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Kim Kardashian appears on US-Armenia TV

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The Armenian Reporter April 4, 2009   BURBANK, Calif.  – Celebrity and fourth generation Armenian-American Kim Kardashian gave an exclusive interview to US-Armenia TV on April 1, telling her Armenian and non-Armenian fans that she was proudest of her Armenian genes and her Armenian vor (derriere in Armenian). Noting that her late father, O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Kardashian, had dreamed of visiting Armenia, she announced that she plans to fulfill her father’s dream. Casual, gracious, funny, flirtatious, and always mesmerizing, the drop-dead gorgeous 20-something reached out to some 7 million US-Armenia TV viewers over-the-air on digital channel 18.5 in Southern California, via cable and the Globecast satellite to the United States and North America, to Europe, the Middle East and Africa on the global Hotbird satellite, and via terrestrial antennas all over the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Kim spoke to Armenia...

Behind the scenes of the Neapolitan series

The Neapolitan Armenians (AKA swan song of a departed editor) by Paul Chaderjian NAPLES, Florida - Try as you might. Try with as much effort as you can muster. But on some days, you can’t write a straightforward story to save your career. Call it fate. So, dear reader, if you buckle your seat belt, we’re going to go on a journey to Southwest Florida, and it’s going to be like a roller coaster of thoughts. Maybe it’ll be fun. Maybe Vincent will indeed print this. Maybe the woman who criticized my last article about the Armenian church on mychurch.com and said I write because I like to hear myself write is right. (Vincent, will you please, please keep this opening?) + the fine print (Grish, put this in eight-point font but keep these instructions in the published version. Let’s give our readers between-the-lines dialogue they can feel voyeuristic about). So I slammed my Camry’s driver-side door on my fingers when I jumped in as I was summon...

Building a community in Naples, Florida

The Neapolitan Armenians : When two of them meet, see if they will not create a new Armenia by Paul Chaderjian NAPLES, Florida – Florida in the American lexicon equates to recreation, retirement, rest, and relaxation. Among the top dozen destinations that are known around the world is a small city of an estimated 22,000 residents on the western coast of the Sunshine State. This city, in Collier County, earned its name thanks to its reputation for overshadowing the original Bay of Naples, Italy. The accolades Naples, Florida, has earned include consistently being named as one of the top five places to live in the U.S. Its ten-mile beach on the Gulf of Mexico has been named the best beach in the U.S. The city is also known as the Golf Capital of the World and boasts more than 80 championship golf courses. Naples is where people who value serenity, beauty, cleanliness – paradise - come to vacation or spend their retirement years. Among those who have a residence here are Bill Gates ,...

Andre’s Steakhouse exceeds expectations

by Paul Chaderjian Naples - Scents that would whet even a vegetarian's appetite waft through Andre's Steakhouse, at the northeast corner of Tamiami and 28th Avenue. The front and back parking lots are full, and there are no empty parking spots on the street. It's the last Saturday night of February, and Andre's is packed like it is every night during "the season," when tourists and retirees converge on Florida's Paradise Coast, off the Gulf of Mexico.   Enter the epicurean wonderland of Andre's, and there is not one empty table. The steakhouse is full of loyal patrons of all ages - some in shorts and T-shirts and others in short-sleeved shirts or summer dresses. It's the dead of winter, but one can easily forget the blizzards blanketing the Midwest and Northeast in snow. There is laughter, people talking, someone making a toast in one corner, and half a dozen clean-cut waiters - dressed in white shirts and bowties - dance a perfectly chor...

“Hotline” returns to the airwaves on US-Armenia TV Friday nights

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BURBANK, Calif. - The English-language “Hotline” talk show debuted last Friday night at midnight (Pacific Time) on US-Armenia TV, which broadcasts in Southern California on over-the-air, antenna TV (KSCI 18.5), on Charter and Time-Warner cable, on satellite in the United States via Globecast, and in Europe and Armenia on the Hotbird satellite. For the past four years, program host Paul Chaderjian has interviewed more than a hundred guests who were working or were involved with projects in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. “The interview show idea came to life when Armenia TV asked me to go to Armenia and help with the coverage of the 90th Anniversary of the Genocide in 2005,” said Chaderjian, who is a former ABC News writer-producer and one of the former hosts of the annual Armenia Fund Thanksgiving Day telethon. “I helped Armenia TV set up a live transmission to CNN, The Associated Press, and a few European news agencies,” said Chaderjian. “We wanted to show the world how impor...

ABC News’ Lara Setrakian: 21st-century all-platform journalist

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Based in Dubai, Setrakian covers the Gulf states and beyond by Paul Chaderjian DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – You’ve seen her on the ABC evening news, on Good Morning America, and on the round-the-clock ABC News Now cable-satellite-Internet network. You’ve heard her voice on ABC News Radio, and you’ve read her bylines from Beirut, Tehran, and cities of the United Arab Emirates, where she resides and works. “Nowadays they say, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai or bye-bye. That’s the line. This is where the growth is. This is where the money is. It’s different and it’s fast pace, and they know they have some sense of what they want,” she explains to me the enigma of Dubai as we sit feet away from the Dubai Marina. “And you see other cities in the Gulf trying to create for themselves the same effect. They’re not trying to copy Dubai. They’re trying to do it their way. Qatar and Doha, Abu Dhabi is trying to do it. Everyone is trying to ramp up. They don’t want to let this oil boom pass by...

Stark realities of the remnants of a diaspora

Two broadcast journalists’ eyewitness account of the harsh realities in India by Paul Chaderjian Tangra, India - The scene is hell on Earth - a revolting, gagging smell, eye-irritating smog, thousands of years of filth,, with fresh refuse being dumped onto the street. Humans live like savages. Naked kids defecate on the street. Men urinate out in the open. Rats run in puddles of human waste on streets people call home. Rabid and sickly dogs dig through garbage for food. This is the "incredible" India the ads on CNN sing about. And in this incredible India are two old friends - Ani Hovannisian-Kevorkian and me - stumbling out of tour buses to enter the grounds of the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Tangra, a suburb of Kolkata.  Security guards separate residents staring with great interest from the foreign tourists that include Ani and me. Ani anchored the English News on Horizon TV every Saturday night decades ago when there was only one week...