Armenian-Canadian Alice Panikian, 20, from Toronto, as ArmenianAffairs informs, is Miss Universe® Canada 2006.

I was in Toronto last summer and thought the Persian-Canadian chicks were the hottest. Sorry for underestimating the Armenian beauties!

There had been some developments on Azerbaijan’s denial of the recent destruction of the Jugha cemetery that I missed. I encountered those by browsing the forum of VirtualAni.org at http://www.network54.com/Forum/146256/.

Here is the summary. It turns out that Azerbaijan has officially declared that there is no way they would let international groups check what had really happened in the Armenian cemetery of Jugha (which is now a rifle range).

As Azerbaijani news agency Assa-Irada reported on 3 March 2006, “Azeri officials have ruled out the possibility of a visit by an international mission to the country's
exclave of Nakhchivan following the recent adoption of the unfair
resolution by the European Parliament concerning the alleged
destruction of ancient graves.”

If these people swear to death that Armenians are lying, why the hell they wouldn’t let the world to see their “reality”? If they are saying the Armenian photographs are fabrications, why they hell they wouldn’t take photographs of their own or let international organizations visit and see with their eyes?

According to the same agency, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry had stated “video-materials submitted to the legislative body by certain radical pro-Armenian forces were biased.” Can somebody help me to understand what a biased video-material is? When you tape somebody destroying a medieval monument you are being biased?

Another important thing that I had missed was that, as the Azerbaijani ANS TV from Baku reported on 16 February 2006, “Azerbaijani embassies in foreign countries have finally been instructed to… deny Armenian allegations that their historical monuments were destroyed in Culfa [in Azeri exclave Naxcivan].”

The medieval Armenian cemetery of Hin Jugha (Old Julfa) was completely destroyed in December of 2005 by Azerbaijani soldiers and converted to a rifle range by March of 2006.

Protestors waving a U.S. and Armenian flags demonstrate against Turkey during the Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul's visit at a meeting of the World Affairs Council at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., Friday, March 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

From an ANCA press release:

Among the thousands of participants in today’s protest were Congressman Brad Sherman (CA-27) and Burbank Board of Education President Paul Krekorian.

“It is not only those with Armenian heritage who demand that the truth be recognized. Friends of Turkey should demonstrate that Turkey accept the Armenian Genocide,” said Congressman Sherman in his remarks to the crowd. “Where will Turkey be among the family of nations if it does not recognize the truth? I will work in Congress every day until the historical truth of the Armenian Genocide is recognized,” he concluded.

The Defense Minister’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by chants coming from protesters demonstrating along Sunset Boulevard. Armenian Americans attending the luncheon, including Glendale Unified School District Board Member Greg Krikorian, called on the Defense Minister to acknowledge Turkey’s past.

However, Defense Minister Gönül said that “these are Armenian claims, and there is nothing to acknowledge.”

This anti-Muslim hate cartoon was posted on one of Arapahoe Community College’s (Littleton, Colorado) public boards on 23 March 2006.

I took it down from the board but did not take it to the incompetent Campus Police.

Several similar cartoons were spread around the same school a few months ago when the Muslims around the world were rioting the Danish cartoons. The police confiscated those cartoons.

If you speak to the Hamshen, they will say to you, “We are Armenians,” but when you point the camera at them, they say “We are Turkish.” Turkey is not a nation of free speech, although it may present itself as such. Therefore, there’s a double dialogue in Turkey. There’s a dialogue that you see presented publicly, and then there’s a dialogue behind closed doors. There is an increasing number of people in Turkey who do believe it was genocide; however, they would not say this publicly. – Andrew Goldberg, New York filmmaker, 23 March 2006

Read the rest of the interview at http://www.aztagdaily.com/interviews/goldberg.htm

The majority of an Azerbaijani forum, according to a poll, admit that Armenian monuments are being destroyed in Azerbaijan.

Here is what I found while browsing the topic “Armenian monuments are being destroyed in Azerbaijan. Is it true or not?”

As of 24 March 2006, sixty one users of www.day.az/forum (the relatively tolerant Russian-language Azerbaijani forum) participated in a poll question “Armenian monuments are being destroyed in Azerbaijan. Is it true or not?”

Thirty five of them said that it was true, while ten of those thirty five said “Yes [Armenians monuments are being destroyed in Azerbaijan] and it is the right thing to do.” Another nine responded “Yes, so what?”

24.59% (15 users) said that it was not true and claimed to have evidence supporting their point. One of the arguments is that there is an Armenian church in Baku (Azerbaijan’s capital), therefore Armenian monuments are not being destroyed. According to those fifteen, the hundreds of photographs and video documents testifying to the Azerbaijani vandalism are fabrication and Photoshop materials.

26.23% (16 users) admitted the destruction and said they were sorry (I assume some of them, if not most, are Armenian users).

If the poll reflects (which I doubt) the real approach of the Azerbaijanis to the destruction of the Armenian monuments, it means the majority of them are well aware what is happening to the Armenian heritage in their Republic.

Why would Mr. Piotrovski remain silent until going to Armenia? Do people have to go to Armenia in order to “remember” what happened in December of 2005 to a beautiful medieval cemetery?

