Author: Tatoyan Vazgen

MEDICAL MONITORS OFFER WINDOW INTO FUTURE HEALTH CARE
By Benny Evangelista

Nashua Telegraph
Sunday, August 9, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Sean Chai tapped the screen of the tabletop home
medical monitor, which began to talk.

"Put the blood pressure cuff on your arm as shown," the computerized
voice told a visitor to Chai’s research lab in San Leandro. "Please
relax and remain still while your reading is being taken."

After uploading data from the blood pressure cuff, the monitor asked
if the visitor had taken his daily medication.

In the future, the answers could trigger scheduling software for a
doctor’s appointment or initiate a direct video call to the physician.

Chai is the senior information technology manager for Kaiser
Permanente’s Sidney R. Garfield Health Care Innovation Center. His
job is to imagine the future of medical technology and to test gadgets
to see if they’re practical.

"We focus a lot on what we call the human factor, how the technology
interacts with people," Chai said.

The 37,000-square-foot center, located in an office complex near
Oakland International Airport, celebrated its third anniversary
recently as the technology research and testing lab for the nation’s
largest nonprofit health-maintenance organization.

The center has a full-size mockup of a hospital floor, complete with
nursing stations and patient rooms, plus an operating room, simulated
home and mini-clinic. Kaiser employees can use the center to test
everything from new types of hospital floor material or workflow
adjustments to robotic nursing assistants and high-definition
operating-room video screens.

Sherry Fry, the center’s operations specialist, said the complex
intends to work out the bugs of a new system or concept before they’re
deployed to hospitals and patients. The center shares its findings
and has drawn 17,000 visitors from 29 countries, including health-care
workers, university researchers and tech innovators.

In the simulated mini-clinic was a prototype stainless-steel kiosk that
looked like a cross between a bank ATM and an airline self-check-in
machine.

"So, imagine in the future, you use a kiosk like this to quickly
check in by inserting your membership card and also do your co-pay
by inserting a credit card," Chai said.

A self-service kiosk is already being tried in about 100 Kaiser
hospitals in California. It can be programmed to respond in several
languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese
and Armenian.

Kaiser plans to add other functions, such as a way for patients
to check their blood pressure, weight, temperature, oxygen level
and pulse.

"The idea is to (have) a line buster," Chai said. "By the time the
doctor calls you in, you’re ready for that examination, you don’t
have to go to the nursing station.

"Imagine someday, we can locate that in a shopping mall or in a
community center. Then you add a camera, and you can literally project
your doctor onto the screen, so it becomes sort of a doc in the box."

Another area resembling a living room and kitchen has several desktop
self-care devices, including the talking Intel Health Guide made
by Santa Clara chipmaker Intel Corp. In April, Intel announced a
five-year, $250 million joint investment plan with General Electric
Co. to develop personalized home health-care devices.

"The idea is to leverage these technologies to help us stay connected
with patients, especially patients suffering from chronic conditions
(such as) congestive heart failure, hypertension," Chai said. "Those
handful of ailments contribute 80 percent of U.S. health-care costs."

The center is also testing lower-tech home monitors, such as one
made by Honeywell International that resembles a digital clock
radio. It’s part of a pilot project involving 600 congestive heart
failure patients.

The mock living room has a high-definition, flat-panel TV equipped with
video conferencing technology that can give a remote dermatologist a
diagnostic-quality picture of a person’s rash or other skin problem,
Chai said.

Another flat-panel monitor is testing biometric facial-identification
software. It allows health-care workers to log in to private patient
data without having to remove gloves or to scrub up again after
touching a computer keyboard, mouse or touch screen.

The system uses biometric software and "a $20 camera," Chai said.

Nurses or technicians log onto computers up to 80 times a day,
"checking e-mail, accessing patient records, looking at medical images,
digital pathology slides," Chai said. ". . . So, imagine if we can
save that time."

