Author: Ani Basmajian

The Messenger, Georgia
June 7 2005
Russia launches new brigade to “prevent terrorists” from Georgia
The Russian government has announced that two new light mountain
rifle brigades will be set up along the Georgian-Russian border.
Sergey Ivanov, the defense minister of the Russian Federation, made
the announcement. “The resolution has been passed at all levels.
Funding will be large – up to 1 billion rubles[USD 55 million],” he
said in a statement to journalists. “They will be deployed at the
border between Georgia and Russia with the goal of supporting our
border guards under a special program aimed at preventing terrorists
from traveling from Georgian territory to Russia.”
Ivanov also spoke about the two Russian military bases to be
withdrawn from Georgia by 2008. “We are to withdraw about 2,500
military and their families, about 2,500 units of heavy equipment,
80,000 tons of ammunition, military property and different goods,”
Ivanov said.
He noted that the equipment and the property, as well as the
personnel, would leave by sea. Some parts of the equipment will be
re-deployed to the Russian military base in Armenia.
“The bases were deployed there not by Russia, but by the USSR. They
have no military role,” he declared.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RAPPORTEURS OF PACE MONITORING COMMITTEE HAVE MEETINGS WITH HEADS OF
RA POLICE
YEREVAN, MAY 13, NOYAN TAPAN. Jersy Jaskiernia, Georges Colombier, the
Monitoring Committe’s rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe and Bonny Teofilova, the Secretary of the Committee,
had a metting with heads of the RA Police on May 12. As Noyan Tapan
was informed from the Public Relations and Information Department of
the RA Police, issues concerning steps undertaken by the Police in the
sphere of human rights, future activities in that sphere, the law “On
Adoption RA Police’s Disciplinary Code”, rules of the police ethics,
works carried out in the direction of the future improvement of
activities of the police of Armenia including re-training of the
police staff were discussed during the meeting.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Film Stew, CA
May 15 2005
Egoyan’s Steamy Truth

Even though the steamy drama Where the Truth Lies still does not have
an American distributor, its maker says he has no plans to defer to
the moral code of the MPAA.

By J. Sperling Reich

The Cannes Film Festival has often been faulted by its critics for
bringing back the same filmmakers each year. Take Canadian auteur
Atom Egoyan for instance; having participated in the festival seven
times before, Egoyan is back again in competition this year with
Where The Truth Lies.
The decision to include Agoyan for the eight time has also led some
attendees to start suggesting that the trend in the festival
programmer’s selections for 2005 is dark movies. Egoyan’s movie is a
modern film noir and, like Woody Allen’s film Match Point, which
unspooled here Thursday, it marks something of a departure from the
filmmaker’s previous work.
Nevertheless, the film’s producer, Robert Lantos, begs to differ.
`Certainly, I think the last time Atom and I were here with a film it
was dark,’ he argued, sighting Egoyan’s take on the Armenian
genocide, Ararat, which appeared in 2002. `From that perspective,
this film is sheer joy.’

That Where the Truth Lies could be construed as a `dark’ film, as
some journalists here in Cannes referred to it, isn’t surprising.
Egoyan has adapted Rupert Holmes novel into a steamy murder mystery
that starts out in 1959, a time when the fictitious comic duo of
Lanny Harris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth) are the
hottest act in the country.
After their annual telethon for polio raises millions of dollars, the
naked body of a beautiful woman (Rachel Blanchard) is found drowned
in the bathroom of their hotel suite and suddenly, the duo’s
partnership comes to an end. Fifteen years later, Karen O’Conner
(Alison Lohman), a young award-winning journalist, decides to write a
book about the pair and in so doing begins to unravel the true story
of what happened to the murdered woman. Through a circuitous tale of
celebrity, sex, drugs and murder, Karen learns a little more than she
ever wanted to know about the subjects of her book. . . as well as
herself.
What caught the attention of most of the audience at this weekend’s
early screening was how overtly sexual Where the Truth Lies is, and
when questioned about this aspect of his latest film, the 44-year-old
Cairo native Agoyan says this was his intention from the very start.
`I always saw this as a really sensual movie in terms of the sex in
the movie,’ Agoyan explained. `I wanted to create this world that was
intoxicating.’
On that front, Egoyan has succeeded: the production design is lavish,
the score rich and the cinematography handsome. Now, like the
aforementioned Allen, all Egoyan has to do is find an American
distributor and get the film past the MPAA without having to cut any
of the nudity or

