Month: December 2008

ARMENIA: CNN GENOCIDE COVERAGE CONTROVERSY
By Simon Maghakyan

EuropeNews
/17056
Dec 8 2008
Denmark

Too short for Armenians and too long for the Turkish government, a
two-hour CNN documentary by Christiane Amanpour on genocide includes
a 45-second mention of the WWI extermination of Ottoman Empire’s
indigenous Armenian population.

Premiered on December 4, 2008, Scream Bloody Murder has made many
Armenian bloggers angry, leading them to recall Hitler’s rhetoric
for impunity, "Who, after all, remembers the Armenians?"

Armenia-based blogger, photographer and designer Arsineh had concerns
even before watching the documentary. Writing on Ars Eye View,
she says:

I’m preparing to watch the program for myself, but given this much
prior information, I have to ask. If you are going to cover the
epidemic of genocide, starting with the campaign to criminalize
genocide, continue to show the struggle so many have endured to
(as you titled your program) "SCREAM BLOODY MURDER" while the
world turned a deaf ear only to allow genocide to continue around
the world, shouldn’t you be talking about the biggest cover up of
genocide, the very one which inspired Lemkin to coin the word, the
very one which also inspired Adolf Hitler to follow through with the
Holocaust? Afterall, it’s this denial that scares CNN from ever using
the word "Genocide" in their reporting on related matters.

60 YEARS ON, GENOCIDE CONVENTION STILL PROMPTS DEBATE
Kerstin Schweighofer

Deutsche Welle
,,3858014 ,00.html
Dec 8 2008
Germany

The genocide in Rwanda set legal precedents with life sentences for
many perpetrators

Sixty years ago, the UN adopted the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This week, historians, lawyers
and politicians discussed the convention’s future at a conference in
The Hague.

Why is it that a massacre, as horrific as it may be, is not considered
genocide? At what point can we begin using the word genocide to
describe the worst crime committed human beings can perpetrate
on each other? These were the types of questions being posed at a
conference in the Hague on Monday to mark 60 years since the United
Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 260, better known as the
convention on genocide.

Among the guest speakers was Chief Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo. And it’s no coincidence that
the conference is being held in The Hague, which, due to its many
international courts, has developed into the "legal capital of the
world," former UN General Secretary, Boutros Gali, once said.

Among the program points was a discussion about the definition of
genocide as it was laid down in the UN Convention on December 9,
1948. The most important criterion is the intention to completely
obliterate an entire race. That’s why genocide doesn’t always involve
massacres — a single murder will do. Even if all the women of a
certain population are to be made infertile, or all the children are
to be kidnapped, it can still be genocide if the purpose is to wipe
out that population. It’s the most decisive criterion, and for the
prosecutors, the hardest to prove.

The Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin — a pioneer in the field of
international justice — coined the term genocide. He was responding
to the mass murder of Armenians at the hands of the Turks in 1915 —
a massacre that even today, is not legally classified as genocide.

This also applies to the Holocaust. It was never explicitly defined
as genocide before a court, and not a single defendant has ever been
found guilty of genocide towards the Jews. The usual verdict was
"crimes against humanity."

Rwanda, Yugoslavia set legal precedents

Only in the last 15 years have courts ever found defendants guilty
of genocide, in two cases — Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. In
the judges’ opinions, the mass murder of the Tutsis and the murder
of thousands of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica were clear cases of
genocide. At the Rwanda tribunal, a large number of political leaders
were given life sentences in prison.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic faces charges of
genocide Whether the same will happen at the Yugoslavia tribunal
with war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic remains to be seen. Former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died in prison before he could be
sentenced, and Karadzic’s wartime military leader, Ratko Mladic, still
remains at large. Then there’s the new international criminal court,
the ICC. Last summer, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo indicted
Sundanese President Omar el Bashir on charges of genocide in Darfur.

Because of the small number of convictions, recently, the voices of
those who would loosen the criteria for genocide have been growing
louder. It’s a subject that was up for debate at the conference in
The Hague, but for Dutch historian and director of the Amsterdam
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Wichert ten Have, it’s
out of the question.

"I don’t think this is the right way to go," he said. "It was hard
enough to get all the countries to accept the current definition
60 years ago. Just because jurisprudence has to be created and the
world is waiting for verdicts is no reason to start revising this
definition."

