Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
Sept 23 2005

Concert review: System of a Down is strong upper
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune
September 24, 2005 SYSTEM0924

Most concerts have an energy level that ebbs and flows as much as a
Twins season, but not Friday night’s performance by political
neo-thrashers System of a Down at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
This one was like a marathon run at a sprinter’s pace.

You had to be 16 and high-strung to stay up to the energy level of
the 90-minute show by the Ozzfest veterans. Fortunately, most of the
10,146 fans fit that description.

The security guards who were down in front of the stage were the
hardest-working guys in town Friday night. Throughout the show, they
handled a constant flow of sweaty kids crowd-surfing over the stage
barrier, like salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

Following a solo intro of “Soldier Side” by guitarist Darion
Malakian, the concert erupted right away with SOAD’s current (and
most bombastic) single “B.Y.O.B.,” which was soon followed by the
topsy-turvy rockers “Revenga” and “Deer Dance.”

The show kept rolling at breakneck speed. By the time the band got to
its 2001 hit “Chop Suey” (a half-hour into the set), the pandemonium
stretched out into the center of the arena, where several mosh pits
broke out on the seat-less concrete floor.

Hardly just a testosterone-fueled thrash-metal band, System displayed
its many unique elements throughout the show. The stormy epic “War?”
hinted at the four members’ Armenian heritage with its moody guitar
bits and unusual tunings. The ironically brawny “Cigaro” hinted at
their sharp wit. And then there was their politics.

“They got us divided into blue and red states, but let’s make one
purple one,” Malakian said before “Sad Statue.” The song’s lyrics are
a little more poetic: “We’ll go down in history with a sad Statue
Liberty and a generation that didn’t agree.”

A week after Green Day had teenagers cursing the president at the
Xcel Center, System’s beady-eyed singer, Serj Tankian, had more of
them chanting the radical words to “Prison Song” and “Science.” That
the fans even still had the breath to sing along was the big
surprise.

Opening band the Mars Volta gave the young crowd a lesson in what too
many drugs and rock-star egotism did to ruin the ’70s. The band’s two
leaders seem so ashamed that they helped spawn emo-rock with the now
defunct At the Drive-In (actually a great band), they subjected the
crowd to 10- and 15-minute songs with no real structure and lots of
annoying saxophone outbursts, DJ static and wailing, insufferable
aria-like vocals. No thanks.

Reuters, UK
Sept 24 2005

Turk nationalists rally outside Armenian conference
Sat Sep 24, 2005 7:26 AM ET
By Jon Hemming

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Hundreds of Turkish nationalists chanting
slogans and waving flags protested on Saturday against a
controversial academic conference on the World War One massacre of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

The conference had been due to open on Friday at two universities in
Istanbul but a last-minute court order blocked it, causing acute
embarrassment to the Turkish government just days before the start of
its European Union membership talks.

Organisers circumvented the court ban by moving the conference on
Saturday to a third university in the city.

“This conference is an insult to our republic and to the memory of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,” Erkal Onsel, head of the Istanbul branch of
the leftwing but nationalist Workers’ Party, told protesters gathered
outside the private Bilgi University.

Ataturk is the revered founder of the modern Turkish Republic on the
ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

The demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Treason will not go
unpunished” and “This is Turkey, love it or leave it”.

The issue of the Armenian massacres is highly sensitive in Turkey.
Armenia and its supporters around the world say some 1.5 million
Armenians perished in a systematic genocide committed by Ottoman
Turkish forces between 1915 and 1923.

Ankara accepts many Armenians were killed on Turkish soil during and
after World War One, but says they were victims of a partisan
conflict that claimed even more Turkish Muslim lives as the Ottoman
Empire was collapsing. It denies any genocide.

But in a bid to defuse the issue, the government has opened up
Turkey’s archives to scholars, saying it has nothing to hide, and has
urged Armenia and other nations to do likewise.

The academic conference was originally scheduled for May but was
canceled after Justice Minister Cemil Cicek accused those backing the
genocide claims of “stabbing Turkey in the back”.

This time, with a nervous eye on Brussels as the clock ticks toward
the start of its long-delayed EU entry talks on October 3, the
government has strongly backed the conference.

The court banning order, announced on Thursday evening just before
the conference was due to start, drew swift condemnation from Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan as well as from the European Commission,
which spoke of a “provocation” by anti-EU elements.

