Month: June 2005

MANOUCHARYAN WILL NOT BE INCLUDED IN THE MAIN TEAM
A1plus
| 17:39:23 | 03-06-2005 | Sports |
On the eve of the match Armenia-Macedonia the coach of the Armenian
national team Henk Vissman held a press conference. The coach said
that he has watched the match Macedonia-Armenia twice and has drawn
conclusions with the players.
As for tomorrow’s game, Vissman has chosen the tactics 3+5+2 and has
chosen the players who will play in the main team. It turned out that
the 18-year-old Edgar Manoucharyan is not among them. “He has not had
time to restore his energy after the games in the youth team and he
is not ready to play in the main team”, said the National team coach.
Vissman also referred to the success of the youth team and said that it
was a serious step forward, although they were in a complicated group.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Moving arms from Georgia to Armenia no threat to Azerbaijan – Fradkov
Interfax
June 3 2005
TBILISI. June 3 (Interfax) – The movement of some Russian army
equipment from Georgia to Armenia poses no threat to Azerbaijan,
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told reporters in Tbilisi.
“I would not extrapolate any concerns,” he said.
Fradkov said Russia will withdraw its bases from Georgia in keeping
with the timetable set down and voiced confidence that with time
“everything will settle down.”

LOOKING FOR THE WAY OF TRUST
A1plus
| 18:59:54 | 03-06-2005 | Politics |
“The Venice Commission has positively evaluated an anti-constitutional
term”, this was the opinion of the initiative “Cooperation for the
sake of Open Society” about the evaluation of the European experts
of the RA Electoral Code amendments. Particularly, they referred to
the inclusion of the Judges into the electoral Committees. We tried
to find out the opinion of the Venice Commission secretary Gianni
Bukikio about the issue.
“There is such a system in many European countries. In the RA
Constitution there is a term which prohibits the judges to take part
in the work of the authorities, but the electoral committees are not
state structures, they are independent structures. The problem must be
solved by Armenia himself. Our offer was that the court offices must
be able to appoint lawyers in the committees”, commented Mr. Bukikio.
And OSCE Venice Commission head Christian Schtrohal added, “There is
not a single model which must be chosen for all the countries. In every
country elections are held individually. Here the trust of electors for
the electoral process is important, and in order to reach this trust
you must create a professional and balanced electoral administration
in which everyone will trust”.