Not a word to be used lightly

Another topic for discussion at the conference was misuse of the word
"genocide." The prominent indictments against Karadzic and El Bashir
have had the effect of popularizing the term, to the extent that it’s
now even being used by animal activists describing the suffering of
animals. Politicians also more frequently use the term in order to
justify violence and military engagement.

"The bloody conflict between Russia and Georgia is a perfect example,"
said Ten Have. "Both sides deliberately spoke of genocide, even though
in this case, it really wasn’t applicable. We have to keep the term
pure — both legally and politically speaking. And we have to accept
that it shouldn’t be used lightly."

–Boundary_(ID_EbTOv9VWcvBbTnYMK17 hvw)–

ARMENIA’S PRESIDENT TO ARRIVE ON OFFICIAL VISIT TO BULGARIA

Focus News
Dec 8 2008
Bulgaria

Sofia. President of the republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan will arrive
on official visit to Bulgaria on December 10 – 11 at the invitation
of Bulgarian head of state Georgi Parvanov, the presidency press
office informed.

Mr. Sargsyan will have a private talk with his Bulgarian
counterpart. After that there will be a meeting between the two
official delegations.

At the presence of the two presidents, the two countries will sign
bilateral agreements and validate a postage stamp.

The Armenian president’s schedule also includes working lunch with
Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanioshev and meeting with Bulgaria’s
National Assembly chairperson Georgi Pirinski.

THE KEY TO THE CAUCASUS
By Stanley A. Weiss

International Herald Tribune
nion/edweiss.php
Dec 8 2008
France

BAKU, Azerbaijan: ‘Welcome to Houston on the Caspian," said Anne
Derse, the U.S. ambassador to this booming, oil-rich nation, as our
delegation of American business executives arrived on the final leg
of a visit to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

After days of discussion with political, military and business leaders
across the region – including a talk with President Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan, whose office overlooks the Caspian Sea, home to perhaps a
quarter of the world’s new oil production – it all seemed obvious. As
one U.S. diplomat put it, Azerbaijan "is central to all we’re trying
to do in this part of the world."

Azerbaijan is the indispensable link to reducing European energy
dependence on Moscow, with the only pipelines exporting Caspian oil
and gas that bypass Russia altogether, with routes through Georgia
and Turkey.

Without Azerbaijan, there will never be what the U.S. energy
secretary Samuel Bodman calls "a new generation of export routes"
bypassing Russia. Known as the "southern corridor," it includes plans
by Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to ship oil and gas by barge across
the Caspian to Baku, as well as the EU’s long-planned Nabucco gas
pipeline from Turkey to Europe.

Aliyev stresses that, unlike President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia,
he will not taunt the Russian bear, continuing instead to walk a
fine line between East and West. This policy includes allowing his
military to train with NATO, but not rushing to become a NATO member.

Aliyev insists that "time is up" for the return of the Azerbaijani
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh – the Armenian-majority region occupied
by Armenia, with Russian support, since the war over the area in the
early 1990s. Still, he seems determined not to give Moscow a pretext
to intervene, as it did with its invasion of Georgia this summer.

Azerbaijan – like Turkey, with which it shares deep ethnic and
linguistic ties – is one the world’s most secularized Muslim countries,
with a strict separation between mosque and state. Moreover, the
nearly 20 million ethnic Azeris living in neighboring Iran – about a
quarter of Iran’s population – are culturally closer to their brethren
in Baku than their Persian rulers in Tehran. Azerbaijan also draws
the ayatollahs’ ire as one of the few Muslim nations with diplomatic
ties with Israel.

Yet for all its strategic significance – and its support for the
U.S. war on terrorism, including sending troops to Afghanistan and
Iraq – Azerbaijan remains the neglected stepchild of U.S. Caucasus
policy. Despite Saakashvili’s miscalculations with Russia, Georgia
remains the darling of the West, garnering another $1 billion in
post-war aid from the U.S. atop the nearly $2 billion Washington
has bestowed over the years. The powerful Armenian-American lobby
has not only secured some $2 billion for Armenia to date, it has
succeeded in limiting U.S. aid to Azerbaijan because of the dispute
over Nagorno-Karabakh.