Some gadgets are already popular consumer products, such as Nintendo’s
Wii game console. The center is studying the Wii’s motion-activated
controls for medical uses, such as letting doctors explain an X-ray
image.

Chai gets to test other off-the-shelf devices when they come out,
such as the BlackBerry Storm or a laser-projected keyboard. He’s also
examining whether an iPhone application that monitors vital signs,
from AirStrip Technologies of Texas, could be deployed to patients.

Still, "a lot of these are cost prohibitive, so we’re just waiting
for the right time to bring back the technology," he said.

E-mail Benny Evangelista at [email protected]. Distributed
by Scripps Howard News Service

WILL "FOOTBALL DIPLOMACY" CONTINUE INTO THE AUTUMN?
Karine Ter-Sahakyan

PanARMENIAN.Net
08.08.2009 GMT+04:00

The agreement signed on April 22 between the Ministries of Foreign
Affairs of Armenia and Turkey is almost the same as the Madrid
principles: a regular stillborn document for internal use.

The farewell visit of Mathew Bryza to the region in the position
of an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair was, as usual, a bit scandalous and
unequal; in a word, nothing new except for a new "imperative" used
by the Department of State, claiming immediate handover of the five
regions of Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan, and after a while also
that of the remaining two. It is simply interesting who from the
State Department will this time deny what Bryza said.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On the one hand, we understand the position of
the American diplomat: if he really becomes the US Ambassador to
Azerbaijan, he will simply have to look "no stranger" in Baku. And for
the sake of it, anything can be said in Yerevan. The positive point
is that Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have long ceased to comment on or
even listen to what Bryza says, which is not true about Azerbaijan that
with rapture picked up the "new" idea, giving it out as truth. However,
in reality, even Baku knows that no agreement will ever be signed on
the notorious Madrid principles. Moreover, Ilham Aliyev will not even
be allowed to launch a war, and hinderers will be the very patrons who
are interested in the normal operation of gas and oil pipelines. All
this has been spoken and written about more than once and therefore
is not worth repeating.

One can say that conversations around the Madrid principles
filled up the summer, which this year was rather tense and rich in
events. Similar political activity is, in our opinion, expected also
in autumn: change of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs from the USA and
RF, football match Turkey-Armenia, another Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting
in Chisinau. Though until recently called into question, the meeting
will most likely be held, and will have the same outcome as all the
previous ones. However, the highlight of the fall in the region could
become the refusal of the Armenian President to attend the football
match in Turkey. The Armenian-Turkish relations will remain in the
same limbo if Ankara is not able to find the strength in herself
and desist from interfering in the Karabakh conflict. Better to
say, either Turkey will return the "pass" or the football diplomacy
will come to an end, without even starting. It’s no secret that the
agreement signed on April 22 between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs
of Armenia and Turkey is almost the same as the Madrid principles:
a regular stillborn document for internal use, accepted in view of
certain obligations before the USA, EU and Russia.

Autumn can also set certain equilibrium in Iran, which has been shaky
since the presidential elections. Even if the reformers should succeed
in repeating the revolution of 1979, it will by no means mean that
Iran will go along the way of democracy in the western understanding
of this term. In fact, the struggle in the neighboring country goes
for spiritual leadership, not for ideas. So, nothing will change in
Teheran and the only thing the USA can count on is that Iran will
limit itself to a peaceful nuclear program.

