Author: Kharatian Ani

MONTREAL GAZETTE TO CLARIFY ITS STANCE ON GENOCIDE ISSUE

Azg/arm
28 July 05

The editor-in-chief of one of influential Canadian dailies — Montreal
Gazette — has made the paper’s position clear on the Armenian
genocide in a circular to the staff, Armenian Mirror Spectator
informed on July 23.

“Historic documents make it clear that what happened in 1915 was a
genocide in accordance with UN definition of 1948”, the circular
reads. It goes on urging journalists and editors to use the word
“genocide” in articles about Armenian massacres without adding
“alleged”, “so-called”, “disputable” or “as Armenians claim”
descriptions. “Our position coincides with those of other newspapers
— the Ottawa Citizen, the New York Times and the Boston Globe”, the
circular says.

The paper adopted this posture after a meeting with the Armenian
community on June 15. Editor-in-chief Andrew Fillips and other members
of the editorial staff met with the representatives of the Congress of
Canadian-Armenians, Taro Alebian, (chairman), Arshavir Gyonjian
(honored chairman) and Harry Tigranian (lawyer). Besides representing
the history of that period, the latter gave the journalists
corresponding documents provided by Zoryan Institute and Vardges
Tolabtchian.

By Hakob Tsulikian

The New York Times
July 26, 2005

All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt
All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Some of us in the news media have been hounding President Bush for his
shameful passivity in the face of genocide in Darfur.
More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush
acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century, yet Mr. Bush barely
manages to get the word “Darfur” out of his mouth. Still, it seems
hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush’s negligence, when my own beloved
institution – the American media – has been at least as passive as Mr. Bush.
Condi Rice finally showed up in Darfur a few days ago, and she went out of
her way to talk to rape victims and spotlight the sexual violence used to
terrorize civilians. Most American television networks and cable programs
haven’t done that much.
Even the coverage of Ms. Rice’s trip underscored our self-absorption. The
manhandling of journalists accompanying Ms. Rice got more coverage than any
massacre in Darfur has.
This is a column I don’t want to write – we in the media business have so
many critics already that I hardly need to pipe in as well. But after more
than a year of seething frustration, I feel I have to.
Like many others, I drifted toward journalism partly because it seemed an
opportunity to do some good. (O.K., O.K.: it was also a blast, impressed
girls and offered the glory of the byline.) But to sustain the idealism in
journalism – and to rebut the widespread perception that journalists are
just irresponsible gossips – we need to show more interest in the first
genocide of the 21st century than in the “runaway bride.”
I’m outraged that one of my Times colleagues, Judith Miller, is in jail for
protecting her sources. But if we journalists are to demand a legal
privilege to protect our sources, we need to show that we serve the public
good – which means covering genocide as seriously as we cover, say, Tom
Cruise. In some ways, we’ve gone downhill: the American news media aren’t
even covering the Darfur genocide as well as we covered the Armenian
genocide in 1915.
Serious newspapers have done the best job of covering Darfur, and I take my
hat off to Emily Wax of The Washington Post and to several colleagues at The
Times for their reporting. Time magazine gets credit for putting Darfur on
its cover – but the newsweeklies should be embarrassed that better magazine
coverage of Darfur has often been in Christianity Today.
The real failure has been television’s. According to monitoring by the
Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in
its nightly newscasts all last year – and that turns out to be a credit to
Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS
only 3 minutes – about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In
contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three
networks.
Incredibly, more than two years into the genocide, NBC, aside from covering
official trips, has still not bothered to send one of its own correspondents
into Darfur for independent reporting.
“Generally speaking, it’s been a total vacuum,” said John Prendergast of the
International Crisis Group, speaking of television coverage. “I blame policy
makers for not making better policy, but it sure would be easier if we had
more media coverage.”
When I’ve asked television correspondents about this lapse, they’ve noted
that visas to Sudan are difficult to get and that reporting in Darfur is
expensive and dangerous. True, but TV crews could at least interview Darfur
refugees in nearby Chad. After all, Diane Sawyer traveled to Africa this
year – to interview Brad Pitt, underscoring the point that the networks are
willing to devote resources to cover the African stories that they consider
more important than genocide.
If only Michael Jackson’s trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN,
Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories
about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.
The BBC has shown that outstanding television coverage of Darfur is
possible. And, incredibly, mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at universities) has
covered Darfur more seriously than any network or cable station. When MTV
dispatches a crew to cover genocide and NBC doesn’t, then we in journalism
need to hang our heads.
So while we have every right to criticize Mr. Bush for his passivity, I hope
that he criticizes us back. We’ve behaved as disgracefully as he has.

