46 PEOPLE GET DROWNED DURING SWIMMING SEASON IN ARMENIA
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 14. ARMINFO. 46 people got drowned in Armenia in Apr
12-Sept 13, reports the press service of Emergency Department.
12 of them were children. 9 people drowned in Lake Sevan.
In 2004 the index was 18 people with 6 ones drowned in Sevan.

ARMENIA READY TO JOIN CE “STAGE” PROGRAM AND ESTABLISH CULTURAL
CONTACTS WITH AZERBAIJAN
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 14. ARMINFO. The South Caucasian culture ministers
are to meet in Kyiv Sept 15.
The press service of Armenia’s Culture and Youth Ministry reports that
during the conference Armenia’s Culture Minister Hovik Hoveyan will
speak about introducing the CE “STAGE” project (support of
transitional cultural processes in Big Europe) in the South
Caucasus. Hoveyan will introduce projects to develop culture and
society as well as to establish cultural cooperation between Armenia,
Georgia and Azerbaijan. CE experts have already visited Armenia and
have presented the STAGE. The period of the project will be specified
during the conference.
The enlarged conference will last till Sept 16. The key topic will be
Culture and Cultural Policy for Development.
The STAGE was launched in Dec 2000 to help the South Caucasus to
develop effective transitional cultural policies and to encourage
contacts between the region and Europe.
Attending the conference will also be observers and donors from
Greece, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine as well as
delegates from all 48 signatories to European Cultural Convention.
Opening the event will be Ukraine’s Culture and Tourism Minister Oxana
Bilozir and CE Deputy Secretary General Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

Four ex-Soviet regions seek closer ties with Russia
Pravda
18:35 2005-09-14
Representatives of four ex-Soviet breakaway regions reiterated their
intention Wednesday to seek international recognition and closer ties
with Russia, and a Russian lawmaker said it was high time the
provinces were recognized as sovereign states.
Officials and academics from Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh disputed by
Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova met
at a conference in Moscow and pledged to pursue independence efforts.
Igor Akhba, Abkhazia’s envoy to Russia, said his region was determined
to become independent from Georgia and seek closer ties with Russia,
the AP reports.
“The people of Abkhazia have voted for an independent republic of
Abkhazia, … we are building an independent, lawful state in
accordance with international law,” Akhba said.
Taimuraz Kokoyev, dean of the South-Ossetian University, said his
province also had similar aims and hoped one day to become part of
Russia.
“The people of South Ossetia have decided their destiny long ago
… the Ossetian people will keep seeking to join Russia,” Kokoyev
said.
Representatives from Nagorno-Karabakh and Trans-Dniester also said
they relied on Russia’s help in their efforts to win international
recognition.
All the regions broke away from central governments in separatist wars
in the early 1990s, cultivating close ties with Russia.
Konstantin Zatulin, a lawmaker from the Kremlin-backed United Russia
party, called the sovereignty of these entities a reality that should
be accepted. “Fighting with reality is as complicated as peeing
against the wind,” Zatulin said.
Modest Kolerov, a member of the Russian presidential administration
charged with regional relations, said all the ex-Soviet republics
needed to ensure freedom of speech, religion and citizenship to their
citizens.
“We are acting to provide these fundamental rights to our fellow
countrymen in the former Soviet republics,” the Interfax news agency
quoted Kolerov as saying.

MehrNews.com, Iran
Sept 14 2005
Iranian director producing film in Azerbaijan Republic
TEHRAN, Sept. 14 (MNA) — Iranian director Babak Shirinsefat’s film
`Aisuda’ is currently in the pre-production stage in the cities of
Lankaran and Astara in the Azerbaijan Republic, the Persian service
of Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on Wednesday.
`The 90-minute movie is about the Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and
Armenia. It tells the story of two Azeri refugees, showing the
influence of war on people’s lives,’ he said.
The film also features Azeri actors and Iranian actors like Farhad
Qaemian, he added.
He intends to complete the movie in time to screen it in winter 2006
at the Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran.
Some parts of the movie will also be shot in Iran, he said.
Shirinsefat’s other film on the Karabakh war, `The Zero-Hour Train’,
was warmly welcomed at the Baku Film Festival in October 2004.
For over a decade, one million displaced Azeris have been living
under appalling conditions since the Karabakh war. These people are
living in tents, underground caves, and old train cars. The film
shows the difficult plight of these refugees who have been forgotten
by the entire world.

