Author: Nahapetian Samvel

GENOCIDE NEGATION POLICY JEOPARDIZES WHOLE WORLD: HOUSE OF LORDS DISCUSSED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

news.am
March 30 2010
Armenia

The necessity of Armenian Genocide recognition internationally is long
overdue, considering its 95th anniversary this year, said Baroness
Caroline Cox today in the House of Lords.

According to her, currently Turkish government denies the fact of
massacres of innumerous Armenians committed in Ottoman Empire in the
beginning of last century, which a dishonest refusal of historical
truth. In spring 1915, the deportation of Armenians separated
men from families, who got shot later in a desert area. Turkish
policy of deportation, extermination and massacres of Armenians is
inconvertible. Consequence of Genocide denial is impunity, having
destructing the Armenian civilization in culture, including in NKR
territory by Azerbaijanis. There was an obvious ethnic cleansing. Each
year visiting Genocide memorial all Armenians commemorate their
victims. The genocide denial policy jeopardizes the whole world,
Baroness Cox underlined.

One of the lords recalled that the Armenian Genocide issue was
widely discussed by Turkish writers. He reckons that Hrant Dink’s
assassination proves the prosecution and persecution of Armenians even
in modern Turkey. Turkey exerts political pressure on media after the
Armenian genocide recognition by the U.S House Committee and Swedish
Parliament. Minister Erdogan being on official visit in UK this
month, opposed the voting, threatening to deport 100.000 Armenians
from Turkey. I urge Minister Erdogan to open dialogue on 1915 events
starting with "Blue Book" and try to overcome the hostility of 100
years and join us with Turkish Grand National Assembly again, he added.

Another official stated that in 1915 Turkish government planned and
organized massacres which were a final solution to Armenia-Turkey
relations, and its end seems to be compelling. If Turkey could apology
to Armenian government for prosecution and persecution of historical
writers presenting the truth of terrible events that took place.

Continuance of denial of what happened began between Turkey and
Armenia, diverts attention from urgent constitutional reforms, that
many Europeans consider necessary within Turkey and its application
for EU membership.

The opinion also against the genocide was voiced as well. One of Lords
said that it would be much more relevant instead of self-indulging
of what happened 100 years ago in Ottoman Empire to settle the issue.

There is no reason or excuse of defending either side, but from my
reading I believe Armenian-Russian attempts provoked the conflict,
that actually resulted in killing of a large number of people in harsh
circumstances. UK should remember 1922 — Kemal Ataturk, ally of UK
and we are grateful for Turkish participation in guarding freedom of
Europe. For that reason I believe we should be very careful not to
alienate our Turkish ally, considering that US congressional committee
only voted by majority in favour of the resolution.

Anther UK official emphasized that Armenian population was annihilated
in the most cruel and barbaric way, it was a crime against humanity
and Armenian people. These events cannot be forgotten, but they have
to move forward – Armenians and Turks should live for a better chance
and future. They initiated diplomatic Protocols on reconciliation
for the first time in the history and the investigation of events of
the past. But process stalled despite pressure from the US. Neither
parliament has yet approved the Protocols, Armenian President Sargsyan
said that Armenian Parliament will ratify the Protocols as soon as
Turkey does so. Within this limited success Erdogan threatens to
deport 100.000 illegal Armenians from the country. Can Baroness tell
what discussions are made between their governments to ease this
tension? Widely accepted that prospects of Turkey’s EU membership
will force to change in a constructive way and examine its past in
his area, she concluded.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Baroness
Kinnock of Holyhead thanked Baroness Cox for initiating debates. She
noted that British deeply regret the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians who were either killed by Ottoman troops or died from
starvation or disease at the beginning of the previous century. She
stated that the victims of such suffering should not be forgotten.

However, she added that UK Government will not make any statements
that have the potential to jeopardize the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation
process.

The debates in the House of Lords were initiated based on Baroness
Caroline Cox’s proposal.

CHIEF OF AZERBAIJANI POLITICAL PARTY: TURKEY WILL PROVIDE ADEQUATE AND HARSH RESPONSE TO ARMENIAN LOBBY

Today
83.html
March 29 2010
Azerbaijan

"Turkey is doing a major diplomatic work to confront activities of
the Armenian lobby aimed at recognition of the so-called" Armenian
genocide", Chief of the Yurddash party of Azerbaijan Mais Safarli said.

