Author: Zaminian Bedik

Fresno Bee (California)
June 11, 2008 Wednesday
CHASE EDITION

Case of Bullard student highlights the flaws in U.S. immigration policy

High school students such as Arthur Mkoyan are assets to this
country. He came to Fresno as a 2-year-old from Armenia and graduated
Tuesday from Bullard High School as valedictorian. He has been
accepted to the University of California, Davis, where he would like
to major in chemistry.

But there’s a catch. He’s about to be deported to Armenia, a country
he doesn’t know and whose language he hardly speaks.

Mkoyan is among about 25,000 students a year who graduate from
California high schools (65,000 nationally) in a similar situation:
They were brought here by their parents and have grown up here, but
they are prevented from a path to citizenship.

Mkoyan’s parents fled the old Soviet Union, but their appeals for
asylum ran out this year. Arthur’s father is being held at a detention
center in Arizona; his mother was released to care for the
children. Arthur’s U.S.-born brother, now 12 years old, is a
U.S. citizen.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill Tuesday to allow Arthur and
his immediate family to stay in the United States. The bill will
effectively suspend the deportation proceedings until Congress makes a
decision on the legislation.

But this is not just a private matter. This case shows why
U.S. immigration policy needs a fix.

Last year, Congress nearly passed the DREAM Act, which would have
given temporary legal status to kids who arrived in the United States
before age 16, have lived here for five years, graduated from a
U.S. high school and have no criminal record.

The bargain is that if they go to college or join the U.S. military,
they can get green cards within six years — putting them on a path to
citizenship.

But a filibuster killed it. Presidential candidates Sens. John McCain
of Arizona and Barack Obama of Illinois should revive that
bill. McCain originally was a co-sponsor. Obama, a supporter, said he
would "fight to bring this legislation back for another vote as soon
as possible."

Now is the time. Students such as Mkoyan have been trained here and
brought up as Americans. We should do everything we can to tap their
talents for the United States.

PanARMENIAN.Net

U.S: most influential countries in Karabakh process
are the conflicting parties
14.06.2008 14:22 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Public affairs officer at the U.S.
embassy in Azerbaijan, Mr Jonathan Henick said he sees
no alternative to a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict.

Status-quo was not to the advantage of Azerbaijan,
according to him.

-War may be a tragedy for the sides. That’s why we
should work for a peaceful settlement of the conflict
and will see the effect of our endeavors,- he said.

Settlement of the conflict depends on the level of
mutual confidence between the sides. Mediation of
influential countries having interests in the region
may help increase the level of confidence between the
sides. However, I think neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia
will accept peacekeeping forces from Turkey and Russia
only. The co-chair countries bring opportunities to
mobilize the international community. It is necessary
for humanitarian assistance, for organization of
peacekeeping forces, etc. Certainly, the most
influential countries in this process are the
conflicting parties,- Mr Henick said, the Azeri Press
Agency reports.

2009 WORLD YOUTH BOXING CHAMPIONSHIP TO BE HELD IN ARMENIA

armradio.am
12.06.2008 13:13

The 2009 World Youth Boxing Championship will be held in Yerevan,
President of the International Amateur Boxing Association Ching-Kuo
Wu informed Armenpress.

Ching-Kuo Wu is in Armenia for an official visit.

"1-12" SPECIAL RESCUE SERVICE TO BE CREATED IN ARMENIA

NOYAN TAPAN
June 11, 2008

The "1-12" special rescue service is planned to be created
in Armenia. As Mher Shahgeldian, the RA Minister of Emergency
Situations, mentioned at the press conference, which was held on
June 10, at present, a rescue service is functioning in the republic
with the "1-01" telephone number, which responds to rescue and fire
extinguishing calls.

According to him, the "1-01" project is envisaged to be expanded,
which will enable, in case of necessity, to do complex services. In
his words, the service to be created will be ready to show necessary
help to the population at any moment.

In the words of Mher Shahgeldian, the world experience shows that in
case of disasters the injured are shown first aid by those beside
them. "Our citizens should be ready for it, have corresponding
knowledge, skills and capacities," the Minister said, adding that
steps have already been taken in that direction.

Touching upon the security problem of people in the water objects
of the republic in summer, in the lake Sevan, in particular, Mher
Shahgeldian mentioned that water rescuers already have a high level
of preparedness. In addition to this, according to the Minister,
Armenia will soon be provided with technical assistance in the form
of boats, diver clothes, to name but a few, within the frameworks of
the international cooperation.

ARMENIAN SCHOOL CHILDREN HAVE SUCCESS IN REGENTNER

Panorama.am
21:57 04/06/2008

It is the third year more than 30 Armenian school children of 14 years
old study in Regentner School in Thailand in the frameworks of school
children exchange project, said Bagrat Esayan, the deputy minister of
education and science. "After finishing the school the pupils have
chance to enter European universities," he said. According to him
the graduates receive proposals from Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, etc.

The director of the school Techavichi Virachay was present at the
press conference. "School children become even colleagues after
finishing the school.

