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Armenian International Women’s Association – SF
In just a few days, the Tournament of Roses will celebrate its 126th Rose Parade presented by Honda. The theme, “Inspiring Stories” provokes reflection and emotion on the people, places and experiences that mold, represent and showcase society. The theme “pays tribute to those who have loved unconditionally, persevered courageously, endured patiently and accomplished much on behalf of others.” It is with great jubilee that, for the first time, the Armenian community will have a float in the Parade.
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The Armenian American Rose Float Association Inc. founded in February 2014, submitted its desire to showcase an American-Armenian float and was delighted to hear that the application was approved. “We are very excited about our first float,” says Stepan Partamian “and are even more excited for this to be an annual tradition for our community”.
The float celebrates the story of Armenian Immigrants who have, and continue to contribute to our society. The spectacular elements of the float symbolize Armenian ingenuity, craft, culture, tradition and beauty; it truly tells the story of the Armenian “Cradle of Civilization”, the name of the float.
The impressive float is huge, measuring 55 feet long, 28 feet high and 18 feet wide. Design elements of the float are absolutely stunning! Rich in color the, the center of the float features the ancient Tree of Life which has gorgeous grapes and pomegranates on it. This is an illustration of the famous artist Seroon Yeretzian.
The pomegranates symbolize life and fertility while the grapes symbolize the oldest wine factory in the world which was in Armenia over 7,000 years ago. Surrounding the Tree of Life are peacocks who, according to pagan historically were the protectors of the Tree of Life.
Linguistically, dating over 5,000 years old, the Armenian language has an independent branch within the Indo-European languages; the float features the unique, beautiful and ancient Armenian alphabet in the colors of the Armenian flag: red, blue and orange. These colors are represented throughout the float.
Displayed prominently on the float is a beautiful Armenian lady.
To her left is the Armenian symbol of eternity, this symbol that is over 10,000 years old.
Armenians are known as the first carpet weavers, below a beautiful image of Masis and Mount Ararat, is a traditional Armenian carpet. Experts advised on the carpet design to ensure authenticity.
Several prominent Armenians will also be on the float, representing Armenians contribution to society in Music and Arts, Education and Politics, Civil Service and Business. *Including:
*(Not representative of complete list of riders)
While this is the first year American Armenians will have a float included in the Parade, this is not the first time Armenians have participated in Tournament of Roses. In 1915, 100 years ago, the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses was Movses Pashgian an active community member and Entrepreneur who owned a carpet weaving business in Pasadena. In 1952, five Armenians played in the first nationally televised Rose Bowl. Representing Stanford: Chuck Essegian, Harry Hugasian, Gary Kerkorian, Norm Manoogian and Len Kapeielian, played against Illinois. In 2006, Rachel Geragos was a Princess in the Royal Court.
The American Armenian community has always talked about having a float in the Parade, “and now it is happening! We are so excited to be a part of this fantastic Parade and are overwhelmed with joy that the Armenian community is coming together to help make this vision a reality” says American-Armenian Rose Float Association Director, Jacob Parseghian. This is a proud and historic moment for Armenians and we cannot wait to see how beautiful heritage and culture featured in the Parade!
Volunteers are coming from all walks of life to contribute to the float, we encourage you to participate! More information including volunteer participation and donation contributions can be found at: http://www.aarfa.org/
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In honor of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide that will be commemorated on April 24, 2015, USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education is readying at least 40 of the nearly 400 Armenian testimonies it has secured from the Armenian Film Foundation for inclusion in the Visual History Archive. It is anticipated the entire collection will be integrated by the fall of 2015. Report PR Newswire
USC Shoah Foundation and the Armenian Film Foundation signed an agreement in April of 2010 to digitize the interviews the late Dr. J. Michael Hagopian recorded on 16mm film between 1972 and 2005. Hagopian was an Emmy-nominated filmmaker who made 70 educational films and documentaries during his career, including 17 films about Armenians and the Armenian Genocide, winning more than 160 awards for his work.
“This project will unveil a trove of film testimony about of a horrific chapter of human history that remains woefully under-examined,” said Karen Jungblut, director of research and documentation at the Institute. “It also brings a new viewing experience to the Visual History Archive in that these interviews – most of which predate our 1994 founding – were conducted mainly for the purpose of creating documentaries, not necessarily standalone life histories.”