"Turkey has already voiced its protest against the recent moves
by the U.S. and Sweden which was followed by official apologies,
especially by the Swedish Prime Minister," he said.

"Turkey is a strong state that will not tolerate jokes and games. The
world community is perfectly aware that parliaments cannot take any
decisions related to the history. Parliaments are egislatures which
can pass only laws," head of the party said.

Safarli stressed that Turkey plays an important role in Europe, and
all decisions against it may create problems for European countries
and the U.S.

Turkey will give an adequate response to any attempts of the Armenian
lobby aimed at recognition of the so-called "Armenian genocide",
he added.

"If the Armenian lobby proceeds with the so-called "Armenian genocide"
recognition, Turkey will provide an adequate response. Turkey may
withdraw the Turkey-Armenia protocols from the parliament. Turkey
also may close its airspace for Armenia," Safarli added.

"The Armenian side understands this very well and it has no other
choice. Yerevan has a very unconstructive position. On one hand,
Armenia has signed the protocols and is campaigning for recognition
of the so-called "Armenian genocide on the other. All this shows
hypocrisy and double standards of Armenia in these matters," he said.

"The countries that recognize the so-called "Armenian genocide",
in fact, use it to exert pressure on Turkey."

"These countries do not believe in the so-called"Armenian genocide",
but just want to make Turkey dependent on them. I am confident that
Armenia will achieve nothing in this issue," the party chief noted.

RA MFA: MADRID PRINCIPLES AS BASIS FOR TALKS BEEN ADOPTED BY ARMENIA TWO YEARS AGO

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
29.03.2010 20:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On March 29 the Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Edward Nalbandian met with the co-chairs of OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Bernard Fassier
(France) and Robert Bradtke (U.S.). The meeting was attended by a
Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej
Kasprzyk.

At the beginning of the meeting the Foreign Minister of Armenia
expressed condolences to the Russian mediator in connection with the
explosion in the Moscow metro.

During the meeting officials discussed recent developments in
the negotiations on Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement and the
possibility of rapprochement of the conflict parties on the basis of
Madrid Principles. Co-chairs briefed the Armenian Foreign Minister
with the outcomes of meetings in Nagorno-Karabakh.

With regard to increased recent speculation on the Madrid principles,
Edward Nalbandian said that the Madrid principles as a basis for
negotiations were adopted by Armenia 2 years ago and remain the same
as they were, press office of the MFA reported.

When Nudity Isn’t Enough
Atom Egoyan’s erotic thriller, Chloe.
By Dana Stevens
Posted Friday, March 26, 2010, at 3:14 PM ET
————————————————- ———–

There are two good reasons to see Atom Egoyan’s erotic thriller Chloe (Sony
Pictures Classics): Amanda Seyfried naked and Julianne Moore naked. Egoyan,
a Canadian, has a Gallic casualness about above-the-waist nudity, so by the
end of this 96-minute tale of infidelity and voyeurism, the viewer has a
more-than-nodding acquaintance with its female stars’ breasts. (If I wanted
to, I could describe them in detail right now, with a frank, unnerving
solemnity that would be in keeping with the movie’s tone.) Seyfried and
Moore are both terrific actresses whom I would pay good money to watch not
naked, and thanks to their heroic efforts (and those of their costar, Liam
Neeson) Chloe remains engaging for longer than any movie this schlocky and
overwritten has a right to be. But the movie loses what little goodwill it’s
managed to build up by the last act, which feels clumsily grafted from a
completely different film.

Moore’s character, Catherine, is a gynecologist married to a music
professor, David (Neeson). Those professions must pay very well in Canada,
because the couple and their 17-year-old son Michael (Max Thieriot) live in
a vast, luxurious modernist house outside Toronto (played by the architect
Drew Mandel’s Ravine House). On the surface, it’s an elegant, enviable life,
but, underneath, the marriage is strained. Catherine suspects her distant
husband of cheating on her with a student, and their son openly flouts his
mother’s rules by bringing a girlfriend over for nightly sleepovers. In a
contrived encounter in the bathroom of a fancy restaurant, Catherine meets a
beautiful, emotionally needy call girl named Chloe (Seyfried). Eventually,
Catherine offers to hire Chloe to try to seduce her husband as a test of his
fidelity.

