Author: Shushan Frangulian

Tumo Center for Creative Technologies was launched in Nagorno Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert today thanks to partnership between the Simonian Educational Foundation has partnered with the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

The official opening ceremony was attended by the Presidents of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh Serzh Sargsyan and Bako Sahakyan.

AGBU will cover all operational costs of the center as well as startup costs in the framework of the TUMOxAGBU partnership, while the government of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has provided the space in a historic building in the city center.

The Stepanakert program is expected to cater to 500 to 1,000 students who will participate twice a week for two hours per session, gaining 21st century skills, and studying animation, filmmaking, web development and game development, as well as supporting skills such as 3D modeling, computer programming, music, photography and graphic design.

Registration will start on the 14th of September, and students will begin their Tumo life during the first week of October. The Tumo Center for Creative Technologies is a free of charge after school program that started in Yerevan and subsequently opened a location in Dilijan. The TUMOxAGBU partnership has already opened a branch in Gyumri and is expected to spread Tumo to other locations in Armenia and beyond.

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

Thousands of articles have been published worldwide in the recent weeks exposing Turkey’s strategic trickery — using the pretext of fighting ISIS to carry out a genocidal bombing campaign against the Kurds who have courageously countered ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

The Wall Street Journal reported on August 12 that a senior US military official accused Turkey of deceiving the American government by allowing its use of Incirlik airbase to attack ISIS, as a cover for President Erdogan’s war on Kurdish fighters (PKK) in northern Iraq. So far, Turkey has carried out 300 air strikes against the PKK, and only three against ISIS! Erdogan’s intent in punishing the Kurds is to gain the sympathy of Turkish voters in the next parliamentary elections, enabling his party to win an outright majority and establish an autocratic presidential theocracy.

To conceal its deception and mislead the American public, within days of starting its war on the Kurds, Ankara hired Squire Patton Boggs for $32,000 a month, as a subcontractor to the powerful lobbying firm, the Gephardt Group. Squire Patton Boggs includes former Senators Trent Lott and John Breaux, and retired White House official Robert Kapla. The Gephardt lobbying team for Turkey consists of subcontractors Greenberg Traurig, Brian Forni, Lydia Borland, and Dickstein Shapiro LLP; the latter recently added to its lobbying staff former CIA Director Porter Goss. Other lobbying firms hired by Turkey are: Goldin Solutions, Alpaytac, Finn Partners, Ferah Ozbek, and Golin/Harris International. According to US Justice Department records, Turkey pays these lobbying/public relations firms around $5 million a year. Furthermore, several US non-profit organizations serve as fronts for the Turkish government to promote its interests in the United States and take Members of Congress and journalists on all-expense paid junkets to Turkey.

Among the US lobbyists for Turkey, perhaps the most questionable is Porter Goss, CIA Director from 2004 to 2006, who has agreed to sell his soul and possibly US national secrets for a fistful of Turkish Liras.

It is noteworthy that in a report Mr. Goss filed with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, he avoided answering the question regarding his compensation from the Turkish government. He simply wrote: “Salary not based solely on services rendered to the foreign principal [Turkey]”!

In the same form, filed on April 23, 2015, Mr. Goss described his services for Turkey as follows:

1. Provide counsel in connection with the extension and strengthening of the Turkish-American relationship in a number of key areas that are the subject of debate in Congress, including trade, energy security, counter-terrorism efforts, and efforts to build regional stability in the broader Middle East and Europe;
2. Educating Members of Congress and the Administration on issues of importance to Turkey;
3. Notifying Turkey of any action in Congress or the Executive Branch on issues of importance to Turkey;
4. Preparing analyses of developments in Congress and the Executive Branch on issues of importance to Turkey.

It is significant that Dickstein Shapiro LLP, Mr. Goss’s employer, misled the Justice Department, by reporting two days prior to the start of his employment and three days before the Armenian Genocide Centennial, that the former CIA Director had already met on behalf of his lobbying firm with nine members of Congress to discuss “US-Turkish relations.”

Most probably, hiring Porter Goss as a lobbyist for Turkey was a reward for his staunch support of Turkish issues, while serving as a Republican Congressman from Florida from 1989 to 2004. During the October 2000 debate on the Armenian Genocide resolution in the House International Relations Committee, Cong. Goss, the then Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, testified against the adoption of the resolution, using the excuse that it would harm US-Turkey relations. Nevertheless, the genocide resolution was adopted by a vote of 24 to 11.

It is bad enough that former Members of Congress are selling themselves to anyone who is willing to pay them. But, the Director of the CIA…? This is more than unethical; it is a grave risk to US national security. The American government must not allow the sale of its top spymaster to the highest bidder! What if North Korea offered him a higher price? Would Mr. Goss jump ship and lobby for an enemy state just to make a few more dollars?

Kim Kardashian’s second child is a boy, she’s revealed in a tweet.

You're such a good daddy to North & you will be the best daddy to our new son too! 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian)

The reality television star, who is married to Kanye West, revealed the news on Father’s Day. She first let people know she was pregnant on her show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Writing on Sunday, Kim said: “You’re such a good daddy to North and you will be the best daddy to our new son too!”

The couple had their first child, a daughter called North West, in June 2013. North was recently baptizes at an Armenian Church in Jerusalem.

Kim is expected to give birth in early December.

The Russia Day was celebrated at the Russian Embassy in Ankara today with no Turkish official attending the event, Turkish Sabah reports.

