The renowned screenwriter Jose Rivera, best known for his work in The Motorcycle Diaries, is set to work on the cinematic production of Micheline Marcom’s book Three Apples Fell From Heaven, a novel based on the Armenian Genocide.After being introduced to the book by his wife, Sona Tatoyan, Rivera fell in love with it and was reported to have recently optioned the rights to the story.
According to the LA Times, Rivera sees this project as not just having the potential to be a great film, but “the Armenian community’s equivalent to ‘Schindler’s List.'”
The most gagged woman in America seems to be tired of waiting for figures in the government and media to take on her case. Former FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, is herself beginning to gradually reveal more of the details behind her long-suggested knowledge of corruption and treason involving Turkish representatives and US officials.This past Sunday, the UK’s Sunday Timesran a piece outlining her claim that a senior State Department official was passing nuclear secrets to Turkey in exchange for money and other kickbacks. Turkey was then covertly selling these secrets to buyers in the international black market.
The story seems to corroborate her claims by quoting a CIA official who confirms that the Turks had indeed obtained nuclear secrets from the US and shared it with Pakistan and Israel. The official states, “We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s.”
It’s high time Ms. Edmonds be allowed to speak openly and have her claims be thoroughly investigated. It’s high time that Turkey’s obstructions against US interests, whether on recognition of the Armenian Genocide or passing nuclear secrets to rogue elements, be exposed for what they are and be put to an immediate end.
On December 20, 2007, 17 year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge passed away after twice being denied a liver transplant by her insurer, Cigna Health Corporation. In the face of a mass protest in front of Cigna offices in Los Angeles, the company finally agreed to cover her transplant–but it was too late.
Her tragic loss has served as a cornerstone in the debate over the troubled state of health care in the United States. It has become a part of the discourse in the presidential campaign, with John Edwards telling the story of Nataline and her family in order to illustrate the pressing need to take on the problems posed by the health insurance industry.
Nataline was an active member of the Armenian Youth Federation and a bright young student who was full of life. She will be truly missed by friends, family, and the community alike.
After blocking the US from opening a northern front on Iraq, amassing 100,000 troops along the Turkish-Iraqi border, and threatening to invade the Kurdish region of Iraq if a referendum on Kirkuk goes forward as planned, Turkey is now intensifying its cross-border attacks deep into the territory of Iraq.
On Sunday, the Turkish military ordered a three-hour aerial bombardment of ten villages in northern Iraq, which it claimed was aimed at bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Several innocent civilians were killed by the strike and hundreds were forced to flee the region. Various homes, school buildings, and bridges were also destroyed in the Kurdish populated villages that were targeted.
The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution on Monday sharply condemning Turkey’s actions as a “cruel attack on Iraqi sovereignty.” The EU called on Turkey to “refrain from taking any military action that could undermine regional peace and stability.”
As can be seen, Turkey is moving forward with its sinister plan against the Kurds and proceeding to destabilize the calmest region of Iraq. With ‘allies’ like this, who needs enemies?
The Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank known for its close ties to corporate America, held a conference on December 10, 2007, titled “The Azerbaijan-Turkey-U.S. Relationship and its Importance for Eurasia.”The event was held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC and featured a line-up of high-ranking foreign policy officials and academics from all three of the mentioned states.
The age-old, pan-Turanic frustration with Armenia being an obstacle to closer Turkish and Azeri integration was regularly referred to throughout the conference.Speakers repeatedly portrayed Armenia as a hamper to trade links and regional projects aimed at integrating Turkey with Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia.Numerous speakers also spoke with disdain about the influence of the Armenian lobby in the United States, which they see as a chief nuisance to their designs.
The character of the speakers featured at the conference is perhaps most sharply exemplified by Professor S. Frederick Starr, Chairman of Johns Hopkins University’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI).Starr was recently dubbed “The Professor of Repression” by Harper’s Magazine for his ideological services to Islam Karimov’s brutal government in Uzbekistan, among other indiscretions.He has also long been known for his affinity to the Turkish & Azeri governments and shameless denial of the Armenian Genocide.At the conference, Starr referred to Armenia and its diaspora as a “serious problem,” but he assured the audience that the “correlation of forces is changing” and that “history is on your [Turkey and Azerbaijan’s] side.”
For the likes of Starr and others who participated in this conference, there is no depth to which one cannot stoop in order to serve power and personal prestige.The truth, human rights, dignity—these are all matters with little-to-no relevance.How else could they serve as such devoted apologists of repression?
