Author: Chaltikian Arsine

ENCOUNTERS: FINDING COMMUNITY IN A STARBUCKS
By Ellen Slezak

LA Weekly, CA
Oct 6 2005

East of Western, North of Hollywood
I do most of my errands on my bike. Just last week, I rode to the
Laundromat with three loads of laundry bungee-corded to its basket.

More often, I travel lighter and with less purpose. I’ll pedal
somewhere and stop for a cup of coffee.

I like coffee. The stronger, the better. No foam or sugar or half this
or that. Just black and hot. I’m a stereotypical liberal (and proud
of it), who often moans and groans about the loss of the mom-and-pop
storefront, the standardization of towns and cities and suburbs. I’ve
never been in a Wal-Mart – on principle. I’ve never crossed a picket
line – that’s an even bigger principle. But Starbucks – so big,
so corporate, so the same the same the same everywhere? I count on
it. Its coffee and service and pervasiveness have been very good to
me. I have different favorite locations for different times of day,
days of the week.

For the past year or so, this has been my Sunday-morning routine. Get
up at 6. Drink a couple of inches of coffee – enough to jolt me out
the door. Ride my bike three miles to Fern Dell. Hike up to Mount
Hollywood. Hike back down. Get back on bike. Stop at the Armenian
Starbucks at the northeast corner of Hollywood and Western for a
proper cup.

This is a good Starbucks. It has a lot of character, though you might
not think so, driving by. (It’s in a development with a Ralphs and a
Blockbuster and a Ross Dress for Less.) The staff at this Starbucks is
unexcitable, steady. They don’t give the bum’s rush to the old lady who
comes in only to use the bathroom and talk loudly to herself. They
don’t give the bums the bum’s rush. The men, dressed in black,
who sit at the outside tables, smoke with focus. The mentally ill
homeless guy who drinks leftover coffee cadges cigarettes from them;
so does the 50-something-crapped-out-in-Hollywood groupie who talks
loud and fast to a tall, expressionless black guy who nods, but says
nothing in response to her stories about Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger
and various security guards who let her sneak into these superstars’
orbit. Her voice is wrinkled, and the skin around her eyes is, too. I
quit smoking 20 years ago, but I love the smell of a cigarette,
so I sit outside with them all. The open-air eavesdropping is bracing.

A few weeks ago, when a middle-aged Latino guy, pushing a Ralphs cart
filled with three 12-packs of Miller and three bags of chicken thighs
and legs, stopped near our Starbucks tables and began to unload his
cart, we all assumed he was going to load it into the minivan nearby.

It took us a beat before we realized we had it wrong. He was on foot.

The loudmouthed groupie, the black guy, one Armenian smoker and I
stood up and offered to help him. I pointed at my bike and basket and
pulled a bungee out of my backpack. He shook his head no. The groupie
persisted, loudly, but he still refused, waving her off. We watched,
disbelieving and admiring, as he hoisted and adjusted his bounty and
walked off, a perfect balance of grace and strength.

It’s another Sunday morning at the Armenian Starbucks, and when I
leave L.A., as I imagine I one day will, I’m going to miss it.

PROTEST ACTION AT BUILDING OF BRITISH EMBASSY IN ARMENIA

ARMINFO News Agency
October 3, 2005

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3. ARMINFO. A protest action against Turkey’s
accession to the EU took place today at the building of the British
embassy in Armenia.

Armenia’s Youth Union representative Zinavor Meghryan informs that
the action took place just there as Great Britain advocates Turkey’s
accession to the EU. “Armenian Genocide of 1915 is the most
large-scale international crime against the new history of mankind.

It aimed to annihilate the whole people.”

“As always, Turkey continues to deny the fact of Genocide and keep
Armenia in blockade. We call upon the EU countries not to start talks
on Turkey’s accession to the EU as long as this republic is to
recognize Genocide. If Turkey is to access to the European family,
the EU will loss its authority in the world people’s opinion”, the
message of demonstrators says.