The boycott comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the Armenian Genocide centennial commemoration in Armenia on April 24 and called the 1915 events ‘genocide.’

“April 24, 1915, is a mournful date, related to one of the most horrendous and dramatic events in human history, the genocide of the Armenian people,” Putin said.

Last year the Embassy event was attended by Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz.

Renowned classical sound director and producer Igor Fiorini is planning a major project, in conjunction with acclaimed Italian live sound engineer Luca Giannerini, which will take place at the end of September 2015, according to

This will involve the live performance, recording and broadcast in high definition DXD/DSD of a concert to mark the centenary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Entitled The Amen Project, the concert will take place at the main Arena in Verona and will use music, words and dance to trace the history of the Armenian people to the current day.

“We will have plenty of musicians to capture, plus a number of choirs including a children’s choir,” Fiorini says. “This is a massive cultural event that will be broadcast live on television so it is imperative that we get it right.”

After 55 days spent in a small enclosure with no food and only jugs of water, a thinner and thick-bearded Agasi Vartanyan emerged from his perch Thursday, his voice weak but his spirit swelling with victory for a mission accomplished, reports.

Vartanyan needed no help as he used a ladder to climb down from a glass enclosure built on a high platform outside St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank. A flock of doves was released and a crowd of people clapped as he stepped on the ground, raised his arms to give the peace sign, then sat in a wheelchair. The 55-year-old Glendale man had entered the 12-foot-by-12-foot enclosure on April 3 promising to fast for 55 days to draw attention to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

He went in weighing 224 pounds and emerged nearly 60 pounds lighter. After a quick check-up by a medical crew, Armenian television reporters swooped in and Vartanyan told the crowd he felt well and that he was grateful for all their support.

“I have great satisfaction,” the Armenian man said through a translator. “You wouldn’t believe the reaction I had from around the world.”

Vartanyan’s hunger strike was meant to cast global attention on what he and many have called an injustice to the 1.5 million Armenians killed under the command of the Ottoman Turks starting a century ago this year. From 1915 to 1923, Armenians were forcibly deported from their homes and killed as part of a systemic ethnic cleansing that also affected Assyrians and Pontic Greeks.

Vartanyan couldn’t participate in the March for Justice last month when more than 100,000 people walked for six miles through the streets of Los Angeles to mark the April 24 centennial. But he said he watched television and saw news reports and was filled with pride when he learned of the great outpouring.

His efforts were supported by the nonprofit Crimes Against Humanity — Never Again (CAHNA), which formed to raise global awareness on genocides past and present. The organization set up a live stream camera of Vartanyan, which drew some 19 million viewers.

That sort of attention will help the organization’s next goal, which will move away from trying to garner recognition of the Armenian Genocide to fighting for justice for those who are descendents, said CAHNA’s president Harut Sassounian, who lost relatives to the genocide. That includes pursuing legal actions against the Turkish government, which has refused to call the events of that time a genocide.

“We Armenians went through hell,” Sassounian said. “We’re continuing the struggle. We want to get back all the lands we lost, the churches that are gone.”

Vartanyan said his goal was to encourage the Armenians of the diaspora to keep fighting for justice. More than 200,000 people of Armenian descent call Los Angeles County home. It is the largest Armenian diaspora outside of the Republic of Armenia.

“I believe you’ll never achieve anything unless you fight for it, struggle for it,” he said. “I did this so that no one will forget the genocide that was committed against my people.”

Vartanyan said he prepared a year for this fast, although he had gone on a similar hunger strike almost 10 years ago in Russia. Back then, he abstained from food for 50 days, in part he said to break illusionist David Blaine’s 44-day fast in London.

It was unclear Thursday if Vartanyan broke any records.

“We do not have a current record holder as we do not currently recognize this category,” said a spokeswoman from Guinness World Records in an e-mail reply.

But those in the crowd said they were proud of him and inspired by his efforts.

“I was very worried about what he was doing,” said Hamlet Pogosian, Vartanyan’s cousin. “I didn’t like what he was doing for health reasons, but I’m proud of what he did for our nation.”

Vartanyan would not discuss the mental and physical struggles he endured, saying he preferred to let the public use their imagination. But halfway through the ordeal, he admitted to reporters he thought a lot about “meat, all kinds of meat.” The front of the enclosure where he spent all his time had one glass wall, allowing the public to see him day and night, though there was some privacy. He was given 55 gallons of water, a few clothes, a cot and a television. He often could be seen pacing back and forth or looking out on the street.

He also wouldn’t say what his first meal would be, but offered a hint through a smile.

“Whatever I eat will be the most delicious thing in the world,” he said.

Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has signed a ratification on the country’s ascension into the Eurasian Economic Union, Sputnik News reports.

The parliament of Kyrgyzstan approved the ratification on Wednesday.

The Eurasian Economic Union includes the countries of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

The OSCE Minsk Group met in Italy for consultations on the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick said in a Twitter post.

“Consultations with the Italians take place today,” Jarlick said.

“ All Minsk Group countries support peaceful and negotiated settlement of the Karabakh conflict,” the American diplomat added.

On a visit to Washington, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan had a meeting with US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick.

“I was pleased to welcome the President of Armenia to my home city of Washington,” Amb. Warlisk said in a Twitter post.

“We were able to talk this evening about Nagorno Karaakh peace process,” he added.