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REVIEW: JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET AND L.A. PHILHARMONIC AT HOLLYWOOD BOWL
By Josef Woodard, Special to The Times

Los Angeles Times
Aug 22 2008

Khachaturian, long considered a lighter-weight participant among 20th
century composers, may be ripe for reconsideration.

Although Thursday night’s Hollywood Bowl performance by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic had a mostly Russian feeling, its program was
more complicated than that.

Sure, the pioneering Glinka and the reliable crowd-pleaser Tchaikovsky
run down the middle of Russian musical culture, and the Hungarian
Zoltan Kodaly qualifies as compatible kin from the former Eastern Bloc.

But Aram Khachaturian, whose Piano Concerto was the concert’s
centerpiece, was both Moscow-trained and proudly from and of
Armenia. And it was Khachaturian — who worked in the shadows of
Glinka, Armenian traditional music and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky
— who dominated the concert.

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Indeed, Khachaturian, long considered a
lighter-weight participant among 20th century composers, may be ripe
for reconsideration, or at least that was a notion strengthened by
Thursday’s controlled and passion-powered reading of the concerto by
pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

A three-movement piece written in 1936, the work is a solid example of
the composer’s personalized mix of blustery sentimentality, folkish
colors and teasing Modernist spice. Thibaudet mastered the score
handily, deftly working the extremes of flashy dynamism and feathery
ruminations, which he somehow projected into the Bowl’s expanse.

Like Khachaturian, Kodaly has sometimes been cast as an also-ran among
20th century masters, overshadowed by fellow Hungarian Bartok. His
"Dances of Galanta," the concert’s closer, suggests a softer-edged
Bartok, its indigenous folk themes intact and plushly padded.

Standard-brand orchestral taste treats, which can sound better
when consumed in the Bowl’s great outdoorsy setting, served as
supportive pillars on the program. Glinka’s "Russlan and Ludmilla"
started things off with all the gleaming, boisterous energy expected
of it. Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet," for its part, retained its
charms and loveliness.

On the podium, Lionel Bringuier, all of 21 and about to begin his
second season as the Phil’s assistant conductor, acquitted himself and
marshaled the ensemble forces beautifully. It appears that this mighty
orchestra — on the verge of Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel’s
tenure at the helm — is in the assured clutches of ultra-talented
twentysomethings.

VERSIONS OF CONFLICTS’ MILITARY SOLUTION ARE DOOMED TO FAIL, ARF BUREAU MEMBER SAYS

Noyan Tapan

Au g 21, 2008

YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, NOYAN TAPAN. Any versions of military solution
of conflicts are doomed to fail, which the Georgian-South Ossetian
conflict demonstrated as well. Stating this at the August 21 press
conference, member of the ARF Bureau Aghvan Vardanian said: "He who
takes up a sword will fall from it. This is the lesson to be drawn
from the Georgian events."

Speaking about the possible impact of these events on Nagorno Karabakh,
he noted that Karabakh is a much more successful state unit than
Ossetia, and while being unrecognized, it can serve as an example for
some recognized states in many issues. In the opinion of A. Vardanian,
what happened is an occasion for the main political forces of Armenia
to show their unity in the Karabakh problem and other problems of
national and state importance.

In the current situation A. Vardanian considered it important that the
Georgian authorities in cooperation with Armenia ensure the rights of
the Armenians of Javakhk as an ethnic minority. At the same time he
underlined that everything possible should be done to prevent Javakhk
from being used as a tool for increasing the tension by a third force.

In his words, one should also be careful about the activity displayed
by Turkey so that any initiatives to proceed from this activity will
not take place at the expense of Armenia.

ALL CONFLICTS IN SOUTH CAUCASUS REGION SHOULD BE SETTLED WITHIN TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF COUNTRIES OF REGION: PRESIDENT OF ROMANIA

Trend News Agency
Aug 21 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, 21 August /corr. Trend J.Babayeva / All conflicts
in the South Caucasus region should be settled within territorial
integrity of the countries of region, the President of Romania, Trayan
Basesku, told during the meeting with the President of Azerbaijan,
Ilham Aliyev, in Baku.

" Romania supports solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh and other conflicts
in the region within territorial integrity of the countries of region,"
Basesku said.

During the meeting, the President of Azerbaijan highlighted development
of friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Romania in political,
economic, cultural spheres. " Romania and Azerbaijan are close allies,
and regional co-operation between the two countries is successfully
realized," President Ilham Aliyev said.

President of Romanian made a short-term visit to Azerbaijan. Trayan
Basesku’s visit took place within tour to the countries of Black
Sea region.

