BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel has been assassinated in a northern Beirut suburb in the latest in a spate of attacks to target anti-Syrian politicians, a security source told AFP.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Lebanon anti-Syrian minister assassinated
21/11/2006 14h41
BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel has been assassinated in a northern Beirut suburb in the latest in a spate of attacks to target anti-Syrian politicians, a security source told AFP.
BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel has been assassinated in a northern Beirut suburb in the latest in a spate of attacks to target anti-Syrian politicians, a security source told AFP.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Shooting Stars
On Sunday, Nov. 19th, Earth will pass through a stream of debris from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The result: a shower of Leonid meteors.
Western Europe will be well placed this year for viewing the resulting shooting stars and provided the sky is clear of cloud or relatively clear (at present the weather forecast is not that promising for Sunday morning but check again closer to the time), the experts reckon that there should be about 100 Leonid meteors an hour.
The best time for viewing the Leonid storm will be 0445 GMT to 0630 GMT on Sunday Nov. 19th if you can get up at that time!
A few tips for watching -
Find a dark area as far away from streetlights and house lights as you can get (The more light pollution, the harder they will be to see).
Look into the sky 30 to 75 degrees above the horizon in an Easterly direction.
Take a garden recliner or chair to sit in as you look up.
Wrap up warm and take a flask of something hot!
A Leoind meteorite from 2001
Happy watching and wish upon a star.
Western Europe will be well placed this year for viewing the resulting shooting stars and provided the sky is clear of cloud or relatively clear (at present the weather forecast is not that promising for Sunday morning but check again closer to the time), the experts reckon that there should be about 100 Leonid meteors an hour.
The best time for viewing the Leonid storm will be 0445 GMT to 0630 GMT on Sunday Nov. 19th if you can get up at that time!
A few tips for watching -
Find a dark area as far away from streetlights and house lights as you can get (The more light pollution, the harder they will be to see).
Look into the sky 30 to 75 degrees above the horizon in an Easterly direction.
Take a garden recliner or chair to sit in as you look up.
Wrap up warm and take a flask of something hot!
A Leoind meteorite from 2001
Happy watching and wish upon a star.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Royal Mail Scam
The following information has been received from the Royal Mail regarding a current premium rate telephone scam. It has been assessed by them as a genuine scam.
"Royal Mail have advised that it is a genuine scam; if you receive a card from PDS do not contact them - call your local trading standards agency
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If you receive a card through your door from a company call PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) saying that they have a parcel awaiting delivery instructions and can you contact them on 0906 6611911 DO NOT call the number as this is a mail scam originating from Belize If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £15 for the phone call.
If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 02072396655 or ICTIS at http://www.icstis.org.uk or your local trading standards office.
This is a genuine scam. ICTIS have the following information about this number.
This is a card posted through your letter box from PDS Parcel Delivery suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and to call the premium rate number in question. This service costs £1.50 per minute. This service is under investigation by ICSTIS.
Please be aware of this scam and forward this information to as many as possible.
Should you receive a card from this company please follow the above instructions."
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Quote of the Day
Bernard Baruch - "Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why."
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Vista "free" upgrade is not free
By Stan Beer Wednesday, 25 October 2006 Pardon me for pointing out the obvious here but when it comes to upgrading to Vista there seems to be a disconnect between the Microsoft definition of the term free and the common every day usage of the term which means at no cost.
If I read Microsoft's media statements correctly, everybody who decides to take advantage of the coupons upgrade program from Windows XP to an equivalent version of Windows Vista will have to pay shipping and handling charges. Although some might disagree, it's reasonable not to expect Microsoft to pay the costs associated with shipping what could be tens of millions of discs to users around the world. However, there's a charge (in Australia $27) - it's not free.
And of course, for a significant proportion of users who buy a computer between now and March, an upgrade from Windows XP to an equivalent version of Vista will certainly not be free. Windows XP Home buyers will have to pay 50% of the boxed upgrade price for the equivalent Vista Home Basic version. The justification for this is not clear - we're still waiting for an answer from Microsoft on that question.
It's true that Microsoft will enable computer manufacturers to hand out free upgrade coupons to purchasers of the equivalent high-end Windows XP products - and so they should. It would be unreasonable for Microsoft to expect a new buyer to pay extra funds for an upgrade of such expensive software within months of the purchase.
We were also waiting for an answer from Microsoft as to why it hasn't mentioned anything about discounts for purchasers who want to upgrade to it's new top of the range product, Vista Ultimate. Just in from Microsoft in response to our question is the following:
"There is currently no upgrade path under the Tech Guarantee programs from Windows XP to Ultimate, since Vista Ultimate is an entirely new high end product with significant functionality and value-added compared to existing high end Windows XP product." That's certainly not free.
BMW lifts lid on its 3 CC at last!
It's official - BMW's 3-Series cabriolet has landed. And the newcomer has one very big trick up its sleeve: it features a folding metal roof
By Sam Hardy 25th October 2006
Feel the power
Under bonnet, petrol engine options range from the base four-cylinders to a 3.0 turbo. There’s also one diesel unit.
Face facts
All-new headlights and a reworked front bumper help set coupé-cabrio apart from saloon models at the front.
Back beauty
Unlike other CCs, rear deck doesn’t protrude – yet boot is generous.
But even though the two-door has left behind its roots as a soft-top, it is keeping the original Convertible name, shunning a fancy CC-style title. Despite that, major changes to the design and specification mean the model is set to pose a serious threat to prestige rivals such as the Audi A4 and Volvo C70.
That's because the new arrangement provides the sun-seeking 3-Series with a big boost in refinement and desirability. The electrically operated three-piece lid is made out of lightweight steel, and the manufacturer claims that it delivers class-leading visibility and rigidity.
It takes 22 seconds to switch from coupé to cabrio, and the roof panels blend almost seamlessly into the distinctive bodywork. Elsewhere, unique headlamps and a revised bumper give the nose a noticeably different look to other 3-Series variants. Described by company bosses as an "undiluted re-interpretation" of the original Convertible, the car appears long and low, with a tall shoulder line that wraps the driver in the leather-trimmed interior.
The seat height has been reduced and the windscreen extended to improve visibility and make occupants feel even more secure. Some extremely clever technology has been added to the cabin, too. Top of the list is a new treatment for the leather seats - it reflects sunlight, and keeps the fabrics cool in the summer. There's also an electronically control
Under the bonnet, buyers will have a wide range of petrol and diesel engines to choose from. The 155mph flagship is fitted with the new 3.0-litre twin-turbo
Two non-turbo 3.0-litre models are badged 330i and 325i respectively, while entry-level cars will be powered by the 170bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine and titled 320i. There's one diesel, the 330d, which uses BMW's acclaimed 231bhp 3.0 motor. Delivering 500Nm of torque and capable of 152mph, this six-cylinder version is nearly as fast as the top petrol model, yet returns 40.9mpg.
Prices for the Convertible have still to be confirmed. However, it is expected to be around £2,000 more expensive than the 3-Series saloon, with entry-level cars costing from £25,000.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Joke of the Day
Drunk Driver
A drunk is driving through the city and his car is weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulls him over and asks, "Where have you been?"
"I've been to the pub," slurs the drunk.
"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few."
"I did alright," the drunk says with a smile.
"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"
"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."
A drunk is driving through the city and his car is weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulls him over and asks, "Where have you been?"
"I've been to the pub," slurs the drunk.
"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few."
"I did alright," the drunk says with a smile.
"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"
"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Schumacher goes out in style in Sao Paulo
| He didn’t win the title or even the race. Indeed he didn’t even make the podium. However, Michael Schumacher’s farewell drive in Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix illustrated the grit, skill and determination that has made him the greatest driver Formula One racing has ever seen. |
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| The odds were stacked against the Ferrari star from the outset after technical problems in qualifying at Interlagos left him only tenth on the grid. However, an excellent start saw him up to sixth place by the time the safety car intervened following Williams’ Nico Rosberg’s early accident. Soon after the race restarted, Schumacher dived down the inside of Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault to seize P4, but as he exited the Senna S he appeared to lose the back end of the car, the Italian promptly regaining the position. The cause of the slide quickly became clear - a left-rear puncture thought to have been caused by debris on the track. Schumacher limped back to the pits to take on fuel and fresh rubber, but when he rejoined he was running 19th - and last. However, he was immediately back up to speed, slamming in fastest sector times and slicing his way past backmarkers. His progress slowed somewhat when he once more found himself behind Fisichella in the closing stages, but the Renault driver was eventually forced into a mistake by Schumacher’s relentless pressure, running wide at Turn 1 and surrendering fifth place in the process. McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen - the man who will replace Schumacher at Ferrari - was the next target, and the Finn defended aggressively to maintain fourth place. It took a special move from Schumacher, the pair going side-by-side into Turn 1 just inches apart, with the seven-time champion ultimately emerging ahead. That left him chasing Jenson Button for a podium, but with just two laps remaining there simply wasn’t time to catch the Honda, despite Schumacher's penultimate lap being the fastest of the race, over half a second quicker than team mate Felipe Massa’s best. Schumacher’s competitive Formula One career may be over, but true to form, the great man entertained us to the last. Thank you Michael. |
Friday, October 20, 2006
UPDATE 1-Schumacher edges Alonso in free practice
Fri Oct 20, 2006 7:40 PM BST
By Alan Baldwin
SAO PAULO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Michael Schumacher completed the last Friday free practice session of his Formula One career by lapping quicker than Renault rival Fernando Alonso at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Schumacher, retiring after Sunday's race at the Interlagos circuit, was sixth fastest with a lap of one minute 13.713 seconds in the afternoon session despite a spin off on to the grass.
Alonso, who has a 10-point lead in the championship and need only finish eighth to seal his second successive title, was 10th on the timesheets after setting no time in the morning.
The 25-year-old Spaniard had a precautionary engine change before the start of the day's opening session but escaped a 10 place penalty on the starting grid because he had not yet used the one originally in his car.
Schumacher also sat out the opening session, with McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen fastest in front of largely empty stands on an overcast day, to save his engine for Saturday's qualifying and the race.
The 37-year-old Schumacher can win a record eighth championship only if he takes his 92nd career victory on Sunday and Alonso fails to score. Both have won seven races this year.
Austrian Alexander Wurz, the Williams test driver, was quickest overall in 1:12.547 seconds. Briton Anthony Davidson was second for Honda, as he had been in the morning, 0.106 seconds behind.
German teenager Sebastian Vettel, confirmed on Thursday as BMW Sauber's reserve driver for 2007, ended the day third fastest.
Raikkonen, Schumacher's successor at Ferrari next season, set the pace of 1.13.764 in the first session.
The Finn has been runner-up at Interlagos for the past three years and is chasing his Mercedes-powered team's first win of the season.