Activists and constituents from throughout the western region of the United States traveled to Washington, DC this week to lobby Members of Congress in support of H.Res.106, the Armenian Genocide Resolution. Their efforts were part of the Armenian National Committe of America – Western Region’s (ANCA-WR) “Advocacy Week 106.”
Young and old alike came out from states such as Arizona, California, Texas, and Idaho to raise the awareness of Members of the House and Senate regarding the Armenian Genocide. They let it be known that, as concerned citizens, their efforts will not cease until the US officially reaffirms the Armenian Genocide and ends its complicity in Turkey’s disgraceful denial campaign.
You’ll recall that Murtha was one of the leading Democratic opponents of the Armenian Genocide resolution after it passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee in October. He even led a press conference against the resolution with fellow Democrats Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Robert Wexler (D-FL), both of whom are very close to Turkey and not without their own records of corruption.
In CREW’s 2006 report, Murtha was given a dishonorable mention for his multiple kickbacks to contributors. Now he has been moved up the list of corruption for continuing to have his hands too deep in the Congressional “cookie jar.” It seems that the main beneficiaries of Murtha’s pork-barreling are weapons contractors in his district and defense lobbyists who fund his campaigns.
Why is it that the most tainted officials and military industrialists always seem to be the leading backers of Turkey’s genocide denial? Hmmm.
We all know how one of the first things Turkey did when the Armenian Genocide Resolution passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee was, in the words of the Jerusalam Post, “Blame the Jews.”
Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, explained how he had told American Jewish leaders that passage of the resolution would be interpreted as a conspiracy by Jews and Armenians against the Turks. “We have told them [Jewish leaders] that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this.” The not so subtle threat underneath this statement is, “If the resolution passes, Turkey’s Jews are in trouble.”
Indeed, American Jewish groups regularly cite the fate of Turkey’s Jews as a reason to support Ankara’s genocide denial throughout the world. They shamefully allow Turkey to use the threat of harming its Jewish community as a card in their denialist campaign.
Imagine if Iran threatened the safety of its Jewish community over a resolution in the US House. What would the reaction here be? Would the Jewish lobby, or anybody else, accept that as a reason to block said resolution? I think not.
Press Secretary Geoff Morrell: “[Under Secretary of State Eric Edelman and Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried] met over the weekend at length with their Turkish counterparts with regards to the genocide resolution. They expressed regret on behalf of their respective secretaries for the House committee choosing to go ahead and pass the resolution.”
Unbelievably, this apology was made for a vote by the freely elected members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Armenian Genocide Resolution.It is outrageous that U.S. officials were sent abroad to apologize to a foreign government for Congressional recognition of a brutal crime that the President himself has described as “the annihilation of as many as 1,500,000 Armenians through forced exile and murder.”
Are you upset by these shameful actions? If so, please politely share your views with the public servants who made this cowardly apology.
Points to consider making in your message to these officials
I’m ashamed that you apologized for a human rights vote in the U.S. Congress.
As Americans, we should never apologize for our nation’s devotion to human rights.
I would like a written explanation of why you expressed “regret” to Turkey.
America should never apologize for believing in human rights!
After serving in the US House for 20 years, Dennis “Denny” Hastert announced today that he was stepping down a little over a year before his current term ends in 2009.Hastert was the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, holding the position from January 1999 to November 2006. Armenian-Americans remember him well as the man who refused to schedule a vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution for the over 8 years he served as Speaker.
How can we forget the last-minute, behind the scenes phone call to Denny from President Clinton in 2000, urging him to kill the measure after it passed committee? We were told there were grave national security concerns in the Middle East and that having our country recognize the first genocide of the twentieth century would “risk the lives of Americans” and jeopardize the “fragile” Palestinian-Israeli “cease-fire.” Sound at all familiar?
More controversy around this episode was raised in 2005, when a Vanity Fair article about former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds alleged that Hastert may have received illegal payments from the Turkish government in return for his services against the Armenian Genocide Resolution.
That same year, the rock-group System of a Down undertook a campaign to meet with Hastert and ask him to schedule a vote on the resolution. They finally tracked him down in April of 2006, when, by chance, they crossed his path in the Capitol Hill Rotunda. A shocked and bumbling Hastert said he would “take a look” at the matter, and then proceeded to sit on the measure for the rest of his term.