As for Turkey, it will still have to deal with the case of "Ergenekon",
but will also make attempts to bring to life Erdogan’s program on
the Kurdish issue resolution. The latter is highly improbable since
the entire Eastern Anatolia Region, populated with Kurds, waits for
relaxation of the Government to express their desire of autonomy. After
it, not much time will be required for the establishment of the State
of Kurdistan with all its negative consequences for Armenia. In that
case we should be expecting unpleasant course of events, to say no more
of it. Thus, it is much better for Armenia if Ankara solves the Kurdish
problem the way it considers necessary, i.e. by periodically conducting
raids and attacking the RSC bases. Armenians should never forget that
in 1915 they were massacred by the hands of Kurdish troops…

As far as the Georgian-Russian relations are concerned, apparent
deterioration is not foreseen: there will again be recriminations in
aggression, border violation and similar "trifles". Mikhail Saakashvili
will all over again complain to the West, enlist the support of NATO
and the USA, which no more care about Georgia and find it much more
important to normalize relations with Russia, which is not going to
let the gas control valve out of their hands. Talks on South Stream and
Nabucco could last until the end of the year, although no one can know
in advance what course of events should be expected in these issues.

TURKEY FACES UKRAINE IN FRIENDLY WITH EYE ON WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

Today’s Zaman
12 August 2009, Wednesday

The Turkish national soccer team takes on Ukraine at the Viktor
Bannikov Stadium in Kiev this evening in a warm-up match in preparation
for its upcoming World Cup 2010 European qualifying Group Five

This match is of paramount importance for Turkey coach Fatih Terim
to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his team before the home
qualifier against Estonia on Sept. 5, the games away against Bosnia
and Herzegovina four days later and on the road against Belgium on
Oct. 10 and the last match at home against Armenia on Oct. 14. We,
naturally, will concentrate more on Turkey’s chances for South Africa
next year rather than on this evening’s Ukraine friendly. The Turks
virtually blew their qualifying chances for South Africa after losing
1-0 to Spain in Madrid on March 28 and 2-1 again to the Spaniards
in Ýstanbul on April Fools Day. ‘April Fools joke’ Turkey losing
to European champion Spain away was understandable but the loss at
home four days later on April 1 looked like an April Fools joke. And
the simple reason was that Turkey was the better side and therefore
did not deserve defeat. To recap: Fenerbahce striker Semih Þenturk,
now at the Kadýkoy infirmary, gave the Turks the lead in the first
half, and it took a dubious 63rd-minute penalty from Xabi Alonso
and a stoppage-time strike from Liverpool teammate Albert Riera to
seal victory for "mighty" Spain — its sixth win in as many Group
Five matches. And Terim was downcast after the April Fools Day
defeat. "Until the moment when the Spaniards scored from a [dubious]
penalty kick, I don’t remember their having any clear-cut scoring
opportunity," Terim lamented at his post-match news conference on
April 1. "This could have been a historic night for Turkish sports, not
just Turkish soccer, but the team let this slip. … Our fixtures are
not easy but the Turkish national team is capable of beating anyone,
anywhere. Bosnia has the advantage now; we have to accept this," he
added. European playoffs There will be 32 participating nations in
the 2010 World Cup. Host South Africa will be joined by five other
African nations, plus 13 from Europe, four from South America and
Asia and three from CONCACAF. There will also be two places decided
by an Oceania/Asia playoff and a CONCACAF/South America playoff.

The nine European group winners will qualify automatically, while
the best eight of the nine runners-up will play a two-leg playoff
to qualify. With Spain (18 points) almost certain to go through as
Group Five leader, Turkey (8 points) now faces an uphill battle to
make it to the South Africa finals with its only realistic hope being
to overtake Bosnia and Herzegovina (12 points) for the playoff place
in the group with only four games to go. And maybe that’s what Terim
meant by saying "Bosnia has the advantage now." This is even more so
because Turkey’s fate for a playoff berth is no longer in its hands
but in those of Bosnia and Herzegovina. With four points separating
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey, the Bosnians and Herzegovinians can
lose at home to Turkey on Sept. 9 and still finish as group runner-up
if they beat Armenia away on Sept. 5, Estonia away on Oct. 10 and
"already" qualified Spain at home on Oct. 14. This makes Turkey’s
job all the more difficult because the Turks no longer have the
luxury of dropping points. And that’s the main reason for today’s
warm-up game against Ukraine to make the players perform together
and understand each other’s moves. "Ukraine is now experiencing a
real soccer boom," Serhiy Storozhenko, the first vice-president of
the Ukrainian Soccer Federation, said recently. Shakhtar Donetsk,
coached by former Galatasaray and Beþiktaþ championship-winning coach
Mircea Lucescu, clinched the last UEFA Cup, which was played at the
Fenerbahce Þukru Saracoðlu Stadium in Ýstanbul on May 20.

