Author: nina hovnanian

JOSEPH KOBZON SHOOTING MY ARMENIA SONG CLIP IN TZITZERNAKABERD

17:49, 21 November, 2013

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. People’s Artist of the USSR Joseph
Kobzon is engaged in the activities of shooting a music video for
his new song titled “My Armenia” near the unquenchable fire of the
Tzitzernakaberd Memorial dedicated to the memory of the Armenian
Genocide victims. “Armenpress” reports about this citing the facebook
page of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.

Iosif Kobzon is a Russian singer, known for his crooner style. Kobzon
was born to Jewish parents in the mining town of Chasiv Yar, in the
Donbassregion of Ukraine.

As a boy he demonstrated a talent for singing, winning numerous
regional singing contests. He reached the national finals on two
separate occasions, appearing in concerts dedicated to Joseph Stalin –
a significant honour at the time.

Despite his talent for singing, Kobzon went on to technical
school to study geology and mining in Dnipropetrovsk, as this was
considered a lucrative vocation in the Soviet Unionfollowing the
Second World War. However, in 1959, following his 1956-1959 contact
with professional music instructors in the Soviet Army where he was
a member of the armies song and dance ensemble, he decided that music
would be his preferred vocation.

In 1958, Kobzon officially started his singing career in Moscow,
and enrolled to study at the Gnessin Institute. In the next few
years he made valuable contacts in Moscow’s entertainment world,
and was eventually given a chance by composer Arkady Ostrovski to
perform some of his music.

Initially, he performed in a duet with the tenor Viktor Kokhno, but
was eventually offered a solo repertoire by many of the outstanding
composers of the time such as Mark Fradkin, Alexander Dolukhanian
and Yan Frenkel.

In 1962, he recorded his first LP which included songs written by
Aleksandra Pakhmutova.

In 1964, he triumphed at the International Song Contest in Sopot,
Poland, and in the following year he took part in the “Friendship”
contest held across six nations, winning first prize in Warsaw,
Berlin and Budapest.

His popularity rose quickly, and demand for his singing saw him
frequently performing two to three concerts a day.

His most popular hit song at the time was titled “A u nas vo dvore”.

During Leonid Brezhnev’s time in office (1964-82), there was hardly
an official concert where Kobzon did not take part, and in 1980 he
was awarded the honour of People’s Artist of the USSR.

In 1983, Kobzon was expelled from the Communist Party and reprimanded
for “political short sightedness,” after he performed Jewish songs
during an international friendship concert, which resulted in the
Arab delegations leaving in protest.

However, the following year, (1984) his reputation was restored,
as he was honored with the USSR State Prize.

His best known song is “Instants” from the legendary Soviet TV series
“Seventeen Instants of Spring” (1973).

Joseph Kobzon appeared with solo concerts in most cities of the former
USSR. He was also bestowed the rare honour of performing international
concerts tours as a representative of USSR in United States, Panama,
Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Costa Rica,Argentina, Israel,
Republic of the Congo, Zaire, Angola, Nigeria, Portugal, Spain,
Sweden, Germany, Greece, and Finland.

Throughout his career, he has shared the stage with many Western
superstars, including the likes of Liza Minnelli and Julio Iglesias.

In 1986, he was the first celebrity to visit and perform in the town of
Chernobyl to cheer the nuclear reactor rescuers. Since then, Kobzon has
performed on many occasions in disaster areas, and military hot-spots
such as Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, and Chechnya.

Although, Joseph Kobzon officially ended his international touring
career in 1997, he continues to appear in regular concerts before
audiences around the world, and is frequently seen on Russian
television to date.

Kobzon has a reputation for his readiness to help others. He has earned
enormous respect amongst Russians for committing substantial sums of
his personal wealth to help thousands of Russia’s poor and unfortunate,
including the funding of numerous orphanages around the country.

In 2002, Kobzon is noted for risking his life as the key negotiator
in the Moscow theater hostage crisis. His bravery resulted in a mother
with three children and a citizen of the United Kingdom being rescued.

