Wednesday, Yerevan Reaffirms Plans To Scrap Turkish-Armenian Accords Greece - Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias (R) and his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian at a news conference in Athens, 13Dec2017. Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian reaffirmed on Wednesday the Armenian government's intention to formally annul U.S.-brokered agreements to normalize Armenia's relations with Turkey, citing Ankara's "groundless preconditions" for their implementation. The two protocols signed in Zurich in October 2009 committed Turkey and Armenia to establishing diplomatic relations and opening their border. Shortly after the high-profile signing ceremony, Ankara made clear, however, that Turkey's parliament will ratify the deal only if there is decisive progress towards a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan. The Armenian government rejected this precondition, arguing that the protocols make no reference to the conflict. The United States, the European Union and Russia have also repeatedly called for their unconditional implementation by both sides. President Serzh Sarkisian again denounced Turkey's stance when he addressed the UN General Assembly in September. "Given the absence of any progress towards their implementation, Armenia will declare the two protocols null and void," he said. "We will enter the spring of 2018 without those, as our experience has demonstrated, futile protocols." Switzerland -- Armenia's Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian (L) and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu sign documents during the signing ceremony of Turkey and Armenia peace deal in Zurich, 10Oct2009 Nalbandian echoed that statement during a visit to Greece. "Those documents have still not been ratified since Turkey came up with groundless preconditions that run counter to the letter and spirit of the protocols," he said. "Those documents cannot be held hostage forever, and that is why the president of Armenia declared in September # that Armenia will declare the protocols null and void," Nalbandian said in a speech delivered at the Greek Foreign Ministry. Ankara has still not officially reacted to Sarkisian's September statement. Successive Turkish governments have kept that border with Armenia completely closed since 1993 in a show of support for Azerbaijan. Sarkisian already threatened in February 2010 to scrap the protocols if they are not ratified by the Turks "in the shortest possible time." But he avoided doing that, saying two months later that he does not want to upset the U.S. and other world powers that strongly backed the landmark deal. Speaking after talks with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, Nalbandian also described Greek-Armenian relations as a "true brotherhood." "We both suffered from genocides and crimes against humanity, defended shoulder-to-shoulder our right to life and stood by each other in difficult times," he said. Greece - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (R) and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian meet in Athens, 15Mar2016. Meeting with Sarkisian in Athens last year, Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras likewise said that Armenians and Greeks were victims of genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks during World War One. For his part, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos told his Armenian counterpart that "at the beginning of the 20th century the two peoples endured tragic moments for the same reason." Turkey condemned those statements. "Solidarity between Greece and Armenia is built upon a joint hostility and slander language directed against the Turkish identity," a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said in March 2016. Greece's strained relations with Turkey, a fellow NATO member, again came to the fore during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's official visit to Athens last week. Armenian Military To Continue Afghanistan, Kosovo Missions # Sargis Harutyunyan Afghanistan -- Armenia's Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian inspects Armenian troops near Kunduz, 24Jul2010. Armenia will continue to contribute troops to the NATO-led missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo and step up its broader cooperation with NATO, senior officials in Yerevan said on Wednesday. According to Levon Ayvazaian, head of a defense policy department at the Armenian Defense Ministry, 121 Armenian soldiers are currently deployed in Afghanistan and 35 others in Kosovo. "Our participation has continued on the same scale this year and we have made a political decision to also continue it in the coming years," said Ayvazian. The soldiers serving there are part of the Armenian army's special peacekeeping brigade that has received considerable assistance from the United States and other NATO member states. In particular, the U.S. has helped to renovate the brigade's training center near Yerevan. Senior Armenian and U.S. military officials inaugurated the facility on October 31. Kosovo - Armenian soldiers walk in riot gear to a UH-60 Black Hawk during a training exercise on Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, March 12, 2014. (Photo courtesy of www.army.mil) The Armenian deployments in Kosovo and Afghanistan have highlighted Armenia's growing ties with NATO stemming from an Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) originally launched in 2006 and repeatedly updated since then. Armen Yedigarian, a senior Armenian Foreign Ministry official, said the most recent, fifth version of the IPAP was approved by NATO in April. The document lists joint activities planned for 2017-2019, he told reporters. Yedigarian and Ayvazian met the press at the official launch of an annual "NATO Week" in Armenia. Rosaria Puglisi, deputy head of a NATO liaison office in the South Caucasus, also spoke at the event. She announced that NATO's Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller will arrive in Yerevan on Monday for talks with President Serzh Sarkisian and other Armenian leaders. Armenia - Soldiers of the Armenian Peacekeeping Brigade lined up for an exercise monitored by NATO, September 2015. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Armenia.) In Ayvazian's words, "military-technical cooperation" is also on the agenda of Armenia's dealings with NATO and its individual member states. "It is not confined to buying weapons and ammunition," he said. "It also has many other components such as cooperation on technology, joint solutions, ventures and so on." The defense official cited the example of a Polish-Armenian joint venture that was set up in 2013 to manufacture protective gear such as army helmets, flak jackets and inflatable tents and decoys for the Armenian military. "We also have a fairly long experience of setting up and operating joint ventures with Greece," added Ayvazian. "We are holding negotiations in this direction with various states and I think that we will have better, more visible results over time." Opposition Slams More Borrowing Planned By Government # Tatevik Lazarian Armenia - Naira Zohrabian of the Tsarukian Bloc speaks during a parliament session in Yerevan, 13Dec2017. Opposition lawmakers faulted the government for Armenia's increased public debt on Wednesday as the National Assembly lifted a legal limit on further government borrowing. An Armenian law has stipulated until now that the total amount of debt incurred by the government cannot exceed a sum equivalent to 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Government-drafted amendments will scrap this borrowing cap. At the same time, they will require the government to come up with a plan to ease the debt burden. The parliament passed the amendments in the first reading by 61 votes to 37. Voting against them were deputies from the opposition Yelk alliance and businessman Gagik Tsarukian's bloc, the second largest parliamentary force. "The sole aim of this bill is to attract more foreign loans. This is unacceptable," Naira Zohrabian, a senior lawmaker from the Tsarukian bloc, said just before the vote. Zohrabian said Finance Minister Vartan Aramian failed to present convincing arguments when the parliament debated the bill on Tuesday. Aramian claimed during the debate that the bill is not primarily aimed at allowing the government to obtain more multimillion-dollar loans. He insisted that the government is committed to cutting the GDP-to-debt ratio from 55.4 percent to 54.4 percent by the end of next year. Aramian also dismissed claims by another Tsarukian Bloc deputy, Mikael Melkumian, that the government has wasted or misused many loans extended by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other multilateral lenders. "Armenia is considered by them a best performer country," said the minister. Armenia's public debt, which also includes foreign loans extended to its Central Bank, currently stands at $6.4 billion. It was below $2 billion before the 2008-2009 global financial crisis that plunged the county into a severe recession. Later in the day, the parliament allowed the government to take a $40 million loan from the Asian Development Bank. The money is to be used for financing the state budget deficit. Armenia No Friend To Muslim States, Says Aliyev # Lusine Musayelian Turkey - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (R) and other Muslim heads of state pose for a photograph at a summit in Istanbul, 13Dec2017. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev urged Muslim countries to avoid close relations with Armenia as he attended on Wednesday an emergency summit of their leaders held in response to the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Addressing the summit in Istanbul organized by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Aliyev again denounced Armenian "occupation" of Nagorno-Karabakh and what he called the destruction of Islamic monuments in "the historic land of Azerbaijan." He described as "hypocritical" Armenia's desire to forge friendly ties with Islamic states. "Muslims of the world must be aware that an Armenia tearing down mosques cannot be a friend of Muslim countries," he said, according to Azerbaijani news agencies. Aliyev did not specify which Azerbaijani mosques were destroyed during or after the 1991-1994 war in Karabakh. The region's largest Shia mosques are located in the war-ravaged towns of Shushi (Shusha) and Aghdam. While they are in need of repairs, they were not torn down after those towns were captured by Karabakh Armenian forces. At least one of them has undergone cosmetic repairs. The Karabakh leadership announced late last year it has contracted an unnamed Iranian company to complete the reconstruction of Shushi's 19th century Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque. Nagorno-Karabakh - Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque in Shushi, July 2011. In his speech, Aliyev also thanked countries making up the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for supporting Azerbaijan's position on the Karabakh conflict. Three of them -- Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan -- refuse to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia out of solidarity with Azerbaijan. A joint declaration adopted by the heads of OIC member states at a 2016 summit branded Armenia an "aggressor" and called for more "coercive" measures that would help Azerbaijan regain control over Karabakh. The Armenian government responded by accusing the Muslim bloc of "completely distorting the essence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict." Predominantly Christian Armenia maintains cordial relations with some OIC member states, notably neighboring Iran. The latter has had an uneasy rapport with Azerbaijan. Press Review "Zhoghovurd" claims that the Armenian government wants to scrap a legal limit on the relative size of its debt because it needs new large-scale loans in order to save Armenia's economic from "collapse." The paper fears that increasing the country's public debt burden further will be fraught with grave economic risks. "The state propaganda machine is already busy boosting the approval ratings of the future prime minister, Serzh Sarkisian," writes "Hraparak." The paper points to what it calls a fraudulent opinion poll that have been conducted by a government-linked group recently. The poll found that Sarkisian's approval ratings have risen while Prime Minister Karapetian's have fallen in the past year. "They are naturally delighted with these results in the Republican Party (HHK)," comments the paper. "Especially the party's youth wing whose leaders worship Serzh Sarkisian and can't imagine their life without his existence." "Hraparak" also quotes a parliament deputy from the HHK, Mihran Hakobian, as denying any "rivalry" between Armenia's president and prime minister. He says that no HHK figure would "compete" with Sarkisian because the latter is the party's "undisputed leader elected and accepted by everyone." "I don't think that anyone in the HHK is now trying to or has chances to compete with the head of state," he tells the paper. "Zhamanak" reacts to Prime Minister Karapetian's visit to the Defense Ministry in Yerevan this week during which he chaired a meeting of a government commission on armaments and familiarized himself with new weapons developed by the Armenian defense industry. The paper says that Karapetian went to the sprawling ministry headquarters in Yerevan shortly after those weapons were demonstrated late last month during military exercises held in Karabakh and watched by President Sarkisian. It wonders whether the premier tried to "keep up" with the president or Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian and underline his ambition to retain his post in April. "For years and decades, our entire public discourse was based on national romanticism," writes "Aravot." "Starting from the kindergarten, the premise [of children's upbringing] was a narrative about miserable, long-suffering but also proud and revengeful Armenians.That narrative played a major role in the 1960s and 1970s but is absolutely useless now that we have a more or less decent state with an army and all other attributes." The paper goes on to make a case for "modernizing education" in Armenia and, in particular, getting rid of its "national-liberation" overtones. "The generation, or at least a part of it, has avoided that outdated upbringing," it says. (Elen Chilingarian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
Author: Toneyan Mark
Art: Arshile Gorky’s Art of Bliss Remembered
The New York Times
December 8, 2017 Friday
Some artists you enormously admire. Others you admire and enormously love. For many people, Arshile Gorky is a loved one. And much of what makes him cherishable is distilled in ''Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943-47,'' an exhibition as manic and tender as a Schubert song cycle, at Hauser & Wirth's Upper East Side space.
Organized by Saskia Spender, one of the artist's two granddaughters and president of the Arshile Gorky Foundation, it's a large exhibition: more than 30 paintings and drawings, on loan from museums and private collections, installed on three gallery floors. Yet its time frame, roughly four years, is tight. It coincides with the beginning of the artist's most fully developed work, ends a year before his death, and spans some of the happiest and saddest days of his short life.
That life was rarely easy. Gorky was born Vosdanik Adoian, around 1902 (the exact year is unclear) on the shores of Lake Van, in mountainous rural Armenia near the Turkish border. And for a brief time, in the beauty of that natural setting, in the closeness of his family, he experienced bliss.
As an adult he recalled that close to ''our house on the road to the spring, my father had a little garden with a few apple trees which had retired from giving fruit. There was a ground constantly giving shade where grew incalculable amounts of wild carrots, and porcupines had made their nest. There was a blue rock half buried in the black earth with a few patterns here and there like fallen clouds.'' He remembered a ''Holy Tree.'' He remembered ''the sh-h-h-sh-h of silver leaves of the poplars.''
