If you are wondering what are the developments of the newly-discovered possible Armenian genocide mass grave in Turkey's Mardin region after it was burried in soil by the Turkish military, here you go.



By the way, my own extensive family's possible mass grave was discovered in front of Urfa's Armenian Church and also announced a "Roman site" by notorious Turkish historians in the early 1990s.



A photo of Ourfa's Armenian church by Dick Osseman, taken by my request, in fall of 2005

After one year of our report that Dr. Kevorkian is dying, AP informs that he will be paroled in June, 2007. The question is whether he will survive until then.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_...evorkian_parole

Kevorkian to be paroled in June By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer
25 minutes ago

LANSING, Mich. - After more than eight years in prison, a frail Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June with a promise that he won't assist in any more suicides, a prison spokesman said Wednesday.

Leo Lalonde, the corrections spokesman, would not provide further details.

Kevorkian, once the nation's most vocal advocate of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, 52, Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Michigan banned assisted suicide in 1998.

Youk's death was videotaped and shown on CBS' "60 Minutes."

Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted in at least 130 deaths in the 1990s, called it a mercy killing.

Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney, said this summer that Kevorkian, now 78, was suffering from hepatitis C and diabetes, that his weight had dropped to 113 pounds and that he had less than a year to live.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered corrections authorities to carry out an independent medical evaluation of Kevorkian, but did not commute the retired pathologist's sentence, as Morganroth had hoped.

Kevorkian has always been eligible for parole on June 1, 2007, and will now be released on that date, Lalonde said. He directed calls seeking further comment to Russ Marlan, another state corrections spokesman who did not immediately return calls Wednesday.

If Kevorkian is released on June 1, he will have spent close to 3,000 days in prison since being sentenced in April 1999.

He has promised he would not assist in a suicide if he was released from prison.

If you have ever gotten scared from fiction, consider this real and unthinkable news from the Denver Post, reported 13 minutes ago. I can say now, I am for death penalty.

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_4826419

Mom pleads not guilty in microwave baby case
By James Hannah
The Associated Press
Article Last Updated:12/12/2006 02:49:28 PM MST


Dayton, Ohio - A woman suspected of killing her month-old daughter in a microwave oven pleaded not guilty to murder Tuesday.

China Arnold, 26, remained in the Montgomery County Jail for the video arraignment. Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge John Kessler kept her bond at $1 million.

Prosecutors, who plan to seek the death penalty if Arnold is convicted, had asked Kessler to hold her without bond, saying she has a criminal record and is a flight risk. Defense attorney Jon Paul Rion argued that the bond should be reduced, saying Arnold is a loving mother who has cooperated with police.

Arnold stood with her hands behind her back, slowly shaking her head during the arraignment. She winced when Kessler announced her bond.

The baby, Paris Talley, died Aug. 30, 2005. Arnold has three other children, boys ages 9, 7 and 4.

The coroner concluded that the injuries could have only been caused by the baby being cooked in a microwave oven, according to Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias Heck Jr. Investigators have said evidence that includes high-heat internal injuries and the absence of external burn marks on the baby.

After finding out that a "researcher and intellectual" from Armenia, too, is participating in a Holocaust denial conference in Iran, I decided to find out who that person is.

A phone call to Armenia's "Aryan Union," the phone number of which I got through an Armenian directory, gave me a not-so-surprising answer: the notorious anti-semite and leader of Armenian Aryans Armen Avetisyan, who was jailed in Armenia for racist comments against Jews, is one of the 67 international participants in the conference that features many denials of the Holocaust, including a Klu Klux Klan leader and a former State Representative from America. The participation of several Jewish rabbis in the event is interesting. The latter acknowledged the Holocaust at the event, but said it should not have been used to establish the current nation of Israel.


One of the 67 international participants of Holocaust denial conference in Iran (file photo from ArmeniaNow.com)

Armen Avetisyan will make a speech in the conference on the "content related topic" (aka, Holocaust denial), informed me a worker of Yerevan's Aryan group. Armen seems to have established good relationships with the Iranian Embassy. Earlier this year, according to a very reliable source of ours, he was planning a Palestinian conference in Armenia that would feature HAMAS leaders with Iran's sponsorhip. The Armenian secret services "gave Avetisyan a lesson," and the idea was dropped. But now Avetisyan's telephone receptionist thinks the Aryan leader will not get into trouble for participating in the conference.