Kobzon has been active in Russian politics, since 1989. He is probably
the most experienced Russian MP, and also the one who gets reelected
with the largest margin in the country’s history. Between 2005 and
2007, he was the head of the State Duma’s culture committee.

In 2009 he was bestowed the rare award of Honorary Citizen of Moscow,
becoming the 24th individual ever to be so honoured, and sharing this
status with people such as Pavel Tretyakov, Prince Vladimir Galitzine
and Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow.

To honour his remarkable musical, political and humanitarian
achievements, in 2003, there was a statue of Joseph Kobzon erected
near his birthplace, in Donetsk, Ukraine. Such an honour to be bestowed
during one’s lifetime is considered to be highly unique by any nation’s
standards, and has cemented Kobzon’s popularity as a “living legend”.

In 2007 Joseph Kobzon’s name was entered into the Official Book of
Russian Records as the most decorated artist in the country’s history.

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone: 212.319.6383
Email: [email protected]
Website:

PRESS RELEASE

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

AGBU FLAGSHIP PROGRAM DISCOVER ARMENIA CELEBRATES 10 YEARS

MILESTONE ANNIVERSARY MARKS A DECADE OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Since 2003, the AGBU Discover Armenia program has brought diasporan
teens together in their ancestral homeland, where they’ve created
countless memories-and volunteered hundreds of hours to strengthen
local communities. Now, after a decade of growth, the flagship summer
initiative is celebrating the lives they’ve touched.

The three-week Discover Armenia trip, which takes participants from
Yerevan to Nagorno-Karabakh, and all the landmarks in between, has
always maintained a special focus on community service. Its tenth year
was no exception for the 28-person group, which included students from
Canada, France, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. Among the
highlights were helping a family construct a home in the village of
Ujan, delivering meals at the AGBU Senior Dining Centers, visiting an
orphanage in Gyumri, and donating a record-breaking number of books to
a Stepanakert library.

Every summer since 2009, Discover Armenia groups have arrived with
packages of books for the H. Tumanian National Children’s Library in
the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. To date, the program has donated over
2,000 English and French books to the library, filling the shelves of
its foreign language pavilion. This year, during a three-day trip to
NKR, the students toured the space as staff unveiled a plaque honoring
their contributions. Bearing the AGBU Discover Armenia logo, it now
stands proudly among the stacks.

Discover Armenia director Herminé Duzian commented on the plaque’s
significance, stating, “Since the very beginning, promoting community
service has been a priority for the AGBU Discover Armenia program. The
diasporan youth have an incredible eagerness to make a difference and
their development projects are some of the most meaningful and
unforgettable parts of the trip. As they volunteer together, they make
lifelong friends and strengthen their bonds with their heritage. They
return home more connected to each other and to the country. We are
very glad to see this plaque in the library.”

While the children of Stepanakert take advantage of their new
literature, those in the Terchoonian Home Orphanage in Gyumri will
enjoy heating throughout the winter, made possible by Discover Armenia
participant Philippe Tarjan. A high school senior whose
great-grandmother was rescued by an institution just like the
Terchoonian Home, Tarjan was inspired to give back. In the weeks
leading up to the trip, he organized fundraisers in his New York
hometown, collecting $3,000, which he personally presented to the
organization’s director Sona Simonyan. The donation will help keep the
building warm over the next few months, and was one of the many gifts
the Discover Armenia group brought to the youth on their visit.

Tarjan reflected on his project, and the program as a whole,
remarking, “Spending time at the Terchoonian Home was as memorable as
it was emotional. With Discover Armenia, we never felt simply like
tourists. Whether we were helping build homes, keeping senior citizens
company, or paying respects to the sites of our ancestors, we were
always acting as global citizens effecting positive change.”

The group celebrated the change they helped create, and the 10 years
that came before them, during a final performance at the AGBU Nork
Children’s Center. Throughout their stay, they had participated in a
folk dancing and singing course at the Center, and were ready to take
the stage. Together with the AGBU Yerevan office staff, they
celebrated the end of Discover Armenia’s first decade and welcomed the
decades to come during their farewell party.

Applications are currently being accepted for Discover Armenia Summer
2014. Participants are eligible to earn 40 hours of community service
credit at their high schools. For more information, visit
or email Herminé Duzian at:
[email protected].