Meghryan noted that delegations from the Middle East countries,
Canada, Iran, the USA, as well as Armenia’s Republican party joined
to the action.

STUDY BY UNICEF’S INNOCENTI RESEARCH CENTER
By Bradley S. Klapper

The Associated Press
10/04/05 13:40 EDT

GENEVA (AP) – Many disabled youths in the former communist countries
of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are being institutionalized,
perpetuating the Soviet Union’s practice of “child abandonment,”
according to a report released Wednesday by the U.N. Children’s Fund.

While attitudes toward disabled children are getting better in these
regions, improvements in state support are lagging behind, said the
64-page study undertaken by UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Center in
Florence, Italy.

Instead of searching for ways to integrate children with disabilities
into general schools, these countries still overwhelmingly employ a
policy of “defectology,” a leftover Soviet discipline where disabled
children are put in residential schools and institutions, separated
from society, community and family.

As of 2002, some 317,000 children in these countries lived in such
separated institutions, a number largely unchanged since the fall
of the Iron Curtain, the report found. By contrast, the rate of
institutionalization in Western countries is up to three times lower.

“The prospect for these children is to graduate to an institution
for adults and to face a pattern of denial of human rights,” the
study said.

The countries studied included eight former communist states that
have since become members of the European Union – Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia –
and two others scheduled to join soon – Bulgaria and Romania.

The study also included Balkan states Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro, as well as former
Soviet republics Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and
Uzbekistan.

“Although children with disabilities have become more visible since
the beginning of (the post-communist) transition and attitudes towards
them and their families are changing, many of them are simply ‘written
off’ from society,” said Innocenti’s director Marta Santos Pais.

Santos Pais said the “high rates of child abandonment” could be
explained by these countries’ outdated medical approaches and lack
of alternative methods for dealing with disabilities.

UNICEF is calling for an end to the segregation of disabled children,
suggesting instead an increase in social benefits to affected families
and greater participation of parents in decisions affecting their
children.

“The reality is many parents feel they have no choice but to give
up their children,” Santos Pais said. “What these families need is
strong social and economic support.”

Some 1.5 million children in these 27 countries were registered as
disabled in 2000, triple the number in 1990, the report said.

However, the surge was largely the result of better recognition and
registration of disabilities, rather than any actual increase in the
number of children disabled.

LINKS WITH ARMENIA REINFORCE FRENCH FEARS: TURKEY’S ALLEGED GENOCIDE IS SEEN IN FRANCE AS A BARRIER TO EU ENTRY
By John Thornhill

Financial Times (London, England)
October 1, 2005 Saturday
London Edition 1

Every year France celebrates another country by organising bilateral
visits and cultural exchanges. In 2004it was China, and the Eiffel
Tower was briefly lit up in red. This year it has been Brazil –
hence the samba dancers at Paris plage.

Next year it will be Armenia. The choice of a small Caucasian country
of 3m people highlights the importance France attaches to Armenia.

This is mostly due to France’s 450,000-strong Armenian community,
which has grown increasingly rich and influential.

But the timing of Armenia Year could hardly be more discordant for
President Jacques Chirac if, as expected on Monday, France and the
European Union’s other 24 members signal the start of accession talks
with Turkey.

Armenians in France and elsewhere have been opposing Turkey’s entry
into the EU – unless and until Ankara acknowledges that the death
of Armenians during the break-up of the Ottoman empire was an act of
genocide. Armenians claim up to 1.5m people died in 1915-18. Turkey
denies genocide, and admits only that hundreds of thousands of both
Armenians and Turks died, largely as a result of civil war and famine.

The French parliament has already declared the massacres to have
been a genocide. And Mr Chirac has himself been sympathetic to the
Armenian cause.

Harout Mardirossian, president of the Paris-based Committee for the
Defence of the Armenian Cause, says Turkey has been a “a country in
denial” for 80 years that does not conform with the values espoused
by the EU.