PS3 to launch with free online games
PEST to launch with free online games | |
| Sony has unveiled details of the PlayStation 3's (PEST) online service as it attempts to replicate the success of Microsoft Xbox Live. | |
The PlayStation Network will allow PEST owners to play other users online, chat, store images, download extras and browse the internet. The network will be free to play or chat on, but users must pay to download new games and other extras. The announcement was made ahead of the console's launch in Japan slated for 11 November. The PEST will be released in the United States on 17 November but Irish users will have to wait until March for its European release. Sony is launching the console a full year behind Microsoft's Xbox 360. The Pest's predecessor, the PlayStation 2, enjoyed considerable success globally selling 105 million units worldwide, including 550,000 in Ireland -- its highest per capita penetration. Microsoft has set the pace in online console gaming with its Xbox Live service, to which around 60 percent of Xbox 360 owners subscribe for a small annual fee. Online gaming was initially popular with PC users before being introduced to the console sector. Sony's PlayStation Network aims to build on the success of Xbox Live and online PC gaming by offering basic features free and incorporating a social networking element. The navigation system has a 'friends' area where users can see if friends are online and what games they want to play. This function also allows users to communicate through text-based messages. The revenue-earning aspect for Sony will be its online PlayStation store which allows users to buy downloadable games as well as movies and music. Downloadable games are expected to cost around USD15 each. Sony has also announced 21 titles that will be available for the PEST when it launches. The line up includes the usual wide mix of games from first-person shooting games to sports games. These will include new versions of some of the more successful games series available at the original launch of the console. These include Sonic the Hedgehog, Madden NFL 07 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Las Vegas. These games are expected to cost USD59.99. All but three of the titles are being produced by third party publishers, including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Activision and Namco Bandai. |
Thursday, October 19, 2006
21st Century - LESS & LESS
21-st Century... :
Our communication - Wireless
Our dress - Topless
Our telephone - Cordless
Our cooking - Fireless
Our youth - Jobless
Our food - Fatless
Our labour - Effortless
Our conduct - Worthless
Our relation - Loveless
Our attitude - Careless
Our feelings - Heartless
Our politics - Shameless
Our education - Valueless
Our follies - Countless
Our arguments - Baseless
Our boss - Brainless
Our Job - Thankless
Our Salary - Very less
Our Future - Hopeless!
Have a good day, with LESS problems!!!
-----This message has been scanned for viruses by BlackSpider MailControl-----
101 Ways to Annoy People
1. Sing the Batman theme incessantly.
2. In the memo field of all your checks, write 'for sensual massage.'
3. Specify that your drive-through order is 'to go.'
4. Learn Morse code, and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of 'Beeeep Bip Bip Beeeep Bip...'
5. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
6. Amuse yourself for endless hours by hooking a camcorder to your TV and then pointing it at the screen.
7. Speak only in a 'robot' voice.
8. Push all the flat Lego pieces together tightly.
9. Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will 'swipe your grub.'
10. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
11. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
12. Sniffle incessantly.
13. Leave your turn signal on for fifty miles.
14. Name your dog 'Dog.'
15. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions 'to keep them tuned up.'
16. Reply to everything someone says with 'that's what YOU think.'
17. Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your 'astronaut training.'
18. Declare your apartment an independent nation, and sue your neighbors upstairs for 'violating your airspace.'
19. Forget the punchline to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a 'real hoot.'
20. Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with a can of Lysol.
21. Practice making fax and modem noises.
22. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and 'cc:' them to your boss.
23. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
24. Invent nonsense computer jargon in conversations, and see if people play along to avoid the appearance of ignorance.
25. Erect an elaborate network of ropes in your backyard, and tell the neighbors you are a 'spider person.'
26. Finish all your sentences with the words 'in accordance with prophesy.'
27. Wear a special hip holster for your remote control.
28. Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you'll be saying more any moment.
29. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears.
30. Disassemble your pen and 'accidentally' flip the ink cartridge across the room.
31. Give a play-by-play account of a person's every action in a nasal Howard Cosell voice.
32. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
33. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you 'like it that way.'
34. Drum on every available surface.
35. Staple papers in the middle of the page.
36. Ask 1-800 operators for dates.
37. Produce a rental video consisting entirely of dire FBI copyright warnings.
38. Sew anti-theft detector strips into people's backpacks.
39. Hide dairy products in inaccessible places.
40. Write the surprise ending to a novel on its first page.
41. Set alarms for random times.
42. Order a side of pork rinds with your filet mignon.
43. Instead of Gallo, serve Night Train next Thanksgiving.
44. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a 'croaking' noise.
45. Honk and wave to strangers.
46. Dress only in clothes colored Hunter's
47. Change channels five minutes before the end of every show.
48. Tape pieces of 'Sweating to the Oldies' over climactic parts of rental movies.
49. Wear your pants backwards.
50. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints by the cash register.
51. Begin all your sentences with 'ooh la la!' 52. ONLY TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
53. only type in lowercase.
54. don't use any punctuation either 55. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
56. Pay for your dinner with pennies.
57. Tie jingle bells to all your clothes.
58. Repeat everything someone says, as a question.
59. Write 'X - BURIED TREASURE' in random spots on all of someone's roadmaps.
60. Inform everyone you meet of your personal Kennedy assassination/UFO/ O.J. Simpson conspiracy theories.
61. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times: 'Do you hear that?' 'What?' 'Never mind, it's gone now.'
62. Light road flares on a birthday cake.
63. Wander around a restaurant, asking other diners for their parsley.
64. Leave tips in Bolivian currency.
65. Demand that everyone address you as 'Conquistador.'
66. At the Laundromat, use one dryer for each of your socks.
67. When Christmas caroling, sing 'Jingle Bells, Batman smells' until physically restrained.
68. Wear a cape that says 'Magnificent One.'
69. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
70. Stand over someone's shoulder, mumbling, as they read.
71. Pretend your computer's mouse is a CB radio, and talk to it.
72. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce 'no, wait, I messed it up,' and repeat.
73. Drive half a block.
74. Inform others that they exist only in your imagination.
75. Ask people what gender they are.
76. Lick the filling out of all the Oreos, and place the cookie parts back in the tray.
77. Cultivate a Norwegian accent. If Norwegian, affect a Southern drawl.
78. Routinely handcuff yourself to furniture, informing the curious that you don't want to fall off 'in case the big one comes.'
79. Deliberately hum songs that will remain lodged in co-workers' brains, such as 'Feliz Navidad,' the Archies' 'Sugar' or the Mr.
Rogers theme song.
80. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
81. Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day.
82. Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.
83. Change your name to 'John Aaaaasmith' for the great glory of being first in the phone book. Claim it's a Hawaiian name, and demand that people pronounce each 'a.'
84. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
85. Chew on pens that you've borrowed.
86. Wear a LOT of cologne.
87. Listen to 33rpm records at 45rpm speed, and claim the faster speed is necessary because of your 'superior mental processing.'
88. Sing along at the opera.
89. Mow your lawn with scissors.
90. At a golf tournament, chant 'swing-batabatabata-suhWING-batter!' 91. Ask the waitress for an extra seat for your 'imaginary friend.'
92. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
93. Ask your co-workers mysterious questions, and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about 'psychological profiles.'
94. Stare at static on the TV and claim you can see a 'magic picture.'
95. Select the same song on the jukebox fifty times.
96. Never make eye contact.
97. Never break eye contact.
98. Construct elaborate 'crop circles' in your front lawn.
99. Construct your own pretend 'tricorder,' and 'scan' people with it, announcing the results.
100. Make appointments for the 31st of September.
101. Invite lots of people to other people's parties.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Google Announces Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Ever found yourself trading email attachments with several colleagues, trying to collaborate on a document, only to have someone chime in at the last moment with corrections to an outdated version? Or emailing yourself a document just so you can move it from one computer to another? What about trying to manage a large guest list -- say, for a wedding -- when you have updates coming at you from all different directions and at all different times of the day, with other people trying to make their own changes?
Today, at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Google launched a solution to these collaborative and document-management challenges. Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based word-processing and spreadsheet product that makes it easier for people to create, manage, and share documents and spreadsheets online. Google Docs & Spreadsheets integrates Writely and Google Spreadsheets into a single, easy-to-use product that takes an innovative approach to a very specific problem in the productivity-software space: enabling people to manage and collaborate on the documents and spreadsheets they rely on in their personal and professional lives, no matter where they are or when they need to access them.
With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google is taking a set of important tasks and offering an online solution to completing them individually or with a broader group. With a Google Account, a compatible web browser, and an Internet connection, users will now easily be able to:
Today, at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Google launched a solution to these collaborative and document-management challenges. Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based word-processing and spreadsheet product that makes it easier for people to create, manage, and share documents and spreadsheets online. Google Docs & Spreadsheets integrates Writely and Google Spreadsheets into a single, easy-to-use product that takes an innovative approach to a very specific problem in the productivity-software space: enabling people to manage and collaborate on the documents and spreadsheets they rely on in their personal and professional lives, no matter where they are or when they need to access them.
With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google is taking a set of important tasks and offering an online solution to completing them individually or with a broader group. With a Google Account, a compatible web browser, and an Internet connection, users will now easily be able to:
- Create documents and spreadsheets, and then manage and access them in a single, secure location
- Easily collaborate with others, online and in real time
- Export to and import from a wide variety of file formats
- Share them with others as view-only
- Publish them to a blog or as an HTML page
Simply put, Google Docs & Spreadsheets is focused on providing users with an innovative and efficient way to create and share information on the Web.
There are many products in the productivity-software space, addressing a broad range of user needs, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets is intended to both complement these existing solutions and introduce new ones, adding its collaboration and document-management features to the productivity options people already enjoy.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets is currently in beta, available for free, and open for sign-ups. To learn more about the product, visit http://docs.google.com.
Joke of the Day
Lottery
This guy runs home and bursts in yelling: "Pack your bags honey -- I just won the lottery!!"She says, "Oh, wonderful! Should I pack for the beach or for the mountains?"He replies, "I don't care... Just get the heck out!!"
This guy runs home and bursts in yelling: "Pack your bags honey -- I just won the lottery!!"She says, "Oh, wonderful! Should I pack for the beach or for the mountains?"He replies, "I don't care... Just get the heck out!!"
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Sony Ericsson W950i - Cooming Soon
The W950i Walkman® is a slim and stylish mobile phone with an advanced digital music player and large touchscreen for optimal ease of use. Using the W950i is easy. The keypad of the slim W950i is smooth and flush with the surface, and the dedicated music player keys and other controls have one-press-to-open functionality. You can also transfer hours of your favourite music from your PC to your phone quickly and easily. The W950i has an impressive 4GB of flash memory.
3G makes surfing the Web on the go a fast and satisfying experience. The Opera™ 8.0 Web browser gives you the internet browsing experience you’re used to and you have everywhere access to your favourite websites.