Established in 1906, AGBU () is the world’s largest
non-profit Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City, AGBU
preserves and promotes the Armenian identity and heritage through
educational, cultural and humanitarian programs, annually touching the
lives of some 400,000 Armenians around the world.

For more information about AGBU and its worldwide programs, please
visit

HRAPARAK: YSU STAFF OUTRAGED BY CONDUCT OF PUBLIC TELEVISION CEO

CEO of Public Television of Armenia Margarita Yesayan became so
immersed in her work to raise the TV channel’s zero rating that she
has completely forgotten that she is also a lecturer of Yerevan State
University, ‘Hraparak’ says.

According to the daily, the staff of YSU Department of Journalism is
outraged by the fact that she stopped attending the university.

Students of the Department of Journalism where Margarita Grigorian
works as a ‘lecturer’ cannot remember when they last saw her in a
lecture room.

POPULATION OF ARMENIAN CAPITAL FALLS 7.5 PERCENT

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Nov 20 2013

20 November 2013 – 5:30pm

247 thousand people or 7.5 percent of Yerevan’s residents have left
the city, the National Service of Statistics of Armenia informs. A
similar situation has been registered in the Armenian regions.

The reason is probably mass emigration from the country.

UKRAINIAN OSCE CHAIRMANSHIP HAILS ALIYEV-SARGSYAN MEETING IN VIENNA

NRCU – Ukrainian Radio
Nov 20 2013

20-11-2013 11:37

The highest-level dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia will
strengthen trust and mutual understanding and give a positive impetus
to the negotiations on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara
said in a statement.

“The Ukrainian OSCE Chairmanship welcomes a meeting between Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan held in
Vienna on November 19. I trust that the highest-level dialogue between
Armenia and Azerbaijan will contribute to strengthening confidence and
mutual understanding between the parties and will provide a positive
incentive for the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
settlement,” the statement reads.

Ukraine believes that such negotiations serve as a warranty for peace,
stability and opening new opportunities for regional co-operation,
Kozhara said. The Ukrainian Chairmanship stands ready to further
facilitate the efforts of Azerbaijan and Armenia with the mediation of
the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on the establishment of the regular
dialogue aimed at reaching comprehensive peaceful settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of international law. A
meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Vienna on
Tuesday was the first meeting between the heads of the two countries in
nearly two years. The result of the meeting was a statement of the OSCE
Minsk Group co-chairs. It states that the presidents agreed to give a
further impetus to negotiations aimed at reaching peaceful settlement
and instructed their foreign ministers together with the co-chairs
to continue work on the basis of what has been done to intensify the
peace process. In addition, the presidents agreed to meet again soon.

POLICE LIEUTENANT’S DISCRIMINATION TRIAL BEGINS

Glendale News Press, CA
Nov 20 2013

Attorneys open with opposing perspectives on suit claiming
discrimination against Armenians.

By Veronica Rocha, [email protected]

November 20, 2013 | 10:59 a.m.

An alleged lack of promotion and diversity in supervisory positions
within the Glendale Police Department signaled the “good old boys
were alive and well in Glendale,” Lt. Tigran Topadzhikyan’s attorney
told jurors Tuesday as the trial in his federal discrimination lawsuit
got underway.

Topadzhikyan, who claims he was often passed over for promotions
because he is Armenian, was unfairly subjected to internal
investigations despite being harassed and threatened, his attorney
Bradley Gage said during his opening statement in the U.S. District
Court in Riverside.

The repeated investigations of Topadzhikyan, he said, demonstrated
to others that the “good old boys” would enforce “a code of silence.”

The Police Department, his attorney said, had a “history of
discriminatory treatment” and harassment.

Topadzhikyan is one of five Armenian-American Glendale police officers
who are suing the city for alleged discrimination and harassment.

Former Glendale Police Randy Adams, current Police Chief Ron De Pompa
and Capt. Mike Rock, who were individually named as defendants in the
lawsuit, sat and faced jurors in court on Tuesday as both sides laid
out their cases.

