Category: News

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will meet with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in early June.

The Minister announced the plans at the National Assembly.

The City of Geneva has authorized the construction of the “Lanterns of Memory” in the Trembley Park, reports.

Although the project was born a decade ago, the Armenian community received the permission to install the street lights in memory of the Armenian Genocide last week.

However, the fight is not yet over. Lawyer and SVP National Councilor Yves Nidegger has confirmed he will file an appeal against the authorization of the project at the request of 14 residents opposed to the construction works.

“The Trembley Park is a green area. Therefore, nothing can be built there, except possibly public interest facilities directly related to the use of the said area. This is not the case here since the applicant is a private association, pursuing private interests,” the lawyer says. The lawyer also highlights the scale of the project. “There are nine monumental candelabra nine meters high and ten meters in diameter. The impact on the park is huge and will change its character.”

Commenting on the decision, project coordinator Stefan Kristensen said he was “confident in the success of the process. This is an important step and we’re very satisfied.” He’s convinced that the motives behind the opposition to the project are primarily political. “It is painful and shocking to see people here to side with the deniers,” he said.

The course of the work was fraught with difficulties. Back in 2014 the Swiss Foreign Ministry recommended not erecting an Armenian genocide memorial in Ariana Park as originally planned.

A deal has been agreed for Jose Mourinho to become Manchester United’s new manager, after three days of talks, the BBC reports.

Negotiations between Mourinho’s agent Jorge Mendes and senior United officials have concluded, although no contract has been signed.

An official announcement from the club is expected on Friday.

The Portuguese will replace Dutchman Louis van Gaal, who was sacked on Monday, two days after United won the FA Cup.

Private of the NKR Defense Army Vahe Argam Yeghoyan, born in 1997, was fatally wounded under unknown circumstances at one of the military units located in the northern direction of the NKR Defense Ministry at about 18:20, May 25.

Probe into the details of the incident is under way, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.

 

 

 

No document will be signed during a new round of talks on Karabakh in June, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said during the discussions on the 2015 budget execution at the National Assembly.

“The agreements reached in Vienna refer to creation of an investigation mechanism, enlargement of the Office of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, and exclusion of new war,” Minister Nalbandian said.

“At this point we’re working to resume the negotiations. The Minsk Group Co-Chairs will hold separate meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. During the meetings we’ll probably continue discussions on the agreements reached in Vienna,” the Minister said.

He added, however, that speaking about the signing of any document is untimely and senseless.

Minister Nalbandian said that the development and conclusion of any deal will be impossible without the participation of Nagorno Karabakh. He noted that Armenia always raises the issue of Artsakh’s involvement in the talks and the matter is included in all working documents that have been discussed up until now.

As for the agreement on mutual military assistance between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, Edward Nalbandian said “the steps in that direction have not been clarified. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been tasked with preparing the document, but the next steps will depend on the future developments,” he said.

Throughout his career in the NBA, Steve Kerr has achieved great success winning five NBA titles as a player and one as a head coach. But tucked behind all of the glory Kerr has achieved on the hardwood is his grandparents’ incredible story providing relief in the Middle East for Armenians during the first genocide of the 20th century.

Kerr’s grandparents, Stanley and Elsa, settled in the Middle East in the 1920s and established the Near East Relief, which helped provide aid to Armenian women and children trying to escape marauding officials in the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Uproxx reveals. They also established an orphanage for Armenian children.

The Kerrs were on the frontline of American relief after World War I. Stanley Kerr arrived in Aleppo in 1919 and began photographing, documenting, and rescuing Armenian women and orphans. He then transferred to Marash to take charge of an American mission. His memoir, The Lions of Marash, is set at this location and describes how the armies of Mustafa Kemal eradicated the Armenians from the new Turkish republic.

Private American charity reached the Armenians first. In response to the massacre of over 1.5 million Armenians, philanthropist Cleveland Dodge formed the Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. Former president Theodore Roosevelt advocated intervention, saying, “All Americans worthy of the name feel their deepest indignation aroused by the dreadful Armenian atrocities[a].”