The Armenian collection contains a broad range of interviewee categories, including not only survivors of the Armenian Genocide, but also of other groups targeted by the Ottoman Turks, such as the Greeks, Assyrians and Yezidis. Also included are non-victim witnesses to the atrocities – such as Christian missionaries and Arab villagers – as well as descendants of the survivors and several renowned scholars.
The Institute is integrating the testimonies into the Archive with the help of Richard G. Hovannisian, a professor emeritus at UCLA and a leading expert in Armenian studies.
“The addition of these interviews to the Visual History Archive will provide broad access to a multilingual collection of material,” said Hovannisian, now an adjunct professor of history at USC and the project’s scholarly adviser. “It will help to bring sorely needed attention – and study – to this dark corner of human understanding.”
Because these interviews were conducted by a documentary filmmaker, this collection brings diversity to the Visual History Archive when it comes to the style and format of the testimonies, as well as the methodology used to collect them.
The most immediately noticeable distinction is that all of the interviews were recorded on film — so a clapboard kicks off every take to synchronize sound and picture. The testimonies themselves are generally much shorter – averaging 15 minutes in length, while the other testimonies in the Visual History Archive run more than two hours on average. Some survivors are also interviewed more than once, over a period of time.
Unlike the other existing collections in the Visual History Archive, the Armenian testimonies – with a few exceptions — are not chronologies. Filmmaker Hagopian intended the interviews to be filmed depositions – limited only to the eyewitness account of the survivor during the genocide – and not beyond. Interviewees in the Archive to date have given their life stories before, during and after the genocide in question.
The filmmaker also relied on pre-interviewing the subjects, to be certain they were actually eyewitnesses to the events. The camera was only turned on when he was satisfied they were indeed eyewitnesses, and not speaking from hearsay. The interviewee would then be asked to tell Hagopian his or her story – the same story relayed in the pre-interview process.
On occasion, the Armenian interviews were conducted in groups – such as in churches or old-age homes.
Unlike existing collections in the Visual History Archive, this is a documentary film collection, containing the complete unedited interviews, including behind-the-scenes footage. While the camera positioning on all testimonies currently contained in the Visual History Archive are fixed, the camera in the Armenian collection zooms in and out, and pans left and right. The purpose of moving the camera was for establishing and editing shots – standard practice for documentary filmmakers.
Unlike video interviews, where the sound and picture are combined on one tape, 16mm film interviews include separately recorded sound and picture. Each interview includes both the “synched up” sound and picture, as well as any additional sound the filmmaker recorded (labelled as “audio only” sections).
To save production costs associated with shooting in 16 mm film, Hagopian only turned the camera on when the survivor or eyewitness was speaking about a relevant issue (based on the pre-interview). If he thought they were wandering off track, he would only record their sound. If he thought the anecdote was worthy of recording on film, he would turn the camera on. All of the extra sound for every interview is included in the collection (in “audio only” sections).
Film school students will be interested to see and hear off-camera moments in this collection, which include occasional technical faults, and directions by the filmmaker to his sound recordist, translators and camera assistants. Members of the crew can sometimes be seen milling about in the background, performing sundry duties such as setting up gear or operating the clapboard.
In every testimony, Hagopian can be heard giving direction, either to his crew or the interviewees. Himself a child survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Hagopian – who died in 2010 at age 97 – asks his subjects to retell certain stories, sometimes over and over, in an effort to say, in the most succinct way, what they actually saw with their own eyes. Similar to a lawyer obtaining factual detail for a legal deposition, he wanted to know the “who, what, when, where and how” of the survivor’s eyewitness experience. If a survivor said, “They did it,” Hagopian would ask, “Who? Who did it?”
“Michael Hagopian generously gave us full access to his film dailies, which is akin to a diary in that they normally wouldn’t be seen by the public,” said Hrag Yedalian, a program coordinator with the Institute. “This lends a certain candor to these interviews, which are at times unsettling to watch, but poignant.”
Like all the testimonies in the Visual History Archive, these will be searchable to the minute thanks to a team of indexers who tag specially created indexing terms to a digital time code. The distinctive nature of this collection has raised some indexing challenges.
For instance, all too often, Armenians were rescued from the death marches by self-interested parties who wanted to use them for slave labor. This raised a question: Should this type of situation be tied to the indexing term “rescue” — which is widely used in the Visual History Archive’s Holocaust and other genocide testimonies – or something else?