TURKEY’S UNDER-21 TEAM PLAYS IN YEREVAN

Today’s Zaman
Aug 20 2008
Turkey

The Turkish National Under-21 Football Team departed yesterday for the
Armenian capital to play today with the Armenian National Under-21
Football Team, as both are members of the Second Selection Group in
the 17th Under-21 European Championship.

The match between the two teams will kick off at 7 p.m. Turkey time
at Yerevan’s Hrazdan Stadium.

Armenia decided on Thursday to unilaterally suspend its visa regime
with Turkey to facilitate the arrival of Turkish fans for the upcoming
first-ever match between the two countries’ national football teams,
in a fresh overture to Ankara. The Armenian government stated that
Turkish citizens traveling to Armenia from Sept. 1-6 would not be
required to obtain entry visas. Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan
invited President Abdullah Gul to a World Cup qualifying match between
the national soccer teams of the two countries in Yerevan on Sept. 6,
calling for dialogue to help normalize ties and saying this would
be mutually beneficial. Over the weekend, Gul said that he was still
assessing whether to respond positively to the invitation.

Both diplomats at the Foreign Ministry and officials close to the
Cankaya Presidential Palace are tight-lipped on whether Gul will
accept Sarksyan’s invitation, which has prompted international media
to refer to the current state of affairs as "soccer diplomacy."

Turkish ambassador: `Turkey will not open borders with Armenia as long as
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is not restored’
19 Aug 2008

Baku. Elbrus Seyfullayev-APA. Chairman of the State Committee with Religious
Associations Hidayat Orucov has met with the Turkey’s Ambassador to
Azerbaijan Hulusi Kilic. The State Committee told APA Orucov informed his
guest about the religious situation in the country and underlined the
tolerance between the national and religious minorities in Azerbaijan.
`Every citizen’s freedom of faith and other rights are protected. The
religion is separate from the state in Azerbaijan, but all religious
confessions have been provided with the conditions for free activity’.

Ambassador Hulusi Kilic expressed his satisfaction with the development of
relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan. `Turkey will develop its
cooperation with Azerbaijan in all spheres henceforth’.

Touching upon the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, the ambassador said the
Turkey’s position in this issue was clear. `Despite pressures from Europe
and all the West, Turkey will not open its borders with Armenia as long as
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is not restored. We are always together
with Azerbaijan in this issue’.

LOCAL WATCH REPAIR COMPANY STILL TICKING
Dave Hall

Windsor Star
Aug 19 2008
Canada

A diamond-setter since he started his apprenticeship at the age of
12 in Istanbul, Harry Dokmecian is still working 57 years later in
a small shop on Park Street West.

Owner of Bert Weeks Jewellers, a long-established downtown business
which still bears the late Windsor mayor’s name, Dokmecian can still
be found behind the counter or in his small workshop at the back of
the store six days a week.

"What else would I do? Where else would I go?" said Dokmecian, an
Armenian who left Turkey with his mother and brother in 1955 and moved
to Buenos Aires, Argentina. "This is what I know and I plan to be here
a while yet because my health, knock on wood, is still pretty good."

Dokmecian, whose father died when he was eight, said his family left
Turkey because of longstanding conflicts between Turks and Armenians
and because "it was tough for us to earn a living so we moved to
Argentina."

While learning to speak Spanish, Dokmecian opened his own store in
Buenos Aires and soon added watch-making to his repertoire of skills.

"It was a good living," said Dokmecian.

But after 16 years in Argentina, Dokmecian, his wife Arnalda and
mother decided to move to Canada to be closer to relatives who lived
in Michigan.

"We stayed at the old Norton Palmer for three or four days before
finding a small apartment," said Dokmecian.

It also didn’t take him long to find Weeks Jewellers, which was
then located on Ouellette Avenue, and armed with a Spanish-English
dictionary, he talked himself into an interview.

"I had to keep looking up the different words during the interview
but it worked and I started working for Mr. Weeks in 1971," said
Dokmecian. "I repaired watches of all kinds from new ones to antiques."

After three years, he left Weeks and started working at Meyers
Jewellers in Detroit where he repaired Accutron watches. But when
Weeks retired in 1980, Dokmecian took the opportunity to become his
own boss again and took over the store.

Nine years later, he moved the business around the corner onto Park
Street where it’s been ever since.

Thirty years ago, there were more than a dozen jewellers downtown
but now only a handful remain including Weeks, G&G Jewelery, Ian
Henderson Jeweller and Gemologist and Shanfield-Meyers.