So Terim chose Ukraine for today’s friendly because Turkey needs to
test its strength against quality opposition ahead of the toughies
that lie ahead. Soccer is a sport with endless possibilities where
anything can happen. Therefore the Turks must train hard, even after
today’s match with Ukraine, try to win all their remaining qualifiers
in September and October and hope that Bosnia and Herzegovina will
drop points. Players on Terim’s squad against Ukraine Goalkeepers:
Volkan Demirel (Fenerbahce); Ruþtu Recber (Beþiktaþ). Defenders:
Gokhan Gonul and Onder Turacý (Fenerbahce); Sabri Sarýoðlu, Servet
Cetin, Gokhan Zan and Hakan Balta (Galatasaray); Ceyhun Gulselam
(Trabzonspor); Ýsmail Koybaþý (Beþiktaþ). Midfielders: Hamit Altýntop
(Bayern Munich); Colin Kazým (Fenerbahce); Ayhan Akman and Arda Turan
(Galatasaray); Nuri Þahin (Borussia Dortmund); Yusuf Þimþek (Beþiktaþ);
Tuncay Þanlý (Middlesbrough). Forwards: Halil Altýntop (Schalke 04);
Nihat Kahveci (Beþiktaþ); Sercan Yýldýrým (Bursaspor).

Injured Mevlut, Emre will be missing today Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG)
Turkey international striker Mevlut Erdinc, injured in the French
Ligue 1 match between Montpellier and PSG on Saturday that ended 1-1,
has been removed from the Turkish national team’s squad and therefore
will be missing today. A statement from PSG said, "Mevlut sprained
his left lower thigh muscle." Injured Fenerbahce attacking midfielder
Emre Belozoðlu has also been taken out of the Turkish squad and will
be conspicuously absent this evening. No replacements for these two
players were announced by Turkey coach Fatih Terim. Ýstanbul Today’s
Zaman Live on TRT 1 21:00 Ukraine vs. Turkey

ONLY HALF A WORLD AWAY

Otago Daily Times
Tue, 11 Aug 2009

Travel

Craftsmen work with a sheet of silver in a bazaar. Photo by Rebekah
Gray. When Rebekah Gray and Jimmy Kershaw-North declared they were
going to Iran, people decided they were nuts.

"Isn’t it full of terrorists?" people asked when we told them we were
going to Iran.

Variations included "don’t they oppress women?" and "isn’t it all
just desert?" When we arrived back in New Zealand, the questions were
about whether we had become caught up in the recent protests before
and after the presidential elections.

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding "no".

We travelled to Iran mainly to visit friends who have spent time in
New Zealand.

They are fluent in English, which made our life so much easier.

However, the number of people who have never left Iran but who have
good conversation skills in English is quite surprising.

Also, all the major road signs are in English as well as Farsi
(Persian).

As a result, we didn’t feel as if we had landed in the middle of
nowhere.

The main city we stayed in was Esfahan – a city as majestic and
splendid as it gets.

It is considered a jewel in the Islamic world.

Indeed, there is a saying "Esfahan nesf-e jahan", which translates as
"Esfahan is half the world".

There are amazing mosques with beautiful blue tiles and amazing
acoustics.

However, one of the most memorable experiences we had in the city
was when we found a goldsmith in a back alley of the Bazar-e Honar,
or the jewellery bazaar, making the most intricate 22-carat gold
cross I had ever seen.

It had taken him about 100 hours to make and was a commission for a
local Armenian Christian merchant.

The estimated cost was about $NZ260.