As a junior at Occidental College, Ann left to study abroad in Lebanon. Three days a week, she taught at a Catholic Armenian girls’ school — the Immaculate Conception. She met Malcolm at AUB while he completed his Master’s, and they were soon married in Santa Monica in 1956. Today, Ann continues her work with Fulbright to engage the Middle East with American higher education.

On February 10, 1920, the French garrison at Marash withdrew abruptly, and thus abandoned more than 20,000 Armenians to the marauding insurgents of Mustafa Kemal. The Turks threw kerosene-doused rags on Armenian homes, and churches were put to flame. Sickened missionaries like Stanley Kerr could only observe helplessly through binoculars[b].

The “Marash Affair” gave rise to an irreversible tide that swept Kemal to power; for the Armenians of Cilicia, it marked the onset of a new round of devastation and the final exodus from their ancestral homeland into permanent exile.

Unlike Armenians in Beirut, Steve Kerr was not raised on stories of genocide, but he was aware of his forefather’s humanity in the face of atrocity. “I was aware of my grandparents running an orphanage in Marash and eventually finding Beirut through their travels,” Kerr says. “I have a great deal of pride in knowing how much they helped.”

Susan van de Ven, the daughter of Ann and Malcolm, has an exchange of letters with her grandparents about their experiences, which she used for her thesis at Oberlin College, and later presented at the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 1986 for the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Her grandmother, Elsa Reckman, volunteered as a schoolteacher in Constantinople, and later met Stanley Kerr while working in Marash.

Elsa and Stanley ran an orphanage for Armenian children in Lebanon in the 1920s after leaving Marash until an outbreak of typhoid forced the orphanage to close. Elsa lost an unborn child when she contracted typhoid. They eventually married in Beirut in 1922, and Stanley became the chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at AUB, while Elsa served as dean of women. Following 40 years of faculty service, they retired in 1965.

The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, later known as the Near East Relief, is credited with helping preserve the Armenians in the face of the genocide that sought to destroy them. They pioneered the idea that all Americans, regardless of age, income or background, could help others.

The Near East Relief campaign raised a staggering $19.5 million from private donations by 1919, and $117 million by 1930 — over $1.6 billion today when adjusted for inflation[c].

Despite the monumental efforts of the Near East Relief, the Armenian Genocide is not recognized by the United States.

“Everybody learns about the Jewish Holocaust, but very few know about the Armenian Genocide,” Kerr says solemnly. “It’s not taught in schools, and obviously there are still the political issues of whether Turkey is willing to use the word ‘genocide.’”

After Game 3 of the first round of the 2015 NBA Playoffs last April, Dr. Douglas Kerr, Malcolm’s younger brother, gave a presentation in Cleveland entitled “Witnessing the Genocide,” based on Stanley’s book. In May, after Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, several members of the Kerr family received a posthumous award in Washington, D.C. on behalf of Elsa and Stanley during a national commemoration of the centennial of the genocide.

In 1965, Antranig Chalabian uncovered a box at AUB containing Stanley’s copies of The New York Times, which eventually inspired Stanley to write his memoir. “Lots of Armenian names in my family history,” Kerr says before retelling when family friend, Vahe Simonian, called him and broke the news of his father’s assassination.

“We’ve had so many Armenians at our house over the years. I felt like an honorary member of the Armenian community through my family.”

Donald Trump on Thursday reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination for president, completing an unlikely rise that has upended the political landscape and sets the stage for a bitter fall campaign, the Associated Press reports.

Trump was put over the top in the Associated Press delegate count by a small number of the party’s unbound delegates who told the AP they would support him at the convention. Among them is Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard.

“I think he has touched a part of our electorate that doesn’t like where our country is,” Pollard said. “I have no problem supporting Mr. Trump.”

It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president. Trump has reached 1,238. With 303 delegates at stake in five state primaries on June 7, Trump will easily pad his total, avoiding a contested convention in Cleveland in July.

 

Thee Armenian American Museum may receive $5 million in state funds to help pay for its construction on a potential downtown Glendale, The Los Angeles Times reports.

State Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian appropriated state general fund money for the project in the upcoming budget, which still needs legislative approval and Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature by mid-June.

The museum’s foundation in 2014 first pitched its proposal for a 30,000-square-foot museum to house artworks by Armenians and artists from other cultures.

Nazarian said he’s followed the project since then and understands its potential.