To be sure, this country is no democracy; the 46-year-old Aliyev
learned well from his authoritarian father, who ruled Azerbaijan both
as a Soviet Republic and after independence. Indeed, not long before
our delegation arrived, Aliyev claimed re-election with 89 percent
of the vote.

But if Azerbaijan is "central" to everything Washington is trying
to accomplish in the Caucasus, then Azerbaijan should be at the
forefront of U.S. Caucasus policy. To help Azerbaijan – and the
region – realize its full economic potential, the incoming Obama
administration should make a major push to resolve Nagorno-Karabakh,
which – as one development official here tells me – "is the main
issue that prevents regional integration."

A breakthrough is possible. Every member of the so-called Minsk Group
charged with resolving the conflict – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia,
several European countries and the U.S. – have powerful incentives
for compromise.

Aliyev wants Nagorno-Karabakh back, but understands that Moscow won’t
allow him to take it by force. Landlocked, impoverished Armenia
desperately wants Azerbaijan and Turkey to end a 16-year economic
blockade of its borders. Turkey wants to improve relations with
Armenia. Europe wants to avert another crisis that would complicate
plans for its Nabucco pipeline. And with new competing diplomatic
initiatives, Turkey and Russia clearly want to play a leadership role
in the region.

This "frozen conflict" will not thaw easily. But through a
gradual process backed by the major powers, the Caucasus countries
could finally focus on economic cooperation rather than military
confrontation. And the trade routes of the old Silk Road could become
a new energy corridor of the 21st century.

Stanley A. Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for
National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN PREMIER TO VISIT TBILISI

BSANNA NEWS
Dec 8 2008
Ukraine

TBILISI, December 8 /GHN/. On Tuesday, December 9, Armenian Prime
Minister Tigran Sarkisyan will arrive on a one-day visit to Tbilisi,
GHN reports.

The Armenian Prime Minister will participate in the session of the
Armenian-Georgian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation.

According to the National Statistics Service, in January-October
2008, Armenia’s foreign trade turnover with Georgia went up by 3.8%
and totaled USD 106.9 million. 2.4% Armenia’s foreign trade turnover
of the reporting period falls for Georgia.

At the same time, the volume of export from Armenia to Georgia
made up USD 70.9 million which is 2.2% less than over the relevant
period last year. The volume of goods made in Georgia and imported
to Armenia over the reporting period totaled USD 36.1 million which
is 18% more. According to the Armenian party, totally the volume
of import from Georgia amounted to USD 141.2 million, that is 3.9%
whole export volume.

YEREVAN STUDENTS’ RALLY PROTESTS TREATMENT OF ARMENIAN CHURCHES IN GEORGIA

Interfax
Dec 3 2008
Russia

More than 2,000 students of Armenian universities held a rally on
Wednesday protesting against a recent series of events involving
Armenian churches in Georgia, including the November 16 desecration
of two tombstones on the graves of known Armenians outside Tbilisi’s
St. Norashen church at the initiative of Georgian Priest Tariel
Sikinchelashvili.

The students gathered outside the headquarters of the UN office
in Yerevan. They then walked toward the building of the Georgian
embassy in Armenia and handed over a letter to Georgian Ambassador
Revaz Gachechiladze, demanding that "this illegal conduct of Georgian
clergymen be stopped and an appropriate assessment be given to what
has happened."

Several years ago, Priest Sikinchelashvili tried to install tombstones
with inscriptions in the Georgian language on the premises of the
St. Norashen Armenian church. In August 2008, he coordinated efforts
to build a fence around the church with symbols allegedly pointing
to its belonging to the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Armenian Minister for Diaspora Affairs Granush Akopian told a news
conference on Wednesday that "not a single priest has any right to
ruin the century-long friendship of the Armenian and Georgian peoples."

Akopian said that the fate of Armenian historical and cultural
monuments in Georgia is high on his ministry’s agenda.

MAPS LIE, MEMORIES DO NOT

Pembroke Observer
December 3, 2008 Wednesday
Ontario

-The final destination on my recent seven-country epic tour of
the volatile Caucasus was Baku, Azerbaijan. One of my commitments
during this short visit was to give a lecture at the Azeri Ministry
of Foreign Affairs University. About four dozen former ambassadors,
faculty members and students attended my presentation.