Some have closed while others have relocated elsewhere in the city.

"At times, it’s been difficult but we had a good clientele who kept
coming back and we have a good name," said Dokmecian. "Downtown is
not too good for business right now but I’m still here.

"And I’ve always believed that if you’re not lazy, you’ll always have
bread on your table."

Dokmecian said his only concession to age is that he now uses a
jeweller’s magnifier because his eyesight isn’t what is used to be
after decades of working with intricate designs and small timepieces.

"I love to fix old timepieces. I’ve worked on antique watches and
clocks from the 1800s but it’s getting harder to find parts because
most of the old watchmakers from around here are either retired or
they’ve passed away," said Dokmecian.

His workshop area features a four-tonne safe which cost him $1,100
to move when he switched locations, a gold-rolling machine as well as
gold-plating machines most of which "you can’t find anywhere anymore."

ARMENIA: RATM TO ACQUIRE PLANT MIKA-CEMENT

ESMERK
Vedomosti Sibir
August 19, 2008 Tuesday

The Novosibirsk holding RATM (Siberia) plans to acquire the cement
plant Mika-Cement in Armenia. The holding is expected to buy from 75%
plus one share to 100%. The sum of the deal is not disclosed. According
to analysts, 100% of the plant cost from US$ 60mn (EUR 38.48mn) to US$
120mn. RATM intends to invest US$ 15-17mn to modernize the new asset
till summer 2009. The second production line, idle for ten years,
is to be launched at the plant. This will allow the enterprise to
reach the designed capacity of 1.2mn tons.

Acquisition of the Armenian plant is in line with the strategy of
RATM development envisaging increase in the total production of
cement by the enterprises of the holding to 10mn tons per year by
2014. The program also provides for construction of new enterprises,
US$ 2bn to be allotted by RATM for these goals.

THE VICTORY WILL BELONG TO PEOPLE, LEVON TER-PETROSYAN SAID AT THE LPA FOUNDING CONGRESS
by Margarit Yesayan

Aravot
Aug 19 2008
Armenia

A new old political party – the Liberal Party of Armenia – was born
on Saturday [17 August], whose core, according to the founders,
consists of the Liberal Progressive Party of Armenia. Hovhannes
Hovhannisyan was elected the party’s president. As was expected,
the congress was turned into a mini-rally: the slogan "Struggle,
struggle until the end" was heard after each speech.

[Passage omitted: The leaders of the opposition People’s Party of
Armenia, the Republic party, the Armenian Pan-National Movement and
the Liberty party welcomed the foundation of the new party and praised
it in their speeches]

When the congress was coming to its end at about an hour-and-a-half
after its start, when Hovhannisyan was delivering his closing speech,
the first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, entered the hall slowly. The
hall exploded in applause, people forgot immediately that they were
at the congress of a different party, and welcomed the first president
as an icon. The first president did not resist, he greeted the people
in the hall, shook Hovhannisyan’s hand and took a seat.

He said in his speech: "Let me express my unexpected admiration that
a new party can be established in such an environment. It looked
like that the era of parties is coming to an end in Armenia, and
let’s admit that people are somehow disappointed in the party system,
people don’t realize that this is not the fault of the party system
but that of the government. If the government were healthy, it would
have been built on the constitutional order, and the parties would
have been healthier than the government. The government’s flaws are
echoed in parties. And we have to accept this as a fact."

SERGEY MARKEDONOV: "GEORGIA IS NOT THE COUNTRY FOR WHICH AZERBAIJAN SHOULD ARGUE WITH RUSSIA"

Today.Az
18 August 2008 [16:50]

Day.Az interview with Sergey Markedonov, famous Russian political
scientist and chief of department of problems of international
relations under the Institute of political and military analysis.

– How will the world change following the next Caucasus war? Is it
possible to say that it has become bipolar?

– It is absolutely not like this. The world will be neither homopolar
nor bipolar. The terms of the cold war are completely inappropriate
in this situation.

Cold war requires ideological counteraction. The point is the
protection of Russian interests in the Caucasus, though, I think, the
Kremlin’s rhetoric was aimed at curbing NATO, that is at more global
ideas. I think, not merely global interests, but protection of the
North-Caucasus borders of Russia is important. Considering that the
latter thesis is not global, Russian leaders apply larger rhetorics,
pointing that we have averted the third world war.

Everything is just more simple. We did not want to settle the
situation, connected with the South Ossetia conflict, surrender our
positions in the North Caucasus and lose prestige.

– Some experts state that the events in South Ossetia were a
premeditated provocation of Moscow…

– The events in South Ossetia should not be regarded as events of
August 8.