Similarly, in a tragic theme that played out during the Armenian atrocities, desperate mothers often tried to give away their children in a last-ditch attempt to ensure their survival. The families that took them in could be abusive or exploitive. What term should be used to describe a phenomenon that falls in the gray zone between adoption and kidnapping?
Working closely with Hovannisian, indexers expect this collection will necessitate adding as many as 300 new search terms to the 62,000 already in the Archive.
“While the patterns of mass violence during this period are sadly familiar, there are certain characteristics unique to this history that can be captured and brought to light with the creation of new terms,” said Crispin Brooks, curator of the Institute’s Archive.
To highlight the distinctness of the Armenian testimonies, USC Shoah Foundation is releasing two advance clips on its website at sfi.usc.edu. One features Mihran Andonian, who was just a boy when his family was deported from Isparta in western Turkey in 1916. By his telling, in a matter of days, a death march of Armenians led by Turks would reduce his extended family of 11 to three: his mother, his sister, himself. The others died.
Like all of the testimonies in this collection, Andonian’s account is prompted by the clap of the slate-board. In this particular testimony, the interview starts with a sound recording before the camera records actual picture. Hagopian can be heard giving direction and talking film jargon with crew members.
The other features Haroutune Aivazian, who said that his family’s vineyard was confiscated by the authorities at the time. Aivazian survived because his mother dropped him off at a German orphanage built by missionaries to shelter kids whose parents perished in the Hamidian and Adana massacres of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, respectively, killing between 100,000 and 350,000 people.
This testimony begins with a slow, dramatic pan of the camera from left to right. Here, too, Hagopian asks Aivazian to tell his story – the story he told Hagopian in the pre-interview process.
“Even those of us who did survive, we lost something very precious,” Aivazian said. “Something which is the birthright of every person: childhood. We lost our childhood.”
The testimonies have served as primary source material for Hagopian’s documentaries about the Armenian Genocide, including “The Forgotten Genocide” – recipient of two Emmy nominations in 1976 – and the Witnesses Trilogy (“Voices from the Lake;” “Germany and the Secret Genocide;” and “The River Ran Red”).
“He understood the importance of recording the testimonies of aging eyewitnesses before their accounts were lost forever,” said Carla Garapedian of the Armenian Film Foundation. “We are gratified to see this collection included in one of the world’s most extensive and respected video archives. The voices of the people haunted by these atrocities will now be accessible to teachers, students, scholars and the general public on a global scale.”
About USC Shoah Foundation
USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education is dedicated to making audio- visual interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, a compelling voice for education and action. The Institute’s current collection of more than 53,000 eyewitness testimonies contained within its Visual History Archive preserves history as told by the people who lived it, and lived through it. Housed at the University of Southern California, within the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Institute works with partners around the world to advance scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes.
Hrant Dink Foundation’s calendar for 2015 has been published. 1915 calendar dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in the dispersed pattern of death in the world survive the journey, tells the story of the forced change of religion.
Turkish, English, Armenian prepared 2015 calendar, the 1915 Genocide to look at different aspects, died of remembrance, outgoing, and the rest are to understand, not to forget to live the rest of art, history for a fair future and present talk, get the occasion to share he prepared.
53 text and include a different topic every week in 64 calendar which takes place visually. Hrant Dink Foundation, located in preparing stories in the press release calendar, which says:
“One night the arrested death sent the leading intellectuals of the Armenian community will re-read rooting struggling and the stories of those who have been forced to forget the language changed his religion to be able to continue living in their own homes scattered to the four corners survival succeed in the world of death journey they were removed. In this story, the, now forced migration conscientiously opposed to Avoid statesmen, now face those involved in breaking years of silence, now a book or a movie, it will be the root learned after kah identity fifty accompanied with pursuing. ”
Calendar also public holidays, as well as Muslims, Alevis, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Musevei of, EZiD and Kurds are also included festivals and special days.
Thousands of Iraqi Assyrian and EZiD (work) life after describing the attack ID ‘The Last Plight’ documentary video sharing platform Vimeo’s ‘Staff Pick’ section of the competition were selected among the best in 2014.
Living in Los Angeles, 26-year-old Assyrian Sargon Saadi 10-minute documentary produced by director, Northern Iraq in Syriac in a time of 8 days in September 2014 and focuses on the humanitarian tragedy of EZiD.
The documentary was shown previously to the European Parliament and at Harvard University.