E-mail: [email protected]

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WebProNews, KY
July 25 2005

Did Anti-Spam Gang Kill Russian Spammer?
David Utter | Staff Writer | 2005-07-25

Certain anti-spam parties have made threats in the past against some
of the world’s more notorious spammers.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reports that notorious spammer Vardan
Kushnir was found brutally murdered. His body was discovered in his
Moscow apartment on Sunday, showing evidence of repeated blows to the
head.

Mr. Kushnir headed English learning centers known for their
persistent aggressive spamming. Millions of messages sent by the
firms went out each day. Spamming is not presently illegal under
Russian law.

Some angry users have retaliated against his firms by plaguing them
with numerous phone calls, bombarding it with emails, or even
advertising the firms’ phone numbers in bogus ads for escort services
or bargain real estate offers.

Mr. Kushnir was of Armenian descent, and became reviled among Russian
email users for the continuous flow of junk messages from his
American Language Center in 2003. Email wasn’t the only method used;
Mr. Kushnir’s company filled forums, blogs, and ICQ channels with its
messages.

The ALC website soon became a favorite target for hackers, and
Russian Internet service providers frequently closed down his sites
when users complained about the spamming practices.

Among those complaints came death threats; it is speculated that
while many were from angered users, some may have come from the sort
of loosely-organized anti-spam gangs described in the 2004 book Spam
Kings.

And possibly, one followed through on the many deadly promises made
over the years to Mr. Kushnir, in his Moscow apartment over the
weekend.

PLENARY SESSION OF SOUTH CAUCASUS PARLIAMENTARY INITIATIVE TO BE HELD
IN DUBLIN ON JULY 24-26

YEREVAN, JULY 22, NOYAN TAPAN. A plenary session of the South Caucasus
Parliamentary Initiative will be held in Dublin on July
24-26. According to Head of the Armenian delegation, NA Vice Speaker
Tigran Torosian, it is envisaged to discuss prospects for the
implementation of the memorandum signed recently in Tbilisi by the
heads of the parliamentary delegations of Armenia, Georgia and
Azerbaijan. Particularly, the matter concerns setting up the South
Caucasus Parliamentary Assembly.

ENOKIAN: Understanding will not fix the Middle East
By Lee Enokian

The Illinois Leader, IL
July 19 2005

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

OPINION – I can’t understand the politically correct attitude toward
extremist Muslims and their terrorist acts.

Far too many Americans have forgotten where their loyalties belong
and chant the misguided mantra of “understanding” – if we just
understand the people of the Middle East better, peace would return.

As a person whose family is from that region, I can confidently state
that they’re all wrong. Dead wrong.

Immense cultural differences separate the motivations of southwest
Asians from Europeans and Americans. Just for starters, don’t confuse
ethnicity with national identity. A huge percentage of Americans of
Middle Eastern ethnicity do not identify their primary individual
awareness with citizenship.

Obtaining citizenship is merely a means to an end. That end is to
make money (often to send “home”) and to transplant their culture.

Many immigrants simply don’t assimilate. They raise their children
without an American identity.

Traditional dress, extreme facial hair and other indicators are only
cursory indicators of this point.

Being a former U.S. Army officer, I know the psyche of a people can
often be determined by the way they wage war.

Differing attitudes between European and Middle Eastern warfare has
been caused by their general reasons for territorial expansion. Aside
from Hitler and Stalin, Europeans sought to extend control over
foreign lands and the people tied to them. This generally results in
an increase in their tax base and a greater availability of trade
goods. In short, wars made one rich and more powerful.

Middle Eastern warfare has often been driven by religion and a
scarcity of resources. Wars are waged to extend control over
additional lands so a conquering people can exploit their resources.

Existing populations have generally been an unwanted nuisance.

Massacres and Genocides are not uncommon. This inherent predilection
for extreme violence mixed with acquired fundamentalist Islamic
teachings to produce a deadly environment.

Jihad is a widely accepted practice espoused by the Prophet Mohammed
in the Koran. Muslims are particularly dangerous because they believe
those who die in support of jihad go to heaven immediately. Many
extremists also believe that people who insult Allah or the Prophet
should be beheaded.