The handicraft in and around the Imam Square bazaar is world famous.

You see men, with their sons beside them, hand-beating silver
platters or bowls into intricate patterns and pictures, women and
men painting enamel plates with fine skill, and all of them welcoming
the opportunity to show their wares and abilities.

In a world dominated by objects made in China, it was refreshing to
see so many skilled craftsmen and women displaying their work.

We would sometimes see women making the carpets for which Iran and
ancient Persia are so famous.

A tip, though, for buying carpets: all prices are negotiable.

We saved about $NZ1000 by getting our Iranian friend to get one for
us while we were out of sight.

As soon as carpet sellers saw we were tourists, they would put the
price up by about $NZ1000.

Also keep in mind that not all carpets are hand-knotted or naturally
dyed.

Outside Esfahan, we were invited into many people’s homes.

The hospitality was amazing.

We had to get used to hot, black tea (chay) served with wafer-thin
toffee discs or cubes of sugar to suck on.

One particularly memorable occasion was when we were invited to a
"garden" in the village of Jamal, about an hour east of Esfahan,
seemingly in the middle of a desert.

We turned up and were promptly adopted by the wife of our host,
who with no English welcomed us warmly into her home.

It consisted of a mud-brick room with enough electricity to power a
cellphone charger, one light bulb, a fridge and a small radio.

Water for tea was heated on a charcoal samovar and food cooked on a
charcoal barbecue.

The toilet was a hole in the ground at the end of the garden and
water for washing hands came from barrels with taps in the side,
filled with rain- and spring-water.

The garden, like at any home in Iran, was surrounded by a 2m-high
mud-brick wall but had enough fruit trees to afford shade for the
heat of the day.

It was surprisingly cool under those mulberry trees, as the breeze
blew softly through them.

After lunch, it was OK to fall asleep on a carpet set aside just for
us, as the heat determined the speed of life in the village.

Our host’s wife then took us to a shrine for an Imam Zadeh (the son of
a revered person) where, using our limited Farsi and some interesting
sign language, we were told that a prayer to Allah and the imam will
help worshippers who want children.

The gratitude of our hosts was almost overwhelming when we donated
a little money to the shrine.

We were also taken to the source of drinking water for the village –
a spring halfway up the side of a mountain that had surprisingly cold
and clear water.

It was, after the hike, completely refreshing.

We went to another village outside the city, Shahr-e-kord, which was
nestled among the Zagros mountains in the western part of central Iran.

We were again adopted by our host’s wife, who demonstrated how to
make bread for the family, as well as yoghurt and butter from the
local goats’ milk.

We tried making the flatbread that is a staple of all meals in this
part of Iran.

There is certainly a knack to it.

We were also shown how wool from the local sheep is made into
mattresses and told that the wife of our host handmade these for her
daughter’s dowry.

Everywhere we went the same question was asked: "So, what do you
think of Iran?" People wanted to engage with us.

They wanted to practise their English and find out what the rest of
the world thinks of this country between Europe and Asia.

But, most of all they wanted to laugh and sing and dance with the
funny foreigners.

The country’s Government is widely vilified, but we found Iran’s
people to be incredibly relaxed, welcoming and almost overwhelming
in their hospitality and their eagerness to please.

It has incredible landscapes, a rich and ancient history and untold
richness in its craftsmen and women.

Maybe we are a little nuts, but we like Iran and wouldn’t mind visiting
again sometime. – Rebekah Gray and Jimmy Kershaw-North.

