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Sunday 29 April 2007

GLOBAL DAY FOR DARFUR


Time is up... Protect Darfur

Protests will take place on Sunday (29th April) in over 35 capitals around the world as part of the Global Day for Darfur which marks the fourth anniversary of the deadly conflict in Darfur.

Around the world 10,000 hourglasses filled with fake blood will be turned round by activists to mark the start of the conflict four years ago and highlight the continuing violence under the slogan: "Time is up... Protect Darfur". Events will be staged from Mongolia to Iceland, the U.S. to the Ukraine.

Thandie Newton and Matt Damon are among a group of artists who have posed for a series of pictures to draw attention to the crisis in Darfur.


Matt Damon:

Mat_Damon_1_small.jpg Mat_Damon_2_small.jpg



Thandie Newton:

Thandie_Newton_1_small.jpg Thandie_Newton_2_small.jpg




“Four years after the start of the conflict the blood of more than two hundred thousand murdered Darfuri’s stains the deserts of Darfur. The lives of the local population lie in tatters, as does the reputation of the international community,” said Ismail Jarbo, a survivor from Darfur who will be taking part in the events.

Friday 27 April 2007

MODERN DAY OPRESSION

IT'S 21st CENTURY!

Hundreds of Iranian women have been arrested and thousands more cautioned over their 'poor' Islamic dress


video of arrest of a teenage girl in Tehran for 'bad hijab'
***
By Frances Harrison BBC News, Tehran, 27 April 2007
(Source: BBC)

Iranian woman being arrested

Thousands of Iranian women have been cautioned over their poor Islamic dress this week and several hundred arrested in the capital Tehran in the most fierce crackdown on what's known as "bad hijab" for more than a decade.

It is the talk of the town. The latest police crackdown on Islamic dress has angered many Iranians - male, female, young and old.

But Iranian TV has reported that an opinion poll conducted in Tehran found 86% of people were in favour of the crackdown- a statistic that is surprising given the strength of feeling against this move.

Police cars are stationed outside major shopping centres in Tehran.

They are stopping pedestrians and even cars - warning female drivers not show any hair - and impounding the vehicles and arresting the women if they argue back.

Middle-aged women, foreign tourists and journalists have all been harassed, not just the young and fashionably dressed.

[...]

Tehran teenager Tofiq

"I want the whole world to know that they oppress us and all we can do is put up with it"
Tofiq, 15

Thousands of women have been cautioned by police over their dress, some have been obliged to sign statements that they will do better in the future, and some face court cases against them.

Though the authorities want coverage internally to scare women - they don't want the story broadcast abroad.

The BBC's cameraman was detained when he tried to film the police at work and the government denied us permission to go on patrol with the police.

[...]

Altered mannequin

Even shop mannequins considered "too revealing" are dealt with

[...]

{and it's not just women...}

Young men are being cautioned for wearing short sleeved shirts or for their hairstyles.

Morad - a hairdresser whose gelled hair is made to stand straight up - says it's necessary for him to look like this to attract customers.

"These last few days I don't dare walk down the main roads looking like this case I get arrested," he says.

"I use the side streets and alleys."

Morad is scared because his friends have told him they've seen the police seize young men and forcibly cut their hair if it's too long.

[...]


Online democracy

Armenian authorities took off the air A1+ but they was not able to silence A1+



(for years) They tried to ban A1+ TV, they sort of succeeded, but they was not able to ban A1+, for me - the symbol of free speech in Armenia. A1+ continued its live online. And today they announced the launch of A1+ blog - another step from A1+ journalists to promote free speech in Armenia.

If one day I switch on TV and see A1+ station live, I will understand that I probably live in different Armenia, in better Armenia, in Armenia which can be transformed to a country where I would prefer live in...

Wednesday 25 April 2007

"Is there life on Mars?"

Fascinating!

New 'super-Earth' found in space

Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface and, potentially, life.