The Turkish gunman who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981 has been detained in Italy after he paid a surprise visit to the late pope’s tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said Dec. 27 the visit by Mehmet Ali Ağca, believed to be his first time in the Vatican since the assassination attempt, lasted a few minutes. As with other flowers left by visitors to the tomb, the blossoms were later removed by basilica workers.
Benedettini said there are no legal matters pending against Ağca in the Vatican and he was free to visit, but the Italian police detained him for an unexplained reason, as he was expected to be deported back to Turkey, according to Italian news agency Adnkronos.
“I returned to this miraculous place,” Ağca was quoted by the agency as saying.
John Paul II nearly died in the assassination attempt in 1981 when Ağca shot him at close range in St Peter’s Square. One bullet went through his abdomen and another narrowly missed his heart.
The motive for the attack, which landed Ağca in an Italian prison, remains a mystery.
Ağca, believed by many to be mentally disturbed, was released from a Turkish prison in 2010 after serving nearly three decades behind bars.
He was a 23-year-old militant of the notorious far-right Grey Wolves movement, on the run from Turkish justice, when he shot Pope John Paul II.
Extradited to Turkey in 2000 after Italy pardoned him, Ağca was convicted of the murder of prominent journalist Abdi Ipekci, two armed robberies and escaping from prison, crimes all dating back to the 1970s.
Ağca had publicly requested a meeting with Pope Francis during his recent visit to Turkey, but the Vatican did not respond.
Increases in spending on public services, such as this newly opened hospital in Stepanakert, are planned in the Artsakh government’s 2015 budget, which foresees more economic growth in the country.
STEPANAKERT (RFE/RL)—Economic growth in Nagorno-Karabakh has averaged about 10 percent annually in the past several years and will continue unabated in 2015, according to the authorities in Stepanakert.
Ara Harutiunian, Artsakh’s Prime Minister, made upbeat macroeconomic forecasts on Thursday as his cabinet pushed through the republic’s parliament its budget for next year envisaging a sizable increase in public spending.
The spending target of 88.1 billion drams ($192 million) is based on a projection that the Karabakh economy will expand by 9 percent in 2015.
“A real GDP increase of 9 percent in 2015 and rapid growth in following years are expected to result from the development of energy, agriculture, light industry, food processing, mining, information technology and other sectors,” Harutiunian told lawmakers, according to the Artsakhpress news agency.
According to the most recent official data, Artsakh’s GDP, equivalent to over $410 million in 2013, increased in real terms by about 8 percent in January-September 2014 thanks to more than 21 percent rises in industrial output and construction. The two sectors generated between them 58 percent of GDP.
By contrast, the local agricultural sector contracted by as much as 23 percent in the nine-month period apparently because of severe consequences of a blizzard that swept through Armenia and Karabakh in late March. The sector accounted for only one-quarter of economic activity in Artsakh, which used to be heavily dependent on agriculture.
In Harutiunian’s words, recent years’ growth has translated into thousands of new jobs in republic still recovering from the 1991-1994 war of independence from Azerbaijan. “The total number of employed workers rose from 41,000 in 2007 to 50,300 in 2014,” he said.
Thousands of other, mostly male Karabakh Armenians are part of the local military closely integrated with Armenia’s armed forces.
Harutiunian emphasized that annual subsidies from the Armenian government will finance 52 percent of Karabakh’s 2015 budgetary spending, down from 60 percent in 2007 and 73 percent in 2000. He said that a large part of the budgetary transfers from Yerevan are taxes collected from goods imported to Artsakh from outside Armenia. This means, he said, that Artsakh is not as financially dependent on Armenia as many people think.
Harutiunian further stressed the fact that state revenue is projected to rise substantially in 2014 despite decreased tax contributions from Artsakh’s largest corporate taxpayer, the Base Metals company mining copper and gold in the northern Martakert district.
Base Metals, which is part of Armenia’s Vallex Group mining giant, is increasingly switching its operations to a new and larger ore deposit in Martakert. Its production volumes should therefore grow in the coming years.
According to official statistics, the average monthly salary in Karabakh rose by 20 percent year on year to 130,400 drams ($300) in September, compared with 173,000 drams in Armenia. The Armenian economy has grown far more slowly since 2010.
Leader of Workers’ Party of Turkey Dogu Perincek insulted Christians while speaking about reports on Amal Clooney‘s participation in the court hearings on his case,.
Learning about the reports, Perincek said: “this woman can come to the hearings, but even if wife of Jesus comes, they have no chances to succeed”, Oda TV reported.