Beaver County Times, PA
Sept 14 2005
After the shock
Was the immediate response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe a
portent or an aberration?

It matters.
Think back to Dec. 7, 1988, and the earthquake that hit Armenia in
the Soviet Union. About 25,000 people were killed, 15,000 were
injured and some 517,000 people were left homeless. Virtually the
entire infrastructure – roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, water
lines, etc. – was wiped out.
The tremor and its aftershocks did more than reveal shoddy
construction standards. It also revealed the total inadequacy of
government in the Soviet Union at all levels to deal with a
large-scale domestic emergency. It showed to the world the
overwhelmed Soviet Union for what it was – a hollowed-out superpower
that could not provide aid and comfort to its people in their time of
need.
In the coming days, weeks and months, local, state and federal
authorities in the United States will have a chance to reverse their
dismal performance immediately before and after Katrina devastated
Louisiana and Mississippi.
Most of the effort must fall on the shoulders of the federal
government, if for no other reason than those two states are among
the poorest in the United States.
How this task – indeed, if this task – is accomplished will make a
difference. What happened in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
in December 1988 was a portent of things to come for one of the
world’s two superpowers. It was rotting from the inside out.
Americans can only hope that the initial, bungled response to the
Katrina catastrophe was an aberration, and that our nation’s can-do,
take-charge attitude will reassert itself.
But if recovery efforts continue to be bungled, it could be a portent
of things to come.
Like we said, it matters.

Armenian president appoints envoy to Ireland
Mediamax news agency
14 Sep 05
Yerevan, 14 September: Under Armenian President Robert Kocharyan’s decree,
the Armenian ambassador to Britain, Vage Gabrielyan, has been appointed as
Armenian ambassador to the Republic of Ireland as well (with residence in
London), the presidential press service told Mediamax today.

UN to discuss situation in occupied Azeri territories
Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
14 Sep 05
Despite Armenian protests, the situation on the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan has been included on the agenda of the 60th session of
the UN General Assembly.
The Azerbaijani ambassador to the UN, Yasar Aliyev, has said that by
taking a firm position again, the General Assembly supported
Azerbaijan’s just steps and decided to continue discussing this
important issue.
At the same time, this is an important political factor in the issue
of liberating the occupied territories, end quote.

Turkish Press / Anatolian Times – Turkey
Sept 14 2005
Initiatives Taken Against Armenian Resolutions In U.S.

WASHINGTON D.C. – Retired General Brent Scowcroft, who was the former
national security adviser of US Presidents George Bush and Henry
Ford, wrote a letter to US House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asking him
to foreclose the submission of two resolutions demanding that the US
House of Representatives acknowledge the so-called Armenian genocide,
it was reported on Tuesday.
Scowcroft, who is also the Chairman of American-Turkish Council
(ATC), wrote in his later dated Sept. 12th, that the mentioned
resolutions would appear on the agenda of the International Relations
Committee of the US House of Representatives on Sept. 15th.
Sources in D.C. think that the resolutions could be adopted. The
resolutions can be debated at the House, if House Speaker Hastert
decides to include them into the agenda.
”I, with the members of ATC, strongly oppose these resolutions which
contradict with the US interests. The adoption of these resolutions
can also have serious consequences,” Scowcroft said.
Referring to one-billion dollar loss of France –because of contract
cancellations and business opportunities lost in Turkey– after the
adoption of a similar resolution by the French Senate, Scowcroft said
that the use of ”genocide discourse” by the US Congress would
negatively affect US strategic and business interests in Turkey and
in the region, and it would also encourage those who try to take
Turkey away from the West.
Scowcroft said that it was up to historians, not to politicians, to
find an answer to such kind of issues, adding that the issue was
still debated by academicians, historians and experts.
Also praising the letter which Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan sent to Armenian President Robert Kocharian dated April 10th,
2005, Scowcroft said that Kocharian should positively respond to
Erdogan.
Meanwhile Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) has also
started a campaign asking the US Congress members to oppose the
resolutions.