“Something like this museum can play a common denominator for furthering intercultural relations,” he said in a phone interview.

The museum’s representatives and the city were initially looking to build on a 1.7-acre lot across from Glendale Community College, but an outpouring of concerns about traffic from nearby residents compelled City Council members to recommend changing the location.

In February, the council directed members of the museum foundation to examine building the project at Central Park in downtown Glendale, adjacent to the Glendale Central Library, the Adult Recreation Center and the newly opened Museum of Neon Art.

Council members felt a downtown location would be better suited for foot traffic. Nazarian said it was the decision to relocate that was the final push for him to get involved.

“I think the fact it’s in downtown, it’s a much better location for integrating the museum into the fabric of Glendale itself as well as for tourism or closer access to long-existing transportation lines,” he said.

Nazarian said he’s been in talks with museum officials, who requested the $5 million. That money will be earmarked for construction only; ongoing operational costs would have to be covered through fundraising and donations, he added.

To that end, Berdj Karapetian, chairman of the museum’s development committee, expressed his gratitude toward the assemblyman and other state legislators.

“We look forward to working with leaders from the California State Legislature to help make our vision for the Armenian American Museum a reality in the city of Glendale and build an educational center that will serve local residents and visitors from throughout our great state of California,” Karapetian said in an email.

Despite the state funding, construction costs will likely surpass $5 million, said Tigranna Zakaryan, spokeswoman for the museum.

And Nazarian’s appropriation likely won’t speed up the construction process either, she added.

Museum officials still need to secure a ground lease for Central Park — something Zakaryan hopes can be achieved by this fall. There also needs to be an environmental review and economic feasibility study conducted, she said.

Once open, the museum will house permanent and traveling exhibitions.

Recently, museum officials helped with an exhibit titled “Armenia: An Open Wound” at the Brand Library & Art Center that will be on display through June 11.

Within the framework of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund Board of Trustees’ annual meeting in Yerevan, a delegation led by the representatives of the fund’s Executive Board and comprising trustees, representatives of affiliates worldwide, and benefactors, began a string of project-site visits and opening ceremonies of newly completed projects in Armenia.

On May 25, the delegation visited the Nalbandyan village school (Armavir Region), which has been undergoing a comprehensive refurbishment with the financial support of Mr. and Mrs. Armen and Berjouhi Nalbandian of Toronto. The renovations of the 3,200-square-meter campus include a complete makeover of the two classroom buildings and the administrative wing, as well as the construction of a gym, currently underway. The project is slated to be finished in September 2016, when the school’s 600 students will be welcomed to an essentially brand-new campus featuring new furniture and equipment.

Also on May 25, the delegation visited the Mesrop Mashtots School of Oshakan, a village in Armenian’s Aragatsotn Region. The main building of the school has been transformed into a state-of-the-art learning environment, featuring all modern amenities, thanks to the co-sponsorship of the French-Armenian community and the City of Alfortville, France. Moreover, as sister communities, Alfortville and Oshakan have instituted student-exchange programs, which in turn are contributing to the school’s quality of education.

On May 26, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund delegation visited Yerevan’s Tchaikovsky Music School, which is being completely renovated through the financial support of USA Eastern Region affiliate. The delegation got a first-hand look at the large-scale modernization project, which includes seismic retrofitting; an extensive structural redesign; and a fully renovated auditorium, complete with a new stage and amenities for performers and audiences; as well as a newly built elevator and wheelchair ramps. As importantly, the school now features fully appointed rehearsal rooms for its symphony orchestra, string quartet, brass band, choir, and jazz ensemble. Thanks to the refurbishment, the Tchaikovsky Music School, whose graduates in the course of its almost 80-year history include many of the giants of Armenian music, is being transformed into a world-class conservatory.

PHOTO: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

 

The price of oil has gone above $50 a barrel for the first time in 2016 as supply disruptions and increased global demand continue to fuel a recovery, the BBC reports.

The benchmark Brent crude price hit $50.07 a barrel in Asian trade.

The rise followed US data on Thursday showing that oil inventories had fallen, largely due to supply disruptions following fires in Canada.

Brent crude has now risen 80% since it hit 13-year lows of below $28 a barrel at the start of the year.