Archive for mars, 2008

10th anniversary of the Gyumri Art Academy

Posted by Flora on mars 19th, 2008

art-academy.jpgThe Gyumri Art Academy celebrated recently the 10th anniversary of its establishment reconstructed by Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, Armenian General Benevolent Union and the funds provided by the people during Loris Tjeknavorian’s 1991 pilgrimage to Gyumri.

This educational center, which started with less than 10 students 10 years ago, today has 192 future specialists in its six departments. Some of them have already gained popularity. An exhibition of the students’ works kicked off in the halls of the Gyumri branch on the day of the celebration.

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The Central Board of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), the world’s largest non-profit Armenian organization, has established a European entity, named the Europe District Committee, chaired by Alexis Govciyan for coordinating and developing the Pan-European activities of the various Chapters in Europe. On February 1-3, 2008, AGBU convened its Pan-European conference in Brussels, Belgium.

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agbu_chess_01wsm.jpgThe Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) has made a donation of $20,000 USD in support of the Second Republican Interschool Chess Championship project. This project is the initiative of the Armenian Chess Federation under the auspices of the Republic of Armenia’s Ministry of Education and Science. AGBU enjoys the status of Vice President of the Championship’s organizing committee.

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The new Melkonian University Center in Armenia

Posted by Flora on mars 5th, 2008

Published in Nouvelles d’Arménie Magasine (February 2008)

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The most beautiful gift AGBU could ever make to Armenian youth: a modern university center, located in downtown Yerevan, planned to welcome 1000 students each year in a state-of-the-art facility designed by Aris Atamian.

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On Friday, February 22, 2008, AGBU joined with representatives from various Armenian churches and the local Roman Armenian community to witness His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI dedicate the north courtyard of the Vatican Basilica to St. Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia.

Representing AGBU President Berge Setrakian was AGBU Europe board member, Krikor Istanboulli, who traveled from his home in Milan to attend the noon ceremony.

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The Armenians and Turkey

Posted by Flora on mars 4th, 2008

Published February 29, 2008 in International Herald Tribune magasine

iht.jpgThe suggestion by Timothy Ryback and Elazar Barkan in “A $12 billon history lesson” (Views, Feb. 26) that Turkey’s call for an independent international historical commission on the Armenian genocide is necessary is devoid of context and unfair.

The Armenian genocide has been documented so thoroughly and with such overwhelming evidence and scholarship that to claim there is need for a Nuremberg-like trial is absurd. The Armenian genocide has been proven as fact by foreign office records of the United States, France, Britain, Russia and perhaps most important, by Turkey’s own World War I allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the Ottoman Courts-Martial of 1919-20, and by decades of scholarship.

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