Village Voice, NY
Sept 14 2005
For the Erased
Diamanda Galás commemorates victims of a long-forgotten Turkish
ethnic cleansing
by LD Beghtol
August 29th, 2005 4:22 PM
photo: tinazimmer.com
See also:
Podcast: An Audio Guide to This Week in Music
NEW! Clubrat Special by Robert Christgau

Ages ago at college in her native California, singer, composer, and
cultural provocatrice Diamanda Galás abandoned the study of science
to pursue her true passion: experimental music. But biochemistry’s
loss is our gain; over the last two decades, her controversial works
have earned her a place high in the avant-garde music pantheon.
Fearlessly outspoken, frighteningly knowledgeable, and dangerously
openhearted, Galás dedicates her latest work, Defixiones: Orders From
the Dead to the estimated 3 million to 4 million victims of the
Armenian, Assyrian, and Anatolian Greek “ethnic cleansing” committed
by the Ottoman Turks between 1914 and 1923.
Since 1999, Defixiones has been performed to near unanimous acclaim
at prestigious venues the world over, from London’s Royal Festival
Hall to the Sydney Opera House, from the Athens National Opera to
Mexico City’s Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana. Its New York
premiere (presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “What
Comes After: Cities, Art + Recovery” international summit) is
scheduled for September 8 and 10 at Michael Schimmel Center for the
Arts, Pace University – appropriately enough, just across from City
Hall, mere blocks from ground zero.
The word defixiones refers to warnings engraved in lead placed onto
graves in Greece and Asia Minor, threatening desecraters with
grievous harm. Galás uses this term in a broader memorializing sense,
urging us to remember the forgotten dead, the “erased,” the
massacred. Her epic performance for solo voice, piano, and
electronics speaks for the poet-author in exile – both far from home
and in his homeland – as well as for “born outlaws,” as Galás calls
homosexuals, echoing Genet.
Informed by excerpts from the Armenian Orthodox liturgy and the
traditional amanethes, or improvisatory lamentations sung at Greek
funerals, Galás 70-minute masterwork showcases both her astounding
vocal technique and her enormous capacity for rage, compassion,
defiance, and ferocious emotionalism. Though at times truly fearsome
in its raw, insistent pathos – familiar to those who know her crushing
Plague Mass (1990) or Schrei X (1996) – Defixiones’ real power lies in
those seductively lyrical, quiet passages that occur just before
Galás wail of existential anguish erupts in reverberant majesty.
Iraqi artist-scholar Selim Abdullah notes, “The sentiment, strength .
. . and sensitivity contained in this Saturnian representation go
back to the very aspects the Greeks gave to a whole Occidental
culture.” Awash in blood and tears, and haunted by images of
unspeakable (and until now, largely unspoken) butchery, Galás funeral
mass is cathartic, but neither glib nor sentimental. Any redemption
is hard-won.
I spoke with Miss Galás who has lived in the East Village for the
past 10 years, on two occasions in mid August. Over multiple
cappuccinos – caffeine being her current drug of choice – she dazzled me
with her famous intelligence and often barbed wit. Onstage she’s a
mythic figure come to life; in person she is perhaps even more
mesmerizing.
—————————————————————-
Few people in America, other than those of Greek, Armenian, or
Assyrian descent, seem to have heard of this horror. Why is it so
unknown? This country discusses one or two genocides and markets them
in very contrived ways. They don’t write about them truthfully, the
way [author and concentration camp survivor] Primo Levi did. Think of
Spielberg and the legions of mediocrity he has propagated.
And there’s the conflicting numbers, and . . . What does it matter if
it was 6 million or 2 million or 200? Genocide is genocide. Every
culture has its particular way of killing and torturing its enemies.
And the Turks are still trying to cover it up by calling it
deportation, but that’s just another word for “death sentence.”
You’re perceived as the voice of the fallen and forgotten. Is that
something you’ve chosen? No – I hated being the poster girl for the
AIDS epidemic. It had to be done, but I hated it. I never meant to be
political – I’m an artist. An artist can only speak for herself. But
if you get particularly good at something it has a sort of
universality, and then it has a certain audience, and you’re
answerable for that. Like Adon [Syrian-born poet Adon Ali Ahmed
Said] – a great, great poet – who is seen as the voice of a “leftist
movement” of some sort, but he’s only writing about what is truth to
him.
How did you come to create Defixiones? My father is an Anatolian
Greek. All my life he’s talked about how the finest Greek culture was
from Anatolia – home to Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks, and Jews, who for
centuries traded languages, songs, ideas, histories – and how many of
these cultures are indistinguishable from one another. So the notion
of racial purity there is just absurd. He also told me about the
atrocities committed by the Turks against Greeks from Asia Minor. But
the direct catalyst was an interview I saw with Dr. [Jack] Kevorkian,
who said, “I’m Armenian, I know what torture is all about. I know the
difference between homicide and helping people end a life of misery.”
He was so articulate, and he was discussing Greek Stoic philosophy
and the Armenians in the same breath, which I found very unusual at
the time. So in 1998 I said to myself: It’s time to do this work.
Later I read Peter Balakian’s book Black Dog of Fate, which talks