Los Angeles Times
June 3 2005
Armenian Church Leader Pays Visit
Karekin II will appear at a ceremony at Our Lady of the Angels
Cathedral in a sign of warming relations with Roman Catholics.
By Claudia Zequeira, Times Staff Writer
Welcomed by faithful supporters, His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos
of All Armenians, the highest ranking official in the Armenian
Apostolic Church, has begun a tour of California that will include
visits to schools and hospitals and a special service Sunday at the
Roman Catholic cathedral in downtown Los Angeles.
Karekin’s trip began Thursday with a procession at St. Mary Armenian
Apostolic Church in Costa Mesa, where he was received by dozens of
clergymen and enthusiastic parishioners.
Several women received blessings from Karekin as he entered the church.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Talar Zorayan, 34.
It’s a good way for us to stay Armenian.”
On Saturday, Karekin is expected to bless the foundation stones of a
“Mother Cathedral,” a church in Burbank that eventually will serve
as the seat of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North
America.
The consecration of the $5-million project is largely symbolic, with
construction expected to begin a year from now, church officials said.
Karekin, who was elected in 1999 and is based in the Armenian holy
city of Etchmiadzin, is making his second trip to California, home to
an Armenian and Armenian American population estimated at 500,000 to
700,000. A second Armenian Catholicos, His Holiness Aram I, is based in
Beirut and also commands loyalties in the Armenian diaspora, but more
U.S. Armenians are believed to be affiliated with Karekin’s branch.
Karekin is planning to stop at Glendale High School on Monday evening
after regular class hours.
He also will visit Glendale Adventist Medical Center and Glendale
Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Ara Tavitian said the visits are a token of appreciation to
California doctors and other healthcare providers who have helped
Armenians in California and in Armenia over the years.
On Sunday, Karekin will appear at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels, the seat of the three-county Roman Catholic Archdiocese of
Los Angeles.
Cardinal Roger Mahony is expected to attend the 3 p.m. ceremony.
“This is the first non-Catholic Eucharistic service in our cathedral,”
said Father Alexei Smith, an interreligious officer with the
archdiocese.
Smith said the Armenians’ use of the Catholic cathedral made sense
to accommodate a large crowd.
But he added that the gesture went beyond the practical.
“I believe it’s not only the size of our cathedral,” Smith said.
“Most especially, it’s our level of acceptance of each other.”
After leaving Los Angeles on June 10, Karekin is scheduled to travel
to Sacramento, Fresno, San Francisco and Detroit.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Newark Star Ledger, NJ
June 3 2005
Putting social consciousness to canvas
Pierro Gallery show has four artists whose palettes feature protest
Friday, June 03, 2005
BY DAN BISCHOFF
Star-Ledger Staff
“Realities of Our Times: A Closer Look” brings four socially conscious
artists, three from Jersey and one from New York, together in a show
at the Pierro Gallery in South Orange that can only be described as a
social protest. It even divides neatly: Two artists protest domestic
inequalities and the other two decry war.
Beyond those correspondences, all four artists are representational, as
virtually every socially committed work of art is. Taken together, the
works in “Realities” seem to consciously invoke earlier art, from Works
Progress Administration prints to East European cartoons, in order
to make their political points. By and large, they are successful.
Photographer Helen M. Stummer, known for her pictures of Newark
subcultures, is perhaps the most explicit. She says in her artist’s
statement that “in the social documentary tradition of Jacob Riis,
Dorothea Lange, and Lewis Hine, I strive to portray stark realities of
people living on the edge.” Riis, Lange and Hine are among the most
famous of the early muckraking and labor photographers, who made a
study of appalling conditions for late 19th- and early 20th-century
people caught in the backwash of American capitalism.
Stummer does something very similar, even noting, in text printed on
the Pierro’s pleasant suburban walls, that the scenes she captures were
taken “just 10 minutes from here,” something she believes visitors may
well find shocking. Images like “Clara’s Kitchen–14th Ave. Newark” are