Specification
Features
Walkman® music player
4GB internal memory
Complete Walkman® music kit
Dimensions
106 x 54 x 15 mm
Battery Life
Talk time: 7.5 hrs
Standby time: 340 hrs
Weight
112g
Bandwidth
Bandwidth: 900 / 1800 / 1900
The Armenian Genocide: Context and Legacy
(The article below first appeared in Social Education: The Official Journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, February 1991.)
Between 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Muslim Turks, carried out a policy to eliminate its Christian Armenian minority. This genocide was preceded by a series of massacres in 1894-1896 and in 1909, and was followed by another series of massacres beginning in 1920. By 1922 Armenians had been eradicated from their historic homeland.
There are at least two ways of looking at the Armenian experience in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Some scholars regard the series of wholesale killings from the 1890s to the 1920s as evidence of a continuity in the deteriorating status of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. They maintain that, once initiated, the policy of exposing the Armenians to physical harm acquired its own momentum. Victimization escalated because it was not the countermanded by prevailing outside pressure or attenuated by internal improvement and reconciliation. They argue that the process of alienation was embedded in the inequalities of the Ottoman system of government and that the massacres prepared the Ottoman society for genocide.
Other scholars point out that the brutalization of disaffected elements by despotic regimes is a practice seen across the world. The repressive measures these governments use have the limited function of controlling social change and maintaining the system. In this frame of reference, genocide is viewed as a radical policy because it reaches for a profound alteration of the very nature of the state and society. These scholars emphasize the decisive character of the Armenian genocide and differentiate between the periodic exploitation and occasional terrorization of the Armenians and the finality of the deliberate policy to exterminate them and eliminate them from their homeland.
Like all empires, the Ottoman Empire was a multinational state. At one time it stretched from the gates of Vienna in the north to Mecca in the south., From the sixteenth century to its collapse following World War I, the Ottoman Empire included areas of historic Armenia. By the early part of the twentieth century, it was a much shrunken state confined mostly to the Middle East. Yet its rulers still governed over a heterogeneous society and maintained institutions that favored the Muslims, particularly those of Turkish background, and subordinated Christians and Jews as second-class citizens subject to a range of discriminatory laws and regulations imposed both by the state and its official religion, Islam.
The failure of the Ottoman system to prevent the further decline of the empire led to the overthrow of the government in 1908 by a group of reformists known as the Young Turks. Formally organized as the Committee of Union and Progress, the Young Turks decided to Turkify the multiethnic Ottoman society in order to preserve the Ottoman state from further disintegration and to obstruct the national aspirations of the various minorities. Resistance to this measure convinced them that the Christians, and especially the Armenians, could not be assimilated. When World War I broke out in 1914, the Young Turks saw it as an opportunity to rid the country of its Armenian population. They also envisioned the simultaneous conquest of an empire in the east, incorporating Turkish-speaking peoples in Iran, Russia, and Central Asia.
The defeat of the Ottomans in World War I and the discrediting of the Committee of Union and Progress led to the rise of the Turkish Nationalists. Their objective was to found a new and independent Turkish state. The Nationalists distanced themselves from the Ottoman government and rejected virtually all its policies, with the exception of the policy toward the Armenians.
This essay focuses on three aspects of the Armenian genocide that have broader applicability to any study of genocide: (1) distinction between massacres and genocide; (2) use of technology in facilitating mass murder; and (3) the legacy of genocide.
(1) Distinguishing between the Massacres and the Genocide
From 1894 to 1896, Sultan Abdul-Hamid II carried out a series of massacres of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The worst of the massacres occurred in 1895, resulting in the death of thousands of civilians (estimates run from 100,000 to 300,000) and leaving tens of thousands destitute. Most of those killed were men. In many towns, the central marketplace and other Armenian-owned businesses were destroyed, usually by conflagration. The killings were done during the day and were witnessed by the general public (Bliss1982, 476-481).
This kind of organized and systematic brutalization of the Armenian population pointed to the coordinating hand of the central authorities. Widespread violence erupted in towns and cities hundreds of miles apart over a matter of weeks in a country devoid of mass media. At a time when the sultan ruled absolutely, the evidence strongly implicated the head of state.
Intent of Massacres
The massacres were meant to undermine the growth of Armenian nationalism by frightening the Armenians with the terrible consequences of dissent. The furor of the state was directed at the behavior and the aspirations of the Armenians. The sultan was alarmed by the increasing activity of Armenian political groups and wanted to curb heir growth before they gained any more influence by spreading ideas about civil rights an autonomy. Abdul-Hamid took no account, however of the real variation in Armenian political outlook, which ranged from reformism and constitutionalism to separatism. He hoped to wipe away the Armenians' increasing sense of national awareness. He also continued to exclude the Armenians, as he did most of his other subjects, from having a role in their own government, whether individually or communally. The sultan, however did not contemplate depriving the Armenians of their existence as a people. Although there are similarities between Abdul-Hamid's policies and the measures taken by the Young Turks against the Armenians, there are also major distinctions.
The 1915 Measures
The measures implemented in 1915 affected the entire Armenian population, men, women, and children. They included massacres and deportations. As under the sultan, they targeted the able-bodied men for annihilation. The thousands of Armenian men conscripted into the Ottoman army were eliminated first. The rest of the adult population was then placed under arrest, taken out of town, and killed in remote locations.
The treatment of women was quite different. The bulk of women, children, and older men. Countless Armenian women lost their lives in transit. Before their tragic deaths, many suffered unspeakable cruelties, most often in the form of sexual abuse. Many girls and younger women were seized from their families and taken as slave-brides (Sanasarian1989, 449-461).
During the time of the sultan, Armenians were often given the choice of converting to Islam in order to save themselves from massacre. However, during the genocide years, this choice was usually not available. Few were given the opportunity to accept Islam as a way of avoiding deportations. Most Armenians were deported. Some lives were spared during deportation by random selection of involuntary conversion through abduction, enslavement, or the adoption of kidnapped and orphaned children.
The Cover of War
A second distinguishing feature of the genocide was the killing of the Armenians in places out of sight of the general population. The deportations made resistance or escape difficult. Most important, the removal of Armenians from their native towns was a necessary condition of maintaining as much secrecy about the genocide as possible. The Allies had warned the Ottoman government about taking arbitrary measures against the Christian minorities. The transfer of the Armenian population, therefore, was, in appearance, a more justifiable response in a time of war.
When the Ottomans entered World War I, they confined journalists to Istanbul, and since the main communications system, the telegraph, was under government control, news from the interior was censored (Sachar1969). Nonetheless, the deportations made news as soon as they occurred, but news of the massacres was delayed because they were done in desolate regions away from places of habitation. Basically, this provided cover for the ultimate objective of destroying the Armenian population. Inevitably the massacres followed the deportations.
State of Confiscation of Armenian Goods and Property
A third feature of the genocide was the state confiscation of Armenian goods and property. Apart from the killing, the massacres of 1895 and 1909 involved the looting and burning of Armenian neighborhoods and businesses. The objective was to strike at the financial strength of the Armenian community which controlled a significant part of the Ottoman commerce. In 1915 the objective of the Young Turks was to plunder and confiscate all Armenian means of sustenance, thereby increasing the probability of extinction.
Unlike the looting associated with the massacres under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, the assault against the Armenians in 1915 was marked by comparatively little property damage. Thus, the genocide effortlessly transferred the goods and assets — homes, farms, bank accounts, buildings, land, and personal wealth — of the Armenians to the Turks. Since the Young Turk Party controlled the government, the seizure of the property of the Armenians by the state placed local party chiefs in powerful positions as financial brokers. This measure escalated the incentive for government officials to proceed thoroughly with the deportation of the Armenians.
The Young Turks did not rely as much on mob violence as the sultan had. They implemented the genocide as another military operation during wartime. The agencies of government were put to use, and where they did not exist, they were created. The Young Turk Party functionaries issued the instructions. The army and local gendarmerie carried out the deportations. An agency was organized to impound the properties of the Armenians and to redistribute the goods. "Butcher battalions" of convicts released from prisons were organized into killer units. The Young Turks tapped into the full capacity of the state to organize operations against all 2 million Armenian inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, and did it swiftly and effectively (Bryce1916;Trumpener[1968] 1989, 200-270).
(2) The Use of Technology for Mass Killings
The Armenian genocide occurred at a time when the Ottoman Empire was undergoing a process of modernization. Apart from the new weapons of war, the telegraph and the railroad were being put to expanded use. Introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century, the networks of transport and communication reached the areas of heavy Armenian concentration by the early part of the twentieth century. Whereas the telephone system was largely confined to the capital city of Istanbul, telegraph lines extended throughout the empire. The rail system connected many of the largest towns in the Ottoman Empire, but it was less extensive than the rail networks in the European countries.
The Telegraph
Coordination of the massacres during the reign of Abdul-Hamid II, and of the deportations under the Young Turks, was made possible by the telegraph. Of all the instruments of the state government, the telegraph dramatically increased the power of key decision-makers over the rest of the population. The telegraph system allowed for the kind of centralization that heretofore was impossible.
During the 1895 massacres, the telegraph in the Ottoman Empire was a government service. It was managed by a separate ministry. Therefore, all the communicating during the massacres was done by the Ottoman government (Walker1980, 156-173). During the genocide of 1915, the telegraph was controlled by the Minister of Interior, Talat, who was in charge of the government agencies tat implemented the genocide. Talat began his government career as a telegrapher, and he had a telegraph machine installed in his office so that he could personally send messages across the Ottoman Empire. This gave Talat immediate connection, literally and technologically, with the enforcement of mass death. His ability to use the telegraph gave him unsurpassed access to subordinates and allowed him to circumvent other government officials and agencies in Istanbul. For the most part a telegram from Talat was sufficient authorization to proceed with the decimation of the Armenians (Dadrian1986, 326-328).
Modern states rely on their bureaucracies in order to handle the paperwork involved in carrying out a policy affecting vast portions of their population. The same applies to the policy of genocide. The more modernized the state, the greater the mountain of paper generated. If not destroyed, a monumental record is left behind. In the case of the Armenians, it might be said that their genocide was carried out not so much bureaucratically as much as telegraphically, thus minimizing the record keeping and leaving behind a great deal of confusion about the degree of individual responsibility.
The Trains
To expedite the transfer of Armenians living in proximity of the railways, orders were issued instructing regional authorities to transport Armenian deportees by train. Instructions were explicit to the point of ordering the Armenians to be packed to the maximum capacity in the cattle cars which were used for their transport (Sonyel1978, 8). The determination of the government to complete this task is demonstrated by the deportation of the Armenians in European Turkey who were ferried across the Sea of Marmara to Anatolia and then placed on trains for transport to Syria.