“If we have confidence in our own beliefs, we should not fear freedom
of thought,” Erdogan told a separate gathering of academics in
Istanbul on Saturday.

“I want to live in a Turkey where all freedoms are guaranteed,” the
prime minister said.

Lawyers behind the original court ban condemned Bilgi University’s
decision on Saturday to host the event regardless.

“We will file a legal complaint against all of those people behind
this conference,” lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz told Reuters.

The court blocked the conference pending information on the
qualifications of the speakers and also wanted to know who was
participating and who was paying for it.

Despite a flurry of EU-inspired liberal reforms in recent years,
promoting certain interpretations of Turkish history can still be
deemed a criminal offence under the revised penal code.

The protesters said the organisers of the conference were not really
upholding freedom of speech.

“They don’t let us inside… they don’t give us a chance to put our
case. They forget those of the Turkish nation killed by Armenians,”
said Kemal Ermetin, who runs a nationalist magazine.

The protesters displayed photographs of what they said were Azeris
killed by Armenians in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh
during fighting in the early 1990s.

Turkey closed its border and cut diplomatic ties with tiny ex-Soviet
Armenia in 1993 to protest against Armenian occupation of
Nagorno-Karabakh, part of the territory of Azerbaijan, a regional
Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Kathimerini, Greece
Sept 24 2005

Misbehaving in the waiting room
The legal case against novelist Orhan Pamuk and the court decision
halting an academic conference dealing with the massacre of Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire (which will go ahead nevertheless),
organized by three Turkish universities, suggest that the Armenian
genocide is more than just a taboo in the neighboring country.

Pamuk’s prosecution and the conference ban are not isolated incidents
that can be attributed to the excessive zeal of specific judges.
Rather, they seem to fit a more systematic pattern. The Turkish
political establishment has a long tradition of using courts to lend
repression a veneer of legitimacy. Freedom of historical research is
one of the victims of this repression.

Interestingly, the freedom of expression violations took place on the
eve of Ankara’s talks with the European Union – and despite growing
skepticism over Turkish ambitions. In a clear sign of Ankara’s warped
mentality, the awkward juncture facing Turkey was not enough to stop
the establishment from provoking democratic sentiment on the
continent.

The question is how can a country like Turkey begin accession
negotiations in 10 days? Ankara went through many different stages
before making its way into the EU’s waiting room. It signed a customs
union agreement with Brussels, it won candidate status, and, at the
summit meeting last December, it finally got a date for the launching
of EU membership talks.

Even if we accept that Turkey’s cultural identity should not be an
obstacle to joining the European home, there are still doubts about
the extent to which it has met the formal conditions for membership.
Has Ankara really passed all the previous stages after fulfilling all
the necessary requirements? Not quite. The truth is that American
pressure made sure Brussels lowered the bar for Turkey when
necessary.

Now Europe has to pay the price. Many Europeans are shocked at the
consequences. The truth is that Ankara never tried to blanket its
human rights violations, its torture practices and its awkward policy
toward its neighbors. Never did Turkey try to hide its willingness to
join the EU on its own terms and not as a country that is seeking to
adapt to the norms and principles of European culture. This is
Europe’s problem, not Turkey’s.

PR Web (press release), WA
Sept 24 2005

Anouncing the Results of the 2005 Vakhtang Jordania International
Conducting Competition

Top Three Finishers From Armenia, Italy and the United States

New York, NY (PRWEB) September 24, 2005 — The Vakhtang Jordania
International Conducting Competition has announced the results of its
2005 competition held in Kharkov, Ukraine between August 29 and
September 4. This year’s competition featured 29 competitors from 16
countries around the world.

The jury did not award a Jordania Grand Prize, but did decide on two
William L. Montague, Jr. Second Prizes – Harutyun Arzumanyan of
Armenia and Matteo Pagliari of Italy. Third Prize was awarded to
Christopher Chen of the United States.

Mr. Arzumanyan is a graduate of the Yerevan State Conservatory as a
violinist and conductor. He founded the Armenian Chamber Orchestra
and has frequently conducted at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre
of Armenia. He was the first prizewinner of the 1999 National
Competition for conductors and was 3rd Prizewinner of the 8th
Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors in Katowice,
Poland.

