‘What would Jesus do’?"

The problem was that it would seem odd and embarrassing in Britain,
where only seven percent of the population regularly attend church or
its equivalent. The notion that British foreign policy was being driven
by one man’s faith would have inspired mass revolt if Blair’s motives
had been plain. But they weren’t: the spin machine did its job well.

>>From the time he took office in 1997, Blair talked about having a
"moral" foreign policy, but it wasn’t clear at the time that that
meant he believed in doing good by force. Then came a series of
more or less legal military interventions abroad in which British
troops did do some good: in stopping the genocide against Muslims
in Kosovo in 1999, in ending the civil war in Sierra Leone in 2000,
and in overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan after the terrorist
atrocities of 11 September, 2001.

All those uses of military force succeeded at a relatively low cost —
the flare-up of guerilla warfare in Afghanistan today is due to neglect
of the country AFTER 2001 — and it was flowers and champagne for Tony
Blair each time. He was doing good by force, and he was doing very
well by it politically, too. But the lesson Blair learned was that
this sort of thing is cheap and easy, and it was getting to be a habit.

Then along came the Bush administration’s plan to invade Iraq.

It is clear in retrospect that Blair had agreed to commit British
troops to the invasion by the spring of 2002. It is hard to believe
that he was so ignorant and ill-advised as to believe the nonsense
about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his alleged
links to the al-Qaeda terrorists, but it is very easy to believe that
he leapt at another chance to do good — i.e., rid the world of a
wicked dictator — by force.

Did Blair understand that the Bush administration’s real motives
for putting Iraq at the top of its hit-list were quite traditional
great-power concerns, and that the American public was just being
fed those stories about Saddam’s terrorist ties and his imaginary
WMD because they went down more smoothly?

Probably he did, but he was willing to go along with all that so long
as the wicked dictator was actually overthrown. For the true believer,
the end often justifies the means.

Blair’s perennial claim that "I have always done what I believe to be
right" is no defence — do the rest of us usually do what we believe
to be wrong? — but he firmly believes that good intentions absolve
him of responsibility for the outcome. The United Nations is a wreck,
the reputations of the United States and the United Kingdom have never
been lower, and Iraq is an almost measureless disaster, but no higher
authority will ever officially hold Blair responsible for any of that,
so in practical terms he is quite right.

Enjoy the lecture circuit, Tony.

PACE PRESIDENT CONDEMNS RECENT BOMB ATTACK

A1+
[04:17 pm] 23 May, 2007

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President (PACE) Rene van
der Linden, currently on an official visit to Belgrade, strongly
condemned the recent bomb attack in Ankara. "In our societies there
is no place for those who put bombs in our streets to kill innocent
people. Nothing can justify such attacks, which are an assault on
the fundamental principles of our societies," he said. Expressing
his firm support for the democratic institutions in Turkey he said
"we have to fight those who destabilise them. We have to stand firm
for democracy and the rule of law and intensify cooperation in the
fight against terrorism."

He sent his condolences to the families of the victims and expressed
his solidarity with the Turkish people and authorities.

To remind, 6 people were killed and more than 100 people were injured
in the result of yesterday’s bomb attack in Ankara.