"KOMITAS" ARMENIAN CULTURAL UNION FOUNDED IN HOLLAND
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
01.06.2009 21:32 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Komitas Armenian Cultural House was opened in
Zutphen. Opening ceremony was attended by representatives from Mayor’s
Office and Armenian Organizations in Holland.
Catholic church choir gave concert, performing songs by Armenian and
Dutch composers.
In their speeches, participants stressed the importance of Armenian
community’s contribution to cultural ties between two states.
Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
May 31 2009
Armenian opposition declares violations in election of Yerevan’s mayor
31.05.09 17:16
Armenia’s opposition claims massive violations in the election of
Mayor of Yerevan, Interfax reported.
At a meeting with journalists, the press-secretary of the opposition
Armenian National Congress (ANC) Musinyan Arman said that there were
recorded cases of violence against the opposition, beating of
journalists, voting instead of those who are not in Armenia.
"We also have evidence that the voting is attended by people from
country’s regions, who have not been registered in Armenia. We
recorded mass violations in the election process," he said.
In its turn, the Central Election Commission of Armenia declares that
the elections are held in a natural manner and at the moment, no
serious incidents have been fixed.
Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office also has not confirmed
violations at any polling stations in Yerevan, which were fixed by
opposition Armenian National Congress ".
As of 14:00, the voter turnout in the elections to the Council of
Elders of Yerevan was 29.36%, member of the CEC of Armenia Karen
Poladyan said.
All 439 polling stations open for voting from 08:00 in Yerevan
YEREVAN, MAY 31, NOYAN TAPAN. All 439 polling stations opened for
voting from 08:00, May 31, in Yerevan Council of Elders elections.
According to the data of the RA Police Passport and Visa Department,
771 477 citizens are on the lists.
In total 5 953 representatives of 29 local NGOs and 15 representatives
of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Territorial Authorities
were accredited at the RA Central Electoral Commission in the
established term for carrying out an observation mission. Proxies of
seven political forces running for the elections, media representatives
also have a possibility to follow the process of elections.
CEC will publicize the number of voting participants with the
periodicity of 3 hours. The voting will last until 20:00. CEC will sum
up and will record the elections preliminary results on the basis of
voting results at polling stations on June 1, up to 20:00. The results
will be finally summed up by June 7.
It should be mentioned that a Council of Elders consisting of 65
members is for the first time elected in Yerevan, and Yerevan Mayor
will be elected from the staff of Council of Elders.
Has Erdogan altered his announcements on the Armenian Genocide?
30.05.2009 14:29 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Erdogan Criticizes Turkey’s Past and Accuses the
Kemalists of Ethnic Cleansing
On May 23 2009, during a congress of Turkey’s ruling Party (Justice
and Development Party) in Duzce, Eastern Turkey, Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan made an important announcement. He criticized Turkish
nationalism and called the Kemalist foundation of the Republic of
Turkey `fascist’ because of the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian and
Greek minorities. Erdogan said, `For many years Turkey has been
ethnically cleansed of its minorities because of their cultural and
ethnic difference vis-à-vis the Turkish identity. This was the result
of fascism and we as the Justice and Development Party have been
trapped in this wrong political approach and have committed similar
errors’.
The President of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, Dr. Girair
Basmadjian considers Erdogan’s announcement as an improvement in the
domestic politics of Turkey after a continuous denialist politics
adopted by the deep state. `Since the creation of modern Turkey,
successive governments have adopted a policy of Turkification and have
mistreated its minorities. Erdogan’s announcement is canceled the
first made by a Prime Minister accepting Turkey’s past mistakes and
may be considered as a first step for an eventual apology to the
Armenian population for its extermination by the Ottoman government in
1915. However we should not be too optimistic because the current
Turkish government and academia includes numerous influential
`fascists’ and it is not clear if Erdogan’s real intent is to oppose
them. Only a few months ago Professor Turkaya Ataov delivered a
`fascist’ speech calling the West racist and denying the Armenian
Genocide’.
Finally, the Turkish public is faced with an unprecedented choice to
decide which version of history leads to its future, is it the version
adopted by the deep state, people like Ataov and prosecutors who deny
the events of 1915 and try to mislead their own people by penalizing
the open discussion of the Armenian Genocide with the adoption of
article 301 of the penal code? Or the true version that Erdogan
referred to that leads to a peaceful coexistence with neighbors and
regional actors and brings Turkey closer to democratic Europe? Only
time will show if the true version will finally succeed to lead Turkey
to European integration, however if the version adopted by the deep
state prevails, Turkey risks its isolation in the eyes of Europe and
the international community.
