The Armenian national team U19 defeated the Lebanese squad 5-0.
Zhirair Shagoyan scored double.
It was the second victory of the Armenian national team U19, led by the newly appointed head coach Rafael Nazaryan. Two days ago, Armenian football players defeated the Lebanese squad 2-0.
Tuesday,
Baku Raps Armenian PM Over Stepanakert Speech
• Hrach Melkumian
A government building in Baku, Azerbaijan (file photo)
Official Baku has strongly condemned Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
statement made at an August 5 rally in Stepanakert that “Artsakh
[Nagorno-Karabakh] is Armenia.”
“Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan. It is our historic and inseparable land,” said
Hikmet Haciyev, head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Azerbaijani
President’s Administration.
The Azerbaijani official described Pashinian’s statement as provocative, saying
that by such rhetoric Armenia’s leadership is bringing the region to the brink
of a “serious crisis”.
“Let no one doubt that Azerbaijan will restore its territorial integrity.
Responsibility for the consequences lies with the Armenian side,” said Haciyev,
as quoted by Azerbaijani media.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an
Armenian-populated region that has been de-facto independent from Baku after a
three-year war in the early 1990s, in which an estimated 30,000 people were
killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.
Despite a 1994 ceasefire, loss of life has continued in the conflict zone in
recurrent border skirmishes and sporadic fighting.
An internationally mediated peace process spearheaded by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group has so far failed to produce a
lasting settlement of the conflict.
Pashinian addressed a crowd of several thousand people at Stepanakert’s central
Renaissance Square on the eve of the ceremonial opening of the seventh
Pan-Armenian Games.
The quadrennial Games held in Yerevan bring together ethnic Armenian athletes
from around the world and are designed to foster closer relationships between
Armenia and its far-flung Diaspora. This year the Nagorno-Karabakh capital
hosts the Games opening ceremony.
In his speech, Pashinian also called for the consolidation of the “pan-Armenian
potential” in realizing the nation’s strategic goals.
In the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, the head of the Armenian
government said that the goal of negotiations with Azerbaijan should be “the
defense of the achievements of the liberation struggle waged for the
sovereignty and security of the Karabakh people.”
“Any solution reached as a result of negotiations that will be considered
acceptable for the governments of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh can be regarded
as such only if it is popularly endorsed by people in Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinian concluded.
Outlined ‘Strategic Goals’ Call For Higher Growth Rates, Says Economist
• Artak Khulian
Economist Bagrat Asatrian
Economist Bagrat Asatrian describes the long-term strategic goals outlined by
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on August 6 as ‘fantastic’, stressing
that much higher growth rates are needed to fulfill them.
Addressing a rally in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepanakert last night,
Pashinian unveiled a list of strategic goals that he said Armenian governments
should achieve by 2050. In particular, he said that in the next three decades
Armenia’s population should grow from the current 3 million to at least 5
million people and the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) should be
increased 15 times.
Anticipating skeptical assessments by economists and analysts, Pashinian
stressed in his speech that after achieving “the impossible” during the 2018
“velvet revolution”, Armenians are no longer interested in “what is possible.”
“What is possible to implement is no longer interesting for us. We are
interested in what everyone considers to be impossible to realize. Because the
Armenian people have already realized what is impossible!” he said.
Asatrian, who served as governor of Armenia’s Central Bank in 1994-1998, told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service (Azatutyun.am) on Tuesday that Armenia needs to
dramatically accelerate its rate of development to get on track for the goals
outlined by the prime minister. Otherwise, he said, it will be impossible to
achieve them by 2050.
Asatrian assessed the current rate of growth as positive, but still
insufficient. “We have semi-annual results of [economic activity] at 6.5
percent, which can be said to be a good rate, especially given the qualitative
shifts. But at this rate of growth we will at best quadruple our GDP in 30
years. In other words, we need to grow three to four times faster to achieve
that result,” said Asatrian.
United Nations Population Fund Assistant Representative Tsovinar Harutiunian
attached importance to the population growth benchmark set by Pashinian, but
said significant changes in a number of areas are needed to achieve that.
“We can evaluate it only if we see much more specific programs, including
calculations, resources, a timetable and expected outcomes,” Harutiunian said.
The UN Population Fund currently estimates that Armenia’s population will be
reduced by 150,000 by 2050.