about what being an Armenian in America means – it means you’re
invisible. It’s the same with the Greeks. Most people think of Greek
culture as a dead culture: Socrates and Aristotle and the statues . .
. And they think Assyrians are the same as Syrians.
Then, as a fellow at Princeton in 1999, I studied texts by Giorgos
Seferis and others in preparation for a performance at the Vooruit
Festival at the Castle of Ghent [in Belgium].
Defixiones was more a song cycle then, with [the underground Greek
protest music known as] rembetika and works by Paul Celan, Henri
Michaux, and César Vallejo. I concentrated on exiled poets like the
Anatolian Greek refugees of the 1920s – my father’s people. The
premiere was on September 11, 1999, which marked the anniversary of
the reign of terror under Charles V, who persecuted homosexuals,
women thought to be witches, and other heretics.
Defixiones is somewhat a work in progress? Yes. Currently I’m using
texts by Giorgos Seferis, [who] is like my bible – and Nikos
Kazantzakis, who people will know from his novel The Last Temptation
of Christ. And Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose poem is addressed to the
people who survived. Everyone just hated him. And Yannis Ritsos. And
“The Dance” by Siamanto, with its description of brides being burned
alive. And the pro-genocide poem “Hate,” which was published by [the
Turkish newspaper] Hürriyet and broadcast by the BBC in 1974, right
before the invasion of Cyprus – about why the Turks should decapitate
the Greeks.
September is such a politically charged month . . . Yes, starting
with the destruction of Smyrna in September 1922. And Black September
1955, when Turkish officials waged a disinformation campaign stating
that Greeks had bombed the consulate in Thessalon resulted in the
desecration of Greek churches and the mutilation and murder of
priests and other men. And the Black September of Ariel Sharon’s
going into Lebanon in ’82. He was doing a real con job. And then the
situation in America in 2001 . . .
Your aggressive style and disturbing subject matter automatically put
you outside the mainstream. Yet your music has a surprisingly broad
appeal. Well, I’ve been creating sacred masses, which are not exactly
a popular art form in this country today. But they’re meant to be,
literally, for the people. The American idea of a populist art form
is rap. Some of it is good, but most is appalling in that it promotes
stupidity and the abuse of the same groups that monotheist
totalitarian governments persecute: women, homosexuals, and anyone
who doesn’t speak precisely your language.
You must get tons of hate mail. Fundamentalists of all sorts despise
me. I’m attacked by my own people too – American Greek men who are
homo- phobic and think everything I say is heresy. I got shit
recently from a Jewish promoter about doingDefixiones in Mexico. She
asked me if I really believed people would be interested. And I
thought: “Please don’t insult my intelligence – or theirs. They’ll
understand the concept of genocide as it has occurred and continues
to occur to so many people around the world . . . ”
I want to perform Defixiones in Istanbul and Smyrna. The psychic
manifestations of violence can be just as devastating as the physical
acts – especially when people refuse to recognize them. It’s
depersonalizing. I have a line in INSEKTA: “Believe me, believe me.”
Not being believed can kill.
Who are your fans? People who find it necessary to think for
themselves in order to survive, because they’re damned by the fact
they don’t agree with the mediocrity that society shoves down their
throats. They rise above this by continuing to educate themselves.
This is especially true of homosexuals, who are born outside the law
anyway. They’re still figuratively and literally buried alive by the
Egyptians and Turks. Here in New York they’re visited upon by the
Aesthetic Realism Foundation and treated with electroshock. In Iran,
they hang teenage “infidels.” It’s unbelievable that ethnic groups
still shut out those who can be so disciplined and organized, and who
can do great things. [Gay men] either disappear completely or they
address the situation. They’ve had to – to save their own lives. They
are great fighters. I say these are the first soldiers you should
enlist, not the last. This is the man to whom you should say, “Will
you be my brother? Will you help me?”
Will the Turkish government ever admit these atrocities? I think it
will be forced to, through the ongoing work of their own scholars,
both old and young, and by artists and writers who want to be part of
the rest of the world, despite the horrific censorship that the
Turkish government exercises over them. My website is listed as a
hate site, which is completely ridiculous. I do not hate the Turkish
scholars who are trying to address true events in the world. There
are many Turks who want to see things change, but they’re not given
the opportunity to express themselves. When they do, they get sent to
prison or mental asylums. Midnight Express is absolutely the truth.
But until the government officially apologizes, there is no reason
for it to be accepted by the European Union. You must admit what
you’ve done – it shows that your present actions will be mandated by
the apology for your past actions. But until this happens there can
be no trust at all.
For more information about the Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian
genocides, Black September, and Galás’s work, see: diamandagalas.com
“Voices of Truth” series:
hellenic-genocide.com/voices-of-truth”Before the Silence” archival
news reports series, run by Sofia Kontogeorge Kostos:

Egypt Today, Egypt
Sept 14 2005
The Cutting Room Floor
Heliopolis club barber Mahmoud Kenawi reveals and withholds snippets
of the secret lives of Misr El-Gedida’s heirs he has collected in
half a century grooming the bigwigs
By Manal el-Jesri
I HAD HOPED the President’s barber would give me a unique perspective
on both His Excellency and the famous personalities (political and
otherwise) that have defined the character of Heliopolis. But either
we were misled, or Mahmoud Kenawi, 81, is simply unwilling to talk
about his relationship with the First Family.
`I do not cut the president’s hair,’ was his flat response to several
versions of the same question peppered throughout the course of our
talk.
Kenawi is willing to discuss, however, the rich half-century career
he has spent as one of the top men’s barbers in Heliopolis. Working
out of the Heliopolis club for the past 25 years, Kenawi’s customers
include a number of ex-pashas as well as former and serving members
of cabinet and parliament. The names include former deputy president
Abdel-Latif Baghdady, Abdel-Hadi Kandil, and Kamal El-Nazer.
`I did cut Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s hair once,’ Kenawi recalls. `I also
cut Khaled [Nasser’s son’s] hair, but had an argument with
Abdel-Hakim about the haircut,’ he remembers. `I knew them because I
was the barber of the Marwan family, the in-laws of Nasser’s
daughter. I used to sit Ashraf Marwan on a special children’s chair
to cut his hair. I also cut his father’s hair.’
And what was the late leader like? `Very sweet and gentle. He asks
you how life is, whether you are happy or not,’ he replies.
Kenawi looks much younger than his 81 years. Tall and
broad-shouldered, he must have cut a dashing figure in his youth with
his thin Douglas (after the late Douglas Fairbanks) moustache that
you would have seen on 1940s film stars. His voice is deep and
strong, reverberating powerfully against the ceramic walls of the
tiny hole-in-the-wall shop.
Excerpts of our conversation one morning last month:
I have been working as a barber since I was eight years old. I was in
primary two at the time. And what I value most in life are respect
and punctuality. Those who tell you `maalesh’ and `I forgot’ are
nothing but thugs. In the past, a person would step out of his car,
button his coat, then politely ask you for directions. Today, they
make you jog alongside the car, then drive off without even saying
thank you.
I do not even give such people the chance to sit in my chair.
You see, I choose my customers. I like to work with people from good
families, people who are not stingy. I cannot have someone walk in
wearing shebsheb [flip-flops] or a dirty galabeyya. I have worked in
the best barber shops in Heliopolis, and this is what I like about
the district. Most of the customers are of a certain kind. I only
worked outside Heliopolis once in my life, and I hated it. It was
near the Odeon cinema. The owner decided to deduct half a day’s pay
from my salary because I walked in a minute after it struck eight in
the morning. He was just angry because he had to shave one of the
clients, an Armenian with very tough facial hair.
I spent some of my best years working for an Armenian barber. I
worked for him for 18 years, and for 22 years I worked for a Maronite
Lebanese. But then I had to leave when work became scarce. Most of
our clients were foreigners, and when Nasser decided that foreign