Armenian government proposes introducing institution of representative
of tax body
YEREVAN, MAY 30, NOYAN TAPAN. The National Assembly of the RA on May 21
began discussing in first reading the package of quite contentious
bills (submitted by the government) which envisage amendments and
additions to the RA Code of Administrative Infractions, the Law on
Excise Tax, the Law on Profit Tax, the Law on Taxes and the Law on
Value Added Tax. The discussion will continue at the regular planary
session to be convened on June 8.
The main target of those opposed to the package was the addition to the
Law on Taxes, which in particular envisages that with the aim of
implementing control the State Revenue Committee can appoint a
representative(s) of the tax body at a tax payer. It concerns big
business: in particular a representative can be appointed if the tax
payer’s revenues from sale exceeded 4 billion drams in the previous
year, or if the tax payer had 500 and more employees at some moment of
the previous year, or if the tax payer declared tax losses of 50
million drams and over for two consecutive years, or if the customs
value of goods imported by the tax payer by "import for free turnover"
regime during three months preceding some moment in the reporting year
exceeded 500 million drams.
By the bill, a representative of the tax body must consider the tax
payer’s transaction documentation procedures, volumes of products,
turnover and services, and real sale prices.
In their questions put to Deputy Minister of Finance Suren Karayan, as
well as in their speeches, the deputies (who described themselves as
professing both socialist and liberal values) objected to the
legislative initiative of the government, noting that it contradicts
first of all the program provisions of the government, including the
provision on reducing the contacts between an economic entity and a
representative of tax bodies to a minimum. Moreover, the introduction
of the institution of representative of the tax body was considered as
the government’s "just another thoughtless step" against the business
environment, adoption of not the best mechanisms of control of the
Soviet time, etc.
AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT RECEIVES OSCE MG CO-CHAIRS AND PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF OSCE CHAIRMAN-IN-OFFICE
The Messenger
May 29 2009
Georgia
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has met with Minsk Group co-chairs
Matthew Bryza (the United States), Bernard Fassier (France), Yuri
Merzlakov (Russian) and representative of OSCE chairman-in-office
Andrzej Kasprzyk, the President’s official website reported.
The current status and prospects of negotiations for settlement of
the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh were discussed
at the meeting.
HERE TO TORTURE, INSTRUCT AND PROTECT
By Jerry Tallmer
The Villager
eretotorture.html
May 28 2009
Ayvasian inspired by the power of pounding music, high boots
These boots were made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do.
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.
–Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, 1966
Everybody has a dirty little secret in Leslie Ayvasian’s "Make Me."
Hank and Sissy’s dirty little secret is that they are all washed up
and don’t know it.
Eddie and Connie’s dirty little secret is that Eddie is too bored
to take seriously the power games Connie pursues as soon as their
two girls are packed off to school every morning. Indeed, he plays
along — until it’s too late.
Phil’s dirty little secret is Mistress Lorraine, the dominatrix to
whose "dungeon" he goes to every day for punishment, by words and
whip, for being a weak, lousy mayor of the New Jersey town in which
they all live — and Phil isn’t his real name either.
The strands of these six lives, or three pairs — Hank and Sissy, Eddie
and Connie, Phil and Mistress Lorraine — are crisscrossed together
like intermeshing spiders’ webs by the playwright who did as much,
and more, for those reality based "Nine Armenians" of her own personal
bloodlines 13 years ago. There were no boots and whips in that poetic
drama, except perhaps on the feet and in the hands of Turkish soldiers
in 1915 slaughtering Armenians in the Forgotten Holocaust.
Here, in "Make Me," at the Atlantic Stage 2 on Chelsea’s West 16th
Street, it is to Mistress Lorraine in her Lower East Side dungeon
— in the midst of one of Phil’s groveling penitential sessions —
that Connie has come for instruction on how to wield a whip and make
it sting, how to swagger-stride in those huge high dominating boots,
all that.
So how did Connie find a dominatrix to study from? Why, on the
Internet, of course — just the way real-life Leslie Ayvasian,
playwright and sometime actress, found a real-life dominatrix to
educate the "Make Me" company in whip handling, boot swagger, and
other such matters.