It is surprising but yet makes one feel better to learn that some Iranian students protested the denialist conference and even burned Ahmadenijad's photo while he was giving a talk on the Holocaust. Kudos to these courageous students.

Anyhow, one would wish that the international community reacted the same way to genocide denial conferences in Turkey and in Azerbaijan. And one would wish that Israeli officials did not put themselves on the same table with Iranian officials by denying the Armenian Genocide.

But you know, the Armenian community must speak up against this denialist conference. Because when we say the Holocaust took place because the Armenian Genocide was not punished, we need to mean it.

The first ever seen satellite image of the medieval Jugha cemetery before its 2005 final destruction shows how large the cemetery was, even given the fact that it had already been vandalized several times by the Azerbaijani authorities in Nakhichevan.

When I saw the image, I could not believe how huge the cemetery was...

The eyes of this writer just saw the satellite download, which costed me several hundred dollars to obtain, that shows the cemetery in its entirety from the bird's eye.

Can't wait to see it with your eyes? Need to wait before "The New Tears of Araxes" comes out in the next two weeks.

Written by Sarah Pickman and produced by this blogger, the film will tell the tragic story of the medieval Armenian cemetery's destruction in a five minute documentary. Again, it will be the first project to show the first satellite image of the cemetery before its final destruction. And again, it will be free and available to everyone.

The Republic of Azerbaijan's PR campaign of showing off itself as a tolerant state and a "heaven" for Jews is under attack by a New York Times article that tells the story of an Azerbaijani Jewish family who are shocked with the fact that people of Jewish faith wear the star of David without fear in America.

The New York Times' December 10, 2006, article writes, "They also heard that people were being killed in Baku. More and more Jewish people were leaving to go abroad."

Azerbaijan, where being Armenian is the worst eternal crime, has been praising itself of being a tolerate state for PR reasons, as the international community seeks to establish permanent peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In particular, Azerbaijan has been proclaiming itself a heaven for Jews, and some radical Azerbaijani fractions have even said Armenians committed genocide against Azerbaijani Jews in their PR war against Armenia and the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The PR campaign of tolerance started in 2003, when Azerbaijan finally opened the first Jewish school and built the biggest Jewish synagogue in Europe.

To better understand the nationalist Azerbaijani definition of tolerance, refer to a Hetq article I wrote earlier this year.

I feel good when I realize I had underestimated a young Armenian girl. She, namely 17-year-old Silva from Armenia, has won BBC’s The Next Big Thing contest, reports BBC.

Unlike other Armenian bloggers, I had not followed up on the contest. I was totally sure she would lose. And now I am glad I was wrong!

When I first saw at www.yerevannights.com an announcement to vote for the Armenian singer at BBC’s website, I did so just because she was Armenian. OK I voted twice actually. But even with that she had low votes from BBC readers.


(photos from BBC)

I watched one of her music clips at Yerevannights.com afterwards and actually turned it off. It was horribleeeeeeee and she was very unattractive. And the clip seemed to be shot in America, although she lives in Armenia. So perhaps they had found an “American looking” place in Armenia to shot the clip at. That part was disgusting actually, because why the hell somebody would find a typical American neighborhood interesting and attractive.

Now I want us to pay attention to “unattractiveness” (subjective view) of Silva. I feel bad that it was part of my judgment, but even if she was the cutest girl in the world, I would still think she sucked.

Anyhow, I am surprised but glad that the judges of the contest disagreed with me. In “BBC’s Hunt for the world’s best young band,” they “praised [Silva’s] I Like, which was composed by the singer's brother, as ‘fresh and new’ and described her performance as ‘second to none.’” It is cool that her siblings (Mane and Edgar) wrote and produced the song.

