Author: Torosian Aram

Karabakh official calls on Armenian journalists to fight “information war”

Golos Armenii, Yerevan
17 Jun 04

Journalists in Armenia and Karabakh should improve their reporting
of the conflict with Azerbaijan and present Armenia’s case more
clearly, a media official from the self-declared Nagornyy Karabakh
Republic has said. The official called on the Armenian media to
stop their “information pacifism” and make it clear that Azerbaijan
is a “genocidal state” where hatred of Armenians has become state
policy. He said that “Azeri journalists are leading us not to peace
but to war”. The following is the text of De Facto agency director
Karen Zakharyan’s interview with Aleksandr Grigoryan, head of the
NKR president’s main information council, as published by Armenian
newspaper Golos Armenii on 17 June and headlined “To fight means to
fight”; subheadings inserted editorially:

An interview with Aleksandr Grigoryan, head of the NKR [Nagornyy
Karabakh Republic] president’s main information council.

[De Facto agency director Karen Zakharyan] Mr Grigoryan, we have
recently seen a new round of political activity by international
structures, in particular European ones, in the South Caucasus. It
is clear that this increase in activity, irrespective of the reasons
for it, cannot take place in isolation away from the eyes of the mass
media. Do you, as an experienced journalist and also a state official,
think that the Armenian and NKR media have responded appropriately
to this increased activity?

[Aleksandr Grigoryan] Thanks to the media, including the Armenian
media, you learned about the increased activity. Now about the
appropriateness. Its level is defined first of all by social demand,
second by the corporate interests of the media and third by the
professionalism and level of education of journalists. As all these
parameters are not the same in all media, their “appropriateness”
is different. For instance, if today Armenian society is more worried
about domestic political than foreign policy problems, so the media
of Armenia will prefer domestic political issues. Is this approach
appropriate to the increased activity in the South Caucasus? Yes and no
at the same time. Yes – regarding society in Armenia, the interests of
which are today focused mainly on the authorities’ domestic policy. No
– regarding the regional realities, the significance of which far
exceeds the problems within Armenia. That is, under the concept
of “appropriateness” first of all I understand social order. As
for appropriateness in terms of content, the media individually
usually reflect and explain issues stemming from the order of their
proprietors, be they their “benefactors” who may be grant donors,
different parties, the current authorities, ambitious businessmen,
etc. It is another matter whether this benefits society.

Armenian media coverage of Karabakh conflict poor

[Correspondent] Much may be said about the content of the Armenian
mass media. This is a theme for another discussion. As for social
demand, it is directed inwards, rather than towards the problems that
largely define everything else, including domestic problems. How do
you assess coverage of the Karabakh conflict by the Armenian mass
media? Are there differences in coverage of the conflict in Armenia
and the NKR? Why is this?

[Grigoryan] I should say that the level of the Karabakh conflict
coverage by the mass media of Armenia and the NKR is not high. This
applies to almost all the mass media of recognized Armenia and the
unrecognized NKR. If we take the pro-government mass media, they deal
only with advertising specific steps by the leadership to settle
the conflict. On the contrary, the opposition mass media obstruct
the actions of the authorities. And the so-called “independent”
press thinks more about its material prosperity than about the
Karabakh problem. For this reason, the latter often put forward
diametrically opposing thoughts under the cover of what they call
acquainting their consumers with different viewpoints. They may not
agree with me, but I do not see a definite position of the Armenian
mass media on the problem. I do not see a fair interest in coverage of
the problem. Otherwise the mass media would at least try to present
to us the viewpoints of serious politicians and political scientists
from outside Armenia and Karabakh. Moreover, sometimes we come across
material, the authors of which have forgotten that the war with
Azerbaijan has not finished yet. It has simply been transferred to
another plane, the political and economic and information field. The
motherland is protected not only on the battle field. And betrayal
takes place not only at the front. Azeri journalists have learned this
truth very well. We should not forget it either. I am saying this as
a man who has worked for many years in the mass media of Armenia and
Karabakh, as well as Azerbaijan.

Azeri journalists “leading us to war”

[Correspondent] You reluctantly touched on a “painful” theme:
coverage of the Karabakh conflict by the Azerbaijani press. Different
falsifications in the Azeri press on the Karabakh issue have already
set teeth on edge. Nevertheless they are continuing and, to be honest,
sometimes we do not know how to respond to impudent lies, if not to
keep silence. What do the mass media of Armenia need to fight properly
against the Azeri insinuations? It is clear that censorship or any
coordination centre may not be set up – times have changed. But what
then? How can Karabakh be protected from malicious attacks?

[Grigoryan] Azeri journalists are leading us not to peace, but to
war. If somebody is fighting you, you should either fight or surrender,
recognizing that the enemy is right. Different insinuations by the
Azeri press are the tactics of the Azeri mass media. You might object
and say that the Armenian press is also fighting, but it does it
in another way – by means of calling on their Azeri counterparts
to build bridges of trust. But do you not agree that the more we
and our Western sponsors talk about the need to build bridges, the
more aggressive are the attacks of our Azeri counterparts. We have
been so silent that by means of the Azeri mass media, a viewpoint
has been formed about us in the world as “occupiers”, “terrorists”
and other outcasts of the world community. We have to remember: as
long as the top leadership of Azerbaijan aspires to recognize Armenia
as an “aggressor”, we do not have the right to deal in unilateral
information pacifism. Any cease-fire, including an information one,
envisages at least two opposing parties.

I have said several times that the Armenian information machine
has to call things by their names. The realities are the following:
Azerbaijan is a genocidal state; aggressive Armeno-phobia has reached
the level of Azerbaijani state policy; official Baku is fighting the
whole Armenian nation, not only Armenia and Karabakh. Tell me please,
may a Russian or Turkish citizen of Armenian origin, who has nothing
to do with Karabakh or Armenia, buy a ticket in Moscow or Ankara and
go to the capital city of Azerbaijan and walk freely along the streets
of Baku? Certainly he cannot. Official Baku does not even allow state
leaders of Armenian origin to attend any international events taking
place there. “We do not knock at the door of the enemy, but the enemy
aspires to come to us,” one of the top officials of Azerbaijan said
recently. How can we pay compliments to the enemy in the information
field when there are such realities? Whether we want it or not,
by means of our information peacekeeping we are confusing the world
community, which has forgotten why the Armenians of Karabakh want to
separate themselves de jure from Azerbaijan, and believes more in the
fairy story about Armenian “aggression”. Freedom of speech should be
kept everywhere, but not during coverage of our enemy’s behaviour,
if we intend to conti nue to prove to the world why the Karabakhis
opted for self-determination.