nationals must leave the country in ’56, it affected our work.
After I left the Lebanese shop, I worked for 90 shops in one year. I
would start work on a Tuesday, and quit on a Wednesday. Barbers are
not very nice people. They talk and gossip too much, they’re not good
to each other. This is why none of my friends are barbers. I have a
lot of friends who are ladies’ hairdressers. Too bad there is no
baraka [blessing] in their work. It is haraam for a woman to allow a
man to play with her hair. When she gets to know him better, she
starts telling her hairdresser things she does not even tell her
husband.
I finally found myself a comfortable spot here in the club. I know
who I am dealing with, and I know I will be getting the customers I
want. Cleanliness is important to me, too. Working with foreigners in
the past, I got used to customers coming to me after taking a shower.
They do not wait to get a haircut first, which many people here do. I
get youths who come straight to the shop after having played sports,
and are all sweaty. I send them off to the showers first. I refuse to
spread sweat from one person to another.
I like it here, and I am the only one who stayed for a stretch of 25
years. I first came here in `68, but then left in `73. The owner of
the shop at the time, a widow, did not want to introduce some changes
I had suggested. The shop was dirty. It was by the pool. So she got a
barber from Bab El-Shariyya, which is a long way from Heliopolis,
both geographically and socially. This man had never seen women in
bikinis before, and spent the day gawking by the pool. He was also
rude, and would tell the elderly men, who often like to let their
hair grow a little, that they are long overdue for a haircut. He told
this to Abdel-Latif Baghdady, who had the barber’s stuff thrown out
[of the shop] right away.
I have been here since 1980.
None of my children work with me, which is contrary to what most
barbers do. I have five daughters and two sons, all college graduates
and all married. I also have 21 grandchildren. Long ago, I had a
customer who was a combat pilot. God rest his soul, he died in the
`73 war. He made me swear never to allow my sons to work with me and
he used to send my eldest his pocket money whenever he came to see
me. I never received any school certificates, so I was really happy
when my son graduated from university. I bought his mother a diamond
ring and band. It was my thanks to her that they all did so well.
[Kenawi and his wife have lived all of their married life in
Heliopolis, a community he is proud to belong to. He is prouder yet
of the centenary celebrations.]
Mrs. Suzanne [Mubarak] would not have celebrated Heliopolis if it
were not almost perfect, like Venice or Alexandria,. It also shows
you what a great woman she is. The president is also great. We live
in bliss, thanks to him. We have peace and prosperity. Never mind the
bombings that took place. Such acts do not shake a military man like
our president. But he has a lot on his hands. At home, we find it
difficult to decide what to eat for lunch on Friday. He has to
provide 210 million meals every day.
[With that, a customer comes in, an elderly gentleman in a beret,
leaning on a beautiful ebony cane. The two men nod to each other in
amiable greeting. Kenawi assumes his professional charm as I vacate
the only chair in the shop in favor of the early morning customer.]