This is the second Armenian victory in BBC’s Music Contests this year. Armenian Navy Band was also a winner couple of months ago. I guess the study that Armenians are the most advanced ethnic group in England is becoming more and more true. But again, once Armenians were really successful in Romania too.

p.s. I still don't like her songs, except for the winning one which you can listen to at the BBC website.

As most Armenian last names are recognizable for their yan (ian) ending, some - I should say many - Armenians have always changed their last in all around the world to avoid discrimination in other countries.

This is how Andre Agassian became Andre Agassi, Vaghinak Aznavourian became Charles Aznavour, Mark Giragosian became Mark Giragos, Yelena Pogosyan became Yelena Abramova. If all these mentioned could have arguably changed their last names for career purposes, the same cannot be said for 19-year-old Yelena, who, Transitions Online reports, changed her last to stop being singled out as Armenian in Russia.

According to the new report, "Yelena’s story is becoming typical as more Armenians, born both in Kuban and abroad, seek to change their names. Like Yelena, most say they are tired of being singled out as foreign."

The article says that not all Armenians change their last names in Russia, but many think it is the way out of growing xenophobia from the culturally diverse country.

For a person who lives in America, I don't have the right to blame these Armenians for changing their last names. I walked the Moscow streets humiliated and dehumanized, because any time a skinhead could stop and do whatever he wanted to me while the police would watch ignorantly. Maybe it was an overfeeling, but at least the climate had forced me to feel that way, although people say I don't look typical Armenian (which offends me).

But why would Armenians change their last names in America? Why would their change it all around the world? Is anti-Armenianism so omnipresent in this world?

I don't mind that Armenians have non-Armenian last names because of having a non-Armenian father with a non-Armenian name, but to change last name is losing one's identity.

I guess the big question I have in my mind is the following: where have all the Armenians gone? I am referring to those who emigrated from Armenia starting the 11th century and before the 1890s? Where are the powerful Armenians of Romania who once built entire cities in that country? Are there any descendants of those powerful Armenians of Romania? Do we know ONE person who says that he is a descendant of Armenian immigrants that left Armenia before 1800s. The Armenians of Iran? Of course. But they are a phenomenon who need to be studied. Seriously. They were forced out of Armenia in 1604 and most of them speak better Armenian than first generation Russian Armenians. Actually I have a Russian born Armenian friend who speaks perfect Armenian, but neither of her ancestors were born in Armenia after 1604. But her parents were born in Iran. So will her children be as Armenian as she is? Maybe because Iranians don't destroy the Armenian culture (and in fact restored an Armenian church there recently)? Maybe because we consider Iranians inferior and therefore kept our "better" identity? Why isn't the same happening to the Armenians of Syria? Why is the Armenian youth there becoming more and more Syrian?

These are not questions to attack anybody. But I would like to see viewpoints and thoughts on this, because I really can't understand what happened to Romania's Armenian community. Maybe I am fearful that today's Glendale will have no single person who speaks Armenian in 100 years (if there is no more emigration from Armenian). Maybe I am fearful that in fact my race will disappear some day from the face of the Earth?

So why is the Armenian last name so undesirable. Ask this question to my Italian-American friend Andy Turpin and he will have a surprising answer for you. Andy has added Sukiasyan to the end of his last name to honor the name of the host family that he lived with in Armenia for three months. Do you know what is Andy's dream? To live in Armenia. The guy has no single Armenian blood in him, but he is a "better" Armenian, according to my responsibility theory, than average Armenians.

And there are some Armenians who will never change their last names, no matter how ironic they are. I met a 25-year-old lawyer for the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C. this fall, whose last name is Gavoor. Yes, gavoor means infidel in Turkish, and this was the name that his Armenian family was referred by. And they decided to adopt it. And I bet this gavoor guy will be a big guy in the world one day, and then he will tell what his last name means.

Turkish Armenians, who have been literally forced by their government to change their last names in the last decades in Turkey, are exempt from this critique. Be who you are, and show what gavoors can do in this world.

Turkey's military has covered a newly discovered mass burial in earth. The mass burial was discovered in October in Turkey's southern Mardin region by local Kurds who assumed they had uncovered a mass burial from the Armenian Genocide.