These were memories he spent a lifetime revisiting, talking about, dreaming about, and trying to recover through art.
In reality, this Eden soon ended. In 1908, his father immigrated to the United States. Within a few years, his mother, whom he adored, moved the household from the country into the city of Van. Then a nightmare began. In 1915, the Turkish government initiated a genocidal slaughter of the Armenian population. Gorky's family lived as hunted refugees, camping here and there. His mother died in his arms of starvation. Still in his teens, he escaped to America, where he took the name Gorky and turned himself into a modern artist.
Why he decided to become an artist, we don't know, though we do know how he went about it, initially through a kind of ventriloquism of other artist's voices and styles. He began with Cézanne, moved on to Picasso, and further on to Surrealists like Joan Miró, André Masson and Roberto Matta. He approached each model with an eye to what he could learn about color, texture, combining images and abstraction. As it happened, he was naturally gifted with an angel's hand and his editing of sources was substantial: He pared away what he didn't need and added his own increasingly autobiographical content.
By 1943, form and content were in sync in his art. And in his life, he was as close to a return to Eden as he would ever get. Two years earlier, this moody, outsider-minded man had, with joy, married a young woman named Agnes Magruder. Simultaneously, after decades of struggle, his career was finally starting to yield rewards. This allowed him to spend long stretches out of the city, first in Virginia, where his wife's parents had a farm, and later in rural Connecticut, where he drew and painted for weeks outdoors and turned a barn into a studio.
All the work in the show comes from this time of return to the natural world. Not just in memory, but in reality, he could ''look into the grass,'' as he put it, and up into the trees.
In certain drawings from 1944, he literally seems to be down at grass level, nosing around, pencil and crayon in hand. He finds a fantastical, earthbound world of abstract forms resembling slugs, fungi, pods and bulbs, glommed together parasitically and erotically. It's a mesmerizing vision, vivacious, but hungry and scary, the way the drawings of Samuel Palmer, that keyed-up Romantic soul, can be.
Then within a few years, the forms thin down, grow lighter. A 1946 drawing titled ''Virginia-Summer'' is an allover web of scraps: like a centerless scatter of stems, clods and hard-shell insects turned up by a rake. (This allover tactic influenced Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, for some of whom Gorky was a mentor.) Elsewhere, the view tends upward. A succulent green pastel drawing called ''Apple Orchard'' suggests buds and leaves on a branch, maybe one of the trees in his father's Armenian orchard, in sudden, miraculous bloom.
And in several large pieces, Gorky appears to pull back to take in whole landscapes, as in a pair of oil paintings, both titled ''Pastoral,'' from around 1947. Even the messiest, most impetuous of his graphite drawings have a sense of precision and fineness of detail. But these two ''Pastorals,'' one dark (a field of brown-black with pink-white patches), the other light (chrome-yellow and white with green scribbles), are so loosely painted as to seem unfinished. (The yellow-white one, at least, isn't: it's conspicuously signed on the front.)
This effect is partly from a change in painting method, possibly learned from Matta. For most of his career Gorky had applied paint thickly and precisely, within outlines, in a way that made his forms look inorganic, overly deliberated. But in the 1940s, he started to thin his oils with turpentine to a watercolor consistency, which brought a relaxed softness and fleetness to his art.
''I prefer not to see the strength of my arm in the painting but only the poetry of my heart,'' he wrote of this change. ''The trouble is everyone uses their arms too much. I want to leave only the ghost of the painting to spur imagination.''
And he did produce what look like ghost-paintings. One titled ''The Opaque,'' from 1947, is done almost entirely in gray oil washes, with a few white elements swimming behind. It's like a vision of nature sleepwalking, or veiled in mourning, or seen through a thick smoke haze.
By the time it was painted, Gorky's paradise had been lost again. In January 1946, his Connecticut studio caught fire, destroying more than two dozen paintings and many drawings and books. In February, he learned he had rectal cancer and underwent debilitating surgery. He spent a recuperative working summer on the Virginia farm, then in 1947 moved permanently with his family — he had two daughters by then — to Connecticut.