This is not just an institution where they study, it gives them to
gain new skills and knowledge," said the director.

Armenian schoolchildren have serious success in the school, said the
director and added that they get "4" and "5" marks.

The school is authorized by United Kingdom WAS Ofsted department. In
the end of school course IGCSE, IB and A qualifications are given to
the graduates.

PRESS RELEASE
Haigazian University
Mira Yardemian Public Relations Director
Mexique Street, Kantari, Beirut
P.O.Box. 11-1748
Riad El Solh 1107 2090
Tel: 01-353010/1/2
01-349230/1

Haigazian University receives a USD700,000 grant from USAID

Beirut, 06/06/2008- On Thursday the 5th of June, U.S. Charge d’Affaires
Michele J. Sison presented a check of USD700,000/- to Haigazian
University President, Rev. Dr. Paul Haidostian, to finance scholarships
for deserving students. This funding provided by the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID), will support needy
undergraduate students, in addition to establishing a new fund for the
graduate studies program.

Ambassador Sison, accompanied with USAID Director, Raouf Youssef met
with a number of students, faculty and administrators.

"One of the United States core values is education, and Haigazian
University has grown in size and academic offerings, becoming the place
of world class education, right in the heart of Beirut", noted Sison.

Sison considered that the educational funds allow students from
throughout Lebanon to study and contribute to the continuous development
of Lebanon. "Our support to Haigazian University, assists students as
they make Lebanon, the region and the world a better place", Her
Excellence commented.

With a feeling of fulfillment, President Haidostian thanked the
delegation, and considered this event as a historic celebration of
partnership between Haigazian University and the USAID.

"Partnerships are usually not accidental. Good partnerships are based on
values that transcend the instant situations. They point to a quality of
relationship, a meeting of a developmental outlook, and a plan to match
needs and resources," Haidostian noted.

Haidostian also stressed the nature of the donation, highlighting the
motto of the USAID "From the American People" saying, "even though
leaders of countries, organizations, and universities plan, manage, and
implement various types of support, the long term impact is created when
people help people."

Haidostian shared the example of Elizabeth Webb, an American
congregational missionary, whose house on the University’s street became
a 10-room-college named Haigazian in 1955. He also gave tribute to such
families as the Mehagians and the Philibosians, who, following the
unimaginable hardships of the Armenian Genocide, became part of the
American social and cultural fabric, and turned a history of disaster
into a story of service, thus becoming instrumental in establishing
Haigazian University.

"I cannot help but see today’s support for our students and university
through USAID as a continuation of the same benevolence and culture of
reaching out to others on their journey of development", Haidostian
concluded.

The delegation enjoyed a tour in the Barsoumian Library, followed by a
reception.

Following this occasion, President Haidostian noted with thanks the
ongoing and direct support of major organizations such as the AMAA, the
Philibosian Foundation, The Haigazian University Women’s Auxiliary, the
WCM, as well as the generous financial aid to students provided annually
by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian
Fund, the Robert Boghossian and Sons Foundation, and the Marash
Patriotic Union, and others. He further called upon all to join
Haigazian’s drive for excellence in education and service.

LERNIK GALAYAN WAS DISMISSED

KarabakhOpen
03-06-2008 12:10:58

On June 2 Prime Minister Ara Harutiunyan signed the order to release
Lernik Galayan from the duties of the NKR Government Committee of
Sport. Lernik Galayan was replaced by Razmik Osipyan, the department
of information and public relations of the NKR government reports.

LYING ABOUT HISTORY
By Mark Potok

Intelligence Report
article.jsp?aid=933
June 3 2008
AL

Ten days before the 1939 invasion of Poland that launched World War
II, Adolf Hitler reassured a conference of Nazi military leaders that
even the complete destruction of the Polish people would not tar the
Third Reich for long.

"Genghis Kahn led millions of women and children to slaughter —
with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the
founder of a state," the fuhrer told his men. And "[w]ho, after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Who, indeed?

Not the Turkish government, which denies a plethora of evidence and
eyewitness accounts that show that as many as 1.5 million Armenians
were the victims of a genocide orchestrated by leaders of the Ottoman
Empire between 1915 and 1918. On the contrary, defying the weight
of modern scholarship, Turkey regularly prosecutes intellectuals who
suggest there was a genocide.

And not the likes of Guenter Lewy, a right-wing professor emeritus
at the University of Massachusetts who told a Harvard University
audience this March that the Young Turk government of the time may
have been guilty of "corruption" and "bungling misrule" — but not
genocide. Lewy has made a career out of justifying American conduct
in Vietnam and toward American Indians. As recounted in this issue of
the Intelligence Report, he, along with a network of other prominent
American academics, is working now to revise Turkish history, too.