“How can you imagine Germany being integrated into the European Union
in the 1960s if it did not recognise the Holocaust?” he says.

In spite of Mr Chirac’s support for accession talks with Turkey,
most of his compatriots are against the move. A recent Eurobarometer
poll showed that 70 per cent of French respondents opposed Turkey’s
entry into the EU with only 21 per cent in favour. Opposition to
Turkish entry boosted the victorious No vote during May’s referendum
on Europe’s constitution.

Those opposed to Turkey’s accession range from Islamophobic
nationalists to Armenian campaigners to fervent pro-Europeans who
believe the entry of such a large country would kill off the dreams
of a federal EU.

Earlier this month, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former French
president and father of the European constitution, said French voters
had clearly expressed their opposition to Turkey’s entry.

He noted: “There was a clear contradiction between the pursuit of
European political integration and the entry of Turkey into European
institutions. These two projects are incompatible.”

Mr Chirac has argued that Turkey’s entry into the EU would recognise
a great civilisation, extend Europe’s hand to the Muslim world, and
help energise the EU’s economy. But he has also guaranteed French
voters a referendum on whether to accept Turkey’s entry into the EU
once accession talks are completed.

However, Sylvie Goulard, a Europe expert at Sciences-Po university,
says this move deceives the French and Turks. “Resistance to Turkey’s
accession is not going to disappear in 15 years. Even if the Turks
have successfully reformed themselves, they will still share a border
with Iran and Iraq. You cannot change the nature of the EU without
a proper democratic debate.”

Whatever the EU leaders decide, the issue of Turkey will loom large
through the 2007 presidential elections and beyond. Nicolas Sarkozy,
president of the ruling UMP party and a strong presidential contender,
has already stated his firm opposition to Turkey’s accession. Dominique
de Villepin, the prime minister and rival presidential contender,
has doggedly defended Mr Chirac’s line.

Financial Express, India
Oct 1 2005

No key in sight for Turkey’s EU bid

Why is so much going wrong for a major western ally?

SUBHASH AGRAWAL
Posted online: Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 0028 hours IST

If there is a country even more buffeted than India by contradictory
geopolitical pulls and pressures in a post-9/11 and post-Iraq world,
it is perhaps Turkey. The country’s painful quest for a clear
definition is mirrored in the sharp contrasts in Istanbul, an
amazingly beautiful and historical city which straddles two
continents with just the slightest hint of self-consciousness.

The Eurasian interface can often be sharp, with ancient mosques
sitting in proximity to nightclubs, or the burqa and bikini mingling
on Black Sea beaches. In the daytime, Istanbul is a visual collage of
majestic minarets, labyrinthine bazaars and winding alleys, all with
a rather Ottoman buzz, but in the evening large parts of the city
come to resemble Berlin or Stockholm, pulsating in a very
cosmopolitan way to the sound, sight, smell and rhythm from hundreds
of shops, restaurants, bars and art galleries.

Turkey is a happening and waiting-to-happen place all at once, a
country that surprisingly finds itself still being viewed with
hesitation by the West even though it has travelled further than any
other to consciously jettison its historical baggage in fundamental
ways.

Under Kemal Attaturk, modern Turkey, coming out from under the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire, began its quest for a European
character and visage. It declared itself secular, replaced its
millennia-old Arabic script with the Roman script, and passed laws
obliging people to adopt western dress. This cultural big bang was
followed by quiet consolidation of its political links through much
of the 20th century. It joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(Nato) and then the Council of Europe, and during much of the Cold
War, it was a key western bulwark against the dreaded might of the
Russian bear.

The end of the Cold War has not been very kind to what is perhaps the
only true westernised democracy in the whole Islamic world and what
is clearly a sizable military and economic power, even though its
importance has been reinforced by a growing network of hydrocarbon
pipelines from the oil-rich Caspian region that pass through it.

A range of political issues are dangerously poised against Ankara
these days: the Kurdish problem has revived, the country is under
renewed global pressure to accept, if not atone, its Armenian
history, and relations with its single biggest ally, the US, remain
frosty over the Iraq war.