Amal Ramzi Alamuddin, wife of famous actor George Clooney, will represent Armenia at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the “Perincek v. Switzerland” case. The hearing will be held in Strasbourg next month.
The Government of Switzerland recently decided to petition that the Dogu Perincek case be referred for a review by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). On December 17, 2013, the ECtHR ruled in favor of Armenian Genocide-denying Turkish politician Dogu Perincek’s lawsuit that was filed against Switzerland. The said judgment by the ECtHR was made on the grounds of freedom of speech. In 2008, a Swiss court had convicted Perincek for denying the Armenian Genocide. Dogu Perincek is Chairman of the socialist Workers’ Party of Turkey. In addition, he heads the Talat Pasha organization, which actively fights against the Armenian Genocide’s recognition in Europe.
ISTANBUL
DHA Photo
Two separate targeted hits in one day in upscale Istanbul neighborhoods left three people dead late Dec. 24, just days after a bodyguard was killed in front of a bar in Istanbul’s Nişantaşı neighborhood. Report Hurriyet daily news
Interior Minister Efkan Ala said there was no concrete data in their hands that would allow them to say if the two hits were related but that they were working on that possibility.
Ali Ekber Akgün was killed when two men jumped out of a car traveling behind him and shot him in his Bentley as he waited at a red light in Sarıyer’s İstinye neighborhood.
Akgün was reportedly involved in real estate, while police are investigating allegations that he was involved in the drug trade and a murder in the past in the Netherlands.
“We were sitting together when we heard a serious of gunshots one after the other,” said an eyewitness to Akgün’s shooting. “When we saw someone injured inside, I broke the windows with a friend and checked to see whether the driver was alive or not. We waited for the ambulance, but it came too late.”
Two more people were shot dead with Kalashnikovs on Nişantaşı’s busy Vali Konağı Avenue late Dec. 24 while on foot.
Vedat Şahin, the borther of known mafia boss Sedat Şahin, was killed in the hail of bullets along with a friend, Ferdi Topal. A third person, Enver Aydın, was seriously injured in the attack, which occurred at about 10 p.m.
Hüseyin Saral, the head of a gang that was at war with Sedat Şahin’s criminal organization, was found dead in Italy in 2005. Şahin and some of his accomplices were apprehended in the same year in connection with the crime.
Earlier, on Dec. 20, 37-year-old bouncer Vedat Topçu was gunned down at around 6 a.m. at his post outside a nightclub that is also located on Nişantaşı’s Vali Konağı Avenue. Two other people were also wounded in the attack.
December/25/2014
In his annual Christmas “urbi et orbi” message, Pope Francis has condemned this year’s “brutal” religious persecution in the Middle East. He also urged for peace in Nigeria, Ukraine and other troubled regions.
Speaking at midday local time (1100 UTC) from the central balcony of the Vatican Basilica on Thursday, the 78-year-old pontiff addressed the Catholic congregation around the world as well as the tens of thousands who had gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
“Christmas should bring a message of salvation to a world marred by conflict and suffering,” Pope Francis said Thursday as he called for an end to violence against “vast numbers of children.”
Reflecting on last week’s deadly attack on a Pakistani school in Peshawar, the Pope said: “Truly there are so many tears this Christmas.”
“May the power of Christ, which brings freedom and service, be felt in so many hearts afflicted by war, persecution and slavery [and] take away the hardness of heart of so many men and women immersed in worldliness and indifference,” he added.
‘Brutal persecution’
In his message the Pope also deplored child abuse and the practice of abortion. He called for an end to conflicts in African countries, and appealed for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
His toughest words, however, were reserved to defend victims of “Islamic State” (IS) fighters who have been killed or displaced for failing to share the group’s ideology.
“I ask him, the Saviour of the world, to look upon our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria, who for too long now have suffered the effects of ongoing conflict, and who, together with those belonging to other ethnic and religious groups, are suffering a brutal persecution,” Pope Francis said.
“May Christmas bring them hope, as indeed also to the many displaced persons, exiles and refugees, children, adults and elderly, from this region and from the whole world,” he added.
‘Tenderness’
Prior to delivering his Christmas Day message, the pontiff also posted on Twitter:
With Jesus there is true joy.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) December 25, 2014
On Christmas Eve, the pope celebrated a 90-minute mass in St Peter’s Basilica.. In his homily, he said “tenderness” was needed to heal the world.
ksb/es (Reuters, AFP, dpa)