[Correspondent] It stems from your words that journalists of Armenia
and Karabakh should become like their Azeri counterparts. By the way,
I used to meet them at events organized by the NKR Foreign Ministry
in Stepanakert. They are pleasant, nice boys, who are interested in
talking and drinking vodka. Do you not think that an “information
war” concept is not appropriate, if we aspire to a real settlement
of the conflict?

[Grigoryan] The Baku members of the KVN [satirical comedy team]
were also pleasant when they performed with our boys. But this did
not stop the captain of the Baku team, Anar Mammadxanov (by the way,
a deputy in parliament) announcing recently that Armenians should be
killed in Karabakh. I would like to be understood correctly. I am
not talking about comparing our journalists to the Baku ones. I am
saying that our information machine should make the Azeri one prove
every time that Azerbaijan is not a genocidal country, that Armenians
can any time come to Baku and walk along the Baku seafront. If the
mass media of Azerbaijan will start proving this to us, Armenians,
in that case the time for an information cease-fire will have come
and the information war will stop. But at the moment not they, but we
are trying to prove to the world the known truth that we do not wish
anything bad on Azerbaijan. Moreover, there are people among us who
from time to time try to “explain” to Azeris why Armenians allegedly
are not inclined to compromise. Where is the way out? The way out
is in the behaviour of each of us, workers in the Armenian mass
media. The way out is in knowing the mentality of Azeri journalists,
in knowing political thought in Azerbaijan, finally in knowing oneself
as a journalist and in defining one’s own priorities, irrespective
of the domestic political juncture in Armenia and Karabakh and the
size of external grants. Azerbaijan also gets grants, but they have
not promoted love for Armenians.

Balance needed in information war

[Correspondent] It is clear. Nevertheless I would like to know the role
of the information field as one of the main means of influencing the
conflict. Recently a page has appeared on the BBC web site specially
dedicated to the Nagornyy Karabakh settlement. To be honest, judging
from the talk of professional journalists and ordinary people on the
problem of the Karabakh settlement, I do not hope for an information
armistice in future. But the organizers of the page seem to hope for
one. They may be understood, but are they not naive in their noble
aspirations? What hampers the realization of these aspirations? How
can the “information support” of the BBC and other such initiators
promote settlement of the problem?

[Grigoryan] To be honest, I do not trust the effectiveness of such
measures as “sites of support” or “TV bridges” when we speak about
today’s Azerbaijan. If those measures were useful, one could use them
all the time and settle the problem. The realities are diametrically
opposite. The reality is that such an authoritative and respected,
decent journalist, Mais Mammadov, who earlier was the USSR central
TV correspondent on Azerbaijan, and who visited Karabakh many
times and really knows our problems, today comes forward in the Baku
pro-government press with a call for war against Armenians. “Today we
need titanic efforts to return Karabakh,” Mais Mammadov says “We again
have to prepare ourselves for a possible war. Because as the ancients
say, this is the shortest way to peace.” Mais Mammadov’s words mean
to me the end of hope for an armistice on the information and other
fronts. It is important for me that such people as Mais Mammadov, but
not dubious Azeri human rights protectors speak about peace, as they
have no authority in Azeri society. It is necessary that [authors]
Anar, Rustam and Maqsud Ibrahimbayov speak about bridges of trust,
because the Azeri nation trusts them. KVN captain Anar Mammadxanov and
finally Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, but not [rights activists]
Eldar Zeynalov or Arzu Abdullayeva should speak about bridges of trust.

[Correspondent] Does it mean war again?

[Grigoryan] If today the cease-fire is kept by the balance of forces,
there should also be a balance in the information war as well. Breaking
the balance in the information war will unavoidably lead to breaking
the balance in the public consciousness of Armenian and Azeri society,
which in its turn may lead to imbalance in the military sphere as
well, that is, to a new war. I think this is the main role of the
influence of the Armenian mass media on their own and other nations
while we have a conflict with our irreconcilable neighbour.

MGM-Mandelay : le jackpot pour Kirk Kerkorian

Le Figaro, France
18 juin 2004

Nul ne sait si c”est son chant du cygne, mais, à 87 ans tout juste,
Kirk Kerkorian vient de prouver qu”il a encore la main. Une main qui
s”apprête à tenir les rênes du numéro un mondial du jeu, avec
l”absorption par son groupe MGM Mirage de Mandalay Resort. Vingt-huit
casinos et hôtels au Nevada, au Mississippi, dans l”Illinois, le
Michigan et le New Jersey, dont les plus mythiques établissements de
Las Vegas à l”heure où « Sin City » est en pleine renaissance : tels
seront les contours de l”empire de Kirk Kerkorian une fois que les
autorités de la concurrence auront donné leur feu vert à une
opération d”un montant de 7,9 milliards de dollars. Milliardaire
discret, peu mondain, en dépit de l”univers flamboyant dans lequel il
a fait une partie de sa fortune, cet autodidacte originaire d”une
modeste famille arménienne affiche un destin digne d”un scénario
hollywoodien. Joueur, certes, il l”est, doté d”un flair et d”une
baraka certains, mais sur le terrain des affaires. Parti tôt de
l”école, le jeune Kirk a multiplié les petits boulots durant la
Grande Dépression, de la vente à la criée de journaux à la boxe…
Puis, à la sortie de la guerre, cet ancien pilote de l”armée
britannique fonde une compagnie d”aviation dont la spécialité est le
transport des mordus de jeu entre Los Angeles et Las Vegas… Ainsi
commencera-t-il à investir dans des hôtels et des casinos.