However, Turkey’s single biggest concern at this time is its bid for
EU membership, a doggedly pursued and emotionally charged enterprise
over which formal negotiations are to begin this coming week in
Brussels. This is once again in trouble, this time strongly opposed
by Austria and not just by France, Poland and the Vatican. Turkey
even risks losing its biggest supporter, Germany, if Angela Merkel,
the CDU/CSU leader, manages to head the next government, as is widely
expected under a fragile coalition. Merkel is firmly opposed to
Turkish entry into the EU, favouring a privileged partnership, which,
of course, Turkey sees as an insulting downgrade and will not accept.

While the cultural nuances and discussion points of this
I-Am-European-No-You-Are-Not are endless, what is increasingly
evident is that Turkey now risks losing ground over the 30 year-old
Cyprus dispute. Turkish commentators and foreign policy experts are
now witnessing a horror in slow motion, with the possibility of an
externally forced solution (as a pre-condition for EU membership)
increasing every day.

Turkey’s bid to wrest a separate state based on ethnicity was always
unviable and without any global support, but till last year there
were hopes that the Turkish and Greek sides of the divided island
state might get more or less equal status. That now looks
increasingly unlikely.

The irony is that this overcharged debate over EU membership has
distorted many pragmatic attempts to find a reasonable and
face-saving solution over Cyprus. Now, it just may be that by pushing
Turkey on this issue, the EU will unwittingly erode much of the
pro-western sentiment in a country already internally divided among
the modern Istanbul elite and the rural Anatolian masses. As a recent
op-ed in the International Herald Tribune put it: `Turkey is still
just muddling through toward modernity’ and is delicately poised,
pulled in two different direction by its two different social
classes.

The whole nature, tenor and direction of European debate about
Turkey’s membership in the EU is very important for India because of
the multiple layers of cultural, geopolitical and Kashmir-related
issues. First, how the world settles a bitter dispute like Cyprus may
be a curtain raiser on their positions over Kashmir, should we allow
the issue to become international instead of bilateral. Second,
Turkish membership in EU will test the true limits and sincerity of
European multi-culturalism. And lastly, it will have an indirect and
but eventual fallout on the debate over the clash of cultures and
moderate versus radical faith.

The writer is editor, India Focus

AZG Armenian Daily #175, 30/09/2005

Culture

RESIDENTS OF KAZAN DELIGHTED WITH ARMENIAN CULTURE

One of Russia’s most ancient cities, Kazan, marks its 1000th anniversary
this year. The exhibition of artists from Armenia within the frameworks of
celebrations in Kazan in late March astonished the residents of the city as
well as the Armenians of Kazan. At the House-Museum of Parajanov yesterday,
the head of the Armenian community in Kazan and the head of the city’s
cultural department presented the participants of the exhibition with gifts
and thank-you notes. Arkadi Karbayev, head of the cultural department, said
that the canvases, statues and articles of decorative art created a little
Kazan. “We bow before you; you make a tale of a stone and work miracles”,
Mr. Karbayev said. Head of the Armenian community of Tatarstan, Mikhail
Khachaturian, added that Armenia’s cooperation with Kazan will continue as
there are new exhibition ahead to be stage in the town.

The Armenian settled in Kazan nearly 10 centuries ago, promoted trade and
preserved their culture. Mr. Khachaturian said that though the Armenian
community was officially formed only 11 years ago, its traditions and
history is older by far.

An Armenian khachkar dated 1335 was found at the University of Kazan.

By G. Alikhanian

HENRY CUNY: “ARMENIAN-FRENCH CULTURAL TIES COME FROM ANCIENT DAYS”

Noyan Tapan News Agency
Sept 29 2005

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Within the
framework of French Cultural Days in Armenia, an exhibition “Collection
of French Literature” opened on September 28, at the National Library
of Armenia. More than three hundreds of units of literature in French
kept at the library archives are displayed in separate expositions.