Source: Reuters and BBC



An artistic illustration released by the European Southern Observatory shows the new planet known as Gliese 581 c (L) orbiting a red dwarf star, April 25, 2007. REUTERS/ European Southern Observatory /Handout

Monday 23 April 2007

Masterclass of Armenian weightlifters in Europe

image

Hripsime Khurshudyan (Reuters)

Above (left to right): Hripsime Khurshudyan, Meline Daluzyan, Nazik Avdalyan, Gevorg Davtyan (Photolure, ArmeniaNow and A1+)


Team No 1 in Europe

After great success of Armenian chess players wining Chess Olympiad, Turin (Italy) 2006, today is another occasion for celebrations - Armenian weightlifters displayed masterclass in European Weightlifting Championship, Strasbourg (France), crowned Team No 1 in Europe:

10 gold and 8 silver and bronze medals

It was amazing to witness the splendid performance of Armenian women wightlifters along with traditionally strong men team.

Well done, guys, congrats!

P.S. I wish one day we'll see the revival of Armenian football!

Saturday 21 April 2007

'Deadly web' of the Internet

Robert Fisk from The Independent exposed the horrific story of how governments and political circles may use Internet as a tool to oppress dissidents, even if they granted political asylum in another country. It is the story of how prominent Turkish scholar Taner Akcam became “terrorist”.

Taner Akcam is the distinguished Turkish scholar at the University of Minnesota who, with immense courage,
proved the facts of the Armenian genocide - the deliberate mass murder of up to a million and a half
Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in 1915 - from Turkish documents and archives. His book A
Shameful Act was published to great critical acclaim in Britain and the United States.
Robert Fisk



I was shocked reading this article, I could not believe my eyes, it looked like a plot for fiction, Orwell style, but it was reality…

I'm not surprised. There is no end to the internet's circle of hate. What does shock me, however, is that the
men and women chosen to guard their nations against Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida are reading this dirt
and are prepared to detain an honourable scholar such as Taner Akcam on the basis of it.
Robert Fisk

Today it happened to Taner Akcam, initiated and manipulated by Turkey, tomorrow it may happen to anyone from any country. Maybe you…



Robert Fisk: Caught in the deadly web of the internet
Any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent
Published: 21 April 2007


Could it possibly be that the security men who guard the frontiers of North America are supporting Holocaust denial? Alas, it's true. Here's the story.

Taner Akcam is the distinguished Turkish scholar at the University of Minnesota who, with immense courage, proved the facts of the Armenian genocide - the deliberate mass murder of up to a million and a half Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in 1915 - from Turkish documents and archives. His book A Shameful Act was published to great critical acclaim in Britain and the United States.

He is now, needless to say, being threatened with legal action in Turkey under the infamous Law 301 - which makes a crime of insulting "Turkishness" - but it's probably par for the course for a man who was granted political asylum in Germany after receiving an eight-year prison sentence in his own country for articles he had written in a student journal; Amnesty International had already named him a prisoner of conscience.

But Mr Akcam has now become a different kind of prisoner: an inmate of the internet hate machine, the circle of hell in which any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent without any recourse to the law, to libel lawyers or to common decency. The Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was misquoted on the internet for allegedly claiming that Turkish blood was "poisonous"; this total lie - Dink never said such a thing - prompted a young man to murder him in an Istanbul street.

But Taner Akcam's experience is potentially far more serious for all of us. As he wrote in a letter to me this month, "Additional to the criminal investigation (law 301) in Turkey, there is a hate campaign going on here in the USA, as a result of which I cannot travel internationally any more... My recent detention at the Montreal airport - apparently on the basis of anonymous insertions in my Wikipedia biography - signals a disturbing new phase in a Turkish campaign of intimidation that has intensified since the November 2006 publication of my book."

Akcam was travelling to lecture in Montreal and took the Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis on 16 February this year. The Canadian immigration officer, Akcam says, was "courteous" - but promptly detained him at Montreal's Trudeau airport. Even odder, the Canadian immigration officer asked him why he needed to be detained. Akcam tells me he gave the man a brief history of the genocide and of the campaign of hatred against him in the US by Turkish groups "controlled by ... Turkish diplomats" who "spread propaganda stating that I am a member of a terrorist organisation".

All this went on for four hours while the immigration officer took notes and made phone calls to his bosses. Akcam was given a one-week visa and the Canadian officer showed him - at Akcam's insistence - a piece of paper which was the obvious reason for his temporary detention.

"I recognised the page at once," Akcam says. "The photo was a still from a 2005 documentary on the Armenian genocide... The still photo and the text beneath it comprised my biography in the English language edition of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which anyone in the world can modify at any time. For the last year ... my Wikipedia biography has been persistently vandalised by anonymous 'contributors' intent on labelling me as a terrorist. The same allegations has been repeatedly scrawled, like gangland graffiti, as 'customer reviews' of my books at Amazon."