JERMUK 2009 UNDER WAY: LEVON ARONIAN ENDS IN DRAW

Panorama.am
14:35 10/08/2009

The 5th FIDE Grand Prix tournament (Tigran Petrosian memorial)
is being held in Jermuk, Armenia. The participants of the Jermuk
tournament are GMs Levon Aronian, Dmitry Jakovenko, Peter Leko, Boris
Gelfand, Etienne Bacrot, Sergey Karjakin, Gata Kamsky, Pavel Eljanov,
Evgeny Alekseev, Vladimir Akopian, Vassily Ivanchuk, Ivan Cheparinov,
Ernesto Inarkiev, Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Currently the first round of the tournament is finished. Armenian GM
Levon Aronian’s rival in the first set was Ukrainian Ivanchuk. Before
the start of the set Aronian was considered the favorite of the
tournament being one of the leaders of "Grand Prix".

Aronian and Ivanchuk held Italian set, where it is difficult to reach
advantage. Finally the set ended in draw. Currently the leaders of
the tournament are Leko and Cheparinov who managed to defeat their
rivals. But, it’s worth reminding that the tournament has just started.

23 COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN ON FINANCIAL ORGANIZATIONS IN ARMENIA IN JULY

/ARKA/
August 10, 2009
Yerevan

Armenian financial ombudsman’s office received 23 complaints on
financial organizations in July this year, says the press release of
the office.

Over the reporting month, many complaints were received on topics
other than financial organizations.

According to the report, 13 complaints were beyond financial
ombudsman’s competence. Part of these complaints was from legal
entities or private entrepreneurs, some others concerned events that
took place before the law about financial ombudsman came into force.

Court judgments have been already given on some of these complaints;
some others are still under consideration or do not contain property
claims.

According to the press release, five out of 10 complaints within
financial ombudsman’s competence were made in written and were
given consideration. For the other five, clients had no proper
applications made to the respective financial organizations. The staff
of ombudsman’s office helped them arrange their claims and send them
to the financial organizations.

Armenia is the first country among CIS countries to introduce the
financial ombudsman’s institution – as from January 24 2009 – under
the country’s law "About Financial Ombudsman".

According to item 2 of article 31 of the law, ombudsman is obliged to

summarize a precedent he established and publish it by the 15th of
every next month.

ROBERT ARZUMANYAN TO JOIN ARMENIAN TEAM DURING TRAINING SESSION

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
10.08.2009 15:21 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Robert Arzumanyan, full back of Armenian team and
Dutch Randers, will today join the Armenian team which started a
training session in Tsahkadzor on August 9.

Let’s note that team coach Vardan Minasyan has invited 19 players to
participate in session before the friendly match with Moldovan team.

The list of Armenian players qualifying for match against Moldova
was updated.

Goal keepers: Gevorg Kasparov – Ulis Stepan Ghazaryan – Banants Full
backs: Sargis Hovsepyan – Pyunik Hrayr Mkoyan – Ulis Vahagn Minasyan –
Pyunik Alexander Tadevosyan – Mika Edward Kakosyan – Banants Avghan
Lazarian – Mika Robert Arzumanyan – Randers (Denmark) Half-backs:
Ararat Arakelyan – Metallurg (Donetsk) Arthur Yedigaryan – Pyunik
Karlen Lazarian – Pyunik David Grigoryan – Ulis Hrach Yagan –
Standard (Belgium) Edgar Malalyan – Pyunik Henrik Mkhitaryan –
Metallurg Forwards: Yeghia Yavuryan – Makkabi (Tel-Aviv, Israel)
Markos Pizelli – Pyunik Hovhannes Goharyan – Bate (Belarus).

Balakian: Remembering Hrant Dink

lakian-remembering-hrant-dink/?ec3_listing=posts
B y Contributor – on August 8, 2009

The article below is based on a speech delivered by Prof. Peter
Balakian during a panel discussion on the legacy of Hrant Dink held at
MIT on Feb. 1, 2009.

George Santayana, the philosopher who taught at Harvard for decades,
wrote, `Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it.’ It seems like an axiomatic enough assertion, yet what happens to
those who don’t know history, who have been locked out of history, for
whom the past is a manipulated narrative constructed by the state? The
idea of repeating a past you don’t know is fraught with another kind
of tragedy.