Am I painting the picture with an unrealistically broad brush? Nope.

Let us not forget that more Christians died for their faith during
the 20th Century than in any other. Most of the victims died at the
hands of Muslims.

My conservative patriotic fervor for traditional American values came
through a variety of sources. The most powerful is the realization
that my family would not exist if the United States had not taken us
in during our hour of need. My grandparents fled their homes in
Kharpert as Islamo-fascist Ottoman Turks slaughtered more than two
million ethnic Armenians and Assyrians for being Christian.

Attractive women and girls were frequently captured and forced into
the sexual slavery of Ottoman harems.

Few that didn’t convert to Islam were spared.

Thank God for the United States and for the founding fathers that
paid for a Judeo-Christian tradition of freedom with their property,
blood and lives.

Dangerous, unrecognized countries? Let’s go!
By JOHN DOYLE

Globe and Mail, Canada
July 18 2005

As an Irish ballad informs us with pith, “Everybody needs a break/climb
a mountain or jump in a lake.” It’s a song about summer holidays, which
people are kinda weird about. Some motor off to the cottage. Some
fly off to see the relatives in the old country. Others decide to
visit somewhere they’ve seen in a movie. The sister came over here to
bother me — and the brother. The mother and the da are, apparently,
going to Bucharest. Why? They saw it on TV and took a notion.

Some people are a tad wackier when it comes to vacations, though.
They’ll go to places that are remote and dangerous. If there are
warnings from the government and international organizations that the
place is hostile to outsiders, all the better. The ultimate list of
such places is covered in a new British series starting here tonight.

Holidays in the Danger Zone: Places That Don’t Exist (Newsworld,
8 p.m.) is outstanding television. That’s because Simon Reeve, the
host/reporter, is endlessly curious and incredibly brave.

When we last encountered Reeve he was showing us around “the Stans,”
countries such as Kazakhstan, that few outsiders visit. It was an
excellent series, exceptionally revealing of both the general and
specific.

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Reeve is now one of the great TV figures. A smart and cheerful
Englishman, he’s a combination of Michael Palin and serious political
reporter. Before he started making these odd but fascinating TV
programs, he wrote one of the landmark books about al-Qaeda.

In this series he visits countries that don’t officially exist. Most
aren’t recognized by other countries or the United Nations and,
in many cases you won’t find the details on a map.

His first stop in the new series is Somaliland, which broke away from
Somalia few years ago. To get there, he had to go to Somalia first.
His time in Mogadishu is truly bizarre. He ambles around, surrounded
by hired thugs because that’s the only way to get a bit of peace in
Somalia. Even then, things are a bit tense. Amiable and oblivious to
the danger around him, though, Reeve visits the “tourist spots” —
those places where the real events depicted in the movie Black Hawk
Down took place. To get out of Somalia a person needs a passport. For
that, Reeve did business with the chap in charge of such matters,
a very frightening man known as Mr. Big Beard.

Meanwhile in Somaliland, the people are trying to create something
resembling a stable country. It’s as if all the sensible people fled
Somalia and tried to set up an alternative version. In fact they did,
tired of warlords and endless bloodshed. But nobody recognizes it as
a country so far. The United Nations gives it some money and that’s
about all the support it gets. Reeve wanders into a meeting of the
government of Somaliland. “What is your national budget?” he asks
of the Prime Minister. The man laughs. “Whatever we get,” he says.
Somaliland doesn’t officially exist, but it looks like a promising
place.

In the second episode, airing next week, Reeve visits Transdniestria.
It’s a wannabe country tucked between Moldova and Ukraine. The people
of Transdniestria would rather be closer to Ukraine and Russia,
since Moldova is considered the poorest country in Europe.

There, Reeve meets the President, who wants to get him drunk, and then
a group of men in a village who have sold their kidneys for cash. Once
in Transdniestria, Reeve finds a weird Soviet-style society. No other
country recognizes this little country, but it has its own currency,
postage stamps, government and president. Its economy seems to rest
on a bunch of enormous steel factories that were part of the Soviet
system. They function today, probably making armaments. Reeve traipses
around, like a slightly dotty tourist, and asks impertinent questions.