Hermitage Director Denounces Destruction Of Armenian Monuments In Azerbaijan

Yerevan, March 22 /Armenpress/ Director of Hermitage Museum in Russian Saint Petersburg, denounced on Tuesday destruction of Armenian cultural and historical monuments in Azerbaijan, saying destruction of such monuments was a crime irrespective of where it takes place.

The director of one of the world's richest museums, Boris Piotrovski, has come to Armenia to deliver a series of lectures to students. Piotrovski said the recent destruction of an old Armenian cemetery in Nakhichevan enclave of Azerbaijan was also a cultural crime. He said the order to destroy the cemetery was politically motivated.
Piotrovski said international organizations should be more resolute in fighting back and preventing similar crimes.

www.armeniadiaspora.com

Don’t want to show Andrew’s documentary in LA? You wish! Andrew will do it himself!

Here is a 23 March 2006 LA Times article that Andrew informed others and me in a mass e-mail.

(Oregon Public Broadcasting)

'Armenian Genocide' will show at Egyptian
With KCET-TV refusing to air his documentary, Andrew Goldberg has rented out his own theatre.
By Rachel Abramowitz, Times Staff Writer
March 23, 2006

With local PBS affiliate KCET-TV refusing to air his documentary "The Armenian Genocide," filmmaker Andrew Goldberg has decided to rent out Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre to show the film in continuous free screenings on April 17 — the same day it will be playing on most of the top PBS stations in the country.

"We will continue to screen the film that day and night as long as we have the theater," Goldberg said Wednesday.

ADVERTISEMENT
The filmmaker, who is paying for much of the $10,000 tab out of his own pocket, noted that "the largest market of Armenians outside Armenia is in Los Angeles."

Goldberg's one-hour documentary focuses on the Ottoman Empire's role in the massacre of at least a million Armenians during and right after World War I.

The Ottoman Empire became the modern republic of Turkey, whose government disputes that a genocide occurred, attributing the deaths instead to war, disease and starvation.

The documentary has already created a flap, in part because PBS commissioned a 25-minute panel discussion to run afterward, which featured two academics who believed that the killings constituted genocide, and two who argued that a holocaust did not occur.

An Armenian group launched an online petition against the panel program and several members of Congress complained to PBS. They argued that the network would never follow a documentary about the genocide of Jews during World War II with a panel discussion featuring holocaust deniers.

KCET said it wouldn't run either the documentary or the panel follow-up.

Bohdan Zachary, the station's executive director of programming, said it would instead air a French documentary about the Armenian genocide, which the station felt offered a more comprehensive examination of the issue.

As a response to my letter concerning “Talaat Movement” being a Google sponsor, I have received a letter of “most sincere apology” from Google. While Googling “talaat pasha,” a website in “honor” of that murderer was shown to the right as a “Sponsored Link.”

Hello Simon,

Thank you for your email. Please accept my most sincere apology if this
has offended you or anyone else for that matter.

I understand that you saw an inappropriate advertisement on a Google
results page. Our AdWords Specialists have removed this ad.

The advertisement you saw was generated through the AdWords program,
which
is designed to give thousands of small business owners the power to
quickly and efficiently generate traffic for their sites. The ads they
create run on our site immediately. Our editorial staff reviews all ads
to
make sure that they are appropriate for our site. Since we show ads
immediately, there is often a short period of time when the ad is
running
before being reviewed and approved by Google AdWords Specialists.
Please
note that we try to keep this lag as short as possible.

Unfortunately, it seems you saw the advertisement before we had a
chance
to review it. We have since had the opportunity to review the ad and
have
deemed it inappropriate for our site.

Simon, again, please accept our apologies. We thank you for your
patience
and continuing support.

[…]

Sincerely,

Jessica R.
The Google AdWords Team

The great news that our blogpal and world-known photojournalist Onnik Krikorian has been nominated for the National Geographic’s All Road’s Award gives me courage to share some personal news.

Today, when I was working at my college’s library, our president’s secretary came by and gave me a packet of tickets to Seattle (Washington) and Long Beach (California).

At the first place, I will be attending the 88th International Convention of Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society, where Madeleine Albright will be the keynote speaker. During the second general session of the convention I will be recognized on the stage along with 19 other students who have been named a Guistwhite scholar out of 600 applicants. Of course, I will also get to see some of my friends (hopefully, including my Russian friend Elena and my Azerbaijani friend Azar), and I am really looking forward to it!

In Long Beach, I will be attending the American Association of Community Colleges convention, where on 22 April I will represent the State of Colorado as the New Century Scholar (out of 1600 college nominees 50 are selected to represent the United States).

The best news is that I have also won America’s most prestigious college award, but I won’t name it now, since USA TODAY (America’s most circulated daily) has the exclusive privilege to report about it. So check the 24 April 2006 USA TODAY issue for my photograph and biography. I can say that only 20 out of 1600 students get the award. Those 1600 are nominated by their schools and have to have high GPAs and a record of extensive community activities.

Earlier this month, I was also named to the All-Colorado Academic Team (please DON’T check the link my photo is horrible) .