Il teste aussi, avec cette compagnie, une technique consistant à
vendre et acheter plusieurs fois la même société. Elle lui resservira
pour les célèbres studios MGM qu”il empoche une première fois en
1969, cède un peu plus tard, rachète à nouveau puis revend encore,
toujours en y trouvant largement son compte, ce qui est nettement
moins le cas de ceux qui font affaire avec lui. Le Crédit lyonnais,
entre autres, en garde le cuisant souvenir. Tout aussi instable dans
sa vie privée il s”est marié trois fois , il manifeste néanmoins un
certain sens de la famille, ayant baptisé son holding Tracinda, à
partir des prénoms de ses deux filles, Tracy et Linda. Ce raider de
choc, qui, en matière de gestion, préfère déléguer, a certes connu
quelques revers (Columbia Pictures, Disney, Chrysler…), mais on
vient de le voir à nouveau il n”y a pas là de quoi ébranler un
appétit toujours spectaculaire.

Palestinian shuns pageant after threats
by Tia Goldenberg

The Jerusalem Post
June 17, 2004, Thursday

After inviting Dina Emal to participate in Tuesday night’s “Miss Green
Line” beauty pageant in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood, coordinator
Asi Nagar told the Palestinian contestant from Beit Jala to stay home,
in response to her mother’s fears for her safety.

Nagar had invited Emal, who also goes by the last name Mahariz,
to participate in order to help build on the pageant’s theme of
coexistence.

“She really wanted to participate, but her family was afraid, so
I had to make a decision on their behalf,” Nagar said before the
pageant. “I’d rather have a friend living in Beit Jala than a beauty
queen living in fear.” He said Emal cried when he told her not to
come to the event.

A band comprising Jews and Palestinians welcomed the guests to the
pageant, playing both Israeli and Arabic songs. While the guests were
mostly Jewish, Nagar said some Arabs had come from the Palestinian
town of Beit Jala and Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa neighborhood. After
Emal’s withdrawal, only one non-Jewish participant, Arpi Krikorian,
an Armenian Christian from Jerusalem’s Old City, remained.

“Dina really wanted to participate, but the security situation
couldn’t allow for it,” said Krikorian, who came in fourth place.
“She was very disappointed and so am I.”

Ayelet Fishman, first runner-up in the competition, said the fact
that a Palestinian woman would participate in the pageant is what
pushed her to join.

“If the Arab girl wasn’t a part of this, I wouldn’t have done it,”
Fishman said, before being notified of Emal’s absence. “It was a
once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Before the competition, Labor MK Colette Avital spoke to the
audience. “Dina has a place in all our hearts,” said Avital. “I hope
that next year the atmosphere will be such that we will be able to
live as neighbors.”

The participants, ranging in age from 14 to 21, strutted onstage in
dresses, bikinis, and wedding gowns.

Ortal Balilti, 17, from Gilo, took the crown.

GRAPHIC: Photo: ISRAELI YOUNG women don evening dresses to
participate in a beauty contest Tuesday night in Jerusalem’s Gilo
neighborhood. (Credit: Lefteris Pitarakis/Ap)

Kerkorian takes casino crown
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY

USA Today
June 17 2004

Las Vegas has always had its share of dreamers and big shots, but
never one quite like Kirk Kerkorian. As majority stockholder of
MGM Mirage, he would have had every reason to publicly join in the
hoopla Wednesday about Mandalay Resort Group’s acceptance of MGM’s
$4.8 billion cash buyout offer.

The deal makes Kerkorian the mogul among moguls: He’ll control more
Las Vegas hotel rooms than Howard Hughes or Stephen Wynn could ever
assemble. If the deal passes regulatory muster, MGM will become the
world’s largest gaming company. It will lord over 11 casino resorts on
the famed Las Vegas Strip alone, including jewels such as Bellagio,
Mandalay Bay and Luxor along the hottest stretch. Kerkorian’s empire
would extend to 17 other gambling halls in Nevada, elsewhere in the
USA and Australia.

“This is the king of all deals in the gaming business,” says Rod
Petrik, gaming analyst with Legg Mason. “He will be the No. 1 operator
on the Strip, with the best properties.”

Even in triumph, Kerkorian, 87, characteristically stayed out of the
limelight. At an age when most people are retired, Kerkorian struck
his biggest casino deal and declined to be interviewed about it.
That’s in contrast to the flamboyance that has marked Strip tycoons
such as gangster Bugsy Siegel, who opened the Flamingo as the Strip’s
first flashy casino in 1946.

Mandalay’s board approved the deal Tuesday night amid antitrust
concerns. MGM Mirage CEO Terrence Lanni said in an interview that his
board is “very comfortable” with lawyers’ assurances that antitrust
issues won’t be a problem.

MGM is paying $71 a share cash, in a deal that, along with
convertible securities and assumption of debt, is valued at $7.9
billion. Wednesday, MGM shares fell 62 cents to $48.88. Mandalay
dropped 8 cents to $67.80, short of the $71 acquisition price, in
recognition of the year it could take for the deal to close and the
chance that regulators could interfere.

Besides the potential to own half the 75,000 rooms on the Strip,
MGM would acquire about 2 million square feet of meeting space
in the nation’s largest convention city. MGM would also become
better positioned at the high and low ends of the gambling market,
better able to attract $500-a-hand blackjack players and nickel-slot
aficionados alike. That helps spread the risk as Wynn is about to
open a megaresort on the north end of the Strip next year, which
could siphon the most profitable high rollers.

“I’m very excited,” Lanni says. Mandalay “has wonderful properties
and great brands.”

The consolidation comes as greater Las Vegas, one of the nation’s
fastest-growing metropolises, continues to attract new visitors.

The Mandalay acquisition is Kerkorian’s second big casino deal in
four years. In 2000, MGM acquired Wynn’s Mirage Resorts for $4.4
billion. Then, as now, Kerkorian stayed behind the curtain.

He is publicity-shy but not reclusive. The Southern Californian plays a
mean game of tennis, buys a ticket and stands in line for movies and is
known to frequent plush but unflashy restaurants. Like Howard Hughes,
he’s a former pilot who dallied in the movie business. Unlike Hughes,
he hasn’t locked himself in a hotel casino penthouse, grown a long
scraggily beard and shunned all but his closest cronies.