After the news was published by a Turkish newspaper, the mass grave was sealed by the Turkish military.

Now David Gaunt, a Swedish historian interviewed for the Hetq article (inspired by a Blogian report) and other publications, has sent an e-mail saying, "I have now information from a reliable source that the massgrave in the cave near Nusaybin has been covered in earth. About the state of the remains, one can only speculate."

The same old story.

The list of people on trial in Turkey (from converted Christians to Nobel Prize winners) is growing so fast that it would take an entire blog about Article 301 to tell what is really going on.

In short, Turkey has become totally totalitarian.

Source: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/16163105.htm.

While Armenia may as well be forestfree by 2024, it is already paperfree. A Russian news agency reports, "[t]he majority of Armenian newspapers will not be released next Wednesday because of the absence of paper."

And then try to explain me why in the world Armenia would export wood.

What happens when a mortabashd Vatican Pope is afraid to utter the phrase "Armenian Genocide" in Turkey, while a Turkish scholar publishes a book called "A Shameful Act" about the Armenian Genocide and Turks' responsibility?

The Pope, at least in the eyes of Philadelphia Inquirer, becomes less righteous than the scholar, Taner Akcam. According to this American newspaper, the latter "doesn't wear pretty white vestments, but he speaks the holy truth."

Amen.

Turkey visiting Vatican Pope Benedict XVI has mentioned the Armenian Genocide in Istanbul, the Catholic World News reports.

In reality, the Catholic World News is trying to confuse its readers - perhaps in shame that the Pope was not courageous enough to utter the phrase "Armenian Genocide" in Turkey. As the same Catholic World News mentions, "Pope Benedict XVI brought up the sensitive topic of the Armenian genocide-- although he did not mention it explicitly-- during a November 30 meeting with the Armenian Apostolic Patriarch of Istanbul, Mesrob II." The Toronto Star summarizes the event in one short title, "One word Pope dares not speak."


His Mortabashd Mesrob Mutafyan and His Mortabashd Benedict XVI in Istanbul's Armenian church on November 29, 2006 (REUTERS/Anatolian/Erhan Elaldi)

I did not expect the Benedict to acknowledge the Genocide in Turkey as such (since he might never return back to Vatican again), let alone in a meeting with the Mesrob Mortabashd. The latter is the spiritual head of Istanbul's Armenian community. Mortabashd was asked by a reported if he acknowledged the Armenian Genocide, reports Newsday of New York. The answer was, "Uhhhh."

Mesrob Mortabashd, who has lost family members in the Armenian Genocide, is fearful of death if he pronounces the word "genocide" in Turkey. He may as well have a point. But when did the idea of truth disappear from Orthodox Christianity? When did Armenian priests stop from being ready to martyr for the truth?

- This is when they adopt the title Mortabashd - which means worshiping one's own skin.

When Ayse Gunaysu sent a special report to us about a possible genocide mass grave discovered and covered up in Turkey, the news was picked up by Hetq.am, and the first actual article about the discovery of the mass grave in English was published at Hetq.

The news was then picked up by many news agencies that forgot to credit both Ayse Gunaysu and Hetq on the way. A week ago, I was able to trace who copied the news from whom, but now it is all around the place and there is no way I can find it out. Leave the copyright issue alone, here is great news: the Swiss "Spero News" reports the mass grave discovery has been discussed in the Swedish parliament!





p.s. the actual connection is more detailed than I have time to write about it. But, in short, after Hetq published the news it reappeared in the Turkish press again with the information published by Hetq, etc....

If you have ever been attacked for saying that most Turks are deniers, here is an upsetting poll that will prove your bias true.

According to CNN Turk's November 27, 2006, issue, 53 percent of 8000 Turkish citizens have said Armenia should apologize for its misdeeds during WWI (namely, deny that the Armenian Genocide ever happened and say that Armenians killed Turks instead), destroy the Genocide memorial in Yerevan, withdraw from Karabakh, and drop territorial claims on Turkey.