Akcam was released, but his reflections on this very disturbing incident are worth recording. "It was unlikely, to say the least, that a Canadian immigration officer found out that I was coming to Montreal, took the sole initiative to research my identity on the internet, discovered the archived version of my Wikipedia biography, printed it out on 16 February, and showed it to me - voilà! - as a result."

But this was not the end. Prior to his Canadian visit, two Turkish-American websites had been hinting that Akcam's "terrorist activities" should be of interest to American immigration authorities. And sure enough, Akcam was detained yet again - for another hour - by US Homeland Security officers at Montreal airport before boarding his flight at Montreal for Minnesota two days later.

On this occasion, he says that the American officer - US Homeland Security operates at the Canadian airport - gave him a warning: "Mr Akcam, if you don't retain an attorney and correct this issue, every entry and exit from the country is going to be problematic. We recommend that you do not travel in the meantime and that you try to get this information removed from your customs dossier."

So let's get this clear. US and Canadian officials now appear to be detaining the innocent on the grounds of hate postings on the internet. And it is the innocent - guilty until proved otherwise, I suppose - who must now pay lawyers to protect them from Homeland Security and the internet. But as Akcam says, there is nothing he can do.

"Allegations against me, posted by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Turkish Forum and 'Tall Armenia Tale' (a Holocaust denial website) have been copy-pasted and recycled through innumerable websites and e-groups ever since I arrived in America. By now, my name in close proximity to the English word 'terrorist' turns up in well over 10,000 web pages."

I'm not surprised. There is no end to the internet's circle of hate. What does shock me, however, is that the men and women chosen to guard their nations against Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida are reading this dirt and are prepared to detain an honourable scholar such as Taner Akcam on the basis of it.

I don't think the immigration lads are to blame. I once remember listening to a Canadian official at Toronto airport carefully explaining to a Palestinian visitor that he was not required to tell any police officer about his religion or personal beliefs, that he should feel safe in Canada.

No, it's their bosses in Ottawa and Washington I wonder about. Put very simply, how much smut are the US and Canadian immigration authorities taking off the internet? And how much of it is now going to be flung at us when we queue at airports to go about our lawful business?

Source:
The Independent

London march to commemorate 1915 Armenian Genocide

“United we march”…
But are we united?

Truly said, the march was poorly organised, with 3-year old banners (World is changing around us! Did they watch “Screamers”, I wonder?), almost non-audible loud-speakers…

When we reached the Cenotaph (a monument to remember ”The Glorious Dead” during the First World War) for a ceremony to lay down wreaths, most people did not even notice how it went, we were waiting for it to start, and then realised that it’s finished…

Surprisingly, I did not see Armenian ambassador at the Cenotaph today. Every year he meets marchers there for the ceremony. But may be he came and left unnoticed (which I doubt, he is quite noticeable) as the rest of the ceremony…

People’s turn out was quite low too, some people were joking that there were more policemen than actual marchers there – indifference? (again) poor organisation and communication? lack of trust or disappointment in community ‘leaders’?… I understand that some people just could not make it, or had weekend work, or may be they prefer to express their solidarity or remembrance in other way… Whatever the reasons were, it added to the sadness of the day. Apart from organisational problems, I believe one of the most important issues in Armenian community in London is a lack in communication. But cynic part of me can’t help but think that there would probably be much more people in attendance, if ambassador or other ‘important’ people were in attendance too, so there will be a reason for them to ‘show up’ …

In any case, it felt right that I was out there, among hundreds of other Armenians and occasional foreigners, it was my choice, it was my way of expressing my civic stance, to memory of victims of Armenian Genocide, to demand its universal recognition like Jewish Holocaust to pave the way for reconciliation…






Wednesday 18 April 2007

“… casualties of peace”

In a rare move, BBC continues to showcase Armenia related films
as a part of highly respected series of ‘Storyville’ film/documentaries




Recently, they did broadcast UK premiere of Screamers (BBC4, 29 March 2007), a powerful film which looks at genocide through the prism of System of A Down, a band campaigning for recognition of Armenian Genocide by US, UK… and, ultimately, Turkey.