Armenia’s former President Serzh Sarkisian declared in 2017 a strategic goal of
increasing the country’s population to 4 million by 2040.
Karabakh Capital Hosts Opening Ceremony For Pan-Armenian Games
The ceremonial opening of the 7th Summer Pan-Armenian Games in Stepanakert,
Nagorno-Karabakh, August 6, 2019
The Seventh Summer Pan-Armenian Games opened in Stepanakert in a ceremony held
at the Nagorno-Karabakh capital’s stadium on August 6.
The quadrennial Games bringing together hundreds of ethnic Armenian athletes
from around the world are designed to foster closer relationships between
Armenia and its far-flung Diaspora.
This year Stepanakert has been chosen to co-host the Games. Most of the
competitions, however, will still be held the Armenian capital of Yerevan.
Armenia is an ethnically homogenous country that has a population of about 3
million. But twice as many ethnic Armenians are believed to live abroad. Most
of them are descendants of survivors of the 1915 massacres in Ottoman Turkey
that more than two dozen governments of the world as well as many historians
recognize as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Summer Pan-Armenian games have been held in Armenia since 1999. In 2014, the
first winter Pan-Armenian Games took place in the Armenian ski resort town of
Tsaghkadzor.
Nearly 5,300 athletes and sports delegation members coming from more than three
dozen countries are attending the current Games that feature sports like
soccer, basketball, volleyball, golf, swimming, badminton, tennis, track and
field athletics, cycling and others. The Games will close in Yerevan on August
17.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian also attended the opening ceremony at
Stepanakert’s Stepan Shahumian Republican Stadium.
Meeting with organizers of the Games earlier on Tuesday, Pashinian called it
“symbolic” that this year the opening of the pan-Armenian sporting event takes
place in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital. He said that the Games can become “a
good platform for our pan-national conversation.”
“I think that it will be very useful if we really manage to expand the idea of
pan-Armenianism. In this sense, of course, the Pan-Armenian Games have a very
important and exceptional significance,” the head of the Armenian government
underscored.
Addressing a rally in Stepanakert the day before, Pashinian also called for a
pan-Armenian consolidation. Outlining a number of strategic goals that he said
Armenians should achieve by 2050, Pashinian said that “Artsakh
[Nagorno-Karabakh] is Armenia, period.”
The remark was strongly condemned by Azerbaijan that does not recognize
Nagorno-Karabakh’s sovereignty and considers it to be its territory.
Azerbaijani media quoted presidential aide Hikmet Haciyev as describing
Pashinian’s statement as provocative and stressing that by such rhetoric
Armenia’s leadership is bringing the region to the verge of a “serious crisis.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an
Armenian-populated region that has been de-facto independent from Baku after a
three-year war in the early 1990s, in which an estimated 30,000 people were
killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.
Despite a 1994 ceasefire, loss of life has continued in the conflict zone in
recurrent border skirmishes and sporadic fighting.
An internationally mediated peace process spearheaded by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group has so far failed to produce a
lasting settlement of the conflict.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” says that apart from being an occasion for strengthening ties
among Armenians from around the world, pan-Armenian Games also provide a good
opportunity for local businesses. The paper reminds its readers that this year
the opening of the Games is due to take place in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital
of Stepanakert on August 6. “It is several days now that hotels and inns in and
around Stepanakert have had no vacant rooms and local restaurants and cafes
have stayed very busy. Even people who have never rented out their apartments
before have now done so,” the paper reports.
Lragir.am suggests that by deploring in his speech at a rally in Stepanakert on
August 5 “any attempt to bring in foreign forces in settling domestic Armenian
affairs” Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian hinted at a possible external
factor in Nagorno-Karabakh’s presidential elections slated for 2020. The online
paper claims that plausible candidates in the upcoming elections may be linked
to certain Russian circles.
“Aravot” regards Prime Minister Pashinian’s references to a ‘secret report’
that was drawn up still under the previous government and describing Armenia as
an ‘institutionally paralyzed and failed state” as an attempt to justify the
current situation with the “heavy legacy of the past.” At the same time, the
daily’s editor writes: “The old system did have some major shortcomings and was
largely inefficient, but it did solve some problems in some ways. The old
system was based on corrupt money and those responsible for specific spheres
managed to provide quick fixes using that corrupt money when things got worse.
