Volunteer to Host a Pair of Armenian and Turkish Change-makers!

HasNa will be bringing over 12 young change-makers from Turkey and Armenia for an innovative peacebuilding and professional development program this October -…

Open Your Home - Make a Personal Contribution to Peace!

Volunteer to Host Young Change-Makers from Armenia and Turkey

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• The European Union pulled a TV ad from circulation and apologized after many considered it racist. The ad featured several non-Western martial artists who confront a white brunette (symbolizing Europe) with weaponry and ends with her surrounding them.
• President Lukashenka of Belarus…

• European Union leaders confirmed that Herman Van Rompuy will serve a second term as President of the European Council on Thursday. Van Rompuy has served as the President since December 2009.
• A remote-controlled bomb injured 15 police officers and…

• The Council of Europe Commission for Human Rights warned this week of rising racism and xenophobia in Europe amid the current economic crisis, with austerity budgets undermining social rights and putting vulnerable groups at greater risk.  On Wednesday, British PM Cameron…

• The EU is set to restrict the sale of the main active substances needed for lethal injections to the United States. By Friday, the export of sodium thiopental will only be possible with special permission.
• French President Sarkozy said that there are now clearly “two Europes”…

Please join HasNa on November 13 at 8:00 p.m. at the Avalon Theater for the special Washington, DC premiere of the international award-winning film Cogunluk (Majority).



Cogunluk is the remarkable story of a young man's journey navigating the fault lines of family relationships, social norms, love, and the expectations of "the majority". The film daringly approaches the most critical topics in contemporary Turkish society…

Ahead of the Kazan meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, although it's by no means clear what will happen (and when) even if the Basic Principles are signed, Conflict Voices is now http://peace.oneworld.am. Please update your…

Channel 4 anchorman Jon Snow leading the Amnesty International UK campaign

in support of Azerbaijani journalist and prisoner of conscience Eynulla Fatullayev

In a previous post I praised the use of Twitter in…

The opportunity for improving relations between countries sometimes come in unlikely forms. In 2008 the process of Armenia-Turkey rapprochement was literally kick-started by a World Cup qualifier held in Yerevan, but even if the anticipated outcome of establishing…

Caucasus Conflict Voices is a voluntary grassroots initiative to amplify alternative views on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Thursday 12th May will…

Despite the warning signs, villagers in the territory outside of Karabakh under the control of

Armenian forces still continue to risk life and limb. / Photo by Onnik Krikorian

Today marks International Mine Awareness…

Next month marks the 96th anniversary of the deportation and massacre of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey. Considered by many academics and recognized by over 20 countries as Genocide, although Turkey denies…

Ethnic Azeri Novruz, Marneuli, Georgia © Onnik Krikorian 2011

I've just returned from a few days in Georgia where I once again visited the ethnic Armenian-Azeri co-inhabited village of Tsopi as part of continuing …

Tekali, Georgia © Onnik Krikorian 2011

The roads have seen better days and probably so too have the villagers, but if plans to establish a regional peacebuilding center in the small ethnic Azeri village of Tekali (Tekalo) come to fruition (See…

As I've just received an email from the Hrant Dink Memorial Foundation to spread information about this year's Hrant Dink International Award through the Global Voices network, it also seems appropriate to spread through this one as well. Hrant Dink, a Turkish citizen of…

Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have highlighted the potential use of online social networks for activism, but they have also added weight to personal and security concerns. In a recent interview with Radio Free Europe, for example, Evgeny Morozov even argues that internal security agencies might actually welcome the use of Facebook precisely because whole…

At the beginning of last year, Transitions Online (TOL) published an article of mine as part of a small project documenting positive examples of ethnic Armenian-Azeri coexistence in Georgia. Ironically, even though Facebook had been the main focus of the article, TOL decided to publish it under the…

The argument between the cyber-skeptics and the cyber-utopians seems to be getting ever more intense of late, with the former seemingly being afforded the most exposure. Perhaps that's only fair given the amount of positive press given to the cyber-utopians over the years. However, that doesn't mean it's the absolute truth even if only natural thanks to many media reports which naively presented a brave new world of social justice and freedom ushered in by the advent of blogs, Twitter and…