The removal of Armenians from Anatolia and historic Armenia was carried out mostly through forced caravan marches or by the use of trains. Although a large portion of the Armenians survived the horrific conditions of the packed cattle cars, they were not able to endure the Syrian desert where they were to die of hunger and thirst. In contrast, the majority of the Armenians in the caravans never reached the killing centers in the Syrian desert; many were murdered by raiding groups of bandits or died from exposure to the scorching days and cold nights. Most of those who were able to endure the "death marches" could not survive the starvation, exhaustion, or the epidemics that spread death in the concentration camps of the Syrian desert.
(3) Legacy of the Armenian Genocide
All too often the discussion of genocide centers on the numbers killed and fails to consider the wider implications of uprooting entire populations. Genocides are cataclysmic for those who survive because they carry the memory of suffering and the realization of the unmitigated disaster of genocide. Genocides often produce results and create conditions that make it impossible to recover anything tangible from the society that was destroyed, let alone permit the subsequent repair of that society. From this standpoint, it can be argued that the ultimate objective of genocide is a permanent alteration of the course of a people's history.
Losing a Heritage
In a single year, 1915, the Armenians were robbed of their 3000-year-old heritage. The desecration of churches, the burning of libraries, the ruination of towns and villages — all erased an ancient civilization. With the disappearance of the Armenians from their homeland, most of the symbols of their culture — schools, monasteries, artistic monuments, historical sites — were destroyed by the Ottoman government. The Armenians saved only that which formed part of their collective memory. Their language, their songs, their poetry, and now their tragic destiny remained as part of their culture.
The Scattering of a People
Beyond the terrible loss of life (1,500,000), and the severing of the connection between the Armenian people and their historic homeland, the Armenian genocide also resulted in the dispersion of the survivors. Disallowed from resettling in their former homes, as well as stateless and penniless, Armenians moved to any country that afforded refuge. Within a matter of a few decades Armenians were dispersed to every continent on the glove. The largest Armenian community is now found in the United States.
By the expulsion of the Armenians from those areas of the Ottoman Empire that eventually came to constitute the modern state of Turkey, the reconfiguration of Armenia took a paradoxical course. Whereas the genocide resulted in the death of Armenian society in the former Ottoman Empire, the flight of many Armenians across the border into Russian territory resulted in compressing part of the surviving Armenian population into the smaller section of historic Armenia ruled by the Russians. Out of that region was created the present country of Armenia, the smallest of the republics of the USSR.
The contrast on the two sides of that frontier spotlights the chilling record of genocide. Three and half million Armenians live in Soviet Armenia. Not an Armenian can be found on the Turkish side of the border.
The Absence of Justice and Protection in the Postwar Period
During the genocide, the leaders of the world were preoccupied with World War I. Some Armenians were rescued, some leaders decried what was happening, but the overall response was too little too late.
After the war, ample documentation of the genocide was made available and became the source of debate during postwar negotiations by the Allied Powers (Harbord 1920; Blair 1989). It was during these negotiations for a peace treaty that the Western leaders had an opportunity to develop humanitarian policies and strategies that could have protected the Armenians from further persecution. Instead of creating conditions for the prevention additional massacres, the Allies retreated to positions that only validated the success of ideological racialism. The failure at this juncture was catastrophic. Its consequences persist to this day.
With the defeat of their most important ally, Germany, the Ottomans signed an armistice, ending their fight with the Allies. The Committee of Union and Progress resigned from the government and in an effort to evade all culpability soon disbanded as a political organization. Although many of the Young Turk leaders, including Talat, had fled the country, the new Ottoman government in Istanbul tried them in absentia for organizing and carrying out the deportations and massacres. A verdict of guilty was handed down for virtually all of them, but the sentencing could not be carried out.
The Istanbul government was weak and was compromised by the fact that the capital was compromised by the fact that the capital was under Allied occupation. Soon it lost the competence to govern the provinces, and finally capitulated in 1922 to the forces of Nationalist Turks who had formed a separate government based in Ankara. As for the sentences of the court against the Young Turk leaders, they were annulled. The criminals went free (Dadrian 1989, 278-317).
The postwar Ottoman government's policies toward the Armenians were largely benign. They desisted from further direct victimization, but rendered no assistance to the surviving Armenians to ease recovery from the consequences of their dislocation. Many Armenians returned to their former homes only to find them stripped of all furnishings, wrecked, or inhabited by new occupants. Their return also created resentment and new tensions between the Armenians, filled with anger at their mistreatment, and the Turks, who, because of their own great losses during the war, believed they had a right to keep the former properties of the Armenians. In the absence of the Ottoman government's intervention to assist the Armenians, this new hostility contributed to increasing popular support for the Nationalist movement.
Rise of the Turkish Nationalists
The armistice signed between the Allies and the Ottomans did not result in the surrender of Turkish arms. On the contrary, it only encouraged the drive for Turkish independence from Allied interference. Organized in 1919 under the leadership of an army officer, named Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish Nationalist movement rejected the authority of the central government in Istanbul and sought to create an exclusively Turkish nation-state.
As the Kemalist armies brought more and more territory under their control, they also began to drive out the surviving remnants of the Armenian population. The Nationalist Turks did not resort to deportation as much as to measures designed to precipitate flight. In a number of towns with large concentrations of Armenian refugees, massacres again took a toll in the thousands. With the spread of news that the Nationalist forces were resorting to massacre, Armenians selected two courses of action. In a few places some decided to resist, only to be annihilated. Most chose to abandon their homes once again, and this time for good.
The massacres staged by the Nationalist forces so soon after the genocide underscored the extreme vulnerability of the Armenians. Allied troops stationed in the Middle East did not attempt to save lives. Even if the Turkish Nationalist forces could not have been stopped militarily, the failure to intervene signified the abandonment of the Armenians by the rest of the world.
Silence and Denial
For the Allies, their failure to protect the Armenians had been a major embarrassment, one worth forgetting. For the Turks, their secure resumption of sovereignty over Anatolia precluded any responsibility toward the Armenians in the form of reparations. All the preconditions were created for the cover-up of the Armenian genocide. The readiness of people on the whole to believe the position of legitimate governments meant that the suggestion that a genocide had occurred in the far reached of Asia Minor would be made the object of historical revisionism and, soon enough, complete denial.
For almost fifty years, the Armenians virtually vanished from the consciousness of the world. Russian Armenia was Sovietized and made inaccessible. Diaspora Armenians were resigned to their fate. The silence of the world and the denials of the Turkish government only added to their ordeals.
The insecurities of life in diaspora further undermined the confidence of Armenians in their ability to hang on to some form of national existence. Constant dispersion, the threat of complete assimilation, and the humiliation of such total defeat and degradation contributed to their insecurities.
The abuse of their memory by denial was probably the most agonizing of their many tribulations. Memory, after all, was the last stronghold of the Armenian identity. The violation of this "sacred memory," as all survivors of the genocidal devastation come to enshrine the experience of traumatic death, has reverberated through Armenian society (Smith 1989; Guroian 1988).
The persecution and later the abandonment of the Armenians left deep psychological scars among the survivors and their families. Sixty years after the genocide, a rage still simmered in the Armenian communities. Unexpectedly it exploded in a wave of terrorism. Clandestine Armenian groups, formed in the mid-1970s, sustained a campaign of political assassinations for a period of about ten years. They were responsible for killing at least two dozen Turkish diplomats.
Citing the Armenian genocide and Turkey's refusal to admit guilt as their justification, the terrorists were momentarily successful in obtaining publicity for their cause. They were unsuccessful in gaining broad-based support among Armenians or in wrenching any sort of admission from Turkey. Rather, the government of Turkey only increased the vehemence of it denial policy and embarked on a long-range plan to print and distribute a stream of publications questioning or disputing the occurrence of a genocide and distorting much of Armenian history (Falk 1988, 1-10).
Seeking International Understanding for the Armenian Cause
During these years of great turmoil other Armenians sought a more reasonable course for obtaining international understanding of their cause for remembrance. In the United States, commemorative resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate as recently as February 1990. These resolutions hoped to obtain formal U.S. acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. But, the intervening decades had seen a close alliance develop between the United States and Turkey. The State Department opposed passage of these resolutions. The Turkish government imposed sanctions on U.S. businesses and military installations in Turkey. In the final analysis the resolutions failed to muster the votes necessary for adoption.
Terrence Des Pres observed: "When modern states make way for geopolitical power plays, they are not above removing everything — nations, cultures, homelands — in their path. Great powers regularly demolish other peoples' claims to dignity and place, and sometimes, as we know, the outcome is genocide" (Des Pres 1986, 10-11). These words are important in establishing the context in which peoples, Armenians and others, seek congressional resolutions, and perform other commemorative acts. It is part of the continuing struggle to reclaim dignity. The reluctance of governments to recognize past crimes points to the basic lack of motivation in the international community to confront the consequences of genocide.
Conclusion
It is helpful to distinguish between the attitudes and policies of the Ottoman imperial government, the Young Turks, and the Nationalist movement. The Ottoman government, based on the principle of sectarian inequality, tapped into the forces of class antagonism and promoted the superiority of the dominant group over a disaffected minority. It made rudimentary use of technology in the implementation of its more lethal policies.
The Young Turks, based on proto-totalitarianism and chauvinism, justified their policies on ideological grounds. They marshaled the organizational and technological resources of the state to inflict death and trauma with sudden impact. When the Young Turks deported the Armenians from Anatolia and Armenia to Syria, the result was more than simply transferring part of the population from one area of the Ottoman Empire to another. The policy of exclusion placed Armenians outside the protection of the law. Yet, strangely, because they were still technically in the Ottoman Empire, there was the possibility of repatriation for the survivors given a change in government.
The Nationalists tapped the popular forces of Turkish society to fill the vacuum of power after World War I. Their policy vis-a-vis the Armenians was formulated on the basis of racial exclusivity. They made the decision that even the remaining Armenians were undesirable. Many unsuspecting Armenians returned home at the conclusion of the war in 1918. They had nowhere else to go. With the expulsion from Nationalist Turkey, an impenetrable political boundary finally descended between the Armenians and their former homes. The possibility of return was canceled.
Genocide contains the portents of the kind of destruction that can erase past and present. For the Armenian population of the former Ottoman Empire, it meant the loss of homeland and heritage, and a dispersion to the four corners of the earth. It also meant bearing the stigma of the statelessness.
At a time when global issues dominate the political agenda of most nations, the Armenian genocide underlines the grave risks of overlooking the problems of small peoples. We cannot ignore the cumulative effect of allowing state after state to resort to the brutal resolution of disagreements with their ethnic minorities. That the world chose to forget the Armenian genocide is also evidence of a serious defect in the system of nation-states which needs to be rectified. In this respect, the continued effort to cover up the Armenian genocide may hold the most important lesson of all. With the passage of time, memory fades. Because of a campaign of denial, distortion, and cover-up, the seeds of doubt are planted, and the meaning of the past is questioned and its lessons for the present are lost.