Topadzhikyan, along with Officers Vahak Mardikian, Robert Parseghian,
John Balian and Benny Simonzad, filed a joint lawsuit in 2010 against
the Glendale Police Department and the city, claiming discrimination
and retaliation because they’re Armenian.

In 2012, Mardikian, Balian and Topadzhikyan filed a separate
discrimination lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court. That
case has been delayed because of the ongoing federal case.

After repeated attempts to get promoted, Topadzhikyan came out on
top of a list to become a lieutenant.

He was promoted last Wednesday – a move Topadzhikyan’s attorney
pointed out came just days before his trial started.

Still, his attorney said Topadzhikyan had to struggle for years
to get promoted within the department and was often passed up for
“white males.”

The alleged harassment, his attorney said, has left Topadzhikyan
broken.

But attorney Dana McCune, representing the Police Department and
the city, argued in his opening statement that Topadzhikyan wasn’t
unfairly passed up for promotion because he’s Armenian.

McCune said Topadzhikyan was encouraged by Adams and De Pompa to
“study hard” when he didn’t pass a sergeant’s promotion test in 2009.

Eventually, he did pass the test.

“You don’t always get what you want and you don’t always get it when
you want it,” he said.

And while Topadzhikyan had been the subject of internal investigations,
McCune said he praised the Police Department and Adams in interviews.

During Adams’ time as chief, his attorney said he reached out to
Armenian TV and radio in an effort to hire more Armenian officers.

McCune claimed many derogatory statements will come out in trial that
Topadzhikyan didn’t directly hear.

When a discriminatory statement or action was made, McCune said De
Pompa and Adams handled it.

Testimony is expected to continue on Wednesday.

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ANC OF MASSACHUSETTS TESTIFIES ON GENOCIDE CURRICULUM BILL

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013

ANC of Massachusetts Chairman Dikran Kaligian

BOSTON-On Oct. 31, the Joint Committee on Education of the
Massachusetts State Legislature held a public hearing on H. 420,
“An Act Concerning Genocide Education”, which received support from
the Armenian National Committee of Massachusetts (ANC-MA).

The bill was introduced by State Representative Jonathan Hecht
(D-Watertown) and requires that genocide studies, including at least
two case studies, be included in the history curriculum for all
public schools.

While the teaching of genocide and human rights has been part of the
history and social studies curriculum since an earlier bill in the
1990s, inclusion of genocide is currently optional and not required.

ANC-MA Chairman Dikran Kaligian testified in support of the bill,
noting the limited awareness of most cases of genocide among high
school graduates. He stressed the importance of the bill in the case
of the Armenian Genocide; it is unique, he said, in that is has a
foreign government conducting an international campaign to deny it
ever happened.

“The long arm of the Turkish government’s denial campaign has reached
here into Massachusetts. Not just in the denialist testimony we heard
earlier today, but also in the lawsuit against the Massachusetts
Department of Education, initiated by an affiliate of the Turkish
government, that was dismissed in federal court,” testified Kaligian.

Erkut Gomulu of the Turkish American Cultural Society of New England
had testified in support of the bill but against the inclusion of
any reference to the Armenian Genocide, using standard denialist
talking points. He claimed that legislators cannot make judgments
about historical events because they “only cover the Armenian side
of events.”

Rep. Hecht testified that, since the only required subjects in the
social studies curriculum are basic civics, and since the Department of
Education has already issued guidelines for the teaching of genocide,
adoption H. 420 is not only essential but also has readily available
instructional materials.

Pauline Getzoyan, the co-chair of the Rhode Island branch of the
Genocide Education Project, submitted written testimony to the
committee, giving the example of Rhode Island, where half of the
public school systems include genocide education in their curriculum.

Eric Cohen, the president of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save
Darfur, testified on the need for genocide education to build a
permanent constituency to combat human rights violations. Five
students from Harwich High School, members of Massachusetts STAND,
the student-led movement to end mass atrocities, testified about
the urgent need to raise awareness about genocide, and warned that
genocide could happen again if despotic leaders believe they can get
away with it. Awareness and genocide education is the way to ensure
that they know they cannot.