This time was a turn for A Story of People in War and Peace (BBC4, 17 April 2007) - first film made by Vardan Hovhannisyan, a filmmaker who was involved in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict as a war correspondent. He tracked down soldiers he filmed twelve years ago to see how they have lived since ceasefire.

At times, it was difficult to understand narrator’s accent (director Vardan Hovhannisyan himself), subtitles were not always flawless, but it did not distract from very moving experience.

Nick Fraser (BBC Storyville Series, Editor) called it “Vardan's terrific film”:
His film footage is remarkable: it could come from the World War I. But then maybe the essence of war - being bored, killing people, becoming passionately attached to those people with whom you fight - never really changes.

Intimate conversations with then soldiers exposed present day ‘broken men’: breakdown families, mental breakdowns, poverty, sense of hopelessness and broken dreams...

"The only thought then was to finish the war. But now one has more troubled soul"

“I dreamt of success, but it has not happened”

As Vardan Hovhannisyan would say: "I am beginning to discover not casualties of war, but casualties of peace". And this was in a striking contrast with their sense of pride for liberating their homeland and sense of brotherhood through the footage of them battling heroically on their heyday.

TimeOut London considered it "Pick of the day":
A harrowing but ultimately heartening documentary about Karabagh War which, in 1989, signalled the first cracks in the edifice we used to call Soviet Union. Vardan Hovannisyan was a journalist who filmed the conflict from the Armenian side and this follows a very simple structure. He juxtaposes his original footage of the soldiers with a contemporary journey he takes to track down as many of them as he can. This reminds us how gory the business of killing people actually is. There are affecting shots of grizzled fighters carrying the broken bodies of their dead comrades back from the front. Then there are the walking wounded who manage to limp or crawl back by themselves. It's equally poignant watching the emotional struggle faced by men who have lost their mates: the grief must be tempered, otherwise it's difficult to carry on, and in any case, big boys don't cry. Their present day plight is equally moving: they are mostly broken men, but with one shining exception which Hovhannisyan saves till the end to leave you with some hope.

The last reference was to the ending of the film, with scenes of child birth for one of the former soldiers, a guy who after six months imprisonment for possession of cannabis, seem to be on track to sort out his life. He named his newborn child after his dead friend-soldier (“my brother”).



(Source of picture: http://www.warandpeacefilm.com)

Friday 13 April 2007

Turkey and the U.N.’s Cover-Up - New York Times Editorial

April 13, 2007
New York Times Editorial

More than 90 years ago, when Turkey was still part of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish nationalists launched an extermination campaign there that killed 1.5 million Armenians. It was the 20th century’s first genocide. The world noticed, but did nothing, setting an example that surely emboldened such later practitioners as Hitler, the Hutu leaders of Rwanda in 1994 and today’s Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Turkey has long tried to deny the Armenian genocide. Even in the modern-day Turkish republic, which was not a party to the killings [as the successor of the Ottoman Empire, modern-day Turkey does carry responsibility and should be accounted for genocide - Unzipped], using the word genocide in reference to these events is prosecuted as a serious crime. Which makes it all the more disgraceful that United Nations officials are bowing to Turkey’s demands and blocking this week’s scheduled opening of an exhibit at U.N. headquarters commemorating the 13th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide because it mentions the mass murder of the Armenians.

Ankara was offended by a sentence that explained how genocide came to be recognized as a crime under international law: “Following World War I, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes.” The exhibit’s organizer, a British-based antigenocide group, was willing to omit the words “in Turkey.” But that was not enough for the U.N.’s craven new leadership, and the exhibit has been indefinitely postponed.

It’s odd that Turkey’s leaders have not figured out by now that every time they try to censor discussion of the Armenian genocide, they only bring wider attention to the subject and link today’s democratic Turkey with the now distant crime. As for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his inexperienced new leadership team, they have once again shown how much they have to learn if they are to honorably and effectively serve the United Nations, which is supposed to be the embodiment of international law and a leading voice against genocide.