But you should have in mind that the survey has been conducted by "the Association to Combat the Baseless Genocide Claims," so the "halo effect" and other factors should be taken into consideration as well. And maybe, I mean, hopefully, this is not Turkey's reality. I bet if you asked 53% of the 1915 ordinary Turks whether they were for or against the Armenian massacres, they would say no. Why have the ordinary Turks changed so much?

For those of you who understand Turkish, here is the link.

via Metro UK, a picture of what some think looks Jesus Christ appeared during construction.



Read about it here.

At the same time...

Reports from New York say five undercover officers have killed an unarmed African American man when he was leaving from his bachelor party to get married the same day. Some suspect this was another hate crime against blacks in the U.S.

Today and yesterday (perhaps because of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) the media and Armenia’s blogosphere seems to be full of information about Armenia’s women. I guess the underlying question is, why are they so powerless in Armenia?

When I was watching the All-Armenian Telethon past Thursday on the web, where unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic’s foreign cabinet minister Naira Melkumian was campaigning, I asked to myself, “Why Karabakh has a powerful woman leader, but Armenia doesn’t?”

The first answer that came to my mind was the idea in Karabakh to be as democratic as possible. The leadership there has repeated many times that the only way to have the international community recognize their independence is to show that it is the most democratic place in the former Soviet Union. Perhaps, they mean it.

So why doesn’t Armenia want to show off? I was talking to the president, one of my best friends, of Armenia’s most powerful and prestigious university student government a few weeks ago, and he said that there were no women in their group. He said they were trying to recruit women, but he also ended up confessing to having not selected a young woman (I think for a chair or something) because she seemed to them a “careerist.” Well, here is what Onnik Krikorian writes about some events organized in Yerevan about the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: “Interestingly, one of the NGO’s senior members told me that their activities were severely restricted at Yerevan State University on the basis that they ran counter to what was allowed on campus.” Hm…

In a general note, why are Armenian women subjected to so much violence? And at the same time, the medieval “women are sensitive [and therefore not fit for certain things]” argument still exists in the Armenian popular culture.

Is that the reason that almost half of Armenia’s women, as Russian Regnum reports today, have been subjected to family violence? We bit them cuz they are sensitive, right? Is that the reason that macho Armenian brothers bit the crap out of their sisters to “make their sisters a good one”? And then it is OK for these sisters to be bitten up by their husbands since it is what they have seen. It seems like brothers have generally become an obstacle in Armenia for their sisters’ success in life, education and career.

We laugh at “Aghjka khosqereh asnavani chi” (“the testimony of a girl is not a proof” – a satire saying in a popular Armenian movie), but don’t realize that Armenia’s youth repeats that phrase, and they mean it, thousands of times a day in the streets. Will I offend someone if I say that in Armenia’s rural areas women are usually treated like animals? One will say you can see the similar in all over the United States, but unlike the latter, Armenia has fewer women in legislature than any other country in Europe.

Why compare Armenia with the world leader? Well, what about India, what about Sri Lanka and Bangladesh then? How come these countries have had women leaders and Armenia cannot? How come Karabakh can, and Armenia cannot?

I wonder if yesterday’s events in Armenia touched upon human trafficking. Let us pray for all Armenian women and girls, including..., who are subjected to sexual slavery in the UAE, Turkey, Israel and other countries…

ForestFree 2024 is a 9.32 minute video that I did for my Ecological Crises class at the University of Colorado at Denver. Made in November of 2006, it tells the story of Armenia’s deforestation.

It is available at YouTube.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkq6AIj0CPM, with not-the-best quality version to fit the YouTube upload criteria. I will be happy to send you a better quality version via post mail. Just send me an e-mail at contact@blogian.cjb.net.


This is my very first experience in making a movie. So please do not expect a professional work.

The photographs and the videos are from the Internet. Many photographs are by Onnik Krikorian and Hetq newpaper – they have given permission to use their materials. Other photographs are from Hayastan.com’s gallery and other sources. Some photographs had been already reproduced too many times without the original credit. I was not able to identify the photographer and contact them for permission. I will credit them if they contact me upon seeing the video.