While it is admittedly a challenge to try and define the complex
political, strategic situation in the Caucasus to a North

American readership, it is decidedly much dodgier when you attempt the
same thing with an audience composed of active participants from the
region. Given the level of tension that still exists between Azerbaijan
and Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, almost
every word you could utter has potential to be contentious. In 1991,
when Azerbaijan declared independence from the collapsing Soviet Union,
the ethnic Armenian majority in the province of Nagorno-Karabakh held
its own referendum in which it unilaterally declared the region to
be independent from Azerbaijan.

While inter-ethnic violence had already begun to increase in this
region at an alarming rate during the late 1980s, the declared
secession of Nagorno-Karabakh sparked an all-out war between the Azeris
and Armenians. To support the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,
troops from the neighbouring Republic of Armenia first forced a
land corridor

into the disputed province. Then, over the course of two bloody years
of combat, the

Armenians captured and ethnically cleansed seven additional Azeri
provinces around

Nagorno-

Karabakh to create what they call a ‘security zone.’

At the beginning of my lecture, I mentioned my travels to
Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital city, Stepanakert. As soon as I said the
word, a low grumble came from my audience, hands shot up and a bright,
young Aziri student rose to admonish me.

"You mean the city of Henkendi?" he asked.

I had to admit that I had never heard of that word, and from the
highway signs to maps to written accounts of the war, I had only ever
seen the name Stepanakert.

"Henkendi was the old Azeri- Turkic name of the capital, but the
Soviets changed it to Stepanakert in the 1920s," I was advised. On
Azeri maps published since their independence from the Soviet Union,
all place names have been replaced with the former Turkic ones. This
renaming process was also conducted by the Armenians, and, as it had
been very difficult to find accurate maps of the region in Canada,
I had acquired one in Yerevan.

This particular map had been produced in 2002 by the

Armenians and it included a separate handy chart which listed all
the former place names juxtaposed with the current ones. Despite the
catalogue of name changes, I was still unable to accurately correspond
some of my research to a location on the map. Outside of Baku at a
refugee camp, I had interviewed 28 Azeri survivors of the Feb. 26,
1992 massacre in the town of Khojaly. On that fateful night a combat
force of Armenians had routed the Azeri militia and completely cleansed
the Azeri enclave of all inhabitants. In the process, 613 Azeris were
killed -mostly civilians -including 83 small children. Thousands more
were injured or missing.

At the time, Human Rights Watch reported this incident to be "the
largest massacre to date in the conflict" and Azerbaijan subsequently
declared Feb. 26 to be a national day of mourning.

Following my lecture, I asked one of the Azeri students to find Khojaly
on my Armenian-produced map. After a protracted, head scratching
silence, he looked up bewildered and said, "it’s not there -they’ve
simply erased it from existence."

There are always at least two sides to the history of every conflict,
but in the Caucasus that divide seems wider and deeper than most.

STUDY RESULTS FROM YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY UPDATE UNDERSTANDING OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Journal of Engineering
December 3, 2008

"The possibilities of the synthesis of submicroll MoSi2 and MoSi2-Si3N4
composite powders were investigated using inorganic salt-assisted
combustion synthesis method. Combustion laws in the MoO3-3Mg-2Si-NaCl
and Mo-5Si-NaCl-Si3N4-N-2 systems were studied," scientists in Yerevan,
Armenia report.

"The main factors influencing the combustion parameters, phase
composition and microstructure of products for both these systems
were determined experimentally. Optimum synthesis conditions of
submicron MOSi2 and MoSi2-Si3N4 composite powders containing 30-40wt.%
of molybdenum disilicide were determined. Compacting conditions for
30wt.%MoSi2-70wt.%Si3N4 composite using the hot pressing technique
were found. Compact samples 20mm in diameter were obtained," wrote
K.V. Manukyan and colleagues, Yerevan State University.

The researchers concluded: "Microstructure, phase and chemical
compositions of the dense samples were studied."

Manukyan and colleagues published their study in Chemical Engineering
Journal (Molten salt-assisted combustion synthesis and characterization
of MoSi2 and MoSi2-Si3N4 composite powders. Chemical Engineering
Journal, 2008;143(1-3):331-336).

For more information, contact K.V. Manukyan, Yerevan State University,
Dept. of Inorgan Chemical, A Manukyan 1, AM-0025 Yerevan, Armenia.