A little before this, the Museum of Modern Art, which had acquired one of his paintings, asked Gorky, along with several other artists, to speculate on what single factor in their past had done most to shape their art. Without hesitation he wrote: ''The fact that I was taken away from my little village when I was five years old yet all my vital memories are of these first years. These were the days when I smelled the bread, I saw my first red poppy, the moon, the innocent seeing.''
That kind of seeing — the old, original bliss — proved irrecoverable, as calamity continued to hammer Gorky down. In June 1948, in a car crash, he broke his back and lost use of his painting arm. Shortly afterward, his wife moved out with the children. In July, wrecked and unhinged, he hanged himself in his barn, after writing the words ''Good-bye, my loveds'' in chalk on a crate.
This farewell, among the saddest monuments in 20th century art, is well known; it's part of why Gorky is treasured. Less familiar, I suspect, is what preceded it, the great surge of love for life, present and past, that is concentrated in his late art and that tingles with burning belief through this show.
Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943-47 Through Dec. 23 at Hauser & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street; 212-794-4970, hauserwirth.com.
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Levon Aronian draws level with Maxim Vachier-Lagrave
At the Chess Classic tournament in London, during the 5th round today, our grandmaster Levon Aronian competed in whites with French Maxim Vachier-Lagrave. These two had met in the semifinals of the World Cup as well.
At the 25th step of the game, the sides repeated their position and ended the game in a drew. Levon Aronian scored 2.5 points. He is contining to fight for the first place.
Next, the 6th round will take place on December 8. Our chess player will compete with Wesley So of the Americas.
Case of Kuwait citizen illegally entering Armenia: Prosecutor is dissatisfied with court ruling
News.am, Armenia
Nov 16 2017
Case of Kuwait citizen illegally entering Armenia: Prosecutor is dissatisfied with court ruling Case of Kuwait citizen illegally entering Armenia: Prosecutor is dissatisfied with court ruling
09:59, 16.11.2017
The prosecutor is dissatisfied with the court ruling regarding Kuwaiti citizen Mahdi, who was sentenced to three months in prison and fined 250,000 drams (about US$512) for illegally crossing the state border of Armenia.
Tavush Province prosecutor Manukyan has petitioned to the Court of Appeal with a request to reverse the said ruling and forward this criminal case to the Tavush District Court of First Instance for a new trial.
According to the indictment, on May 27, Mahdi had illegally crossed the state border of Armenia from Georgia with a fake Italian passport.
The Tavush General Jurisdiction Court had found the Kuwaiti citizen guilty, sentenced him to three months in prison, and fined him 250,000 drams.
But considering that the defendant was in custody for more than three months, he was released immediately from the courtroom.
France : Profanation d’une stèle en mémoire du génocide arménien
The Times of Israël–
6 nov. 2017
6 novembre 2017
Une stèle érigée à Vienne, dans le centre-est de la France, en mémoire des victimes du génocide arménien, a été recouverte sur ces deux faces de tags injurieux, a-t-on appris samedi de sources concordantes.
Le Conseil de coordination des organisations arméniennes de France (CCAF) a dénoncé « avec la plus grande fermeté la profanation » de cette stèle et estimé que « les tags insultants » recouvrant ce monument « constituent une nouvelle atteinte à la dignité humaine et à la mémoire des victimes ».
« Cette nouvelle agression s’inscrit dans un climat de violence négationniste importée sur le territoire par les autorités turques. Elle se situe dans le prolongement des attaques ignobles et des incitations à la haine propagées par un certain nombre d’individus à leur solde », a jugé dans un communiqué le CCAF, qui « appelle les autorités à la plus grande vigilance contre ces agissements ».
Ankara et Erevan se déchirent au sujet du massacre de centaines de milliers d’Arméniens en 1915-17, sous l’Empire ottoman, que la France a reconnu comme un génocide en 2001.
La Turquie récuse le terme de génocide, affirmant que les victimes, dans le cadre d’une guerre civile, étaient aussi bien turques qu’arméniennes.
Mayor Eric Garcetti Plans to Visit Armenia and Artsakh
ANCA-WR delegation flanks Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has informed the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region that he plans to visit Armenia and Artsakh and will promote new opportunities for economic growth and cultural exchange between Armenia and Los Angeles.