References
Bliss, Edwin M. Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities. 1896. Reprint. Fresno, Calif.: Meshag Publishers, 1982.
Bryce, Viscount. The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1916.
Dadrian, Vahakn N. "The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide." International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 3 (1896): 311-360.
_______________. "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and its Contemporary Legal Ramifications." Yale Journal of International Law 14, no. 2 (1989): 221-334.
Davis, Leslie A., Introduction by Susan K. Blair. The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, 1989.
Des Pres, Terrence. "Remembering Armenia." In The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1986.
Falk, Richard. Revolutionaries and Functionaries: The Dual Face of Terrorism.New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988.
Guroian, Vigen. "Post-Holocaust Political Morality: The Litmus of Bitburg and the Armenian Genocide Resolution." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 3, no. 3 (1988): 305-322.
Harbord, Maj. Gen. James G. Report on the American Military Mission in Armenia. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920.
Sachar, Howard M. The Emergence of the Middle East 1914-1924. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969.
Sanasarian, Eliz. "Gender Distinction in the Genocidal Process: A Preliminary Study of the Armenian Case." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4, no. 4 (1989): 449-461.
Smith, Roger W. "Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and its Implications." Armenian Review 42, no. 1 (1989): 1-38.
Sonyel, Salahi R. Displacement of the Armenians: Documents. Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 1978.
Trumpener, Ulrich. Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1968. Reprint. Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1989.
Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980.
Dr. Rouben Adalian is Director of the Armenian National Institute in Washington, DC.
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Copyright © 1998-2006 Armenian National Institute.
Between 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Muslim Turks, carried out a policy to eliminate its Christian Armenian minority. This genocide was preceded by a series of massacres in 1894-1896 and in 1909, and was followed by another series of massacres beginning in 1920. By 1922 Armenians had been eradicated from their historic homeland.
There are at least two ways of looking at the Armenian experience in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Some scholars regard the series of wholesale killings from the 1890s to the 1920s as evidence of a continuity in the deteriorating status of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. They maintain that, once initiated, the policy of exposing the Armenians to physical harm acquired its own momentum. Victimization escalated because it was not the countermanded by prevailing outside pressure or attenuated by internal improvement and reconciliation. They argue that the process of alienation was embedded in the inequalities of the Ottoman system of government and that the massacres prepared the Ottoman society for genocide.
Other scholars point out that the brutalization of disaffected elements by despotic regimes is a practice seen across the world. The repressive measures these governments use have the limited function of controlling social change and maintaining the system. In this frame of reference, genocide is viewed as a radical policy because it reaches for a profound alteration of the very nature of the state and society. These scholars emphasize the decisive character of the Armenian genocide and differentiate between the periodic exploitation and occasional terrorization of the Armenians and the finality of the deliberate policy to exterminate them and eliminate them from their homeland.
Like all empires, the Ottoman Empire was a multinational state. At one time it stretched from the gates of Vienna in the north to Mecca in the south., From the sixteenth century to its collapse following World War I, the Ottoman Empire included areas of historic Armenia. By the early part of the twentieth century, it was a much shrunken state confined mostly to the Middle East. Yet its rulers still governed over a heterogeneous society and maintained institutions that favored the Muslims, particularly those of Turkish background, and subordinated Christians and Jews as second-class citizens subject to a range of discriminatory laws and regulations imposed both by the state and its official religion, Islam.
The failure of the Ottoman system to prevent the further decline of the empire led to the overthrow of the government in 1908 by a group of reformists known as the Young Turks. Formally organized as the Committee of Union and Progress, the Young Turks decided to Turkify the multiethnic Ottoman society in order to preserve the Ottoman state from further disintegration and to obstruct the national aspirations of the various minorities. Resistance to this measure convinced them that the Christians, and especially the Armenians, could not be assimilated. When World War I broke out in 1914, the Young Turks saw it as an opportunity to rid the country of its Armenian population. They also envisioned the simultaneous conquest of an empire in the east, incorporating Turkish-speaking peoples in Iran, Russia, and Central Asia.
The defeat of the Ottomans in World War I and the discrediting of the Committee of Union and Progress led to the rise of the Turkish Nationalists. Their objective was to found a new and independent Turkish state. The Nationalists distanced themselves from the Ottoman government and rejected virtually all its policies, with the exception of the policy toward the Armenians.
This essay focuses on three aspects of the Armenian genocide that have broader applicability to any study of genocide: (1) distinction between massacres and genocide; (2) use of technology in facilitating mass murder; and (3) the legacy of genocide.
(1) Distinguishing between the Massacres and the Genocide
From 1894 to 1896, Sultan Abdul-Hamid II carried out a series of massacres of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The worst of the massacres occurred in 1895, resulting in the death of thousands of civilians (estimates run from 100,000 to 300,000) and leaving tens of thousands destitute. Most of those killed were men. In many towns, the central marketplace and other Armenian-owned businesses were destroyed, usually by conflagration. The killings were done during the day and were witnessed by the general public (Bliss1982, 476-481).
This kind of organized and systematic brutalization of the Armenian population pointed to the coordinating hand of the central authorities. Widespread violence erupted in towns and cities hundreds of miles apart over a matter of weeks in a country devoid of mass media. At a time when the sultan ruled absolutely, the evidence strongly implicated the head of state.
Intent of Massacres
The massacres were meant to undermine the growth of Armenian nationalism by frightening the Armenians with the terrible consequences of dissent. The furor of the state was directed at the behavior and the aspirations of the Armenians. The sultan was alarmed by the increasing activity of Armenian political groups and wanted to curb heir growth before they gained any more influence by spreading ideas about civil rights an autonomy. Abdul-Hamid took no account, however of the real variation in Armenian political outlook, which ranged from reformism and constitutionalism to separatism. He hoped to wipe away the Armenians' increasing sense of national awareness. He also continued to exclude the Armenians, as he did most of his other subjects, from having a role in their own government, whether individually or communally. The sultan, however did not contemplate depriving the Armenians of their existence as a people. Although there are similarities between Abdul-Hamid's policies and the measures taken by the Young Turks against the Armenians, there are also major distinctions.
The 1915 Measures
The measures implemented in 1915 affected the entire Armenian population, men, women, and children. They included massacres and deportations. As under the sultan, they targeted the able-bodied men for annihilation. The thousands of Armenian men conscripted into the Ottoman army were eliminated first. The rest of the adult population was then placed under arrest, taken out of town, and killed in remote locations.
The treatment of women was quite different. The bulk of women, children, and older men. Countless Armenian women lost their lives in transit. Before their tragic deaths, many suffered unspeakable cruelties, most often in the form of sexual abuse. Many girls and younger women were seized from their families and taken as slave-brides (Sanasarian1989, 449-461).
During the time of the sultan, Armenians were often given the choice of converting to Islam in order to save themselves from massacre. However, during the genocide years, this choice was usually not available. Few were given the opportunity to accept Islam as a way of avoiding deportations. Most Armenians were deported. Some lives were spared during deportation by random selection of involuntary conversion through abduction, enslavement, or the adoption of kidnapped and orphaned children.
When the Ottomans entered World War I, they confined journalists to Istanbul, and since the main communications system, the telegraph, was under government control, news from the interior was censored (Sachar1969). Nonetheless, the deportations made news as soon as they occurred, but news of the massacres was delayed because they were done in desolate regions away from places of habitation. Basically, this provided cover for the ultimate objective of destroying the Armenian population. Inevitably the massacres followed the deportations.
Unlike the looting associated with the massacres under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, the assault against the Armenians in 1915 was marked by comparatively little property damage. Thus, the genocide effortlessly transferred the goods and assets — homes, farms, bank accounts, buildings, land, and personal wealth — of the Armenians to the Turks. Since the Young Turk Party controlled the government, the seizure of the property of the Armenians by the state placed local party chiefs in powerful positions as financial brokers. This measure escalated the incentive for government officials to proceed thoroughly with the deportation of the Armenians.
The Young Turks did not rely as much on mob violence as the sultan had. They implemented the genocide as another military operation during wartime. The agencies of government were put to use, and where they did not exist, they were created. The Young Turk Party functionaries issued the instructions. The army and local gendarmerie carried out the deportations. An agency was organized to impound the properties of the Armenians and to redistribute the goods. "Butcher battalions" of convicts released from prisons were organized into killer units. The Young Turks tapped into the full capacity of the state to organize operations against all 2 million Armenian inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, and did it swiftly and effectively (Bryce1916;Trumpener[1968] 1989, 200-270).
During the 1895 massacres, the telegraph in the Ottoman Empire was a government service. It was managed by a separate ministry. Therefore, all the communicating during the massacres was done by the Ottoman government (Walker1980, 156-173). During the genocide of 1915, the telegraph was controlled by the Minister of Interior, Talat, who was in charge of the government agencies tat implemented the genocide. Talat began his government career as a telegrapher, and he had a telegraph machine installed in his office so that he could personally send messages across the Ottoman Empire. This gave Talat immediate connection, literally and technologically, with the enforcement of mass death. His ability to use the telegraph gave him unsurpassed access to subordinates and allowed him to circumvent other government officials and agencies in Istanbul. For the most part a telegram from Talat was sufficient authorization to proceed with the decimation of the Armenians (Dadrian1986, 326-328).
Modern states rely on their bureaucracies in order to handle the paperwork involved in carrying out a policy affecting vast portions of their population. The same applies to the policy of genocide. The more modernized the state, the greater the mountain of paper generated. If not destroyed, a monumental record is left behind. In the case of the Armenians, it might be said that their genocide was carried out not so much bureaucratically as much as telegraphically, thus minimizing the record keeping and leaving behind a great deal of confusion about the degree of individual responsibility.
The removal of Armenians from Anatolia and historic Armenia was carried out mostly through forced caravan marches or by the use of trains. Although a large portion of the Armenians survived the horrific conditions of the packed cattle cars, they were not able to endure the Syrian desert where they were to die of hunger and thirst. In contrast, the majority of the Armenians in the caravans never reached the killing centers in the Syrian desert; many were murdered by raiding groups of bandits or died from exposure to the scorching days and cold nights. Most of those who were able to endure the "death marches" could not survive the starvation, exhaustion, or the epidemics that spread death in the concentration camps of the Syrian desert.
All too often the discussion of genocide centers on the numbers killed and fails to consider the wider implications of uprooting entire populations. Genocides are cataclysmic for those who survive because they carry the memory of suffering and the realization of the unmitigated disaster of genocide. Genocides often produce results and create conditions that make it impossible to recover anything tangible from the society that was destroyed, let alone permit the subsequent repair of that society. From this standpoint, it can be argued that the ultimate objective of genocide is a permanent alteration of the course of a people's history.