The Joint Committee on Education is currently considering the bill.

The committee is co-chaired by Representative Alice Hanlon Peisch
(D-Wellesley) and Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Boston), who presided
over the hearing.

PEACE, NOT DIPLOMACY IN ARTSAKH

Monday, November 18th, 2013

Tanks fire live rounds during a military exercise in Artsakh earlier
this month

BY DR. RAZMIG SHIRINIAN

During a meeting with students of the Azerbaijani State Economic
University earlier in November, US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard
Morningstar announced: “we will work jointly with the Minsk Group and
do our best to achieve a solution for the Karabakh issue,” He also
admitted that “if the solution of Nagorno Karabakh was easy, we would
have done it. I believe that it can be solved only when the conflicting
parties make firm decision to solve the problem once and for all.”

The newly appointed U.S. co-chair of the Organization of Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, James Warlick, likewise,
delivered President Obama’s message to the South Caucasus countries
of Armenia and Azerbaijan: “make new efforts to restore peace in the
region.” The new ambassador believes that the Minsk Group continues
to be guided by the principles of the Helsinki Final Act: non-use of
force, right to self-determination and territorial integrity.

The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United
States, seems to intensify its diplomatic efforts and find solutions
to the tragic and protracted conflict in the South Caucasus.

Ironically and since 1992, Minsk Group’s continued engagement
with Armenia and Azerbaijan to seek solutions to the conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh has been the most proactive, but also and notably
the least productive.

That’s because the diplomatic language of territorial integrity
and self-determination does not seem to be compatible with the idea
of peace.

Surely one of the most important tasks for Armenians and Azerbaijanis
in the 21st Century is to learn how to handle the regional conflict
and to settle the Nagorno Karabakh question in more constructive and
peaceful ways. The toll in human misery and the threat to the survival
of the two people have become far too great. Rather than continuing
to rely on the entrenched and mere diplomatic procedures or the
perpetual fray over territorial integrity vs. self-determination,
the international efforts, and more directly the efforts of the
Minsk Group would be better off if focused on the concept and the
practice of peace and how to achieve it. The challenge here is to
think methodically within the current non-peaceful relationships and
the means of transforming them into peaceful ones.

No doubt, the two countries are destined to be neighbors and must look
for peaceful relationships. To focus on the possibility of peace means
the two sides must try to achieve together a common understanding of
the kind of relationship that will avoid breeding harm. The challenge
is to take the concept of peace beyond the mere absence of war or
other forms of overt violence. Take the concept of peace beyond simple
situation of a ceasefire or temporary truce in hostilities between the
two parties. Evidently, in the absence of war many inconspicuous ways
are used in which the sides have been harming each other physically,
psychologically and economically even though they are not actually
engaged in acts of war in the usual sense of the term.

The history of conflict and violence in the region requires a careful
attention on the conditions that can turn the conflict so quickly
and easily to violence and war. It also evokes new ways of thinking
about alleviation of these conditions. After the horrible war between
the two countries in the early 1990s, the status quo in the region
was fundamentally changed, giving the Armenian population in Nagorno
Karabakh independence from Azerbaijan. However, the OSCE Minsk Group
efforts to achieve peace in the region remain futile and confined
within the traditional diplomatic language of territorial integrity.

The broader challenge is to materialize the concept of peace in
a state of affairs that is beneficial for the people in Nagorno
Karabakh. The current situation is “peaceful” simply because the
sides are not engaged in direct military clash and are not at war
despite the continuous threats and the bellicose language in Baku.

It is not only the question of territorial integrity of Azebaijan or
the question of self-determination for Armenians in Karabakh that the
co-chairs of the Minsk Group should be considering. If the primary
concern is to establish peace in the region, then the central question
is the social status of the people rather than internationally
established political norms, such as territorial integrity. The
strategy, therefore, is to achieve structural peace. This is not only
a situation of ceasefire or temporary truce in hostilities in which
the two sides agree to avoid war, or other forms of overt violence,
but also a kind of peace that institutionalizes social relations and
shun acts of violence.