Chasing deals

For him, the elixir of life is love of the deal. The bigger, the
better. Among the builders of modern Las Vegas, “Kerkorian is one
of the most enigmatic and interesting figures,” says Hal Rothman,
a history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “He is
uncanny in his ability to read the market.”

While others ignored Las Vegas as a garish, sweltering pool of
excess, Kerkorian saw how both the masses and the elite would come to
embrace it. In the course of amassing a $6 billion empire, Kerkorian
has constructed the world’s largest hotel on three occasions: the
International, which later became the Las Vegas Hilton, in 1969;
the MGM Grand, now Bally’s, in 1973; and the present MGM Grand in 1993.

“He’s the smartest man I know,” says Alex Yemenidjian, CEO of Kerkorian
film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. “It takes three minutes for him to
figure out something that takes me three days.”

Yemenidjian, who speaks to Kerkorian by phone daily and plays tennis
with him most weekends, adds: “I don’t know anybody else who has
created more jobs in Las Vegas or been more charitable.”

Kerkorian, No. 65 on Forbes list of billionaires, has, without fanfare,
donated at least $150 million, often to his ancestral homeland
of Armenia.

Through his Tracinda holding company, named after his daughters Tracy
and Linda, he owns 57% of MGM Mirage. He also has large holdings
in DaimlerChrysler, which he is suing for $1 billion for allegedly
defrauding investors in the 1998 merger between the giant automakers.
A verdict is expected in the fall.

He keeps residences in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He’s involved in
his businesses but doesn’t dabble in details. He’s “a very big-picture
person,” Lanni says.

Kerkorian came to know Las Vegas the way most first see it: as a
gambler. The Fresno-born son of an Armenian immigrant, Kerkorian was
a scrappy boxer as a youth and later ferried bombers from Canada to
England during World War II for the Royal Air Force.

In 1947, the year Siegel was shot and the Flamingo started showing
a profit, Kerkorian paid $60,000 for a plane to shuttle movie stars
and high rollers. He built it into a $104 million charter business
that was sold to Transamerica in 1966. He used the profits to build
the International and buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio. He would
buy and sell it three times.

As Kerkorian was about to emerge as a force in Las Vegas, Hughes
was king. Hughes bought some of the biggest casinos of the time,
including the Desert Inn, Sands, Landmark, Frontier, Silver Slipper
and the Castaways. All were puny compared with the room counts of
today’s giants.

Fire dealt setback

Kerkorian had setbacks. The hotel then called the MGM Grand,
predecessor to the one by that name further south on the Strip,
caught fire in 1980, and 81 people died. “After the fire, he …
stayed underground,” says John L. Smith, who has written several
books about Las Vegas and is a columnist for the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. “It is something that bothered him for a long time.”

Kerkorian eventually re-emerged. His new MGM Grand remains Las Vegas’
largest resort, with 5,034 rooms. It was built with a concert hall
and an amusement park for the town’s family-friendly era.

When adding Wynn’s former Mirage Resorts properties, including
Bellagio, Mirage and Treasure Island, MGM made sure the properties
kept their own personalities. In Mandalay Bay, for instance, Kerkorian
is getting a property known for its hipness.

Kerkorian’s power play comes as Sin City is enjoying a resurgence. It
had more than 12.5 million visitors through April this year, up
7.5% from the first four months of 2003, the Las Vegas Convention
and Visitors Authority says. “If there’s any place to double down,
Nevada is the place to do it,” says analyst Eric Hausler at Susquehanna
Financial.

The Mandalay purchase, like any gamble, has risks. Riverboat
and American Indian gaming are growing, particularly in the key
California market that feeds gamblers to Las Vegas by bus and car.
The number of people arriving by air rose about 15% in the first four
months of 2004, vs. the same period in 2003. Another terrorist attack
could leave MGM/Mandalay dangerously exposed if there’s a plunge in
visitors. “This will be a huge concentration of properties betting
on Las Vegas,” says Dan Ahrens, portfolio manager of the Vice fund,
which is 28% invested in gaming stocks.

Few would bet against Kerkorian even if he’s out of sight. “Kerkorian
is still at the helm here,” says author Smith. “The lion never sleeps.”

Contributing: Matt Krantz, Thor Valdmanis and Darryl Haralson

PRESS OFFICE

Armenian Holy Apostolic Church Canadian Diocese
Contact; Deacon Hagop Arslanian, Assistant to the Primate
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont Quebec H2V 3H2
Tel; 514-276-9479, Fax; 514-276-9960
Email; [email protected] Website;

Montrealâ^À¦Marking the Feast of Holy Etchmiadzin and the 20th anniversary of
the establishment of Canadian Armenian Diocese

The Feast of Holy Etchmiadzin and the 20th anniversary of the
establishment of Canadian Armenian Diocese were marked on Sunday
June 13th , 2004 at St Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Cathedral
in Montreal. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Archbishop Vatche
Hovsepian, former Primate of the Armenian Church Western US Diocese
presided by His Eminence Bishop Bagrat Galstanian, Primate of the
Armenian Church Canadian Diocese. The “Gomidas” choir of St Gregory
the Illuminator Armenian cathedral conducted by sub-deacon Varoujan
Markarian sang the Holy Liturgy. Serving at the altar were the Rev
Fr Hayrig Hovhannesian, Fr Vazgen Boyadjian, Pastor of the Church,
as well as the deacons and acolytes of the St Gregory Armenian Church.

In his words of greeting, Bishop Galstanian welcomed Archbishop Vatche
Hovsepian and highly praised his tireless efforts in building up
the Montreal Armenian community. Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian thanked
Almighty God for granting him the opportunity to once again celebrate
the Divine Liturgy in Montreal and expressed his gratitude to Bishop
Bagrat Galstanian for inviting him on this blessed occasion. Serpazan
Hovsepian said “As I was called to serve God and the Armenian Apostolic
Church, I committed myself in building up Churches and communities that
would preserve our nation. From the very inception of the establishment
of Montreal Armenian community we ran into many difficulties and
complications, but by the Will of God and commitment of our people we
were able to accomplish our mission”. The Archbishop later said “Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin
is the spiritual birthplace of Armenian Christianity. Be faithful and
loyal to our spiritual heritage and keep the God-given center sacred”.