It could not last for long. The system was doomed to collapse sooner or later.
Creating a clean system that will work like it does in civilized countries is
very difficult but doable.”
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2019 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
www.rferl.org
Submitted photo
The 1940 Granite City Warriors boys basketball team poses after winning the state championship.
For over 30 years, Arthur Sarkissian has been a successful Hollywood producer, making 17 motion pictures, including three from the "Rush Hour" series starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.
Now, he's setting his sights on producing "Men of Granite," a film about the 1940 Granite City boys basketball team winning a state championship.
"It's not so much about sports, although I love basketball very much, but it's about the challenges that anyone faces in any particular field," Sarkissian said. "It's a challenge that I connect with these kids. They had nothing and didn't give up and I like that."
The motion picture will be based on the 2007 book written by Dan Manoyan, a former longtime sportswriter from Milwaukee.
"I'll be happy when it gets moving," Manoyan said.
This will be the second attempt for "Men of Granite" to hit the big screen. Production for the movie was originally scheduled to start in 2015 after Milwaukee philanthropist Albert Nicholas — who died in 2016 — invested $1.3 million in the project and Valerie McCaffrey was hired as producer. But lack of funding halted production for four years.
Two years ago, Manoyan sued the producers for mismanagement of money for the film. A three-day trial ended earlier this summer in Milwaukee and the judge will decide within the next several months who will pay back the money that remained in the production account when the project was shut down.
“It was a bench case, which means you don't get a verdict right away,” Manoyan said. “You have to wait about two months.”
Manoyan said he's happy that the project has started back up with a new producer.
"It's great to get the Men of Granite project back on track, especially with a proven producer like Arthur Sarkissian," the author said. "He has a track record of producing quality films and I couldn't be happier that he is interested in the project. The project is still in the early stages, but with the court case behind us, I'm sure things will start happening rapidly now."
Sarkissian said there is no specific timetable on when the movie will be made.
"It's finding the right person to adapt it and finding the right director," the producer said. "I don't think it's a difficult movie to make. I'm hoping that within the next six months, I'm hoping to be able to be in production with it.”
Sarkissian said he contacted Manoyan through Anita Busch, a Granite City native who used to work for an online publication called Deadline Hollywood.
"She brought the story to my attention and she said I should get in touch with him and I did," Sarkissian said. "The rest is basically talking about what I wanted to know, like what has transpired, who was involved and what happened."
"Men of Granite" tells the story about the players growing up in the Lincoln Place neighborhood. Most of the players on the team came from Hungarian, Armenian, Yugoslavian and Macedonian backgrounds.
Granite City beat Herrin in the 1940 state championship game and finished 29-5.
"It's a story that I feel is timeless and I love true stories and what these guys have accomplished," Sarkissian said. "It's something I felt very strong about and I want to find a good way to bring it to the screen."
The Happy Warriors of 1940
Everett Daniels
Dan Eftimoff
George Gages
Andy Hagopian
Ed Hoff
John Markarian
Sam Mouradian
Ebbie Mueller
Evon Parsaghian
Andy Phillip
Coach: Byron Bozarth
Assistant Coach: Leonard Davis
Manager: Harold Brown
basketballGranite Cityheadline
“Azdarar” was the first Armenian language newspaper to be published
LA CRESCENTA—Editors from leading Armenian publications will headline a panel on Armenian media on Sunday, August 11. The panel will begin at 1 p.m., immediately following the Divine Liturgy, at the Prelacy’s Dikran & Zarouhi Der Ghazarian Hall, which is located at 6250 Honolulu Ave., La Crescenta, CA 91214.
Hosted by the Educational Committee of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Crescenta Valley, the event will cover current issues and challenges confronting the Armenian media, particularly in California. Ara Khachatourian of Asbarez, Harut Sassounian of The California Courier, Gabriel Moloyan of Massis Weekly, and Hratch Sepetjian of Nor Or Weekly will comprise the panelists. Attorney and playwright Aram Kouyoumdjian will serve as moderator.
Brief presentations by the panelists will offer historical overviews of the represented publications and information on each paper’s readership and reach, fiscal situation, and future outlook. Kouyoumdjian will then facilitate a panel discussion and field questions from audience members.