Mr. Pagliari currently holds assistant conductor positions to both
Riccardo Frizza and Roberto Abbado. He has made many guest
appearances with opera companies and orchestras throughout Italy and
the United States. He holds a conducting degree from the
Conservatorio Arrigo Boito in Parma, Italy.

Mr. Chen is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and is currently
Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Opera. He is a frequent guest
conductor in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and Finland. He
was recently selected as one of eight conductors in the American
Symphony Orchestra League’s 2005 National Conductor preview.

As William L. Montague, Jr. Second Prizewinners, Mr. Arzumanyan and
Mr. Pagliari will receive concert engagements during the 2006-2007
concert season with orchestras in Ukraine, the U.S., and other
countries to be named.

Third Prizewinner Mr. Chen will receive a concert engagement during
the 2006-2007 concert season with an orchestra in Ukraine.

The Orchestra Favorite prize was awarded to Boguslav Kobierski of
Poland, who is the current conductor of the Etela-Karjala Sinfonietta
of Finland.

The Audience Favorite prize and a special distinction certificate was
awarded to Shigekazu Yonezaki of Japan, who is a regular guest
conductor of many orchestras in his country, including the New Japan
Philharmonic.

Jennifer Bailey of Australia was also a Third Round participant and
special distinction certificate awardee. She is the Conductor and
Director of the Orchestra at St. Mary Magdalen in Oxford, England.

Other participants in the competition included:
Kerim S. Anwar, a citizen of Canada who lives in the Czech Republic,
Rihards Buks of Latvia, Shawn Eugene Burke-Storer of the United
States, Timothy Dixon of the United States, Lawrence Golan of the
United States, Yasuhiko Ishige of Japan, Vladimir Kern of Russia,
Sergey Kiss of Russia, Maksim Kuzin of Ukraine, Sang-Hwan Lee of
South Korea who lives in Austria, Tai-Wai Li of Hong Kong, Christian
Lombardi of Germany, Octavio Mas Arocas of Spain, Paolo Paroni of
Italy, Georgi Patrikov of Bulgaria, Benjamin Rous of the United
States, Elior Sharivker of Israel, Yosyp Sozanskyy of Ukraine, Jin
Tanaka of Japan who lives in Wales, Yasutaka Tsuda of Japan,
Viatcheslav Valeev of Russia, Shin Watanabe of Japan and Alexander
Zverunov of Russia.

The competition jury was composed of Jooyong Ahn of the United
States, Yuri Alzhnev of Ukraine, Giorgi Jordania of Republic of
Georgia, Joan McNeill Murray of the United States, Jonathan Sternberg
of the United States and Yuri Suchkov of Moscow.

This year’s Third Round Contemporary Compositions selections were a
new orchestral work by Yuri Alznev, Christopher Kaufman’s Island,
Dana Paul Perna’s Bucks County Ballad and Judith Lang Zaimont’s
Stillness – Poem for Orchestra.

The 2005 Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition was a
great success, both artistically and as a means for continuing to
bring the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra
() to the rest of the
world. In addition to the lively competition, contestants also
participated in a series of Master Classes and special events and
enjoyed the opportunity to have individual and small group
instruction and interaction with jury and orchestra members. Also
important was the chance to meet and spend time with other conductors
from around the world. More about the competition at

Building on the great success of this year’s event, planning for an
expanded and even more international 2006 Vakhtang Jordania
International Conducting Competition has already begun.

The Scotsman, UK
Sept 24 2005

Turkey to debate Armenian massacre

A twice-cancelled conference on the massacre of Armenians in the late
Ottoman Empire has begun in Istanbul, a test of Turkey’s willingness
to allow an open discussion of its painful past.

The academic conference is apparently the first time that an
institution in the modern Turkish Republic, the successor state of
the empire and now European Union candidate, hosted an event in which
speakers will be permitted to argue that the fathers and grandfathers
of today’s Turkish citizens committed the first genocide of the 20th
century.

In their fiercely-opposed efforts to hold the conference – the
organisers were accused of “stabbing the people in the back” by the
justice minister in May and the conference was shut down by an
Istanbul court on Thursday – a group of academics became emblematic
of a country struggling to advance democracy and basic rights to free
expression.

Stating that Turks may have committed genocide against Armenians not
only opposes the state line and can lead to prosecution, but it
deeply offends a large percentage of the Turkish people, who see the
Ottoman Empire as a symbol of Turkish greatness and the war that
coincided with its collapse as a heroic struggle for national
independence.