The capacity crowd in the church who was present to mark the feast of
Holy Etchmiadzin and the 20th anniversary of Canadian Armenian Diocese,
also participated in Hayrapetakan Makhtank. Prayers were raised asking
the Almighty God to grant the Holy Father, His Holiness Catholicos
Karekin II of All Armenians good health and prosperous mission in
serving the mother church and the Armenian people.

Following the Divine Liturgy a formal banquet sponsored by Mr. and
Mrs. Taro and Anahid Alepian and prepared by the Ladies’ Auxiliary
was interspersed with speeches by the dignitaries and a short cultural
show in the Church’s Marie Manoogian Hall. The invocation was offered
by Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian. After a short welcoming speech by
M.C., Mr. Megerdich Kanondjian, Chairman of the Parish Council, the
microphone was passed to Mrs. Vilma Halepli-Basmadjian, chairwoman
of the luncheon’s organizing committee. Rev Fr Hayrig Hovhannesian
delivered his message and highlighted the significance of the Mother
See of Holy Etchmiadzin in the life of the Armenian people throughout
its turbulent history of 17 centuries.

Immediately thereafter, an inaugural presentation of a recital
of the Church’s newly-formed Children’s Choir was conducted by
sub-deacon Varoujan Markarian. A group of traditional folk songs
were presented with a high artistic standard that earned many encores
and a standing ovation by the enthusiastic crowd. A brief emotional
address on behalf of the youth was presented by Saro Shishmanian, who
confided that every time he visited the Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin,
“he felt that God touches him to remind that this is where he belongs”.

A series of songs was presented a propos to the feasts celebrated,
by soprano Ani Keropian, who accompanied herself on the piano. The
cultural portion of the afternoon was rounded out by piano pieces
played by two children from attendance Loris Margossian and Yohanatan
Shahbazian-Checkanovich.

Mr. Mego Kanondjian M.C. then invited Very Rev Fr Ararat Kaltakjian
to introduce Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian, who had been instrumental in
the purchase of the church building and the renovation works 34 years
ago. Archbishop Hovsepian reminisced about all those who had passed
into eternity and those present in the audience, who had devotedly
worked for the organization of the community. He revealed a hand
cross, which was donated in those days by a faithful from Istanbul. He
had tried to buy it from a Turkish friend he had met in Anatolia,
and it turned out that the young man’s mother was an Armenian, who had
insisted that his son donate the cross to an Armenian Church. June 13,
was also the Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian’s birthday. Led by Fr. Ararat
the crowd sang Happy Birthday in both English and Armenian.

Closing remarks were offered by Bishop Galstanian, who advised the
faithful to remain steadfast in their faith and loyalty towards the
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the head and the heart of the Armenian
Church established in the Armenian Homeland.

On behalf of the clergy, diocesan council and the entire faithful of
the Armenian Church in Canada Serpazan Hayr extended his filial love
and heartfelt wishes to Vehapar Hayrapet His Holiness Karekin II. He
also congratulated the Clergy, Diocesan Council, Parish councils
and all the auxiliary bodies Armenian, Political, cultural and
philanthropic organizations and the devoted faithful of the Armenian
Church in Canada on this glorious occasion. He stated. “The feast of
Holy Etchmiadzin is he ground of our being” he then continued “One
of our Bishops Tadde Serpazan, who ended his life in martyrdom in a
Soviet prison, never betraying his faith in and loyalty towards Holy
Etchmiadzin. “The history of Holy Ethcmiadzin embraces the Armenian
History. Many tribulations have passé, and many are yet to come
and pass. You and us will also pass, but Holy Etchmiadzin shall
remain forever”.

Divan of the Diocese

The Detroit News

Stefan Karidian, 75, has 27 books of stamps from Armenia. “My collection
hinges on the history of this country,” he says.

Stamps tell Armenian tales

By Sarah Frame / The Detroit News

BIRMINGHAM – Stefan Karidian can trace his family’s history by looking
through his stamp collection. He has 27 books of stamps, postcards
and envelopes from Armenia, the country his parents emigrated from.

“Armenian stamps are my specialty,” said Karidian, 75, of West
Bloomfield Township. “My collection hinges on the history of this
country. I have stamps that relate to Armenian churches, artists,
and also stamps and postcards that commemorate the mass genocide of
the Armenian people. My dad survived that and then came here.”

Collectors like Karidian commonly see their own lives in their stamps,
said Michael Schreiber, editor of Linn’s Stamp News, the world’s
largest weekly stamp newspaper.

“You can make of it (stamp collecting) anything you want,” Schreiber
said. “You can collect on any topic, any country.”

Collectors from all over the Midwest will attend the Metropex 2004,
a stamp exposition sponsored by the Oakland County Stamp Club planned
for June 12 and 13.

The show will feature more than 20 dealers and will be at the
Birmingham Masonic Temple.

Dodie Spatz, 66, of Bloomfield Township recalls that her interest in
stamps began when her father went to work in the Venezuelan oil fields.

“My dad would send letters to my mother with these pretty stamps
on them, and I began to save them,” Spatz said. “Now I have quite
a collection, and it’s gotten bigger since I joined the Birmingham
Stamp Club.”

You can reach Sarah Frame at (313) 222-2103 or [email protected].

Putting Racism Back in the Classroom
By Garin K. Hovannisian, Daily Bruin | June 7, 2004

Frontpagemag.com
June 4 2004

Last week, a group of lawless vigilantes trampled over state law and
betrayed public opinion at the same time.

For me and you, this might be a hard act to pull off. But for the
well-trained assemblymen of the state of California, it was business
as usual. Last Wednesday, in a 45-30 vote, the state Assembly passed
a bill to reinstate race as a consideration for university admissions.

Assembly Bill 2387 allows “the University of California and the
California State University … to consider culture, race, gender,
ethnicity” and a number of other factors in their admissions processes.

As I read it, the bill is illegal. Proposition 209, a constitutional
amendment ratified by California’s public in 1996, explicitly states:
“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential
treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color,
ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment,
public education, or public contracting.”

But the officials in Sacramento are not dumb. Their deliberations were
extensive and their methodology was efficient. It is for this reason
that AB 2387 includes the phrase, “so long as no preference is given.”