In later programs in the five-part series (continuing through Wednesday
and next week), Reeve visits Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and
Taiwan. It is all excellent television, the sort of hybrid journalism
that television does very well. If you want to use the series for
summer holiday suggestions, that’s entirely up to you.

Also airing tonight: Medium (CTV, 9 p.m., NBC, 10 p.m.) is a repeat,
but it is one of those episodes worth noting. In this one, Allison
(Patricia Arquette) has a dream about two boys racing a train. In the
dream, one boy disappears. Her search for the meaning of the dream
leads her to consult a professor who specializes in communicating
with the dead. Thus we get a double-whammy of paranormal shenanigans.
Having seen many of the new shows arriving this fall, I can tell
you that this double-whammy is just the start. The paranormal is the
coming thing. I can see it, and I’m no medium.

The Guide: Preview: Film

The Guardian – United Kingdom; Jul 16, 2005

PHELIM O’NEILL

* Optronica LONDON

How can you not attend something with a name as cool as Optronica?
Just try dropping it into conversation and see how impressed and
confused your friends will be. It means a cutting-edge fusion of
music and visuals and judging from these events, it seems to warrant
the creation of such a fancy-pants new term. The IMAX theatre plays
host to live sets from DJ Spooky (pictured, who’ll be soundtracking
DW Griffith’s reprehensible, Klan-friendly classic Birth Of A
Nation), Plaid and ex-Kraftwerker Karl Bartos, all making splendid
use of the largest screen in Britain. At the NFT there are
audio-visual performances from Skoltz Kolgen, People Like Us and
Masakatsu Takagi, plus a free outdoor screening this Friday, and
dozens of other events. So that’s what an Optronica is, then.

IMAX, National Film Theatre, SE1 and The Spitz, E1, Wed 20 to Jul 24

Sergei Parajanov LONDON

Georgian/Armenian Sergei Parajanov was arrested twice by the KGB on
trumped-up charges, but it wasn’t just the law whose attention he
drew – his remarkable, allegorical films are still pored over today.
His masterpiece is the symbolic, dreamlike The Colour Of Pomegranates
(pictured), which is presented here in a director’s cut. Sumptuous
images flow into one another in a highly pleasing manner – although
it had a different effect on the Soviet authorities who practically
buried the film for almost a decade. His other inimitable works, The
Legend Of The Suram Fortress, Shadows Of Our Forgotten Ancestors and
Ashik Kerib are also playing, and all screenings will be introduced
by his nephew Georgy Parajanov, who also unveils his documentary on
his late uncle, I Died In Childhood. po’n

Cine Lumiere, SW7,

Tue 19 to Thu 21

Experimenta LONDON & TOURING

This is a chance to get up to speed on the state of experimental
film, and also to put it into some perspective with some great
archive material. There’s a section on the final works of arch
avant-gardist Stan Brakhage – including Water For Maya and The God Of
Day Had Gone Down Upon Him – which saw him try new approaches without
diminishing his unique vision. New works from Robert Breer and Peter
Kubelka are placed alongside offerings from younger upstarts like the
woozy abstractions of Yuiko Matsumaya and the found footage of Julie
Murray. Jessica Yu’s excellent outsider art documentary, In The
Realms Of The Unreal, also starts a short run. The programme, or
parts of it, will be touring most UK cities between now and
September. po’n

ICA Cinema SE1, Sat 16 to Jul 24, experimenta

* Studio Ghibli NATIONWIDE

Live-action studios don’t really generate much trust and loyalty –
when was the last time you went to see a movie just because it was
made by Warner or Universal? But it’s different for animation houses.
Generally they’re built around one visionary who influences and
inspires all the output, delivering a more consistent product. With
Japan’s Studio Ghibli it’s the phenomenally creative Hayao Miyazaki,
and with his latest, Howl’s Moving Castle, due for release, this is a
great chance to get up to speed with their imaginative output.
Miyazaki’s films make up most of the bill: the critic-proof Spirited
Away, the breakthrough Princess Mononoke, as well as the lesser-known
examples Kiki’s Delivery Service (pictured) and Castle In The Sky.
Plus a couple of films with which he’s had heavy involvement: moving
teen drama Whisper Of The Heart and the wonderfully baffling The Cat
Returns. po’n

Picturehouse Cinemas, Wed 20 to Sep 25

IS AMALYAN IMMORTAL?