"She comes to rehearsals and is absolutely fantastic," Ms. Ayvasian
said one morning last week; just before heading for Providence,
Rhode Island, for her son’s graduation from Brown University.
One doesn’t suppose your dominatrix taught the male actors how to whip.
"No," the playwright replied dryly,
The first sparks of "Nine Armenians" and of "Make Me" had flashed
upon her, she says, in different ways.
"With ‘Nine Armenians’ it was the single image of an Armenian-American
family in the driveway of their house, packing a car with food and
memories though they would only be separated a couple of hours."
"I was away too much [as an actress] when my son was growing up. So
I wrote ‘Nine Armenians’ for him.
"With ‘Make Me’ it was several things. First, my son the lead guitarist
and his rock band — this loud, pounding music that normally I would
not choose to be around. But here was my darling son, Ivan Anderson,
making this music since he was in seventh grade, and now he was a
senior at Brown!
"He’d even composed music for me when I was driving a car, and with
all this I started thinking in very literal terms about the kind of
power in this throbbing, pounding music that I’d found inspiring in
a way I hadn’t expected.
"That was one component.
"Another — this will sound funny — occurred when I was participating
in an actors’ workshop with Olympia Dukakis six years ago, when Ivan
was a senior in high school.
"This woman came in — I don’t know her name, never did — wearing
these huge, high boots. She saw me eyeing them, and said to me:
‘What size are you?’ and then handed them to me to wear. I started
walking around the room, and as I walked I felt a kind of power. When
I got back to my chair my shoes were gone and there was a note on
the chair saying she’d taken them. It left me with no choice except
to walk to my car in these huge, high boots."
The scenes (or intersecting fragments of scenes) in Mistress Lorraine’s
dungeon are comedic and degrading all rolled into one, for Mistress
Loraine, like Leslie Avasian’s Internet find, is, no matter how
domineering, a teacher, a painstaking — and pain-giving–instructor
at heart.
There is even a whiff of Jean Genet here.
MISTRESS: Foot fetish, pony play, leatherfetish, role play
CONNIE: Pony play?
MISTRESS: Pick up a crop. Flick it like this on the back of the
head. Remember pony play, Phil?…What did you do?
PHIL: I galloped, Mistress.
MISTRESS: Whar dud I do?
PHIL: Sat on my shoulders and gripped my head between your legs,
Mistress.
Suddenly I see, as if it were yesterday, tall, gorgeous Salome Jens
galloping around gloriously naked, tossing her long hair, whip in
hand, as the Pony Girl in José Quintero’s 1960 production of Genet’s
"The Balcony" at Circle-on-the-Square on Bleecker Street.
All of which brings us to a topic of some current national interest:
Torture. Does "Make Me’ not have some relevance here?
"To tell you the truth, not really," says the woman who wrote
it. "Not like Christopher Durang’s play, ‘Why Torture Is Wrong, and
the People Who Love Them.’ You know, the dominatrix and her client
have to have a very pure relationship. It’s like she says in the play
(when instructing Connie on ways and means):
" ‘Before you and your client…embark on a scene, you decide what
he can handle and what the limits are. You’re not here just to
torture. You’re here to protect!’"
Leslie Ayvasian, born-in-Boston Armenian, turns 60 this summer. (Her
play "High Dive" celebrated turning 50.) Ivan’s father is her husband,
prestigious architect Sam Anderson. "He’s very cool," she says. "I’ve
had a crush on him for 33 years."
The director of "Make Me" is Christian Parker. The actors are Jessica
Hecht as Connie, Anthony Arkin as Eddie, Ellen Parker as Sissy,
J.R. Horne as Hank, Richard Masur as Phil, and Candy Buckley as
Mistress Lorraine.
Yes, playwright Ayvasian still has those oversized boots. No, she says,
she doesn’t wear them. Cool.
MAKE ME Written by Leslie Ayvasian Directed by Christian Parker
Presented by Atlantic Theater Company May 31 through June
14 Atlantic Stage 2, 330 West 16th Street (212) 279-4200, or
BAKO SAHAKYAN: VOYAGE OF THE ARMENIA VESSEL IS THE BEST MANIFESTATION OF UNITY OF THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE
armradio.am
28.05.2009 13:19
On 28 May "Armenia" sailing vessel starts its round-the-world voyage.
On April 11 NKR President Bako Sahakyan met crew members of the sailing
vessel. The crew was headed by the leader of expedition Zori Balayan
and Captain Samvel Karapetyan.