In short, the legislators want to consider race but not make
preferences based on race. Convenient? Yes. Confusing? Surely.
Impressively manipulative? Perhaps.

But all the elitist rationalizations for this bill are left defenseless
when faced with the revealing and important question: How?

How is it possible to consider an applicant’s race but not make
a preference based on it? One cannot expect a human to remain
uninfluenced when he considers an influential factor. For example, if
one applicant is Armenian and the other is French, I, the subjective
reviewer, will give preferential treatment to the Armenian.

Say, however, that admissions officers are superhuman. What then? If
they were hypothetically able to consider race but not make racial
preferences, then what’s the point of considering race in the first
place? There is no point. For example, if one applicant is Armenian
and the other is French, I, the objective reviewer, will not care.

So why is the bill so important?

To put it simply, the bill is a devious and deliberate attempt to
break the law and reinstate affirmative action in California.

To make this all the more obvious for the political detective, the
assemblymen have exposed their motivations for passing the bill in
the first place. Those who pretend the measure is about equality or
justice ignore the fact that when the bill was first introduced in
April, it did not contain the word gender. It dealt exclusively with
the reintegration of racial issues into admission boards. From the
beginning, the bill was about affirmative action.

Again, the mob at our Capitol is not foolish.

Preempting their inevitable exposure, many assemblymen have sought
to form a legal defense, in spite of Prop. 209.

As the Daily Bruin reports: “Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, D-South
Gate, was the primary author of the bill. Ricardo Lara, communications
director for Firebaugh, said the bill stems from a decision by the
U.S. Supreme Court last June that upheld the right of the University
of Michigan Law School to employ ‘a narrowly tailored use of race in
admissions decisions.'”

The court did not, nor should address whether affirmative action
should be mandatory. The court’s ruling was one of the state’s
rights. Within the confines of the Constitutional Equal Protection
Clause, the individual states can choose whether to adopt or ignore
affirmative action.

Michigan chose to adopt it; California chose to reject it (via
Proposition 209). And precisely for the same reasons affirmative
action exists in Michigan, it should not exist in California. The
state has the right to choose. That is what the Michigan case found.

In her ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice O’Connor writes,
“As the experience in Texas, Florida and California demonstrates,
public universities have ample race-neutral means available to
achieve objectives such as educational diversity, openness and broad
participation. … (States like California) cannot follow Michigan’s
model of adopting race-based admission policies when ample race-neutral
alternatives remain available to respondents.”

So the Supreme Court, far from endorsing race as a factor of
admissions, actually rejected it in the case of California.

Diane Schachterle, the Director of Public Affairs for the American
Civil Rights Coalition, agrees. In an e-mail, she told me, “Grutter
v. Bollinger specifies that if race-neutral means are working, then
race-based policies may NOT be used. Since Justice O’Connor singled
out California as a shining example of the success of race-neutral
policies one can conclude that California meets this legal test and
is forbidden to consider race.”

Much can be said about the righteousness of affirmative action. But
the issue at hand is far different and far more important. It is an
issue of law and public opinion.

Last week, our representatives gathered in their elite room where
they overrode our desires, breached their sacred contract with the
law, and misled and deceived California citizens. In the process,
they insulted the opponents of affirmative action and crushed the
legitimacy of its advocates.

The assemblymen who voted for this bill are, in the most literal
sense, vigilantes.

Does anybody care?

Revolution in Georgia: What Next for Armenia?
Posted on Wednesday, June 02 2004
By Onnik Krikorian

Great Reporter
June 2 2004

The activists behind Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” made history by
ousting President Eduard Shevarnadze – now their neighbours are
eyeing a similar bid for democracy.

When the newly-elected president of the Republic of Georgia, Mikhail
Saakashvili, forced his way into parliament last November and sealed
the fate of his predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, there were few
analysts that didn’t examine what impact the “Rose Revolution” might
have on neighbouring Republics.

Since Azerbaijan showed no sign of any increased political activity,
all attention turned to Armenia where last month, the opposition took
to the streets in an attempt to replicate events in Georgia.
Throughout April, thousands rallied to call for the resignation of
the Armenian President, Robert Kocharyan, re-elected for a second
term in flawed elections held last year.

At first, however, there were more immediate concerns. Land-locked
and blockaded by Turkey and Azerbaijan, approximately 90 per cent of
all Armenian trade goes through its northern neighbour. Had
trade-routes been affected, it would have spelt disaster for the
poverty-stricken Republic. Although there has been economic growth in
recent years, it has mainly benefited the corrupt and connected.

Half the population lives below the national poverty line and over
one million Armenians have left the country to find work and a better
life abroad.

Inspired by the November events in Georgia, therefore, the first
demonstration held by an opposition party in the Armenian capital,
Yerevan, eventually took place on 5 April, almost a year after
President Robert Kocharian’s controversial inauguration. But whereas
President Eduard Shevardnadze was reluctant to use force to suppress
the protests in Georgia, the Armenian president was not.

More than a dozen shaven-head thugs, believed to be the bodyguards of
oligarchs close to the authorities, threw eggs at opposition figures
and attacked journalists, smashing the cameras of photographers and
film crews. However, the worst was yet to come. In the early hours of
13 April, after 15,000 opposition supporters marched on the
Presidential Palace only to be halted in their tracks by razor wire
blocking the road, a core group of 2-3,000 camped overnight on
Yerevan’s central Marshal Baghramian Avenue.

At 2am, water cannon and stun grenades were used to disperse peaceful
demonstrators who were then ambushed by groups of riot police waiting
on street corners as they fled the scene. According to eye witness
accounts, the Deputy Head of the Armenian Police, Hovannes Varyan, is
alleged to have personally beaten one photographer, Hayk Gevorkian,
from the pro-opposition Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper. Other
journalists including a Russian TV cameraman were also attacked.

Hundreds of opposition activists, including two opposition MPs, were
detained and others beaten and allegedly tortured in custody. As was
the case during and immediately after the 2003 Presidential
Elections, freedom of movement in the republic was restricted and
roads into the capital were blocked in order to prevent supporters
from the regions attending this and later rallies.