They have a gap of four years. Georgia has initiated the conflict
defreezing since 2004. There are quotes, speeches, actions of Mikhail
Saakashvli. The first armed clashes occurred four years ago. The South
Ossetian conflict has had a positive dynamics, unlike Nagorno-Karabakh
and Abkhaz conflict. South Ossetia maintained contracts with Georgia,
it had joint markets, Georgian settlements, transport communication and
so on. Accelerated execution of the program for Georgia’s reintegration
started in 2004, when Saakashvili’s came to power.

In the result of the South-Ossetian conflict Mikhail Saakashvili lost
South Ossetia and Abkhazia completely. Let’s imagine that some Russian
hawks were interested in such a script, which makes punishment of
the Georgian leader possible. But it does not mean that Saakashvili
started to move towards Tkhinvali by the instruction of the Russian
special services. I think such a version is absurd.

– Don’t Moscow’s actions show that it intends to annex South Ossetia
to its territory by all means?

– Russia’s official approach on the South Ossetian conflict is
represented in Dmitri Medvedev’s six points, pointing at the wide
international discussion of the South Ossetian and Abkhazian state. For
the first time the Russian leader challenged the territorial integrity
of Georgia, which had never been made before. The final form of the
resolution of the South Ossetian and Abkhaz problem, whether it will
be an annexation or something else", has never been voiced so far. In
this case, the implied are the statements of officials-the President,
Prime Minister, state duma and others. Alexander Dugin even speaks of
assault against Tbilisi. We will not speak about Moscow’s position
on Dugin’s statements. The first step on the rejection to recognize
the territorial integrity of Georgia has already been made.

– How will the further events in Georgia proceed?

– The optimal variant is the non-increase of the number of the
potential participants of the conflict. Most depends on Russia’s
actions-whether we will move in the Tbilisi direction or no. I think
Georgian issue should not be interfered with. The tasks on South
Ossetia and Abkhazia have been fulfilled and there is no sense of
moving forward. Russian public does not approve Russia’s presence
in Georgia and it will hardly be possible to replace Saakashvili
with another one. It would be better to leave him one-on-one with
the Georgian people. He has destroyed many positive things, that
have been left since the moment of the revolution of roses, with his
adventures. Saakshvili made the wrong step towards refugees. Georgians
lived in normal conditions in South Ossetia. He used it as a live
shield. They have become refugees.

Now let the Georgian people ask Saakashvili about the support of the
USA which was to come to Georgia already on the second day. Until
Russian forces are in Georgia, people will not demand explanations
from Saakashvili.

– Why do you think Azerbaijan has not made a stake on the forced
resolution of Nagorno karabakh conflict, though it has economic and
military advantages as compared to Georgia?

– This is because the Azerbaijani leadership is wiser than
Georgia’s. War is a great policy. In this sense, Saakashvili has
stronger media positions than Azerbaijan. If Georgia was supported by
the United States and West in the South-Ossetian and Abkhaz conflicts,
in case of Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan will get the pro-Armenian
position of the West. Therefore, the concepts of economic and military
resources should be considered through the prism of the 18th century. A
prince invaded the neighbor kingdom and everyone accepted it. But we
live in a completely different world today.

In case war is initiated, Azerbaijan will face serious isolation. If
for Russia isolation is bearable enough, it will become critical for
Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani leadership is aware of it.

I think Baku’s reaction on the recent events in the region was
adequate.

The first reaction was: "we support the territorial integrity of
Georgia".

And then, realizing that Georgia was unable to win in the
South-Ossetian conflict, Baku took the position of silence.

Georgia is not the country for which Azerbijan should argue with
Russia, not speaking of the West and the United States. The third
world war will not start because of Georgia, while Georgian government
overestimated its capacities. Unlike Mikhail Saakashvili, Ilham Aliyev
is able to assess his capacities correctly.

Interfax News Agency, Russia
Aug 13 2008

ARMENIA’S WITHDRAWAL FROM CIS OUT OF THE QUESTION – DIPLOMAT

Armenia does not plan to respond to Georgia’s call to withdraw from
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Armenia’s Deputy Foreign
Minister Gegam Garibdzhanian told Interfax.

The issue of withdrawal from the CIS cannot be entered in Armenia’s
foreign-policy agenda, Garibdzhanian said in remarks about Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili ‘s announcement that Georgia was pulling
out of the CIS and his call for other CIS members to do the same.

We did not receive an official notification from Tbilisi saying that
Georgia was withdrawing from the CIS, he said.