The Head of the State noted the importance of this initiative, naming
it the best manifestation of inflexible will, courage and unity of
the Armenian people.
NKR President handed in Artsakh’s national flag to the members of
the crew and wished them successful voyage and safe return.
LEBANON’S CHRISTIANS STAND TO PLAY ELECTION KINGMAKERS
Rana Moussaoui
Agence France Presse
May 27, 2009 Wednesday 1:34 AM GMT
Lebanon’s divided Christians represent the swing vote in a legislative
election in which the Iranian-backed Hezbollah is vying to oust the
pro-Western faction which currently dominates parliament.
"The Christian vote will tip the balance," Melhem Chaoul, a sociology
professor at the state-run Lebanese University, told AFP.
"They are the arbiters from a numerical or technical viewpoint rather
than because of their political weight."
Once the dominant community in terms of numbers, Lebanon’s Christians
are now a minority made up mainly of Catholics, Maronites, Orthodox
and Armenians.
For decades, Christian emigration from Lebanon was rampant and their
numbers have shrunk inexorably over the years.
Today, Christians make up an estimated 35 percent of Lebanon’s four
million inhabitants and their political loyalty is deeply divided
between the two camps facing off in the June 7 vote.
One side, ironically identified in Lebanese circles as the "Shiite
Christians," backs the Hezbollah alliance while the so-called "Sunni
Christians" favour the curent majority led by Saad Hariri, son of
slain ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.
"Lebanon’s Christians have failed to create for themselves a true
force capable of transcending the political divisions in the country,"
Chaoul said.
He was referring to the political crisis that shook Lebanon in the
aftermath of Rafiq Hariri’s murder in 2005 and brought the country
close to civil war last year.
"The Christians didn’t manage to set their own political agenda and
simply follow one side or the other," Chaoul added. "Some campaign
with the Shiites against the Sunnis, and vice versa."
A campaign banner for one of the few independent candidates sums up
the reality on the ground.
"We do not want a Shiite Maronite, we do not want a Sunni Maronite,
we want a true Maronite: Yes to a strong Christian role," it reads.
The 1990 Taif Accord, which helped bring an end to Lebanon’s 15-year
civil war and Syria’s dominant role in Lebanese affairs for nearly
30 years, stripped the Christians of much of their power.
But thanks to Lebanon’s complex confessional system, they can still
influence the outcome of the upcoming legislative poll as the 128 seats
in parliament are allocated equally between Christians and Muslims.
For that reason, candidates in a handful of districts will be battling
to win over the Christian vote.
One key battleground, for example, will be the eastern town of Zahle,
a Christian stronghold in the mainly Muslim Bekaa Valley, where five
seats reserved for Christian candidates are up for grabs.
The outcome of the vote for the town’s two other parliamentary seats,
one for a Sunni candidate and another for a Shiite, is already a given.
"If it weren’t for the Christians, there would be no electoral battle,"
said Okab Sakr, a Muslim candidate allied with the US-backed majority
in Zahle.
The town’s voters, for their part, say they are preparing for a tough
battle to ensure ther side wins.
"If Hezbollah wins, we risk another war with Israel and Syria
will regain its influence here," said Elie Hallak, a 56-year-old
teacher. "It already has a lot of power, and if it wins, it will do
what it pleases."
Tamar Apkarian, an Armenian supporter of the Hezbollah-led faction,
disagrees.
"As long as there is no guarantee that Israel will not attack us,
we need Hezbollah’s weapons to defend our country," she said.
RA AND NKR FLAGS ON MAMAYEV KURGAN AROUSED AZERI MEDIA INDIGNATION
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
27.05.2009 12:04 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An Armenian delegation headed by Ataman of
International Cossack Union Sergei Madatyan participated in the 2nd
congress of Orthodox Cossack youth. For the first time in history,
flags of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh were hoisted on Mamayev Kurgan
at the height of 102 meters.
Ataman Madatyan was handed two bags of soil, one of them will be
poured out in the Victory Park in Yerevan while the second will be
sent to NKR, reported Yerkramas, the newspaper of Armenians of Russia.
Azeri media did not take long to comment on the event. Head of Cossack
association of Azerbaijan Viktor Merezhkin, Azerbaijan was invited
to the event but the delegation could not go because of lack of means.
"We would have prevented what had happened," Merezhkin said.