Armenian Events- ARPA Institute 20th Anniversary Celebration Banquet USA, CA-South Glendale Sat, 19 May 2012 7:00 PM
- ARPA Institute 20th Anniversary Celebration Conference USA, CA-South Glendale Sat, 19 May 2012 10:30 am
- Deleyaman in Concert - Los Angeles USA, CA-South Santa Monica Fri, 11 May 2012 8:30 PM
- 'La Bella Vista' at Hummingbird Nest Ranch USA, CA-South Simi Valley Sun, 06 May 2012 11:00 A.M.
- Deleyaman in Concert - Los Angeles USA, CA-South Los Angeles Thu, 03 May 2012 8:00 PM
Kobe Bryant takes blood money from Turkey
Turkish Airlines has started four weekly flights between Istanbul and Los Angeles International Airport, but the carrier’s newest spokesman has run afoul of the local Armenian-American community.
Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant signed a two-year deal to help publicize the airline, which is partially owned by the Turkish government.
Armenian-Americans said they’re upset with Bryant’s advertising campaign because Turkey’s leaders do not recognize the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1917 as a “genocide.”
The Turkish government rejects the term “genocide” and has long maintained that the deaths were the result of civil unrest during the former Ottoman Empire’s collapse through World War I.
“We feel like Kobe might not be aware of all these issues, so we feel it’s important to bring this to his attention and bring out all the facts,” said Serouj Aprahamian, executive director of the Armenian Youth Federation’s western region, based in Glendale.
Aprahamian said he has unsuccessfully tried to contact Bryant through the NBA star’s publicist. About a half-million Armenians live in California, with a large concentration in the Los Angeles area, he said.
“A lot of people in the Armenian community are understandably upset about his decision,” Aprahamian said. “We’re all Lakers fans, but we also feel that Kobe should know the implications of what he’s doing.”
Bryant’s publicist, Rob Pelinka, could not be reached for comment.
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Armenian museum lawsuit row
A rancorous legal fight over a proposed Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial is flaming up once more amid claims that a glass-loving federal judge might have been biased in her decision-making.
In an unexpected twist, the Armenian Assembly of America last week demanded a new trial to reopen the long-running dispute over the proposed museum. The Armenian Assembly contends that the original trial judge was too close to the wealthy retired businessman who prevailed in the museum lawsuit late last year.
Bizarrely, the fight now turns on the judge’s and the businessman’s apparently shared passion for modern glass art.
“The undisclosed common interest and relationship may have biased the outcome of the bench trial,” attorney Richard Chaivetz declared in the Armenian Assembly’s latest legal filing.
An attorney for retired businessman and philanthropist Gerard Cafesjian called the bid for a new trial frivolous.
The dispute involves plans for a 50,000-square-foot Armenian genocide museum, slated for construction on a former bank site several blocks from the White House. The museum would commemorate the events of 1915 to 1923, when by some accounts more than 1 million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
A separate Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute already exists in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan. Its director, Dr. Hayk Demoyan, will speak March 21 in Fresno, Calif., in a program sponsored by California State University, Fresno.
The proposed U.S. museum got rolling in the mid-1990s with several large donations and pledges, including major assistance from Cafesjian. He made his fortune with West Publishing, which produces legal books.
The Armenian Assembly ultimately accused Cafesjian and his allies of mismanaging museum planning. Cafesjian, in turn, felt he was poorly treated, and a series of suits and countersuits effectively scuttled the museum.
In January, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a 190-page ruling that largely sided with Cafesjian and ordered the museum property returned to the Cafesjian Family Foundation. So far, that hasn’t happened.
“While the court hopes that the properties can be used for (the museum), the court recognizes that the (foundation) is not legally obligated to use the properties to build a museum,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
A Clinton administration appointee, Kollar-Kotelly has served on the federal bench since 1997. She’s overseen high-profile cases that include a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft and others challenging White House secrecy.
After the judge issued her museum decision, Armenian Assembly attorneys say, they discovered her common artistic ground with Cafesjian.
In 1999, the attorneys say, Kollar-Kotelly, her husband and Cafesjian provided a joint gift to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. That gift was the purchase of Vestment II, a glass piece produced by an artist Cafesjian also intended to feature at the Armenian museum.
“Judge Kollar-Kotelly failed to disclose that (she) and her husband have a substantial interest in contemporary glass art that overlaps with Cafesjian’s interests,” Chaivetz argued. “These interests created a situation where Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s impartiality may be questioned.”