Losing a Heritage
In a single year, 1915, the Armenians were robbed of their 3000-year-old heritage. The desecration of churches, the burning of libraries, the ruination of towns and villages — all erased an ancient civilization. With the disappearance of the Armenians from their homeland, most of the symbols of their culture — schools, monasteries, artistic monuments, historical sites — were destroyed by the Ottoman government. The Armenians saved only that which formed part of their collective memory. Their language, their songs, their poetry, and now their tragic destiny remained as part of their culture.
The Scattering of a People
Beyond the terrible loss of life (1,500,000), and the severing of the connection between the Armenian people and their historic homeland, the Armenian genocide also resulted in the dispersion of the survivors. Disallowed from resettling in their former homes, as well as stateless and penniless, Armenians moved to any country that afforded refuge. Within a matter of a few decades Armenians were dispersed to every continent on the glove. The largest Armenian community is now found in the United States.
By the expulsion of the Armenians from those areas of the Ottoman Empire that eventually came to constitute the modern state of Turkey, the reconfiguration of Armenia took a paradoxical course. Whereas the genocide resulted in the death of Armenian society in the former Ottoman Empire, the flight of many Armenians across the border into Russian territory resulted in compressing part of the surviving Armenian population into the smaller section of historic Armenia ruled by the Russians. Out of that region was created the present country of Armenia, the smallest of the republics of the USSR.
The contrast on the two sides of that frontier spotlights the chilling record of genocide. Three and half million Armenians live in Soviet Armenia. Not an Armenian can be found on the Turkish side of the border.
The Absence of Justice and Protection in the Postwar Period
During the genocide, the leaders of the world were preoccupied with World War I. Some Armenians were rescued, some leaders decried what was happening, but the overall response was too little too late.
After the war, ample documentation of the genocide was made available and became the source of debate during postwar negotiations by the Allied Powers (Harbord 1920; Blair 1989). It was during these negotiations for a peace treaty that the Western leaders had an opportunity to develop humanitarian policies and strategies that could have protected the Armenians from further persecution. Instead of creating conditions for the prevention additional massacres, the Allies retreated to positions that only validated the success of ideological racialism. The failure at this juncture was catastrophic. Its consequences persist to this day.
With the defeat of their most important ally, Germany, the Ottomans signed an armistice, ending their fight with the Allies. The Committee of Union and Progress resigned from the government and in an effort to evade all culpability soon disbanded as a political organization. Although many of the Young Turk leaders, including Talat, had fled the country, the new Ottoman government in Istanbul tried them in absentia for organizing and carrying out the deportations and massacres. A verdict of guilty was handed down for virtually all of them, but the sentencing could not be carried out.
The Istanbul government was weak and was compromised by the fact that the capital was compromised by the fact that the capital was under Allied occupation. Soon it lost the competence to govern the provinces, and finally capitulated in 1922 to the forces of Nationalist Turks who had formed a separate government based in Ankara. As for the sentences of the court against the Young Turk leaders, they were annulled. The criminals went free (Dadrian 1989, 278-317).
The postwar Ottoman government's policies toward the Armenians were largely benign. They desisted from further direct victimization, but rendered no assistance to the surviving Armenians to ease recovery from the consequences of their dislocation. Many Armenians returned to their former homes only to find them stripped of all furnishings, wrecked, or inhabited by new occupants. Their return also created resentment and new tensions between the Armenians, filled with anger at their mistreatment, and the Turks, who, because of their own great losses during the war, believed they had a right to keep the former properties of the Armenians. In the absence of the Ottoman government's intervention to assist the Armenians, this new hostility contributed to increasing popular support for the Nationalist movement.
The armistice signed between the Allies and the Ottomans did not result in the surrender of Turkish arms. On the contrary, it only encouraged the drive for Turkish independence from Allied interference. Organized in 1919 under the leadership of an army officer, named Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish Nationalist movement rejected the authority of the central government in Istanbul and sought to create an exclusively Turkish nation-state.
As the Kemalist armies brought more and more territory under their control, they also began to drive out the surviving remnants of the Armenian population. The Nationalist Turks did not resort to deportation as much as to measures designed to precipitate flight. In a number of towns with large concentrations of Armenian refugees, massacres again took a toll in the thousands. With the spread of news that the Nationalist forces were resorting to massacre, Armenians selected two courses of action. In a few places some decided to resist, only to be annihilated. Most chose to abandon their homes once again, and this time for good.
The massacres staged by the Nationalist forces so soon after the genocide underscored the extreme vulnerability of the Armenians. Allied troops stationed in the Middle East did not attempt to save lives. Even if the Turkish Nationalist forces could not have been stopped militarily, the failure to intervene signified the abandonment of the Armenians by the rest of the world.
Silence and Denial
For the Allies, their failure to protect the Armenians had been a major embarrassment, one worth forgetting. For the Turks, their secure resumption of sovereignty over Anatolia precluded any responsibility toward the Armenians in the form of reparations. All the preconditions were created for the cover-up of the Armenian genocide. The readiness of people on the whole to believe the position of legitimate governments meant that the suggestion that a genocide had occurred in the far reached of Asia Minor would be made the object of historical revisionism and, soon enough, complete denial.
For almost fifty years, the Armenians virtually vanished from the consciousness of the world. Russian Armenia was Sovietized and made inaccessible. Diaspora Armenians were resigned to their fate. The silence of the world and the denials of the Turkish government only added to their ordeals.
The insecurities of life in diaspora further undermined the confidence of Armenians in their ability to hang on to some form of national existence. Constant dispersion, the threat of complete assimilation, and the humiliation of such total defeat and degradation contributed to their insecurities.
The abuse of their memory by denial was probably the most agonizing of their many tribulations. Memory, after all, was the last stronghold of the Armenian identity. The violation of this "sacred memory," as all survivors of the genocidal devastation come to enshrine the experience of traumatic death, has reverberated through Armenian society (Smith 1989; Guroian 1988).
The persecution and later the abandonment of the Armenians left deep psychological scars among the survivors and their families. Sixty years after the genocide, a rage still simmered in the Armenian communities. Unexpectedly it exploded in a wave of terrorism. Clandestine Armenian groups, formed in the mid-1970s, sustained a campaign of political assassinations for a period of about ten years. They were responsible for killing at least two dozen Turkish diplomats.
Citing the Armenian genocide and Turkey's refusal to admit guilt as their justification, the terrorists were momentarily successful in obtaining publicity for their cause. They were unsuccessful in gaining broad-based support among Armenians or in wrenching any sort of admission from Turkey. Rather, the government of Turkey only increased the vehemence of it denial policy and embarked on a long-range plan to print and distribute a stream of publications questioning or disputing the occurrence of a genocide and distorting much of Armenian history (Falk 1988, 1-10).
Seeking International Understanding for the Armenian Cause
During these years of great turmoil other Armenians sought a more reasonable course for obtaining international understanding of their cause for remembrance. In the United States, commemorative resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate as recently as February 1990. These resolutions hoped to obtain formal U.S. acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. But, the intervening decades had seen a close alliance develop between the United States and Turkey. The State Department opposed passage of these resolutions. The Turkish government imposed sanctions on U.S. businesses and military installations in Turkey. In the final analysis the resolutions failed to muster the votes necessary for adoption.
Terrence Des Pres observed: "When modern states make way for geopolitical power plays, they are not above removing everything — nations, cultures, homelands — in their path. Great powers regularly demolish other peoples' claims to dignity and place, and sometimes, as we know, the outcome is genocide" (Des Pres 1986, 10-11). These words are important in establishing the context in which peoples, Armenians and others, seek congressional resolutions, and perform other commemorative acts. It is part of the continuing struggle to reclaim dignity. The reluctance of governments to recognize past crimes points to the basic lack of motivation in the international community to confront the consequences of genocide.
Conclusion
It is helpful to distinguish between the attitudes and policies of the Ottoman imperial government, the Young Turks, and the Nationalist movement. The Ottoman government, based on the principle of sectarian inequality, tapped into the forces of class antagonism and promoted the superiority of the dominant group over a disaffected minority. It made rudimentary use of technology in the implementation of its more lethal policies.
The Young Turks, based on proto-totalitarianism and chauvinism, justified their policies on ideological grounds. They marshaled the organizational and technological resources of the state to inflict death and trauma with sudden impact. When the Young Turks deported the Armenians from Anatolia and Armenia to Syria, the result was more than simply transferring part of the population from one area of the Ottoman Empire to another. The policy of exclusion placed Armenians outside the protection of the law. Yet, strangely, because they were still technically in the Ottoman Empire, there was the possibility of repatriation for the survivors given a change in government.
The Nationalists tapped the popular forces of Turkish society to fill the vacuum of power after World War I. Their policy vis-a-vis the Armenians was formulated on the basis of racial exclusivity. They made the decision that even the remaining Armenians were undesirable. Many unsuspecting Armenians returned home at the conclusion of the war in 1918. They had nowhere else to go. With the expulsion from Nationalist Turkey, an impenetrable political boundary finally descended between the Armenians and their former homes. The possibility of return was canceled.
Genocide contains the portents of the kind of destruction that can erase past and present. For the Armenian population of the former Ottoman Empire, it meant the loss of homeland and heritage, and a dispersion to the four corners of the earth. It also meant bearing the stigma of the statelessness.
At a time when global issues dominate the political agenda of most nations, the Armenian genocide underlines the grave risks of overlooking the problems of small peoples. We cannot ignore the cumulative effect of allowing state after state to resort to the brutal resolution of disagreements with their ethnic minorities. That the world chose to forget the Armenian genocide is also evidence of a serious defect in the system of nation-states which needs to be rectified. In this respect, the continued effort to cover up the Armenian genocide may hold the most important lesson of all. With the passage of time, memory fades. Because of a campaign of denial, distortion, and cover-up, the seeds of doubt are planted, and the meaning of the past is questioned and its lessons for the present are lost.
References
Bliss, Edwin M. Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities. 1896. Reprint. Fresno, Calif.: Meshag Publishers, 1982.
Bryce, Viscount. The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1916.
Dadrian, Vahakn N. "The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide." International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 3 (1896): 311-360.
_______________. "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and its Contemporary Legal Ramifications." Yale Journal of International Law 14, no. 2 (1989): 221-334.
Davis, Leslie A., Introduction by Susan K. Blair. The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, 1989.
Des Pres, Terrence. "Remembering Armenia." In The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1986.
Falk, Richard. Revolutionaries and Functionaries: The Dual Face of Terrorism.New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988.
Guroian, Vigen. "Post-Holocaust Political Morality: The Litmus of Bitburg and the Armenian Genocide Resolution." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 3, no. 3 (1988): 305-322.