indeed very Riis in their squalor; but it is the way Stummer suggests
defiance and humanity in her subjects that is different. “Imitating
Mommy” and “Imitating Daddy” might suggest cliches of ghetto life —
early pregnancy in the one, thug life in the other — but the kids
won’t stop being individuals, and the pix actually undercut such
simple-minded caricatures. What they are really about is family
affection, which knows no stereotype.
Tim Gaydos, of Paterson, is known primarily as a romantic
abstractionist, turning Rust Belt tableaux into the sort of personal
aesthetic Abstract Expressionists of the ’50s were all about. But he
is also a Romantic Realist, and here he is showing nearly a score
of oils, pastels and even bronzes on the subject of homelessness.
Occasionally the bright colors make a counterpoint to the jackknifed
and prone bodies, as in one pastel of a man sleeping in his shopping
cart, one foot resting on a parking meter. The sculptures are new to
this reviewer, the bodies made of scavenged rusty plates and crumpled
rebar, but the faces and hands cast with almost Rodin-like liquidity.
Marcia Annenberg, who lives and works in New York, is here showing four
acrylic paintings that deal with war and the fear of war in the United
States. “Cruise to Kuwait” is based on photos of the vapor trail of a
sea-launched cruise missile, which arcs across the red canvas behind
a gun turret crowned with spikes that mimics the Statue of Liberty’s
crown. “B-2/Kukailimoku Blues” juxtaposes a stealth bomber with an
ape and a Polynesian statuette; “Safe at Last” shows a school girl
hiding under her desk, with a fallout shelter label on the wall.
Annenberg’s style is cool and emblematic — all her paintings have
a counterintuitive calm — that reminds you of the contemporary
narrative painting of Ida Applebroog or early R.B. Kitaj.
Shakeh Sassoon was born in Armenia, grew up in Iran and has lived
in Paterson for the past 10 years. Her eloquently stylized canvases
remind you of the pen-and-ink drawings of attenuated human figures by
Paul Klee; long, angular bodies with baseball knees and empty eyes.
They are very much the work of someone who knows war and death,
especially the harrowing triptych, “Splendid Insanity.”
As long as there is war, art will not be pretty.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SPECIAL ISSUE OF “IRS” MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO KARABAKH PUBLISHED IN MOSCOW
[June 03, 2005, 18:14:37]
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 3 2005
The special issue of the International Azerbaijan magazine
“Irs-Heritage ” named “Karabakh ” and completely devoted to this
pearl of Azerbaijan was published in Moscow.
The edition is an original mini-encyclopedia of Karabakh and first
such edition, which was released abroad. This colorfully 112-page
polished magazine-almanac is devoted to the history and culture of
Karabakh. It is unusual for its contents, and was prepared on the
basis of authentic historical materials and unique photos, documents
and little-known ancient maps of Karabakh. The magazine covers all
period of the existence of Karabakh, since times of antiquity (the
Albanian period) up to date. It has references from more than 100
sources, over half from which are researches and historians not from
Azerbaijan – as Strabon, Trever and others annalists. It includes
about 30 articles of the Azerbaijan scientists.
In the edition, also have been published ethnographic monuments of
Karabakh, materials about cult architecture, the Karabakh folklore.
There are also materials with photos “Glory of the Karabakh racers”,
“Shusha – musical capital of Azerbaijan”, ” Pearls of the Karabakh
cuisine”.
The rare maps of region published in magazine “Karabakh: 1747-1805s”
and tables with the demographic parameters, showing dates and number
of the Armenians who have moved to Karabakh, evidently show their
nomadic way of life. All this does not leave doubts that Karabakh is
truly Azerbaijani land.
“The purpose of this special edition is to show reliability of
historical events and the facts about Karabakh, we consider that the
public should know roots of the problem and historical objectivity,
understand, at last, the aggressive policy of the Armenians, which,
not having the territories, using forces of allies, insidiously
annexed our lands”, the editor of magazine Musa Marjanly says.
It is necessary to note that in spite of the fact that magazine
“Karabakh” was published a few days ago, it has already caused big
resonance: the Armenian sources already accuse it of “rewriting
the history”.

