The Armenian Youth Federation will be protesting Azerbaijan’s Consul General of Los Angeles, Elin Suleymanov, at the Pacific Club (4110 Macarthur blvd. Newport Beach, CA) on Thursday, March 4 from 6-9pm. Suleymanov will be speaking about Azerbaijan’s role in the world at an event sponsored by the World Affairs Council. The Azeri diplomat will also be discussing Azerbaijan’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia

A special election has been scheduled for April 13, 2010 to fill the 43rd State Assembly seat formerly held by Paul Krekorian, who was elected to the Los Angeles City Council this past December. More than 20 percent of the district’s residents are of Armenian descent. The District spans the cities of Glendale and Burbank as well as portions of Los Angeles, including the neighborhoods of Atwater Village, Laurel Grove, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, North Hollywood, Toluca Lake, Toluca Woods, Toluca Terrace, Valley Glen and Van Nuys.

On Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 one of the worlds most respected and watched current affairs program, 60 Minutes (CBS TV Network), will air a segment on the Armenian Genocide. Bob Simon and Peter Balakian traveled all the way to Deir Elzor to visit the Armenian Auschwitz and shed light on the untold stories of the victims of the first Genocide of the 20th century.

WASHINGTON—Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., Co-Chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, issued the following statement Friday to commemorate the 22nd Anniversary of the Sumgait Massacres.
“Mr. Speaker, this Sunday will mark the tragic anniversary of the massacres that took place against Azerbaijani citizens of Armenian heritage in February of 1988, in the town of Sumgait, [...]

Déjà vu. Again we anxiously wait to see if the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide will be favorably voted out of the House Foreign Relations Committee. If Turkey with its coterie of paid lobbyists, academic surrogates, and other associated anti-genocide proponents fails to defeat congressional passage of the resolution, another moral victory may be added to the two dozen or so moral victories in hand from foreign governments that have recognized the genocide.

The men’s alpine giant slalom kicked off from Whistler, Creekside with only the top 30 skiers advancing for a chance at a second run and a medal. Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher had the honors of going first and finished with an impressive time of 1:17.48. (He would finish the day without a medal). It was the sixth skier, Carlo Janka from Switzerland, who set the pace with a time of 1:17.27. But with more skiers left to come, it was too early to crown him the fastest going into run 2 (although he would be the eventual gold medal winner).

Fresh off of walking precincts in California’s 36th Congressional District, the South Bay Armenian American Community prepares for a town hall meeting with Marcy Winograd. The town hall meeting will take place on Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 5 p.m. at the South Bay Armenian Center located at 2222 Lomita Blvd. in Lomita, California. The event will be open to the public with free admission.

The Armenian community of Burbank turned out with excitement on Sunday, February 21 for the unveiling of the new Youth Center, during an inaugural event, which kicked off the community’s effort to acquire the building and during which $780,000 was raised.

Orange County Armenians opened their hearts and wallets this Valentines Day by sending their love and donations to children in the Homeland. The February 14 breakfast fundraiser was hosted by the AYF Ashod Yergat chapter and treated donors to a wonderful early meal on this international day of love.

More than 80 health care workers, patients, and community members turned out this past Saturday for a special community-wide forum shedding light on LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s proposal to privatize the Glendale Health Center. The Armenian Youth Federation joined together with SEIU Local 721 to bring the issue directly before the community and into the public’s awareness.

It’s 1980 in the Tower District of Fresno, and what preteens do in this neighborhood is get into gang fights, smoke cigarettes, and call radio stations when there’s a contest.

President Serzh Sarkisian made late on Thursday his most explicit threat yet to annul Armenia’s normalization agreements with Turkey in what appeared to be a tense conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The Ankara Radio Polyphonic Choir has performed a composition by the famous Armenian composer and ethnomusicologist, Gomidas Vartabed, the Turkish Hurriyet reported on Thursday.

In this second of three part series on LATimes coverage of interest to Armenians, I’ll address some Turkish-topic patterns I noticed over the past two-plus years. What’s notable is the tremendously lopsided proportion of Armenian vs. Turkish coverage, approximately a one-to-five ratio, respectively. If we were to add coverage of Kurdish issues within Turkey, that ratio would become roughly one-to-ten. But I prefer to discuss the Kurds integrally as a nation, not based on the blight of occupation to which they’re subjected.