The panel will be among events being organized worldwide to commemorate 2019 as the Year of Armenian Media, pursuant to a proclamation by His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia. Early in July, over 100 media representatives from Armenia, Artsakh, and the Diaspora gathered at a Pan-Armenian Conference on Armenian Media convened by the Catholicosate. In his remarks to the conference, the Catholicos stressed that the Armenian media does not merely disseminate information but is entrusted with a pan-national mission.
Ara Khachatourian
Ara Khachatourian has served as the English Editor of Asbarez for the past 27 years. During his tenure, the English section transformed from a weekly insert in the Armenian section to a daily publication now having a significantly large online foothold in the Armenian media reality. He also oversaw the creation of the newspaper’s website in 1997, becoming the first Armenian publication to have an online presence.
Currently, Asbarez is one of the widest-read publications in the world. Before Asbarez, Khachatourian served as the media relations director for the Armenian National Committee of America, Western Region.
Khachatourian has been involved in community activities for more than 30 years, More recently, he has spearheaded the three iterations of the very successful ANCA-WR Grassroots Conference, has served on numerous committees, and was part of the team that organized the March for Justice in April 2015, which drew more than 160,000 people to the streets of Los Angeles demanding justice for the Armenian Genocide.
Born in Iran, Khachatourian moved to the United States with his family in 1979. While on the East Coast, Khachatourian joined the AYF and the ARF. He served two terms on the AYF Central Executive, one of them as chairman.
Harut Sassounian
Harut Sassounian is a publisher, syndicated columnist, TV commentator, author, filmmaker, human rights activist, and President of the Armenia Artsakh Fund. For his humanitarian efforts, he has been decorated by the President and Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, as well as the heads of the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic Churches. He is also the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
His weekly commentaries in The California Courier are translated into Russian, French, Arabic, and Armenian, and reprinted in dozens of publications in various countries and posted on countless websites, including the Huffington Post. As a political commentator, he appears on US Armenia TV each week, during which he analyzes the latest developments around the world.
Sassounian served as a human rights delegate to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 1978 to 1988. He played a key role in the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1985.
Holding a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University (New York) and an MBA from Pepperdine University (Los Angeles), Sassounian is the author of “The Armenian Genocide: The World Speaks Out, 1915 – 2015, Documents & Declarations.”
Gabriel Moloyan
Gabriel Moloyan studied Armenology at St. Joseph University after attending the Armenian Theological Seminary of Antelias. He was subsequently appointed Vice Principal of the Sahag Mesrobian School in Beirut and served in that position for 25 years. In 1954, Moloyan was among the founding members of the Nor Serount Cultural Association after recognizing a need for cultural preservation and expansion. Upon immigrating to the United States, Moloyan continued his passion for education and became a Founder and Board Member of the St. Gregory Hovsepian School in Pasadena.
Throughout his extensive career, Moloyan has worked as a journalist and editor at Ararad Daily Newspaper, Ararad Literary Journal, and Massis Weekly. As a longtime member of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, he served as Chairman of its Western U.S. region. In 2005, he was honored with a Pontifical Encyclical from His Holiness Karekin II and the St. Nerses Shnorhali Pontifical Medal for his decades of community service.
Hratch Sepetjian
Hratch Sepetjian has been the editor of Nor Or, the Armenian-English weekly that serves as the official publication of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (Ramgavar) of the Western U.S. since March 2016. He was the assistant editor of “Zartonk” daily in Beirut from 1994 to 2000.
Sepetjian has been the head of Armenian Studies and Program Director (since 2010), and has been teaching Armenian and Armenian History at AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School since 2002. He himself is a graduate of the AGBU Melkonian Educational Institute and holds a Master’s Degree in Armenian Philology and Pedagogy from Yerevan State University.
Aram Kouyoumdjian is an attorney at law and an award-winning playwright and director. He is currently serves as Assistant General Manager of the Personnel Department for the City of Los Angeles.
Below is the YouTube video presentation on “Armenia Tree Project – Celebrating 25 Years” presented by Anahit Gharibyan & Sarah Hayes at the Crescenta Valley Armenian Apostolic Church in La Crescenta, California on Thursday, July 14:
Armenia in process of strengthening democratic institutions – Parliament Speaker
18:48,
YEREVAN, JULY 18, ARMENPRESS. President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan participated in the Leadership Forum Held in Washington, during which gave a speech.