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
—————————————— —-
PRESS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
375010 Telephone: +3741. 544041 ext 202
Fax: +3741.562543
Email: [email protected]:
PRESS RELEASE
184-03-06-2005
Foreign Minister Oskanian received GRECO Monitoring Commission
On 3 June, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian received the GRECO
monitoring commission headed by Mr. Carlo Chiaramonte, a member of
the GRECO Secretariat.
Minister highly valued the work of the commission and noted that
Armenia seriously understands the need to take necessary steps to
make the fight against corruption more effective.
During the last five days, the GRECO delegation had met with officials
and specialists responsible for the fight against corruption, through
legislative reforms and other steps. During the next six months, the
commission will draft a report with conclusions and recommendations for
steps to be taken in Armenia to overcome this obstacle to democratic
and economic development.-0-

Euro-reporters.com, Belgium
June 3 2005
Ukraine to seal Transnistria?
Written by David Ferguson in Brussels
Friday, 03 June 2005
“If the border is securely sealed the illegitimate authority in
Transnistria will soon lose the economic foundation of its existence,”
said Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Boris Tarasiuk. In an interview to
national news agency Ukrinform, Tarasiuk said there is a greater
chance, following the regime change in Kyiv, for a ‘breakthrough’
in the Transnistria conflict. The separatist regime along Moldova’s
frontier with the Ukraine led by Viktor Smirnoff in Tiraspol, and
backed by Moscow, has held out against central authorities in Moldova
since the early 1990s.
“The previous authority [in Kyiv] ignored the Moldovan leadership’s
messages and used Transnistria as a springboard for contraband of
goods because the money chiefly flowed to Kyiv,” Tarasiuk is quoted
by Ukrinform as saying. “The situation has changed now. Ukraine is
not interested in the existence of a ‘black hole’ on its frontier,
neither is Ukraine interested in capitalizing on the conflict in this
neighbouring state.” Tarasiuk sees tightened control of Ukraine’s
frontier along the Transnistrian segment of Moldova as a means of
“reducing the economic attractiveness” of the breakaway regime and
promoting a general resolution of the conflict.
Speaking last month in Warsaw at the Council of Europe’s Summit,
Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin warned fellow European leaders
of the threat to stability posed by the separatist region. “The most
recent example is the disappearance of missiles from former 14th Army
depots. Their explosive force is identical to a nuclear missile, except
for radioactive contamination. The problem is getting even worse as
the Russian Federation authorities cannot give any explanations on
how the above-mentioned missiles could disappear without trace.”
Voronin made a plea for greater European and international involvement
in solving the 13-year old conflict with the separatist Transnistrian
region. “The Transnistrian region is a real black hole starting
with the absence of democratic processes to illegal trafficking
humans and weapons, money laundering and more,” Moldova’s president
said. Voronin’s plea for help in bringing the separatist regime
under control has fallen on favorable ears in Kyiv. Yesterday, at the
Yaski border post near Odessa, Voronin met with Ukraine’s President
Viktor Yushchenko in order to hammer out the nitty-gritty of the two
countries new relations.
In Warsaw, Voronin told fellow European leaders that new peace
mediators are needed in the Transnistrian conflict: “It is so important
to have new participants, such as the USA and European Union, in peace
settlements for the Transnistrian conflict. That is why the proposal of
the President of the Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko to settle the conflict
by means of democratization of the region is so interesting for us.”
Ukraine’s changed position on Moldova, and other conflict areas in
the former Soviet Union, does not please Moscow that also supports
breakaway regions in Georgia. Moscow is also accused of supporting
the Armenian-controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
“Ukraine is vitally interested in regulating the conflicts in the
former Union nations primarily for reasons of its own security and
stability,” Tarasiuk told Ukrinform. “There can be no security and
stability in a nation if there is no security and stability at home.”

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
—————————————— —-
PRESS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
375010 Telephone: +37410. 544041 ext 202
Fax: +37410. 562543
Email: [email protected]:
PRESS RELEASE
181-03-06-2005
Minister Vartan Oskanian received ODIHR director, Ambassador Christian
Shtrohal
On 2 June, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian received
Ambassador Christian Shtrohal, Director of OSCE Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights, who was on a one-day visit to Armenia.
The two exchanged views on efforts and tasks undertaken by Armenia
to reinforce democratic processes and human rights protection in
the country.
Minister Oskanian assessed very positively the role of the OSCE in
the promotion of democracy and human rights protection in Europe and
expressed his hope, that this prominent international organization
will continue supporting democratic processes in Armenia and creating
a democratic environment in the entire region. In this regard, they
reinforced ODIHR’s helpful role in providing expert assistance in
the process of Armenian legislation development. -0-

Baku Today
June 3 2005
Russia Starts Moving Arms to Armenia
Russia has started moving its weaponry from Georgia to Armenia.
The arms and military machinery of the 12th Russian military base,
which was earlier located in the Batumi city of Georgia, have been
deployed in a military base in the Gumru district of Armenia, Russian
Interfax news agency reported.
Russia is sending weapons and military equipment to Armenia in
accordance with the previously-approved plan, Azerbaijani TV channels
quoted the Transcaucasus Command of the Russian Armed Forces as saying.
This is the third cargo echelon, which includes 15 carriages loaded
with weaponry and ammunition, dispatched from Batumi thus far.