News and Views (Apr 2, 2012)

News & Views is a weekly summary of some of the week’s most important stories, links and material of interest to Ararat readers.

— In the mysterious case of Armenia’s growing voter list and diminishing population, Armenia Now’s title says it all, “Armenia’s population = 2,800,000; Registered voters = 2,485,844. Mistake or Deceit?”

— According to The Armenian Reporter, a document from Wikileaks suggests that the Azerbaijanis are terrified of an Armenian military attack:

“When I was in Baku recently, they showed me a 3-D topographic map of Armenia, AZ [Azerbaijan], Nagorno [Karabakh],” the Czech related. “You can see very clearly that once (and if) the Armenians cross over with Russian backing, it is a flat path to Baku. The Russians told them during the Georgia war that Georgia could just be the first stop… pretty direct threat. The Azerbaijanis are terrified of this.

— Baltimore’s Walter Art Museum, which is home to a number of spectacular Armenian manuscripts has received a grant to digitize its medieval collection. The AP report in the Washington Post explains:

The work continues with a $315,000 grant to digitize Armenian, Byzantine, Dutch, English, Ethiopian and German manuscripts.

You can view one of the manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum on the institution’s Flickrstream.

— A new edition of the Armenian Review academic journal has been published and, according to Asbarez, features:

… a discussion by Ara Sanjian on the challenges, limitations and opportunities confronting historians conducting in-depth research about the Armenia Revolutionary Federation … Bedross Der Matossian, is a comprehensive survey of the archival material at the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem … Katy E. Pearce, Howard Giles, Christopher Hajek, Valerie Barker and Charles Choi … [compare] attitudes of citizens in Armenia and the United States toward their respective police forces … Armen Baibourtian, is a hybrid of academic research and the personal accounts of a diplomat

— And finally, meet the (supposedly) last Armenian in Mumbai, Zabel Joshi.

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News & Views is published every week. It is a summary of the week’s most interesting, provocatiove and thought-provoking links to articles, videos, photos and commentary of interest to the readers of Ararat.