An increasing number of governments recognise the massacres of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923 by Ottoman Turks as genocide, but the
Turkish government is adamantly opposed to the notion.

The resistance the scholars faced in holding the conference was
intense and came from many sides.

But the academics were insistent that they were not only examining
Turkish history, but were acting, as Halil Berktay, programme
co-ordinator of the history department at Sabanci University, said,
“for Turkish democracy, for freedom of speech, for academic freedom”.

The conference was ordered stopped by an Istanbul court on Thursday,
drawing criticism from the European Commission, whose spokeswoman
said “we strongly deplore this new attempt to prevent Turkish society
from freely discussing its history”.

The organisers skirted that court order by changing the venue from
Bogazici University to Istanbul Bilgi University.

EU observers have said they will note any developments as Turkey
heads toward membership negotiations on October 3.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Anatolian Times, Turkey
Sept 24 2005

Turkish People Is At Peace With Its History, Gul

ISTANBUL – ”The Turkish people is at peace with itself and with its
history,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Sending a message to the opening session of the Conference entitled
”The Armenians during the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire”, Gul
said, ”the approaches of our government and our people towards our
past, including Turkish-Armenian relations, constitute an indication
of our confidence in ourselves and our future.”

In his message, Gul said, ”the last era of the Ottoman Empire is
subject to discussion and research in academic circles, with
increased interest. Nearly every day new documents from the era
emerge and new books, articles and research papers are published.
Yet, it is not possible to say that all data and documents related to
those times have been properly analyzed. With an aim to help redress
this shortcoming, our government is in the process of taking
important steps to enable the Ottoman Archives to serve researchers,
in modern conditions. Our Archives have begun to serve scientists
through documents converted to a digital medium since 2003. Within
this context, many researchers, coming from 75 different countries
have completed their research on the Ottoman Archives. These
activities are ongoing.”

-HISTORICAL COMMISSION PROPOSAL TO ARMENIA-

”We want not only our own archives but at the same time all other
archives that will shed light on the history of the day to be opened
in an organized fashion, that will serve all researchers. We believe
that deeper research into that era will bring new historical facts to
light and serve an improvement in relations between countries and
peoples. Thus, we have proposed to the Government of Armenia to
establish a historical commission between our two countries, which
will research the joint Turkish-American history and which will make
its findings public. We hope to reach a conclusion on this subject,”
indicated Gul.

Gul also said, ”The history of Turkish-Armenian relations is one of
co-existence and common life of almost 1,000 years. During the course
of this period, the Turkish and Armenian peoples have contributed to
each other’s culture, prosperity and security. We should not ignore
this reality when we examine the tragic period when the Ottoman
Empire was crumbling and the Turks and Armenians were deeply
suffering, like all other peoples of the Empire.”

-EVEN IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES…-

”It is a fact that in some chapters of history, or even today, some
societies cannot tolerate one other’s language, religion, identity or
even very existence. It is an unfortunate reality that such
intolerance can turn into a deep-rooted and destructive ideology,
which gets ingrained in the social subconscious. Some serious and
very dangerous trends, from xenophobia to racism and from
anti-Semitism to attitudes against Muslims are present and are on the
rise today, even in societies which represent the highest level of
contemporary civilization,” underlined Gul.

Gul stressed, ”it is a source of pleasure that such a psychology
does not exist between the Turks and Armenians. This also constitutes
a major advantage for the future of relations between the two
peoples.”

”Another issue I want to draw your attention to is that, many
studies so far held on the theme of the Conference, particularly
outside Turkey, have been conducted with political motivations, in a
manner inconsistent with scientific ethics and objectivity.
Regretfully, humanitarian issues have been sacrificed to political
designs, and double standards have been applied in determining and
presenting human suffering. There were attempts to impose subjective,
non-legal and artificial claims upon Turkey and the Turkish people,
with political motivations. Furthermore, there have been situations
in which some foreign circles could not even tolerate scientific
skepticism,” said Gul.