Rafik Ghazarian, the Deputy Director of the National Library of Armenia
mentioned that the library is provided with French literature every
year. 2400 units of incunabular books of the 16-18th centuries are
kept only in the library department of incunabular, rare and archive
literature. The most ancient book is “Heavenly, Erthly, Infernal”
published in France in 1580. There is a book with Jean Jacques
Rousseau’s signature and one book with signature of the Prince of
Monaco at the library.

“The National Library of Armenia has always been famous for its
rich collection but it was a surprise for me as well to see so many
valuable and incunabular books here. This exhibition proves that
the Armenian-French cultural ties come from ancient days, continue
today as well and are aimed to develop,” Henry Cuny, the Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Armenia mentioned.

On the same day, an exhibition of French stamps, books and documents
dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte opened at the Armenian Association
of Cultural Ties and Cooperation with Foreign Countries.

NKR INDEPENDENCE 14-TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED IN U.S.

Pan Armenian News
28.09.2005 04:50

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A solemn event entitled “Progress for Freedom,
Democracy and Economic Development” is being held in the U.S. Congress
today on the occasion of the 14-th anniversary of independence of
Nagorno Karabakh. Vice Speaker of the UK House of Lords, Baroness
Caroline Cox is the honorary guest of the event. Senators Frank
Pallone, Joe Knollenberg, Adam Schiff, George Radanovish are expected
to address the audience. To note, the measure was initiated by the
Armenian Embassy in the U.S., the Armenian National Committee of
America, representations of Nagorno Karabakh and Co-Chairs of the
Congressional Armenian Caucus Frank Pallone and Joe Knollenberg. “It’s
not accidental that the event is held in the U.S. Congress. Still in
1989, when neither Armenia for Karabakh was independent, the Congress
came to support the liberation struggle of NK and RA. Presently the
U.S. is the only state rendering assistance to Nagorno Karabakh. It
proves that the existence of Nagorno Karabakh and its aspiration
for international recognition are admitted by the Congressmen,”
Hayk Gugarats, member of the Armenian Embassy in the U.S. said,
RFE/RL reported.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS PASS FINAL READING

Armenpress
Sept 28, 2005

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS: With a vote of 90 and without votes
of ‘no’ and abstentions the Armenian parliament has passed today in
the third and final reading a package of constitutional amendments
that will be put on a national referendum on November 26.

Opposition lawmakers from Ardarutyun (Justice) bloc and the National
Unity boycotted the voting. The Armenian parliament passed also in
the second and third final reading a bill on making changes to the
Law on Referendum. The changes are meant to make the Law on Referendum
comply with already amended Election Law.

Before putting the bill to a second reading Hrayr Karapetian from
the ARF said the bill incorporated some of changes, proposed by the
opposition. He, particularly, mentioned a suggestion by an opposition
lawmaker from Ardarutyun-Arshak Sadoyan- envisaging the secrecy
of ballot.

The bill also incorporated two other opposition proposals saying that
precincts may have no more than one ballot box and that voting results
must be tabulated and made public every three hours, but nevertheless,
the opposition boycotted the voting.

TEAM REPORTING PROJECT

International Journalist’s Network
Sept 27 2005

Oct 01, 2005 – Oct 10, 2005

Training

In Yerevan, Armenia. Organized by the Media Diversity Institute
(MDI). MDI says it will select eight applicants for the program,
four each from Armenia and Georgia. Their base will be Yerevan during
the program, as the journalists will travel around the country to do
their reporting. The journalists will produce their programs together
and make them available for free to stations in their home countries.

Interested radio journalists should send their CV and letter of
interest to their local MDI country coordinator. Armenian journalists
should contact Artur Papyan at [email protected],
telephone +374 (1) 53 00 67, or visit 9B Ghazar Parpetsi str., 375003,
Yerevan. Georgian journalists should contact Elena Aladashvili at
[email protected] or visit 10 Chovelidze St.,
Room No. 304, Tbilisi.