It’s a kind of blind legacy that one might see in various cultures,
but one that we see in Turkish society that hasn’t been allowed to
know its history, in particular its dark histories of which the
Armenian Genocide of 1915 is one. Blind history will beget a blind and
violent present.

Hrant Dink’s assassination in broad daylight, carried out by Turkish
nationalists, is one manifestation of blind history. Dink was a man of
unusual courage, and dedication to the complex process of creating a
ground upon which Turks could come together with Armenians in order to
know the true history of 1915. Hrant forged complicated roads and
narrow alleyways to make this journey; he spoke openly in a country
where to speak openly is done at great risk and to speak openly as any
minority, an Armenian, a Kurd, is done at even greater risk.

Hrant was an Armenian citizen of Istanbul who was writing and speaking
about the Armenian Genocide openly in Turkey. He was inhabiting a
delicate civic space in Turkey’s complex society. In one of his final
essays, he told us he felt like a pigeon – at once vulnerable, yet
free, he so hoped. But he was gunned down, apparently by the Deep
State, by forces of repression and violence against free expression
and thought, having been demonized and made a pariah by Article 301 of
Turkey’s penal code.
***
Stephan Deadalus, in Joyce’s `Ulysseus,’ says: `History is a nightmare
from which I am trying to awake.’ It’s a phrase that hits any Armenian
in vulnerable places. It’s a notion that is embedded in the traumatic
life of the legacy of genocide. For Armenians, whether of the diaspora
or the Republic, that legacy remains poisoned by ongoing Turkish state
denial. The assassination of Hrant Dink is in some way emblematic of
that nightmare.

Hrant’s murder resonated with Armenians for many reasons, but not
least because it evoked the murder of thousands of intellectuals and
cultural leaders in 1915. There was a genocidal taint to his
assassination in broad daylight in downtown Istanbul. It reenacted our
history.

The killing of Armenian intellectuals and cultural leaders goes back
well into the 19th century and before, but it was this killing of
intellectuals on April 24 that marked the beginning of the genocidal
process in 1915.

In the end, thousands of Armenian cultural leaders and intellectuals
were killed by Turkey’s Ittihad government. In the end, more than
5,000 churches, monasteries, and schools were destroyed. In the end, a
civilization, not only its people but its many layers of history and
culture, which had evolved for 3,000 years, was gone. In the wake of
this, it is not surprising that Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish
legal scholar who invented the concept of genocide as a crime in
international law, relied quite heavily on the Armenian case in
developing the concept of genocide. It was Lemkin who first used the
term `genocide’ in relation to the Armenians on U.S. national TV, on
Feb. 13, 1949.

So affected by the Armenian Genocide was Lemkin, that he noted as the
UN Genocide Convention was being ratified: `…A bold plan was
formulated in my mind. This consisted [of] obtaining the ratification
by Turkey [of the proposed UN Convention on Genocide] among the first
twenty founding nations. This would be an atonement for genocide of
the Armenians.’
***
Hrant Dink’s death opened up positive forces in the democracy movement
in Turkey; in this sense he was a martyr for democracy. His death
forced an inquiry into intellectual freedom in Turkey and into the
Armenian past.

For me, Hrant’s legacy is emblematic of a new climate of
Armenian-Turkish intellectual dialogue and colleagueship and
friendship. Where once there was a black hole of abstraction about
Turkey for many of us, now there is a more visible and complex
world. In the past decade, Turkish intellectuals and others have made
great inroads that are now visible to us and have given us a deeper
understanding of Turkey as a place of many layers and nuances, a place
not simply defined by ultra-nationalism and Deep State forces.
Armenians need to embrace the new sense of complexity they have given
us – of our shared history, of our shared humanity, of the
understanding that there is no future in denying the past. Our Turkish
friends are vital to our sense of a future.