As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press servic eof the parliament of Armenia, Mirzoyan particularly said,
''The rise of the authoritarianism has been already noted in the early 2000s across the globe. At the same time, we all understand very well that this global challenge has multi-faceted explanations, but if one is to pinpoint the main reason for this negative development, it will be the failure of the traditional democratic mechanisms to remain connected with the citizenry.
Before reasserting the independence of the legislature, we should also reassess the role and the reason for the independent legislature. Three centuries ago, one of the forefathers of American Constitution James Madison in the Federalist Papers, delved into the concept of the “pure democracy” and the “Republic”. He warns as of the adverse effects of the factionalism unchecked by the republic. This wisdom shines even stronger today when democratic institutions have been in place for a long time.
The peaceful, democratic April Revolution of 2018 in Armenia was single yet important victory over the consolidating authoritarianism. This popular movement came to re-establish the connection between the citizenry and its government. In 2018, the Armenian citizens conquered their right to choose their representatives in a free and fair election, a right that was denied too long for them. This fact has been recognized not only by our international partners but also by all the political forces in Armenia.
While the free and fair elections are the necessary condition for democracy, there is a long work in establishing the Republic in the Madisonian sense. The institutionalization of the democracy and asserting the role of the legislature in this process is paramount in order not to allow “factionalism” to ruin the very fabric of the democratic polity. In Armenia, we are currently pursuing this through reforming and strengthening the democratic institutions, where reversal of the democratic breakthrough will be unattainable.
The independent legislature of women and men is the backbone of any democracy. Through asserting the independence of the legislature, we vaccinate our democratic polities from infection of the factionalism. The independent and representative legislature on the one hand allows all the necessary channels for airing diversity political beliefs of our societies and on the other hand through institutional mechanism maintains the public debate in the counters of the republic.
To conclude, this bipartisan format of the House of Representatives sets an important example for other legislatures across the globe, to revisit and realize the concept that Madison has left to us. The independent legislative as a political institution remains the firm and yet agile shield that provides enough resolute to withstand the attacks of authoritarianism but also entails sufficient flexibility not to break under the internal pressure,” the Head of the Parliament noted.
Armenian gymnast Vahagn Davtyan won a silver medal in the rings exercise of the European Games ended in Minsk, Belarus.
After the award ceremony he told the Armenian National Olympic Committee’s press service about the difficult path he has passed and the value of the medal he has captured.
“The path to any medal is hard because you have to prepare yourself mentally. You can be perfectly prepared physically but unable to concentrate psychologically on the last minute and something unpredictable may happen, something that you haven’t done before,” the athlete said.
“The most desirable thing is to become a champion. It’s hard to think that you have lost only 0.34 points to your opponent but, anyway, I’m satisfied with the result. I’m very happy I qualified for the final on the 5th position and today managed to be the second. Today the training experience helped me as I was prepared physically. Despite great difficulties I don’t regret having chosen this sport and it was worth staying in this sport to achieve this result. I have had a serious injury, an operation, etc. There comes a moment when you think there is nothing more important than health, but I have never thought of leaving sports,” Vahagn Davtyan added.
Earlier on April the Armenian gymnast won a bronze medal in the rings event of the European Championship in Poland.
Turkey's first Turkish-Armenian television station has hit the airwaves, according to the journalist spearheading the project.
“Every Friday night, for the first time in Turkey we're broadcasting news in Western Armenian,” said Aram Kuran, the station's chief, referring to one of the two branches of the Armenian language.
“We also have live broadcasts two days a week,” he told Anadolu Agency, adding that they hope to expand the program schedule.
Turkish, a multiethnic, multicultural society, has a sizeable population of ethnic Armenians.
The station's team started work on Luys TV- meaning "light" in Armenian - nearly two years ago, Kuran explained.
Kuran thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his support during the setup process, even as they faced some difficulties.
The station will include news items from Anadolu Agency as translated into Armenian, as well as spotlights on politics, fashion, culture, contemporary issues, and music and programs for children, he added.
Most of the programs will be in Armenian, he explained, but some will be in Turkish as well.
National Turkish broadcaster TRT has also given the station access to its archive, including documentaries on minorities, he said.