A deeper sense of peace, a socially structured one, is the ultimate
goal. Before Nagorno Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan in 1988, the
most pernicious ways the Armenians have been harmed under the Azeri
rule were not only by the direct oppressive actions of the government,
but also as a result of the way the relationships were socially
structured. A systemic violence was evident in Nagorno Karabakh as an
enclave of Azerbaijan. Between 1923 and 1988, when Nagorno Karabakh
lingered as an enclave of Azerbaijan, the relations were harmful even
though the two sides were not involved in overt acts of violence.

However, the situation was far from being “peaceful” because the
Armenians suffered harm from the very nature of the relationship. The
laws or social and economic practices demeaned the population in the
enclave and prevented them from realizing their potential as a nation.

They were further excluded from the opportunities and benefits
available to Azeris. That is, not only the Baku government’s particular
actions but the structure itself caused the harm. Lack of peace in
the region was simply a result of occupation and oppressive behavior.

This is what the diplomatic language seemingly will have to divulge
when talking about the regional conflict. But it generally ignores
the tacit harm prevailing in the idea of territorial integrity in
which the relevant relationships or political practices are largely
structured. The system of apartheid, for example, was a system of
“structural violence” as the well-known Scandinavian peace researcher,
Johan Galtung has called it. In this situation the harm caused was
systemic. A colonized or an occupied society, as well as a society
trapped into an enclave are not peaceful because the laws and social
practices are demeaning and establish unjust relationship. Armenians in
Nakorno Krabakh were placed in such a position which became a fertile
ground for overt forms of violence. The concept of Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity is not likely to be peaceful even if the
Armenians were given the highest status of autonomy and self-governing.

As Johan Galtung has said, peace is not just the absence of direct
violence, but also the absence of structural violence. People are
harmed under occupation, under colonization, or in an enclave.

Violence in this case is structured in the social relationship.

Razmig B. Shirinian is a Professor of Political Science at the College
of the Canyons

Trend, Azerbaijan
Nov 17 2013

FM: Georgia has no problems in relations with Armenia

Tbilisi, Georgia, Nov.17
By Nana Kirtzkhalia – Trend:

The Foreign Ministers of Georgia and Armenia have agreed on the
exchange of visits in the near future.

After the meeting with her Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian,
Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze said that she will visit
Yerevan by the end of 2013.

“My Armenian counterpart will visit Tbilisi in January,” she said.

Panjikidze stressed that there is no and cannot be any problems in the
relations of the two countries.

“We have very good relations and we do not have problems in our
relations. There are issues which we resolve successfully in
cooperation and our relations are constantly moving forward,” she
said.

The Daily Telegraph, Australia
Nov 18 2013

The ABC is stifling debate on Armenia by denouncing critics

by: Andrew Bolt
From: Herald Sun
November 18, 2013 12:00AM

THE ABC has a new topic on which no debate is allowed. Try, and you’re
denounced as a “denier”. God, I’m sick of these attacks on reason.

Demonstrate that the “stolen generations” is a myth are you’re a “racist”.

Point out that the world has failed to warm as global warming
activists claimed and you’re a “climate change denier”.

Now this, from the ABC on the weekend: “One of the world’s most vocal
Armenian genocide deniers will make an address at Parliament House in
Canberra next week.”

Labor’s Laurie Ferguson had booked a room for an address titled “What
happened during 1915-1923?”

“The address will be given by Professor Justin McCarthy, an American
history professor who many Armenians view with the same disdain as
Jews view Holocaust denier David Irving.”

I’ve heard McCarthy lecture and am appalled this scholar is likened to
a Holocaust denier.

McCarthy does not deny that a million or more Armenians died in Turkey
in one of the last century’s most brutal conflicts. What he disputes
is that Turkish authorities deliberately planned the killings to wipe
out the Christian Armenians.

He argues they were instead the result of a civil war after Armenian
irregulars backed a Russian invasion.

Here come our politicians.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell was attacked by Turkey last week for
successfully getting Parliament to condemn “the genocide of the
Armenians”.

It is not the NSW Parliament’s business or expertise to resolve
historical debates over events a century ago in another land.

Time we thought with our brains, not our fashion sense.