The announcement was made during the Mayor’s meeting with the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region on November 1 at City Hall. The Mayor and the ANCA-WR representatives also discussed other issues of mutual interest and efforts for maintaining a strong relationship with the Armenian community of Los Angeles.
“We greatly appreciate the constructive and close relationship we have with Mayor Garcetti and his office. From his days representing Little Armenia to his tenure as Mayor, he has maintained a deep understanding of the issues which are important to our community, and he consistently takes action to address them. We look forward to continuing to cultivate our open lines of communication and collaboration on matters of mutual concern,” stated ANCA-WR Chair Nora Hovsepian.
ANCA-WR delegation discusses issues of importance to the Armenian community with LA Mayor Eric Garcetti
ANCA-WR Board Members attending the meeting emphasized the importance of keeping strong ties with the LA Mayor, given the size of the Los Angeles Armenian community and the Los Angeles Sister City relationship with Yerevan. The Board Members further discussed the role of the ANCA-WR in serving as an outlet between the community and the initiatives proposed by the Mayor’s office.
For the past several years, Mayor Eric Garcetti has been a steadfast partner of the ANCA-WR since both as City Councilmember and then as Mayor. He first visited Armenia as a Los Angeles City Councilmember in Fall 2005 where he met with Armenian local and national political leadership.
Present at the meeting were members of his staff, including Chief of Staff Ana Guerrero and Federal Affairs Manager George Kivork. ANCA-WR representatives included Chairwoman Nora Hovsepian, Board Members Raffi Kassabian and Souzi Zerounian-Khanzadian, Advisory Board Members Levon Kirakosian and Karo Khanjian, and Government Relations Coordinator Serob Abrahamian.
Headquartered in Los Angeles County, the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.
Chess: European Chess Championships: Armenian men’s team loses to Germany
Panorama, Armenia
Nov 6 2017
The Armenian men’s team lost to Germany 1.5-2.5 at the seventh round of European Team Chess Championships underway in Crete, Greece.
According to the National Olympic Committee, Armenia’s leader Levon Aronian, Gabriel Sargsyan, Sergey Movsisyan played draw, while Hovhannes Gabuzyan suffered a defeat.
After 7 rounds the Russian team unilaterally leads the tournament table with 12 points. Azerbaijan comes the second with 11 points, followed by Hungary, Ukraine, and Israel, sharing the 3-5 places with 10 points each. The Armenian national team is placed the 11th with 8 points.
Music: Armenian Genocide song nommed for Hollywood Music In Media Awards
PanArmenian, Armenia
Oct 28 2017
– 12:17 AMT
Armenian Genocide song nommed for Hollywood Music In Media Awards
Chris Cornell's song composed for "The Promise" – a film about the Armenian Genocide – has been nominated for the2017 Hollywood Music In Visual Media Awards.
Written and performed by Cornell, the piece servedas the ending credits song for the film.
Also nominated in the Original Son – Feature Film category are “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” (Fifty Shades Darker) – Written by Taylor Swift, Sam Dew and Jack Antonoff. Performed by Zayn & Taylor Swift; “If I Dare” (Battle of the Sexes) Written by Sara Bareilles and Nicholas Britell. Performed by Sara Bareilles; “Mighty River” (Mudbound) Written by Mary J. Blige, Raphael Saadiq, and Taura Stinson. Performed by Mary J. Blige; “Stand Up For Something” (Marshall) Music by Diane Warren, Lyrics by Diane Warren and Lonnie R. Lynn. Performed by Andra Day, featuring Common; “This Is Me” (The Greatest Showman) Written by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. Performed by Keala Settle.
Cornell cited a connection with "The Promise" through his Greek wife, whose family had been affected by the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocide. This prompted his family to tour refugee camps in Greece, where they formed the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation, to help aid child refugees and the issues affecting them.
At the time of the song’s release, Cornell stated, “[The Promise] is mainly about paying homage to those we lost in the Armenian Genocide, but it’s also about shining a light on more recent atrocities.”
Corruption never to be eliminated in penitentiaries (video)
The health of prisoners is much more vulnerable than those who are in freedom.
Does the state, being accountable for the healthcare of those prisoners, fulfill its obligations fully?
A1 + invited Helsinki Committee lawyer Robert Revazyan to talk more about this topic.