Despite the efforts of people like Lewy — many of them funded by the
Turkish government — the facts of the Armenian genocide are quite
well known. The ruling party of the day massacred intellectuals, forced
hundreds of thousands of Armenians into what amounted to death marches,
and systematically despoiled the victims of their property. Professor
Raphael Lemkin coined the word "genocide" in 1943 with the Armenian
slaughter in mind. In 2005, the International Association of Genocide
Scholars wrote the Turkish foreign minister to remind him that the
massacre of Christian Armenians was indeed "a systematic genocide."

The claims of the Turkish government and the scholars who seem bent
on supporting it are enough to make one ill. But they are not without
company.

Almost from the day World War II ended, Nazi sympathizers began working
to write the history of the Holocaust out of the cataclysm — to deny
the existence of the gas chambers, of the Einsatzgruppen that shot
hundreds of thousands of Jews to death, of any knowledge of the mass
murder by Hitler. Yes, there was corruption, even "bungling misrule,"
but Hitler, they say, never planned a genocide.

Similarly, almost immediately after the American Civil War concluded in
1865, Alexander Stephens, former vice president of the Confederacy,
wrote a history that elided slavery as the primary cause of the
conflict, substituting in its place noble Southern attempts to
preserve Christianity and the Constitution. In the 140-plus years
since, literally hundreds of racist writers have parroted those claims;
today, many neo-Confederates will even argue slavery was a good thing
for Africans.

Aside from blind, brute nationalistic pride, what is the point of
all this lying about history? Emory University Jewish and Holocaust
Studies Professor Deborah Lipstadt put it well in her 1993 book Denying
the Holocaust: "Denial aims to reshape history to rehabilitate the
persecutors and demonize the victims."

That is true across the board. Some semi-official Turkish narratives
now claim, in effect, that the Armenians actually carried out genocidal
attacks on the Turks. Neo-Nazis and their scholarly enablers say that
"the Jews" manufactured tall tales of the Holocaust in order to extort
money and other concessions from postwar Germany. Neo-Confederates
like Doug Wilson, a far-right pastor in Moscow, Idaho, tell their
listeners with a straight face that the Civil War was nothing less
than a defense of righteous Christian civilization and that blacks
really didn’t mind slavery.

These lies all serve current agendas — to demonize and minimize the
historical claims of Armenians, Jews, and African Americans. That
is why, at the end of her book, Lipstadt called on scholars to act:
"We must do so in order to expose falsehood and hate. We will remain
ever vigilant so that the most precious tools of our trade and our
society — truth and reason — can prevail. The still, small voices of
millions cry out to us from the ground demanding that we do no less."

Intelligence Report Wins Award This April, the Intelligence Report was
honored with a "special recognition" award for its 2007 reporting by
the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The award, presented in
a televised ceremony held in Hollywood, Fla., said the Report’s work
"reinforces the reality that no one is equal until we are all equal."

BULLARD HIGH VALEDICTORIAN FACING DEPORTATION

CBS 47
June 3 2008
CA

He’s graduating at the top of his class, but a Fresno honor student
is facing deportation.

Arthur Mkoyan is a valedictorian at Bullard High School. He’s just a
week away from graduation but he may have to head to Armenia instead
of college.

17-year-old Arthur Mkoyan is a straight ‘A’ student, caught in a
bureaucratic and legal mess that is threatening to force him out of
the country where he grew up.

He’s preparing to graduate from Bullard High School, where he has
achieved a 4.0 grade point average.

Fellow students at Bullard High don’t think he should be forced to
leave this country.

Arthur’s family has been seeking political asylum here since they
fled the old Soviet Union in 1992 but the US government told them
there is not enough evidence to grant asylum; no proof that they’d
be persecuted if they returned.

Students at Bullard think the rules should be changed for a person
who works so hard to succeed.

Arthur is being allowed to go through graduation ceremonies and
receive his diploma, and ten days later he is scheduled to be deported.

His principal said the school is proud of what he’s done and they’re
honored to have him as a graduate.

Congressman George Radanovich is now getting involved in the case to
see if there is a way to help keep Arthur and his family in America.

THE OSCE/ODIHR ASSESSMENT

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on May 31, 2008
Armenia

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has
published its final report on the Presidential elections in Armenia.

According to the report, the pre-election stage and the voting were
mostly in line with the commitments to the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe; however, there emerged certain problems,
especially after the voting. `Although the 2008 presidential elections
were mostly in line with the OSCE commitments and the international
standards in the pre-election period and during the voting, there did
emerge serious challenges in relation to certain commitments,
especially after the voting day.’

It is particularly mentioned that the tabulation of the votes was not
sufficiently transparent, and the process of appealing against the
results was not fully effective.

The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights conducted the
monitoring of the February elections with the participation of 44
long-term and 250 short-term observers from the OSCE Member States. The
report evaluates the electoral processes from the angle of compliance
with the OSCE commitments, the international standards and the national
legislation.

`There are substantial legal basis for holding democratic elections in
Armenia. The flaws specified in our report result from the lack of
determination of applying the laws in an effective and impartial
manner,’ ODIHR Director Christian Shtrohal mentioned.

The report contains concrete proposals aimed at reforming the electoral
system in Armenia.