Some might argue that dangling the buxom, flaxen-haired, creamy-skinned
Seyfried in front of one’s spouse as sexual bait and expecting him or her to
resist constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions. But Catherine has
high standards – and also, it seems, a libidinal investment in imagining her
husband in bed with the toothsome Chloe. The two women begin meeting in
cafes to exchange envelopes of money and explicit accounts of Chloe’s
increasingly racy encounters with David.

Chloe is a remake of Nathalie, a French thriller from 2003 in which Fanny
Ardant sicced Emmanuelle Béart on Gerard Depardieu in similar fashion.
Though not without tawdriness, that movie was superior to this one, in large
part because of the deftly drawn relationship between the two female leads.
Atom Egoyan and his screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, Fur) are
keen to impress on us how very enigmatic and mysterious the bond is between
Catherine and Chloe. Are they playing out a mother-daughter scenario,
competing for David’s sexual attention, or lusting after each other? But the
tension between them feels artificial and overheated, with Mychael Danna’s
intrusive score instructing us how to feel in virtually every moment of
every scene.

Egoyan loves to compose his frame so that all of the elements in the shot
have symbolic meaning: As Catherine imagines her husband cheating on her
with Chloe in a glass-walled greenhouse, she presses her own hand against a
glass shower door. But these gestures toward parallelism feel too
on-the-nose, like the earnest thesis project of a film-school student. Even
in his best movies, of which this is not one, Egoyan is the kind of
determinedly arty director to whom one is always silently saying, "We get
it."

After a third-act twist in which Chloe’s motivations are finally spelled
out, the tone of sexually explicit portentousness takes a turn for the
absurd. Without revealing the details of the various anguished conversations
and romps on high-end bedding that lead up to the violent climax, I can say
that the biggest aesthetic influence on Chloe’s finale is not David
Cronenberg (the Canadian filmmaker Egoyan has cited as a mentor), but the
Paul Verhoeven of Basic Instinct. The only Verhoeven element that’s missing
is deliberate camp, a healthy ladling of which might have made Chloe worth
watching for some reason other than the prospect of glimpsing Seyfried’s and
Moore’s admirably formed torsos.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.

Article URL:
Copyright 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

YSMU and University of Southern California to sign agreement on
Academic Partnership

armradio.am
26.03.2010 17:52

A tripartite agreement establishing an academic partnership between
Yerevan State Medical University (YSMU) and the University of Southern
California (USC) will be signed between the two universities and the
USAID-funded Competitive Armenian Private Sector (CAPS) Project on
March 29, 2009.

The initiative aims to upgrade and re-align pharmaceutical education
curricula to be more responsive to the employer market, offer modern
teaching methods and form long-term professional relationships to
transfer knowledge from western institutions to those in Armenia.
Developing linkages between U.S. and Armenian Universities will help
improve the overall quality of pharmaceutical education in Armenia.

In the context of the partnership agreement, Michael Wincor, Associate
Dean, Globalization and Continuing Professional Development and
Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the USC School of Pharmacy
and Medicine, will conduct a needs assessment of the program. This
initial visit will entail a review, evaluation of and recommendations
on course offerings in the existing Master’s Program in Pharmacy.

`The CAPS Assessment of Skills and Knowledge Needs in the
Pharmaceutical Industry has revealed a gap between the skills and
knowledge that exist versus what is required within the pharmaceutical
sector. It is anticipated that the academic partnership initiative
will eventually bridge the knowledge gap and substantially reduce
labor migration.’ Anush Shahverdyan, CAPS Workforce Development
Specialist suggested. YSMU Vice-Rector of Professional and Continuing
Education Dr. Gevorg Yaghjyan is sure that the present project will
contribute to the development and implementation of the Master’s
program in Pharmacy.