I feel it is also important for Turks and Armenians to de-ethnicize
the Armenian past. The idea that this is a debate between two cultures
is wrong and ahistorical. It is not `Armenians say’ and then `Turks
say.’ The genocide is a fact of modern history, and here, there is an
important place for the international scholarly community. Rather than
defending or rejecting a particular national narrative, scholars are
able to see the anatomy of such events in a comparative context across
a global expanse. They are able to show us that the Armenian Genocide
is part of a human history that involves many perpetrators and many
victims. Turkey is not alone in its crimes against humanity; most
countries have built themselves from violence done to other ethnic
groups and peoples.

It seems as if there has never been a more open moment for bonds to be
forged between Turks and Armenians on the issue that haunts both their
cultures. Hrant Dink was concerned that pressure on Turkey from the
outside world would backfire or endanger the lives of people inside
Turkey, and his perspective I respect deeply; he paid the highest
price for it. And yet, I think he was wrong here. While his fears were
a genuine response to the mechanisms of terror and repression inside
Turkey, the fact remains that the process of education about the
history of the Armenian Genocide is an inexorable force, and a litmus
test of intellectual freedom and democracy for Turkey. The process of
education can’t be stopped, or controlled, by any entity. It is part
of world knowledge. We cannot allow the accepted history of the
Armenian Genocide to be falsified by the blackmail and threats of the
Turkish state. And the Turkish state will have to come to accept that
the moral reality of the Armenian Genocide is not controversia
l anywhere else in the world but in Turkey. And, even there, the taboo
is crumbling.

In this new era, Armenians I hope will find ways of joining hands with
their new Turkish colleagues and friends to work for change – in
whatever ways – in creative ways and pragmatic ways. Not rigid,
ideological, or romantic. There are new openings in this landscape and
there are new pitfalls and fears. There is anger, frustration, and
paranoia among Armenians after decades of Turkish state violence,
denial, and continued racism. There are threats of violence against
progressive Turks from the new wave of Turkish ultra-nationalists; and
there are many people inside Turkey asking for broad, democratic
change, so that religious and ethnic minorities can achieve equality,
and intellectual freedom and free speech can be realized. Two years
ago, more than a hundred students at Bogazici University in Istanbul
staged a protest with the slogan `against the darkness,’ and they
chanted Hrant Dink’s name and their solidarity with Armenians. These
are the forces that Armenians want to join with and work with in
pursuit of an open and free society in Turkey.

Peter Balakian is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the
Humanities at Colgate University and the author of many books
including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s
Response, winner of the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize.

RA MFA received Matthew Bryza

armradio.am
08.08.2009 16:38

Today RA Foreign Affairs Minister Edward Nalbandyan received OSCE Minsk
Group American Co-Chair Matthew Bryza.

The last developments of negotiations for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement were discussed during the meeting.

The interlocutors also discussed wide-ranging issues related to the
Armenian-American relations, etc.

news.am, Armenia
Aug 8 2009

Novruz Mamedov: South Caucasus conflicts result of superpowers’
competing interests

19:12 / 08/08/2009It is the competing interests of the leading world
powers that caused long-lasting conflicts in the region, Novruz
Mamedov, Head of the International Relations Department, Azerbaijani
presidential administration, stated today. According to him, the
world’s leading powers wish peace for the region in their own
interests, `but, unfortunately, it is the states’ interests that
caused long-lasting conflicts in the region as well.’

He pointed out the sides’ specific approaches to the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. `Azerbaijan aims its efforts to reconcile
the interests for the problem to be resolved in our country’s national
interests,’ Mamedov said.

He pointed out the importance of RF Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s
statements on the Nagorno-Karabakh problem made in Ankara. `This
indicates that Russia is for the settlement of conflicts in the
Caucasus,’ Mamedov said. According to him, the world’s leading states
have focused their attention on the South Caucasus due to its
geostrategic location. Conflicts affect the cooperation with the
countries’ of the region, which is the reason for Russia’s being for
the settlement of the Caucasian conflicts, Mamedov said.