Publisher contact information for the Chemical Engineering Journal is:
Elsevier Science SA, PO Box 564, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland.

ARMENIAN TRADE GAP REMAINS DEEP THOUGH OCTOBER AS IMPORTS KEEP SURGING
Venla Sipila

World Markets Research Centre
December 3, 2008

According to the latest customs-based foreign trade data from the
Armenian Statistical Service, the country’s trade deficit measured
$2US.638 billion in January-October, ARKA News reports. This
imbalance was the result of only marginal growth in exports and
soaring imports. Indeed, exports in the ten-month period gained 0.9%
year-on-year (y/y), reaching $941US.2 million, while imports rose by
42.8% y/y, totalling $3US.579 million. Notably, exports of precious
and semiprecious stones and precious metals decreased clearly,
while exports of non-precious metals also eased slightly in annual
comparison. Rapid gains were posted in several import categories,
among these a surge of some 64% in imports of equipment and tools. The
January-October data signal some strengthening of exports in October,
as the first three quarters of the year had seen exports fall by
1.8% y/y. On the other hand, coming after import growth of 38.3%
y/y reported for January-September, the latest figures also suggest
accelerating import growth.

Significance:The cumulative trade deficit for the first ten months
of the year already clearly exceeds the trade gap for last year as
a whole, which measured some $2US.1 billion, corresponding to 23% of
GDP. This year has seen Armenia’s trade gap soar as domestic demand
has persistently maintained very high growth rates, fuelling imports,
at the same time as export potential remains weak. Economic growth
should finally start to ease from double-digit rates, and this will
have a moderating impact on imports. On the other hand, the increase
in the price of gas charged by the Russian energy giant Gazprom, the
monopoly gas importer in Armenia, will increase to $154US per 1,000
cubic metres (cm) from the beginning of April 2009, up from $110US
per 1,000 cm this year, having an upward impact on import costs. The
trade deficit further continues to put pressure on the overall current
account position, which leaves Armenia vulnerable to external shocks,
as financing of the deficit is dependent on investment and transfer
inflows. On the other hand, a large part of imports relates to capital
goods, which bodes well for export potential in the future. Then again,
the gloomy global growth prospects also represses the export outlook
for Armenia.

CENTRAL BANK OF ARMENIA CUTS INTEREST RATE AS INFLATION DECELERATES FURTHER IN NOVEMBER
Venla Sipila

World Markets Research Centre
December 3, 2008

According to the latest figures from the Armenian National Statistical
Service quoted by ARKA News, consumer prices in the country increased
by 6.6% year-on-year (y/y) in November, after gaining 8.6% y/y in
October, and by an average rate of over 11% during the preceding
three months. Food price inflation moderated to 5.6% y/y, while
growth of non-food good prices eased to 3.4% y/y. Conversely,
the rise in service prices somewhat accelerated from October,
registering a rate of 11.0% y/y in November. Measured month-on-month
(m/m), Armenian consumer prices on the whole edged up by 0.1%, after
rising by 0.7% m/m October and by 0.5% m/m in September. Prices of
non-food goods fell in monthly comparison, as did food prices, even
if only marginally. Separately, AFX Asia reports that the Central
Bank of Armenia (CBA) yesterday announced a 50 basis point cut in
its refinancing rate, taking the policy rate to 7.25%. Before this,
the CBA council had opted to keep the policy rate stable for two
months, following eight successive 25-basis-point increases monthly,
the latest of these having been implemented in September (see Armenia:
3 September 2008: ). The decision to lower the rate in December was
taken in order to boost economic growth.

After strong inflation pressure had driven the interest rate rises
earlier in the year, the CBA now sees monetary easing as appropriate
as prices are falling in global markets. Previously, the CBA did
not embark on a monetary easing path even as global food and energy
prices were falling, because this easing was not immediately filtered
to domestic prices.

Significance:The Armenian interest rate does not yet function as
an effective policy tool, and mainly reflects the CBA’s inflation
expectations. While the considerable upward price pressure from both
cost and demand sides earlier in the year has been strong enough to
lift this year’s inflation rate above the targeted 4%, the monetary
officials’ expectations of moderating inflation pressure are warranted
now that international commodity prices have sharply decreased and
the global growth outlook turns ever gloomier. Thus, further interest
rate cuts are to be expected in the near term.