Thursday 12 April 2007

Dear Mr President

According to some reports, singer Pink's new song Dear Mr President has been unofficially banned from radio stations across the US. Watch video here:



Read about Pink's Attack on Bush Banned from Radio Stations

Wednesday 11 April 2007

“Screamers” Serj Tankian and Carla Garapedian Denounce Cancellation of UN Genocide Exhibition Mentioning Armenians

April 10, 2007 LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE) Following the UN Secretary General’s request to remove a sentence referring to a million Armenians being murdered during the Ottoman Empire from the Aegis Trust exhibition “Lessons from Rwanda,” and the exhibition’s subsequent cancellation, Serj Tankian and Carla Garapedian have issued the following statement:

“We are very shocked by this decision by the Secretary General to remove mention of a historical event which is well-documented by thousands of official records of the United States and nations around the world, including Turkey’s wartime allies, Germany, Austria and Hungary; by Ottoman court martial records; and by eyewitness accounts of missionaries, diplomats and survivors; as well as decades of historical scholarship. In the U.S., President Bush has called the events the ‘forced exile and annihilation of approximately 1.5 million Armenians.’

“Elie Wiesel says denial is the last stage of genocide – this act of censorship by the Secretary General is effectively an act of appeasement to the very forces in Turkey that led to the recent death of Hrant Dink and the prosecution of Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. Other writers and artists in Turkey are facing prison sentences today under Article 301 for wanting to speak openly about this issue. What message does this send to them? The reason why genocides have continued in the last century – from the Armenian genocide, to the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, to the genocide going on now in Darfur – is because the international community has not intervened to stop them. Sadly, the Secretary General’s decision to stop any mention of the antecedents to the Rwanda genocide is a blow to those who want to stop genocide now.”

Serj Tankian, songwriter, singer, poet, activist and lead singer of System of a Down, appears in the film “Screamers,” which traces the history of genocide in the last century, from the Armenian genocide, to the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. He was invited by the Aegis Trust to meet the Secretary General on Monday, along with “Screamers” director, Carla Garapedian. Aegis is co-sponsoring a screening of “Screamers” in the British Parliament, following its theatrical run in the U.S. and screening in the U.S. Library of Congress.

James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust, wrote to Tankian and Garapedian explaining why Aegis wouldn’t submit to the Secretary General’s request, which followed a protest from the Turkish government. The sentence in dispute: “Following World War 1, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes.”

“Had we been asked to remove reference of atrocities to Jews because Germany objected, we would have been equally resistant,” said Smith. “We can’t apply one rule to some and not to others because the political wind in the UN is blowing against the Armenians,” he said. Removing the sentence would amount to a “denial of elementary facts.”

Garapedian added, “Perhaps the Secretary General should visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, where another sentence is engraved on the wall – ‘Who remembers the Armenians?’ That was Hitler’s answer to why he could get away with murdering the Jews. Hitler used the Armenian genocide as a blueprint for the Holocaust. The Secretary General should also visit the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda, which has become the focal point for national remembrance and education about the 1994 genocide. There, too, the Armenian genocide is commemorated. No one there is trying to bury the truth.”

Monday 9 April 2007

53 Nobel Laureates Urge Turkish-Armenian Dialogue

By Emil Danielyan (Radio Liberty Armenia)

More than fifty Nobel laureates from around the world appealed to Armenia and Turkey on Monday to unconditionally establish diplomatic relations, open their border, and step up contacts between their civil societies.

In an open letter, they also implicitly urged the Turkish government to acknowledge that the 1915-1918 mass killings and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide. They endorsed a 2003 independent study which concluded that the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians fits into the internationally accepted definition of genocide.

“An open border would greatly improve the economic conditions for communities on both sides of the border and enable human interaction, which is essential for mutual understanding,” read the joint appeal signed by 53 prominent academics, writers, economists, and scientists who have won a Nobel Prize in their respective fields in the last three decades. Among them is Elie Wiesel, a world-famous Holocaust survivor, and Frederik de Klerk, a former South African president who presided over the collapse of apartheid in his country.

The signatories said the Turkish and Armenian governments should ease their lingering tensions “through additional treaty arrangements and full diplomatic relations” which they believe would facilitate bilateral academic links and student exchanges. They also called for the abolition of an article of the Turkish Penal Code which makes it a crime to “denigrate Turkishness” and has been used against dissident intellectuals questioning the official denial of the Armenian genocide.

“Armenia also should reverse its own authoritarian course, allow free and fair elections, and respect human rights,” the laureates added.

Their letter, addressed to “the peoples of Turkey and Armenia,” was initiated and drafted by David Phillips, a U.S. scholar who runs the New York-based Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He is also known as the former chairman of the U.S.-backed Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission that operated from 2001-2004.