Harbord, Maj. Gen. James G. Report on the American Military Mission in Armenia. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920.
Sachar, Howard M. The Emergence of the Middle East 1914-1924. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969.
Sanasarian, Eliz. "Gender Distinction in the Genocidal Process: A Preliminary Study of the Armenian Case." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4, no. 4 (1989): 449-461.
Smith, Roger W. "Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case and its Implications." Armenian Review 42, no. 1 (1989): 1-38.
Sonyel, Salahi R. Displacement of the Armenians: Documents. Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 1978.
Trumpener, Ulrich. Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1968. Reprint. Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1989.
Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980.
Dr. Rouben Adalian is Director of the Armenian National Institute in Washington, DC.
Armenian National Institute1518 K Street, NW Suite MWashington, DC 20005
tel: (202) 383-9009
fax: (202) 383-9012
e-mail: ani@agmm.org
Copyright © 1998-2006 Armenian National Institute.
Joke of the Day
The Best Pub
A Scottish man, an Englishman and an Irishman are sitting in a pub discussing the best pubs around. The Englishman says, "There's a pub in the West Midlands where the landlord buys you a drink for every one that you buy."The Scot is not impressed and says, "That's nothing! In the Highlands, every time you buy a drink, the landlord buys you five."At this point, the Englishman is fairly impressed. The Irishman, totally unimpressed, says, "That's nothing. In Dublin, there's this pub where the landlord buys your drinks all night, and then when the bar shuts, he takes you into a room and makes love to you."The Scot and Englishman are well impressed and ask if the Irishman goes there a lot.He replies, "No, but my sister told me about it."
A Scottish man, an Englishman and an Irishman are sitting in a pub discussing the best pubs around. The Englishman says, "There's a pub in the West Midlands where the landlord buys you a drink for every one that you buy."The Scot is not impressed and says, "That's nothing! In the Highlands, every time you buy a drink, the landlord buys you five."At this point, the Englishman is fairly impressed. The Irishman, totally unimpressed, says, "That's nothing. In Dublin, there's this pub where the landlord buys your drinks all night, and then when the bar shuts, he takes you into a room and makes love to you."The Scot and Englishman are well impressed and ask if the Irishman goes there a lot.He replies, "No, but my sister told me about it."
DELIVER US FROM EVIL
The true story of the most notorious pedophile priest in the modern history of the Catholic Church.
Winner - Best Documentary Feature - 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival
Nominee - 2006 IDA Distinguished Feature Documentary Award
DELIVER US FROM EVIL is the story of Father Oliver O'Grady, the most notorious pedophile in the history of the modern Catholic Church. Completely lacking in moral fiber and devoid of any sense of shame or guilty, O'Grady used his charm and authority to violate dozens of faithful catholic families across Northern California for more than two decades. His victims ranged from nine month-old infants to the middle-aged mother of another adolescent victim. Despite early warning signs and complaints from several parishes, the church, in an elaborate shell game designed to avoid liability and deflect criticism. lied to parishioners and local law enforcement, while continuing to move O'Grady from parish to parish.
FOR SOME THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS SALVATION
Over the years, O'Grady successfully exploited mothers and fathers in order to get their children. His penchant for sexual mayhem was a essential to him as breathing, and internal Church documents prove that since 1973, he raped and sodomized with the full knowledge of his Catholic superiors.
Remarkably, DELIVER US FROM EVIL filmmaker Amy Berg tracked down Father O'Grady and persuaded him to participate in the making of her film. O'Grady's account of his years in various Northern California parishes is chilling and he tells his story without remorse or self-reflection. Also included in the film is never-before-seen footage of the deposition of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney and his former second-in-command, Monsignor Cain. She also interviews canon lawyer and medieval historian Fr. Thomas Doyle, former priest, lawyers and the abuse survivors themselves.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
ASCEND - A Division of AIRCLAIMS
The aerospace industry depends on AscendAround the world, airlines, airports, financiers and suppliers rely on Ascend to help them make informed decisions, capture new opportunities and drive their businesses forward.
Over four decades, we’ve built a stellar reputation for the most reliable, quality, timely information and insights available anywhere. And we’ve only just started.
WHAT WE DO:
AVIATION FLEET INFORMATION
Ascend delivers instant, accurate and reliable solutions for all your fleet information needs. From competitive analysis to strategic business planning, we meet your requirements with the most respected, comprehensive range of aviation data and market insight available anywhere.
Aviation Fleet Information from Ascend:
Essential insights for identifying and exploiting market opportunities
Reliable, accessible data for business plans, proposals and market research
Find out more >
VALUATIONS & APPRAISALS
Around the globe, Ascend is trusted to deliver valuation and appraisal services of the very highest standard. Over 40 years we’ve built solid relationships across the industry and a global reputation for delivering reliable, accurate aircraft market values. Ascend offers six levels of asset valuation and appraisal from:
Generic half-life valuation (Level VI) to
Full pre-purchase inspection and valuation (Level I).
Find out more >
ASSET MANAGEMENT & MONITORING
Ascend provides, administers and supports all technical needs throughout the lifecycle of an aircraft. Our team of highly qualified appraisers ensure that clients fully understand the value of their assets to make sound financial decisions.
Ascend delivers:
Operator assessments and audits
Aircraft inspections
Technical audits
Lease / transactional support
Find out more >
MARKET ANALYSIS
Aviation today is a volatile global market where traditional practices and business models are scrutinised more intensely than ever.
Ascend’s bespoke consultancy services assist clients to evaluate the risks and opportunities they face across the full spectrum of the air transport industry. Our internationally trained analysts bring together global forecasting expertise and in-depth business knowledge to conduct robust market forecasting for even the most complex projects.
Due-diligence processes and financial market analysis
Cutting-edge forecasts and market analysis reports
New product assessment
Cost-benefit analysis
Industry trend analysis
Find out more >
AIRPORT ECONOMICS
The airport business is changing rapidly. Worldwide, airports are spending heavily to meet the anticipated doubling of passenger traffic over the next 15 years. Increasingly, airport investment is being sought from private capital sources.
Ascend offers extensive, experience-backed services to airport operators, investors and suppliers alike, including airport market and forecast studies underpinning major new developments and privatisation projects.
Airport demand forecasts
Busy-day analysis
Airport privatisation
Route development
Capacity and traffic analysis
Environmental impact studies
Recent projects include:
Japanese, Eastern-European and Italian airport privatisations
Mumbai and Delhi Airports’ traffic forecasting
Find out more >
SPACE ANALYTICS
For over 25 years, Ascend has provided independent, accurate information and analysis to the world’s major space programmes and finance and insurance markets.
Financial investment in space can be high risk. Ascend provides the very latest information for thorough analysis and risk assessment. As a testament to the value of our work, Ascend’s independent information is quoted in the wording definitions of many insurance policies.
Ascend delivers:
Risk analysis
Demand forecasting
Market analysis
Find out more >
Over four decades, we’ve built a stellar reputation for the most reliable, quality, timely information and insights available anywhere. And we’ve only just started.
WHAT WE DO:
AVIATION FLEET INFORMATION
Ascend delivers instant, accurate and reliable solutions for all your fleet information needs. From competitive analysis to strategic business planning, we meet your requirements with the most respected, comprehensive range of aviation data and market insight available anywhere.
Aviation Fleet Information from Ascend:
Essential insights for identifying and exploiting market opportunities
Reliable, accessible data for business plans, proposals and market research
Find out more >
VALUATIONS & APPRAISALS
Around the globe, Ascend is trusted to deliver valuation and appraisal services of the very highest standard. Over 40 years we’ve built solid relationships across the industry and a global reputation for delivering reliable, accurate aircraft market values. Ascend offers six levels of asset valuation and appraisal from:
Generic half-life valuation (Level VI) to
Full pre-purchase inspection and valuation (Level I).
Find out more >
ASSET MANAGEMENT & MONITORING
Ascend provides, administers and supports all technical needs throughout the lifecycle of an aircraft. Our team of highly qualified appraisers ensure that clients fully understand the value of their assets to make sound financial decisions.
Ascend delivers:
Operator assessments and audits
Aircraft inspections
Technical audits
Lease / transactional support
Find out more >
MARKET ANALYSIS
Aviation today is a volatile global market where traditional practices and business models are scrutinised more intensely than ever.
Ascend’s bespoke consultancy services assist clients to evaluate the risks and opportunities they face across the full spectrum of the air transport industry. Our internationally trained analysts bring together global forecasting expertise and in-depth business knowledge to conduct robust market forecasting for even the most complex projects.
Due-diligence processes and financial market analysis
Cutting-edge forecasts and market analysis reports
New product assessment
Cost-benefit analysis
Industry trend analysis
Find out more >
AIRPORT ECONOMICS
The airport business is changing rapidly. Worldwide, airports are spending heavily to meet the anticipated doubling of passenger traffic over the next 15 years. Increasingly, airport investment is being sought from private capital sources.
Ascend offers extensive, experience-backed services to airport operators, investors and suppliers alike, including airport market and forecast studies underpinning major new developments and privatisation projects.
Airport demand forecasts
Busy-day analysis
Airport privatisation
Route development
Capacity and traffic analysis
Environmental impact studies
Recent projects include:
Japanese, Eastern-European and Italian airport privatisations
Mumbai and Delhi Airports’ traffic forecasting
Find out more >
SPACE ANALYTICS
For over 25 years, Ascend has provided independent, accurate information and analysis to the world’s major space programmes and finance and insurance markets.
Financial investment in space can be high risk. Ascend provides the very latest information for thorough analysis and risk assessment. As a testament to the value of our work, Ascend’s independent information is quoted in the wording definitions of many insurance policies.
Ascend delivers:
Risk analysis
Demand forecasting
Market analysis
Find out more >
Marketing your business
You're now raring to go with your business! Here we share tips on how to give yourself the best chance of winning customers.
Planning
Planning is key. Planning research into your customers, competitors' products and price and working out a marketing and advertising strategy is essential before you even sell your first widget. Once all that's done, you can plan your launch. Remember, though, great marketing will never hide a bad product.
Market research
Market research is much more than just looking at what else is around in a given market. It can reveal where you have been too optimistic, it can tell you where you need to change direction and it can give you the edge in a competitive world.
Key points about market research:
Product, promotion, price and position
Know your market. What's your product, who else makes it, what do they provide, how big is it, how are you going to be different?
Know your customers. Who'll buy your product or service, what are their ages/profiles/interests/buying habits, and so on. How will you tell them about it?
Price. Will you be able to provide your product or service at a price that you can afford and the customer is willing to pay.
Location. Where are you going to sell your product or service. In a shop, if so where, from a factory, on the internet. What do competitors do?
You might feel you can do all this yourself, but if not then you hire people. A good starting point is The Market Research Society or Business Link. Doing a SWOT analysis is a good idea too, which is taking an honest look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This will help you to steer your marketing and also point out where you need expert advice and help.