A1+
14-07-2005

`The extra presidential election should be held on the first Sunday of
2006 and the parliamentary elections ` on the last Sunday of
September’, this is one of the 64 proposals by leader of the National
Democratic Alliance Arshak Sadoyan.

None of these proposal was adopted. `It’s strange that neither
Shavarsh Kocharyan nor Artashes Geghamyan paid attention to this fact
in Strasbourg though they have promised radical changes’, Arshak
Sadoyan says. He also thinks it is odd that he being the author of one
of the drafts was not present at the meeting with the representatives
of the Venice Commission.

In his turn member of the National Democratic Alliance Karen Vardanyan
informed that the change of the NCTR formation order was included into
the transition clauses, consequently the Committee will be dissolved
after the authority term expires.

Chariho Times, RI
July 14 2005

Gun law doesn’t help victims, hurts second amendment
07/14/2005

Rhode Island’s newest gun control measure creates a dan-gerous
precedent.
Surely, those who created and supported the law had, and have only
the best of intentions.
Any attempt to curb and pre-vent domestic violence is to be
commended. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed. The state’s
newest gun control leg-islation, which requires gun owners with
permanent re-straining orders against them to relinquish their guns,
brings the issue of domestic violence closer to the forefront.
To truly end domestic vio-lence, we need to change hearts and minds,
not gun laws. Re-gardless of how cliché it is, the old saying ‘guns
don’t kill peo-ple, people kill people’ rings true.
In wake of a gun-related mur-der, law officials and lawmakers
immediately place the blame on guns, overlooking the fact that the
trigger had to be pulled by someone.
Advocates of domestic vio-lence prevention are hailing the new gun
control law as trium-phant, but the law’s exceptions mock the efforts
made by the group.
For instance, the measure re-quires people with permanent restraining
orders to either sur-render their firearms to police, sell them to a
local arms dealer, or leave them with a non-blood relative or a
friend.
Leaving a firearm with a friend is completely against the spirit of
the law, because it would be far too easy for the person deemed a
danger to re-gain the weapon.
Also, the law makes exemp-tions. If people named with permanent
restraining orders are so dangerous, why allow people who work as
police officers, se-curity guards, or private investi-gators to carry
the weapons? Surely, that person could do just as much damage with
firearms during their work hours as any other time. Thus, the spirit
of the law is broken
The law does more to curb the second amendment, the right to bear
arms, than protect victims of domestic violence.
As Chariho residents have pointed out, the law prosecutes a thought
crime. A person who has a restraining order against them isn’t a
criminal. Many Rhode Islanders who have never broken the law will be
stripped of their second amendment rights.
Usually, when a gun-control law is passed, there is a trade off:
liberty for safety.
What’s remarkable about this law is that the normal trade off doesn’t
even take place. With this law, Rhode Island residents lose liberty,
but gain no safety.
Lastly, and most scary, is the fact that this law could be just
another step in disarming the law abiding American public. We ought
to remember history’s lessons before we let the dema-gogues in the
state house pull that one off.
In 1915 the Turkish Govern-ment committed a genocide against an
unarmed Armenian populace. Vladimir Lenin dis-armed the Russians, and
a gen-eration later Stalin committed genocide against the Kulaks.
Adolph Hitler disarmed the German populace before com-mitting a
genocide against the Jewish people.
These atrocities never happen to an armed citizenry.
The second amendment was written into the Constitution for a reason.
Let’s not forget it.

PanArmenian News
July 13 2005

OSCE MG: TERMS OF AGREEMENT ON KARABAKH DEPEND ON POLITICAL WILL OF
PEOPLE

12.07.2005 08:48

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `The draft agreement will hardly be ready by the
meeting of the Armenian and Azeri Presidents in Kazan. We are working
at the formulation and principles of the settlement. The process of
their coordination will probably take several months,’ Russian
Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov said at a press
conference in Baku. `Peaceful agreement can be worked out as within
the next several months as within the next century. The terms depend
on the political will of the leaders and people’, the US Co-Chair
added. French Co-Chair Bernard Fassier shared the opinion. In his
words, the Minsk Group is a mediator only while the Presidents are
responsible for the establishment of peace. The mediators reported
that during the negotiations with the Azerbaijani leadership the
issue of opening communications between Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan
via Armenia and Karabakh. In their opinion when the issue is urgent
it will be advisable to include the Armenian and Azeri communities of
Karabakh in the process, Day.az reports.