Speaking to RFE/RL from New York, Phillips said the open letter was prompted by what he sees as an anti-Armenian nationalist backlash in Turkey that followed the January 19 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. “Whereas initially there was an overwhelming popular response in support of Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, the blowback from ultranationalists gives rise to really serious concern about political trends in Turkey,” he said. “So we thought it would be important for Nobel laureates to join their voices in support of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, to acknowledge that the events [of 1915] constitute genocide, and to suggest steps that the governments of Turkey and Armenia can take to improve their bilateral relations.”

The outpouring of popular sympathy in Turkey for the slain editor of the bilingual newspaper Agos raised hopes for a rapprochement between Ankara and Yerevan. However, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear that a normalization of bilateral ties remains conditional on an halt to the Armenian campaign for genocide recognition and a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Like many other observers, Phillips linked the Erdogan government’s refusal to drop those preconditions with Turkey’s upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. “The trends in Turkey right now are negative, and I hope that after they get through this political cycle cooler heads will prevail and that Turkey’s leaders will take a deep breath and reflect carefully on what’s in their nationalist interests,” he said.

According to Phillips, Armenia’s government is also to blame for the strained ties. “Clearly, the corruption and incompetence of Armenia’s current political leaders makes it difficult for Armenia to progress or for Armenian-Turkish relations to develop constructively,” he said.

The Nobel prize winners pointed out that the biggest obstacle to Turkish-Armenian rapprochement is a “huge gap in perceptions over the Armenian Genocide.” They said that in order to address this gap the two sides should look into a study commissioned by TARC from another New York-based institution, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), in 2002.

The ICTJ concluded in a February 2003 report that the Armenian massacres “include all of the elements of the crime of genocide” as defined by a 1948 United Nations convention. It said at the same time that the Armenians can not use the convention for making territorial and other claims against Turkey.

President George W. Bush has repeatedly cited the ICTJ study in his April 24 messages to the Armenian community in the United States. John Evans, the former U.S. ambassador to Armenia, likewise pointed to it when he declared in a February 2005 speech in California that the “Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century.”

“The analysis offers a way forward, which addresses the core concerns of both Armenians and Turks,” agreed the signatories of the open letter.

While stating that their calls will be “noticed” in Armenia and Turkey, Phillips was pessimistic about prospects for a major improvement in Turkish-Armenian relations sought by Washington. “It’s hard to envision dramatic progress given the mediocrity of political leadership in Yerevan and in Ankara,” he said.

Sunday 8 April 2007

It's spring...

New window display at Selfridges (one of my favourite department stores in London)


Saturday 7 April 2007

Sleeping Dogs

Do we have to tell the full truth about ourselves to the person(s) we love or care about? Is it better to reveal past or present ‘dark’ secrets to your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, parents(…) and come clean or just shut up? I still struggle with these questions and have no answers… So are the characters in this film which I watched today - Sleeping Dogs – hilarious, dark comedy, a true piece of indie cinema. I highly recommend it!

 

 


P.S. links to Official Site and Time Out review

Friday 6 April 2007

System Of A Down's Serj Tankian Hopes To Elect The Dead Later This Year

Thursday April 05, 2007 @ 06:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
System Of A Down are on hiatus, but fans can expect to hear Serj Tankian's voice soon.
System's lead singer hopes to release a solo album — probably under his own name — titled Elect The Dead in the summer or fall.
"It's a rock record that I've written, performed and produced," Tankian said in a fan Q&A on System Of A Down's MySpace page. "And yes, I will be touring extensively for it."
It's not known if the album will be released through Tankian's own Serjical Strike Records label.
Tankian contributed the song "Terminal Beauty" to Rita Mitsouko's Variety album, which will arrive in stores this month. He'll also appear on the soundtrack to the upcoming film Bug, starring Ashley Judd. Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland also contributed to the album.
System Of A Down released their last studio album, Mesmerize, in 2005. They spent most of last summer on the Ozzfest tour and then started their "very long break." The group were nominated for a Grammy Award this year in the best hard rock performance category for "Lonely Day."
The band also contributed songs to the Screamers documentary that premiered last November. The film revolves around Tankian's grandfather, Stepan Haytayan, and deals with the history of modern-day genocide dating back to Armenia in 1915.
—Jason MacNeil

*Serj Tankian (photo by Joe Fuda)