Also your image needs to be carefully thought out. Anything from stationery style to your logo will have an effect on the perception people have of your product. That's why so many big companies, such as Abbey National, change their look and possibly their name.
Marketing
You've done the research, now you want to market your company and its wares. How will you target your customers, and how much money are you going to spend doing so.
Depending on your business these are some of the main ways to market yourself.
Word of mouth. Happy customers are happy to recommend you, and it's free.
Mail shots. Quite expensive on paper and postage, and consider three per cent successful sales a bonus. However, it does work, so long as you've carefully thought who to send the blurb to. Your own website. This is now very cheap and easy to do and gives you a presence on the internet, and it's one more weapon in your marketing armoury.
Press releases: A well-written press release can get free coverage in newspapers, TV and radio and can tell millions of potential customers about your product or service.
Free give-aways. Either as samples, or competition prizes. Again this gets you mentioned and noticed.
Be a media expert in your field. Local radio stations and papers are hungry to fill their airtime and pages. If you have an expertise, offer yourself as a pundit to the local media.
Points 3, 4 and 5 can be done for you by a PR agency. There are many small, inexpensive ones around that won't cost you that much. It's worth considering using their expertise if you can afford it.
Advertising
Marketing can involve getting publicity for free, but the only guaranteed way of someone shouting about you is to pay for it. Advertising is a multi-billion pound business in the UK and big companies wouldn't spend millions on it if it didn't work. But you have to get it right. Here are some pointers:
What's your budget? There's no use spending so much on advertising that you go bust. You must be able to afford it, and as your business grows you can spend more if you want to.
Which medium? Radio is cheaper than TV, local papers can be very cheap indeed. Which will hit your target audience in the most effective way. It's very important to know the readership/listenership/viewer of the media you wish to advertise in. There would be little point advertising your stairlift product on a radio station playing garage music to 15 year olds. Also don't forget business directories, such as Yellow Pages.
Who'll make your advert? Will you write it yourself and pay the paper directly, or will you hire an agency? If so, shop around, find out what other ads the agency makes and ensure it fits your business style.
Little and often and not one big bang! A one-off ad, however good, will soon be forgotten as others come along. You need to market and advertise regularly to win new customers. So you need to spread your marketing budget accordingly.
The following websites have more information on research and marketing:
Chartered Institute of Marketing: www.cim.co.uk
Market Research Society: www.marketresearch.co.uk
Chartered Institute of Public Relations: www.ipr.org.uk
Advertising Association: www.adassoc.co.uk
Planning
Planning is key. Planning research into your customers, competitors' products and price and working out a marketing and advertising strategy is essential before you even sell your first widget. Once all that's done, you can plan your launch. Remember, though, great marketing will never hide a bad product.
Market research
Market research is much more than just looking at what else is around in a given market. It can reveal where you have been too optimistic, it can tell you where you need to change direction and it can give you the edge in a competitive world.
Key points about market research:
Product, promotion, price and position
Know your market. What's your product, who else makes it, what do they provide, how big is it, how are you going to be different?
Know your customers. Who'll buy your product or service, what are their ages/profiles/interests/buying habits, and so on. How will you tell them about it?
Price. Will you be able to provide your product or service at a price that you can afford and the customer is willing to pay.
Location. Where are you going to sell your product or service. In a shop, if so where, from a factory, on the internet. What do competitors do?
You might feel you can do all this yourself, but if not then you hire people. A good starting point is The Market Research Society or Business Link. Doing a SWOT analysis is a good idea too, which is taking an honest look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This will help you to steer your marketing and also point out where you need expert advice and help.
Also your image needs to be carefully thought out. Anything from stationery style to your logo will have an effect on the perception people have of your product. That's why so many big companies, such as Abbey National, change their look and possibly their name.
Marketing
You've done the research, now you want to market your company and its wares. How will you target your customers, and how much money are you going to spend doing so.
Depending on your business these are some of the main ways to market yourself.
Word of mouth. Happy customers are happy to recommend you, and it's free.
Mail shots. Quite expensive on paper and postage, and consider three per cent successful sales a bonus. However, it does work, so long as you've carefully thought who to send the blurb to. Your own website. This is now very cheap and easy to do and gives you a presence on the internet, and it's one more weapon in your marketing armoury.
Press releases: A well-written press release can get free coverage in newspapers, TV and radio and can tell millions of potential customers about your product or service.
Free give-aways. Either as samples, or competition prizes. Again this gets you mentioned and noticed.
Be a media expert in your field. Local radio stations and papers are hungry to fill their airtime and pages. If you have an expertise, offer yourself as a pundit to the local media.
Points 3, 4 and 5 can be done for you by a PR agency. There are many small, inexpensive ones around that won't cost you that much. It's worth considering using their expertise if you can afford it.
Advertising
Marketing can involve getting publicity for free, but the only guaranteed way of someone shouting about you is to pay for it. Advertising is a multi-billion pound business in the UK and big companies wouldn't spend millions on it if it didn't work. But you have to get it right. Here are some pointers:
What's your budget? There's no use spending so much on advertising that you go bust. You must be able to afford it, and as your business grows you can spend more if you want to.
Which medium? Radio is cheaper than TV, local papers can be very cheap indeed. Which will hit your target audience in the most effective way. It's very important to know the readership/listenership/viewer of the media you wish to advertise in. There would be little point advertising your stairlift product on a radio station playing garage music to 15 year olds. Also don't forget business directories, such as Yellow Pages.
Who'll make your advert? Will you write it yourself and pay the paper directly, or will you hire an agency? If so, shop around, find out what other ads the agency makes and ensure it fits your business style.
Little and often and not one big bang! A one-off ad, however good, will soon be forgotten as others come along. You need to market and advertise regularly to win new customers. So you need to spread your marketing budget accordingly.
The following websites have more information on research and marketing:
Chartered Institute of Marketing: www.cim.co.uk
Market Research Society: www.marketresearch.co.uk
Chartered Institute of Public Relations: www.ipr.org.uk
Advertising Association: www.adassoc.co.uk
Car of the Year nominations
The nominations for this year's European Car of the Year have been announced.
Instead of the usual shortlist of seven, this year there are eight contenders, whittled down from 41 entrants. The shortlist is: Citroën C4 Picasso, Fiat Grande Punto, Ford S-Max, Honda Civic, Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, Peugeot 207, Skoda Roomster and Volvo C30.
There is no obvious favourite this year, although French and Italian cars do disproportionately well in this award - winners in the past have included cars like the Fiat Bravo/Brava and the Renault 9.
Carphone buys AOL web unit for £370m
Story Can be found at the Finatial Times
By Andrew Parker and Tom Braithwaite
Published: October 11 2006 08:19 Last updated: October 11 2006 13:14
Carphone Warehouse on Wednesday agreed to buy Time Warner’s AOL internet access business in the UK in a move that will make it the country’s number three broadband provider.
Carphone will pay £370m in cash for the AOL business, and will have about 2m broadband customers after the deal is concluded in December.
Carphone’s shares surged 8 per cent to close at 360.25p.
Charles Dunstone, Carphone’s chief executive, hailed the AOL deal as “transformational for our broadband business”.
Carphone is currently the number seven broadband provider in the UK, and the AOL deal should bolster its ambition to become the main alternative to BT in residential fixed-line telephony.
In April, Carphone unleashed a broadband price war by offering “free” high-speed internet access to people who signed up to its £21 per month Talk Talk fixed-line phone service.
Carphone said it expected its group pre-tax profit for the year ending March 31 2007 to be £120m. The purchase of the AOL business, together with strong performance in Carphone’s mobile phone retail outlets, will offset an anticipated £70m operating loss in its broadband arm, which is £20m more than forecast in April.
The loss is a result of higher-than-expected demand for Carphone’s “free” broadband offering, which forced it to hire hundreds of additional call centre staff.
In a trading update, Carphone said 625,000 people had applied for “free” broadband by September 30, although it admitted 78,000 subsequently cancelled or switched to other suppliers. Consumer groups expressed concern over whether Carphone could cope with the integration of AOL’s internet access business.
“Every integration has its teething problems and the fact is that Carphone is still trying to put its own house in order following the unprecedented demand generated by the launch of its free Talk Talk broadband deal,” said Chris Williams, spokesman for uSwitch.com, the price comparison service.
Carphone insisted its existing broadband business would make an operating profit of £30m-£40m in 2008.
It said the purchase of the AOL internet access business, which would be funded through an extension to its existing debt facilities and is subject to clearance by competition authorities, would provide an additional £30m-£40m of profit.
Under the Time Warner deal, Carphone is entering into a revenue-sharing agreement with AOL that will give it a slice of online advertising.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
By Andrew Parker and Tom Braithwaite
Published: October 11 2006 08:19 Last updated: October 11 2006 13:14
Carphone Warehouse on Wednesday agreed to buy Time Warner’s AOL internet access business in the UK in a move that will make it the country’s number three broadband provider.
Carphone will pay £370m in cash for the AOL business, and will have about 2m broadband customers after the deal is concluded in December.
Carphone’s shares surged 8 per cent to close at 360.25p.
Charles Dunstone, Carphone’s chief executive, hailed the AOL deal as “transformational for our broadband business”.
Carphone is currently the number seven broadband provider in the UK, and the AOL deal should bolster its ambition to become the main alternative to BT in residential fixed-line telephony.
In April, Carphone unleashed a broadband price war by offering “free” high-speed internet access to people who signed up to its £21 per month Talk Talk fixed-line phone service.
Carphone said it expected its group pre-tax profit for the year ending March 31 2007 to be £120m. The purchase of the AOL business, together with strong performance in Carphone’s mobile phone retail outlets, will offset an anticipated £70m operating loss in its broadband arm, which is £20m more than forecast in April.
The loss is a result of higher-than-expected demand for Carphone’s “free” broadband offering, which forced it to hire hundreds of additional call centre staff.
In a trading update, Carphone said 625,000 people had applied for “free” broadband by September 30, although it admitted 78,000 subsequently cancelled or switched to other suppliers. Consumer groups expressed concern over whether Carphone could cope with the integration of AOL’s internet access business.
“Every integration has its teething problems and the fact is that Carphone is still trying to put its own house in order following the unprecedented demand generated by the launch of its free Talk Talk broadband deal,” said Chris Williams, spokesman for uSwitch.com, the price comparison service.
Carphone insisted its existing broadband business would make an operating profit of £30m-£40m in 2008.
It said the purchase of the AOL internet access business, which would be funded through an extension to its existing debt facilities and is subject to clearance by competition authorities, would provide an additional £30m-£40m of profit.
Under the Time Warner deal, Carphone is entering into a revenue-sharing agreement with AOL that will give it a slice of online advertising.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
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