As a result, Human Rights Watch and the Council of Europe issued a
stern warning to the Armenian Government that any repeat of such an
incident would be unacceptable. They also demanded the immediate
release of more than a dozen leading activists whom human rights
activists consider political prisoners. The request, however, fell on
deaf ears.

But despite the perseverance of the opposition, many analysts
conclude that attempts to remove Kocharyan from power were doomed
from the outset. Despite his unpopularity in Georgia, Shevardnadze
was nonetheless more democratic than his Armenian counterpart who
many consider autocratic and ruthless in comparison.

But the reasons for the failure of the opposition to achieve regime
change in Armenia, however, go far deeper than that. One other factor
has been the lack of a figure on any side of the political divide
with the charisma and credibility of Mikhail Saakashvili, the new
president of Georgia. In last year’s presidential elections, for
example, Kocharyan’s main opponent was the son of the former
communist-era boss of Armenia, Karen Demirchyan.

Although Stepan Demirchyan has the support of some part of the
population at least, he lacks the oratory skills and experience of
other less popular but more dynamic figures in the opposition such as
Artashes Geghamian of the National Unity Party and Aram Z Sargsyan of
the Republic Party. Even today, Demirchyan remains in the background
at opposition rallies, allowing others to take center stage.

And whereas Shevardnadze was reliant on the United States to maintain
power, Moscow rules the roost in Armenia. Last year, the Americans
might have pulled the rug out from underneath the Georgian
President’s feet but there are so far no signs that Russian President
Vladimir Putin will do the same to Kocharyan. Armenia remains
Moscow’s last outpost in the Southern Caucasus.

However, while attempts to unseat the Armenian President will prove
an uphill struggle, street demonstrations continue. Moreover, as the
situation remains unpredictable, it is not impossible that regime
change could happen in Armenia. At the very least, recent events in
Georgia have contributed to the emergence of an active opposition for
the first time since 1996 and civil rights activists are finding a
new lease of life.

Moreover, in a few years, Armenia will find itself in the exact same
situation that gave birth to the Georgian “Rose Revolution” with
parliamentary elections scheduled for 2007 determining the outcome of
presidential elections to be held the following year. Although it is
not unthinkable that President Kocharian might attempt to run for a
third term in office in 2008, he is prohibited from doing so under
the Armenian constitution.

And if the Georgian experiment with democracy is seen to be
successful, many in Armenia might eventually conclude that the only
way to break free from the vicious cycle of stagnation and regression
in place is to completely overthrow the system. Until then, leading
international bodies such as Human Rights Watch and Freedom House
have warned that democracy, human rights and media freedom are
already in decline as a direct result of the president’s attempts to
cling on to power.

In the meantime, current events in Armenia can perhaps be viewed in
the context of both the government and opposition preparing for an
inevitable change of power that will have to occur by 2008 at the
very latest and quite possibly, depending on other domestic and
external factors, even earlier than that.

Bagdikian’s Long Journey to Journalistic Heights
By Dorothy Bryant Special to the Planet

Berkeley Daily Planet, CA
June 1 2004

The most dramatic story in Ben Bagdikian’s life was not his role in
obtaining, publishing, and reporting on the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
It was a story he was not able to report (until his 1995 memoir
Double Vision) because he was too young–10 days old in 1920–when his
parents and four sisters fled Marash, Armenia, on foot, climbing over
snow-covered mountains to escape the Turks during a great Armenian
genocide.

Thinking the new baby was dead, his father dropped him in order to
catch his mother who had fainted. Ben hit the snow, cried out, and
was picked up again. After more narrow escapes, the family made it to
America when Ben was four months old and settled in Stoneham, Mass.
There his father (who had taught at an American University in Armenia)
became pastor of a Cambridge Armenian Congregational Church.

Despite the loss of his mother to tuberculosis three years later,
Ben says that, compared to immigrants with no contacts, no English,
and few skills, his English-speaking family had a fairly “easy entreé
into middle-class American life,” and he grew up as “an Armenian
overlaid by, of all things, the culture of New England Yankees.”

Although there were family feasts where relatives told stories in
Turkish or Armenian, Ben–a fiercely “American” kid who “always
wished they’d serve hot dogs and stuff like that instead of stuffed
eggplant”–understood neither language. “I picked up a little Turkish
when I was staying with my grandparents, but lost it all. Or thought
I did.”

A few years ago, his wife Marlene and he traveled to Marash.

“One night we found ourselves wandering in a dark and gloomy district
that made me more and more uneasy. We had to get out of there,
but how? I saw a man in a tan uniform–some official or policeman,
I hoped–walked up to him, and out of my mouth came, ‘Can you tell
us how to get a cab?’ In Turkish! I was astonished. Somewhere, back
in my brain, bits of the language still lived.”

The plan was for Ben to become a doctor, but when he graduated from
Clark University (after serving as editor of the college newspaper),
he needed to earn money for medical school. As a pre-med student,
he had to take many chemistry courses. He went to apply for a job
as a chemist. “Come back in an hour.” During that fateful hour, he
wandered into the offices of the Springfield Morning Union, found
that they could use a reporter, and never looked back.

During World War II, he married while serving as a navigator
in the Army Air Corps. He and his wife Betty had two sons, Chris
(1944) and Eric (1951), before their marriage ended. By 1947 he was
working as a reporter and Washington bureau chief for the Providence
Journal-Bulletin. In 1956, he won an Ogden Reed Fellowship for a year
in Europe, then in 1957 took the risky assignment of covering the
Southern Civil Rights scene along with black reporter Jim Rhea. He
left the Journal-Bulletin in 1961 and began freelance reporting. His
first book, In The Midst of Plenty (1964), came out of articles written
after spending time with poor Appalachians, bean pickers in Florida,
old people “warehoused” in Los Angeles, men in flop houses in Chicago.

Later, a similar experience, having himself smuggled into a maximum
security prison as an inmate, led to his book Caged: Eight Prisoners
and their Keepers (1976).

“I was only there two weeks, but I’ll never forget how quickly the
outside world disappears. A depression settles over everyone. Once,
when we were brought out of our cells, I looked into a wall-mirror to
check out who was nearby. I saw a guy I didn’t know. Who was that? It
was me! That look, that careful, dead, expressionless look had already
made me a stranger to myself.”