Trend, Azerbaijan
March 26 2010

EU to help Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia implement border management system

26.03.2010 16:15

Georgia, Tbilisi, March 26 /Trend News, N.Kirtskhalia/

The new program of the European Union will assist the governments of
the Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in the implementation of border
management system, which will make them both open and safe.

Programme with a budget of 6.3 million euros will be implemented the
UN Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the
International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
Official opening of the program will be held March 29 at a conference
in Tbilisi, which will be attended by representatives of the
governments of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, international
organizations and member states.

Saudi Press Agency (SPA)
March 25, 2010 Thursday

Turkish ambassador to return to Sweden

Istanbul, Mar 25, SPA — Turkey’s ambassador to Sweden, recalled after
that country’s parliament recently passed a bill recognizing the mass
killings of Armenians in Ottoman-era Turkey during World War I as
"genocide," is set to return, Turkish media reported Thursday, according to dpa.

Ambassador Zergun Koruturk would return to Sweden shortly, reports
quoted Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu telling private broadcaster
CNNTurk in an interview late Wednesday.

"The Swedish government clearly opposed the adoption of a bill on
the incidents of 1915 at the Swedish Parliament. The Swedish
government clearly demonstrated its stand on the bill regarding the
incidents of 1915," Davutoglu said.

Ankara also recalled its ambassador to Washington after a House of
Representatives committee recently passed another "genocide" bill.
Turkish officials have said the ambassador will not return until it
is clear that the resolution will not go any further.

Armenians accuse the Ottoman Turks of being behind the systematic
killings of up to 1.5 million during WWI.

Turkey has rejected the genocide claim, saying the number of
Armenians killed was much lower and that the deaths were the result
of violent turbulence that also affected other groups at the time.

THEY WANTED TO KILL ERDOGAN RIGHT THERE IN PARLIAMENT

Tert.am
11:15 * 24.03.10

An attempted murder was allegedly committed against Turkey’s Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports Turkish news agency Cihan
yesterday, citing official sources.

On March 23, Erdogan delivered a speech during the ruling Justice and
Development Party’s session in the parliament. In the meantime, his
bodyguard and Turkish law enforcement bodies were taking extraordinary
measures to ensure the prime minister’s security. The session hall
was full of police officers and security guards. Some people, who had
come to have meetings with Erdogan, were not allowed even to enter
the parliament building.

According to Cihan, the attempted murder against Erdogan was planned
to be committed right in the session hall of Turkey’s Grand National
Assembly. No other details are reported.

Citing local governmental anonymous sources, Turkish daily Milliyet
reports that from time to time the security service receives alarms
in relation to possible attempted murders against Erdogan.

DASHNAKTSUTYUN BRINGS COUNCIL OF EUROPE REFERENCE TO PROVE IT’S OPPOSITION?

Tert.am
13:22 ~U 24.03.10

Asked how he sees extraordinary elections in Armenia taking place,
given that governing authorities have no intention whatsoever to
hold extraordinary elections, Armenian National Congress (ANC)
representative Davit Shahnazaryan, at a press conference today,
said, "It doesn’t matter, they’ll be faced with it, with or without
intentions."

The ANC representative added that the authorities weren’t in the mood
for regular elections either and they too were catastrophic for them.

In his words, while preparing for extraordinary elections, the ANC will
be ready to cooperate with a lot of political powers except those who
bring a reference from the Council of Europe to prove that they are
an opposition party, hinting at the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun).

TURKEY PREPARING ALTERNATIVES IN RESPONSE TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

PanARMENIAN.Net
24.03.2010 18:14 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey is preparing alternatives in response to
passage of Armenian Genocide resolution in foreign parliaments.

According to Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Burak
Ozugergin, in future Turkey might resort to the standards of
international law. As he noted, parliament is not the right place to
discuss historic issues.

The resolution can have a negative effect on bilateral relations,
TRT-Russian cited the spokesman as saying.

On March 4, 2010, with a vote of 23 to 22, the House Foreign Relations
Committee successfully passed House Resolution 252 (H. Res. 252)
pushing the Resolution in Congress for a final vote yet to be
scheduled.

On March 11, 2010, the Swedish Parliament recognized the Armenian
Genocide in Ottoman Empire in 1915 by 131 votes in favor and 130
against,