In addition to the above mentioned sources, I would like to thank Armenian Forests NGO for letting me use their content; Lilit Tsaturyan from Russia for sharing the music that plays in the beginning and at the end of the video (although the music is recent, the author is unknown to me); www.armenica.org (for providing the clip about Armenia’s independence) and Mariam Nersisyan from Armenia (for sending the clip of children in Yerevan). Lilit and Mariam sent me the material long time ago, so they are not aware of the video yet. Special thank you to my friend Anna Hovhannisyan for sending a wonderful photo of Mount Ararat.

Most of the music is Armenian traditional remix. I have also included classic (non-Armenian) Carl Orff’s famous music. Could not find contacts for Ara Gevorkyan for copyright permission, but I remember him saying in Armenia that he doesn’t mind his work being used as long as people at least mention that the music is Armenian. After I posted the video on YouTube, an Azerbaijani viewer informed me that the remix duduk (very beginning and the end of the movie) is by Azerbaijani artist Alihan Samedov. I love that music and am going to keep it, although it may sound little bit ironic while I also talk about the war in the movie. But art is art, and I will keep politics out of it.

Some of the sources, both photographic and content-related, are listed below. Again, thank you all who helped with this project.

http://www.irandaily.ir/1383/2169/html/energy.htm

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9760/9760.ch01.html

http://www.mikepenn.com

http://armenianow.com/?action=viewArticle&...ID=&lng=eng

http://oneworld.blogsome.com/category/environment/

http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/116563/1/

www.cia.gov Factbook on Armenia

http://www.adrc.or.jp/countryreport/ARM/20...R01-Armenia.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_accident

http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370846

www.armenianforests.am Armenian Forests NGO official website

http://countrystudies.us/armenia/22.htm

http://hetq.am/eng/ecology/h-0903-forests.html

http://hetq.am/eng/ecology Articles concerning Armenia’s environment

http://mnp.am/index_eng.htm Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia official website

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2005/2005-12-19-01.asp

http://www.solaren.com/ The official website of SolarEn, clean energy company

http://www.armenianow.com/?action=viewCate...079&lng=eng

http://www.nature-ic.am

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5275.htm#people

www.masis.am

The Christian Democratic Party of Netherlands, that had banned two Turkish members for denying the Armenian Genocide, won the Dutch elections.

Turkish denialists are sad and upset. The world, for them, is becoming more and more "Pro-Armenian."

Find out about the trouble that Armenian resident, Dutch blogger Myrthe went through to vote.

On a welcoming move, Denver’s FBI has finally busted an International human trafficking ring that reportedly imported and tricked Korean women for sex slavery.

The news came from a report by Colorado’s CBS4Denver 5:00 p.m. issue on November 22, 2006, aired about 45 minutes ago, that is partially available at http://cbs4denver.com/seenon/local_story_326084954.html.

FBI declined to give particular information about the victims or the ongoing investigation when I called to check whether any of the victims were Armenian nationals. But a representative said he did not believe there were Armenian women involved.


The photo I took a few minutes ago. Not sure if the Police is investigating trafficking, but a young Asian woman was involved

CBS said the ring was learned about through online services that offered Korean women. It is not actually a secret that many Denver “massage salons” offer sex services by Asian women. It is sort of “everybody knows it – but cannot verify” thing. A Mongolian friend of mine has told me reportedly that her compatriot females are offered in salons all around Denver.

Interestingly, in the past hour or so the local Police were questioning a young man in front of our apartment in a Denver suburb. After a young Asian girl came and some questions were answered, the man and some others were let to go. It seems like this questioning had something to do with the investigation.

Anyhow, it is not a secret at all that most women being trafficked to America are from Asian countries. There is not evidence that Armenian women are being trafficked to America, at least not to Denver, Colorado.

NOW listen to this. CBS reports that FBI had been tracking the traffickers for six months! They let these victims to suffer for a half year, although it would take some time to find out everything about the trade in Denver. The video report says investigators even went through the trash of the suspected organizers every day.

This is how women they tricked. They were told it was 18,000 dollars to get to America (to emigrate from Korea). When they arrived here, they were told they had to do prostitution to pay off the debt.

UPDATE: The organizers are known: Wai Kong and his wife Kit Chi Ho.