I asked Ben if such experiences with the poor and the imprisoned led to
his life-long concern for the deprived, the less educated. He nodded.

“And a couple of earlier influences. There was my Uncle Fred, a
mechanic with a great zest for life. He bought me my first ice cream
soda, took me around with him, out of that up-tight world of the
‘preacher’s son.’ That was a terrible burden, everyone watching and
judging to see how ‘good’ I was–and I wasn’t good! Yet within that
uptight world was the deep concern for values. Every night we had a
Bible reading, all together, the family. Sounds dreary, and sometimes
it was. But, you know, after years and years, the theology, the dogma
falls away, and what’s left is ‘Do unto others–‘ and the Beatitudes.
You know, in the ethics class I have at Berkeley, I asked my graduate
students, where they got their sense of right and wrong. And most of
them went back to early religious training–Christian, Jewish, Muslim,
whatever–and they said the same thing, that in adulthood the theology
dropped away, but the moral teachings stayed with them.” Ben laughs.
“Marlene says all that King James Bible reading shows in my writing
style.”

By 1967 Ben was with the Washington Post as assistant managing editor
for national news (1970), where his adventures with the Pentagon
Papers hit the headlines in 1971. “It was a tricky spot to be in. I
was covering the story, but I was instrumental in getting the papers,
so I was part of the story as well. I believe a reporter should stand
outside the story and report it accurately, but in some cases, that’s
not possible. It’s like walking a tightrope.”

Ben has won so many awards that articles about him no longer bother
to list all of them. I asked which were his favorite awards.

“I was part of a group Pulitzer, but what I value more is the Pulitzer
I didn’t get. I was one of two finalists during that fellowship
year 1956-57 in Europe. I had helped cover the Israeli/Egyptian war,
giving the point of view of leaders but also of ordinary citizens on
both sides; that’s what made our reports different. Another award I
value is the Peabody I got in 1951 for criticizing leading TV and radio
commentators. And I treasure the James Madison Award from the American
Library Association, Coalition on Government Information in 1998.”

In 1976 Ben joined the faculty of the UC Graduate School of
Journalism, where he taught until 1991, serving three years as dean
(1985-1988). His major publishing event of those years was The Media
Monopoly in 1983. In that book he described the dangers of media
ownership by only 50 companies. Media Monopoly went into five more
editions–1987, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2000. Then in January 2004 The New
Media Monopoly came out.

“It wasn’t my idea. The publisher said I had to do a new edition
because so much has changed. So the seventh edition is really 90
percent new. From 50 companies, ownership of media has shrunk to
just five or six. But there’s an even bigger difference. In 1983
each company wanted a monopoly over just one medium–say magazines,
or newspapers, or television. Now, these few companies try to control
all media, so that the TV you watch, the radio, the newspaper, the
magazines, the movies, the books–might all be owned and controlled
by one corporation–Fox or Murdock or Disney. And these companies
promote a far-right slant. What they have managed to do in 25 years is
to shift what used to be called the ‘nutty right’ to the center. And
the left has been pushed off the edge completely.”

Is there hope in the Internet?

“Yes. There’s lots of junk on it, but it’s still an outlet for an
independent with no money but plenty of ingenuity and skill, like
MoveOn.org. It’s not controlled by the corporations. Not yet. But the
FCC, which is supposed to protect independent media, is Bush-appointed,
and not a bit friendly.”

What about print media? Name some of the ones that are holding firm
against the move to the right.

“Well, you know, I think you have to read the New York Times every
day. There’s been a big change in the last five years. It’s not so
wedded to the establishment. And there’s the Nation, the Progressive,
Extra, alternative radio, the New York Review of Books. And it’s a
good idea to read Time and Newsweek, so you get a view of the total
picture most magazine readers are getting–and even those two have
been pretty dismayed at the right lately.” Ben laughs. “I occasionally
look at the National Review too, and the Weekly Standard–I think
you have to know what the right is thinking.”

I asked, what if I work at a full-time job and have a family and
a house to keep up and friends, and a need to relax and watch TV
a little. But I’m determined to squeeze out an hour a day to stay
informed. What should I read?

“Hmmmm. Okay. The Nation, Newsweek, the Progressive. And, of course,
the Berkeley Daily Planet. It’s a really great local paper!”

Lest the reader decide that, in my admiration for Ben, I am buttering
him up inexcusably, let me conclude by telling his dirty little
secret, the revelation of which is sure to infuriate him. Ben is
not his real first name. His mother had him christened Ben-Hur, yes,
after the monumentally schlocky best seller that spawned some even
more tasteless movie spectacles.

“To my knowledge,” Ben murmurs, “it was her only lapse of literary
taste.”

Ben Bagdikian will read from The New Media Monopoly at 7:30 on June
4 at Cody’s Books on Telegraph.

BBC programmes directed against Azerbaijan’s statehood – ruling party says

ANS TV, Baku
27 May 04

[Presenter] The [ruling] New Azerbaijan Party [NAP] has published the
results of its monitoring of the BBC Russian Service. The programmes
are directed against Azerbaijani statehood, the party concluded.

[Correspondent over video of a meeting] Representatives of political
parties today discussed the reports of the BBC Russian Service
directed against Azerbaijani statehood and national interests. MP
Mubariz Qurbanli of the NAP said that they have monitored the BBC
Russian Service.

[Qurbanli] The monitoring revealed that the BBC Russian Service is
purposefully airing programmes directed against Azerbaijan’s statehood,
history and national culture. They are directed against Azerbaijan
to create a negative image of Azerbaijan for the listeners.

[Correspondent] Quote, we protest against the BBC and have sent
several letters of protest to the Russian Service’s management. We
want the companies which take part in broadcasting BBC programmes
to express their protest as well. Otherwise, we will turn into the
BBC Russian Service’s mouthpiece of Armenian propaganda. This works
against us in the information war, Qurbanli said.

MP Sayaddin Aliyev voiced the same idea. The Milli Maclis [Azerbaijan’s
parliament] will appeal to the BBC Russian Service’s management,
Aliyev said.

The MPs demanded that the BBC air only accurate and impartial
information.