Gul concluded, ”young generations from all nations must know and
draw lessons from the facts that during the last era of the Ottoman
Empire the imperialist-colonial powers ruthlessly exploited peoples’
ethno-religious sensitivities for their own gains and that some
elements, knowingly or unknowingly, became instruments to these
provocations. I hope that your Conference will be a contribution to
raise awareness on this issue. The Turkish people is at peace with
itself and with its history. The approaches of our government and our
people towards our past, including Turkish-Armenian relations,
constitute an indication of our confidence in ourselves and our
future. I convey my best wishes to all participants and hope that the
Conference will be a success.”

IranMania News, Iran
Sept 24 2005

“Iran builds thermal powerplant in Armenia”

Saturday, September 24, 2005 – ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, September 24 (IranMania) – Armenian Energy Minister said Iran
has invested $150 mln in construction of the fifth unit of the
thermal powerplant of “Razdan”, according to IRNA.

Speaking to reporters, Armen Movsisian said, according to the
contract, the Iranian side will finish the construction operation in
two years and the Armenian side will pay back the investment by
delivering electricity to Iran for a ten-year period.

He added Iran and Armenia will construct the third transferring high
voltage electricity line with a capacity of 1,200 mega watts.

Movsisian said the Armenian government, after considering many
options, chose the Iranian company as a contractor for the fifth unit
of Razdan Powerplant.

Concerning Iran’s gas pipeline to Armenia, Movsisian said the
construction operation is underway and it will be finished four to
five months before due time.

The gas pipeline was scheduled to be commissioned at the end of 2006.

New York Times
Sept 24 2005

Armenian massacre conference to proceed at new site in Turkey

ISTANBUL, Turkey – After a Turkish court’s decision to cancel an
academic conference on the killing of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians during World War I, the conference’s organizers said Friday
that the event would go ahead at a new site today.

The organizers were encouraged by a wave of support from the European
Union and senior Turkish government officials.

A court on Thursday blocked Bogazici University in Istanbul from
holding the event, a debate and symposium on the killing of Armenians
by Ottoman forces in the eastern part of what is now Turkey.

In its ruling, the court called into question the credentials of the
scholars taking part.

It was the second time the courts blocked the conference at the
request of nationalist groups. The event was canceled in May, as
well, and at that time Justice Minister Cemil Cicek condemned
continued attempts to hold the meeting as “treason.”

But the conference’s organizers said it would go ahead today after
Bilgi University in Istanbul agreed to be the new host.

The conference is to be the first time in Turkey that the killings
have been publicly examined.

More than 50 intellectuals, scholars and writers are to analyze the
massacres, which took place from 1915 to 1917 and have been
recognized as genocide by several European governments.

Turkey has long maintained that the deaths were part of a war in
which an equal number of Turks died.

kurdishinfo.com, Germany
Sept 24 2005

The Armenian Conference is protested by the nationalists and Labor
party fans

ISTANBUL (DIHA) – A group of protesters formed by the nationalists
and fans of Labor Party came to the Bilgi University, where the
postponed Armenian Conference is to be held, and protested those
coming to the conference.

The nationalist protesters gathered in front of the Dolapdere Campus
of Bilgi University before the conference and shouted slogans such as
‘Either love or leave’. After a while another group of protesters
holding Turkish flags and a placard saying ‘The Armenian Genocide is
an international conspiracy’ joined to the former group. They
frequently shouted slogans saying ‘The government resign’, ‘Tayyip to
America’, ‘We do not want to Soros in the universities’ and ‘Either
liberty or death’.

Giving a speech, the province chairman of Labor Party Erkan Önsel
claimed that the aim of the conference if to divide the national
state. He said the rectors of Bogazici, Sabanci and Bilgi
Universities should immediately resign.

On the other hand the protesters booed to the ex-deputy and ex-leader
of SHP Erdal Inonu coming to the conference.

The conference is expected to be launched in Bilgi University where
there are dense security precautions while the tension is still on
peak.

United Press International, US
Sept 24 2005

Turkey confronts Armenian genocide

ISTANBUL, Turkey (UPI) — University scholars in Turkey planned a
weekend ground-breaking conference on the mass killings of Armenians
under Ottoman rule.

Armenians worldwide have been campaigning for decades for the deaths,
thought to have been more than a million, to be recognized
universally as genocide, the BBC said.

Debate of the killings has been taboo in Turkey but the nation is
under outside pressure for greater freedom of speech.

An Istanbul court banned the conference from Bosphorus University
after complaints by nationalists that the historians behind it were
‘traitors.’ But the session was moved to Bilgi University.