Serendipity Point Films
Co-stars Firth, Lohman

numerous sex scenes that pepper the film. Looking ahead, Egoyan says
has no plans to make any cuts.
`That sense you feel that it’s going too far is absolutely essential
to the dramatic intention of the piece,’ he said. `The viewer has to
experience a sense of violation; I wanted it to be unbridled. I
wanted it to feel that anything could happen.’
`That these people could take any amount of drugs they wanted, they
could have any amount of sex that they wanted, that nothing was
holding them back,’Agoyan added. `I wanted to make that sex as vivid
and corporeal as possible. I never think about censors. It’s really
interesting to me how people respond to the sexuality but not the
violence in the film.’
Co-star Kevin Bacon, who joined Egoyan and Colin Firth at the
post-screening press conference, is fully supportive of his
director’s stance. `That’s what I’ve always found strange about the
rating system, that violence is often overlooked,’ the actor
complained. `Another thing is that sex is alright to see as long as
the participants are clothed or some sort of piece of furniture is
put in the way of nudity.’
Not so in Where the Truth Lies. `When we have sex, we’re naked, and
that’s what kind of flips people out,’ Bacon said of the film, before
going on to joke, `I don’t know, in real life sometimes I leave some
of my clothes on, but it is unfortunate that people find that so
disturbing.’
Lantos, who as the film’s producer has every right to be concerned,
waived off any comments about the issues of ratings and censorship.
`It is simply a film for adults and it was always intended as a film
for adults,’ he shrugged.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Who’s that next to the Maltese PM?: John Prescott’s back-row position
in a VE-Day photocall this week was seen as a snub to Britain. But how
did the Israeli president feel about being stuck behind the president
of Kazakhstan?
Richard Jinman and Leo Hickma
The Guardian – United Kingdom
May 11, 2005

It is a bit like organising a particularly big dinner party. But
instead of the usual girl-boy-girl-boy rule, the seating plan is
decided by the relative standing of the guests. The placement of
dignitaries at the VE Day commemoration in Moscow may look rather
haphazard – that’s poor John Prescott rubbing shoulders with the
former presidents of Poland and Cyprus in the wilderness of the back
row – but in fact there is a strict protocol at work. In diplomatic,
as in dinner party circles, it is known as placement, and it has
almost certainly determined the standing arrangements here.
The former foreign secretary Robin Cook, a veteran of photocalls of
this kind, offers an explanation of the rules: “Heads of state go
first, then heads of government, and representatives of heads of
government come third, which is why John [Prescott] is where he is. As
the representative of a head of government, that’s understandably why
he’s ended up where he did.”
Heads of state certainly occupy the prime positions at the VE Day
commemoration. The host, President Putin, has claimed a central
position that allows him to trade bons mots with France’s president
Chirac and give the cold shoulder to President Bush to his left. But
still in the front row, if slightly further away from the spotlight,
we have heads of government including Italy’s prime minister, Silvio
Berlusconi, Japan’s PM Junichiro Koizumi and Jean-Claude Juncker,
prime minister of tiny Luxembourg. There is one empty place in the
front row, next to India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh. Perhaps it
was reserved for Mr Blair, who would have certainly have made the
front row if he had attended the event, according to one former
ambassador who asked not to be named.
It all sounds relatively simple compared with seating arrangements at
the pope’s funeral, where the world’s presidents were seated together
at the front of the VIPs’ enclosure, in alphabetical order, by country
and in French. Thus Mr Bush of the Etats-Unis was placed next to M
Jacques Chirac of France. The two leaders who clashed bitterly over
the Iraq war were separated by their wives. They shook hands. Further
back, the prime ministers were seated more arcanely by date order of
their country’s official recognition of the Vatican. This left Tony
Blair and wife Cherie somewhere near the back.
What is often misunderstood, says Cook, is that the size of a nation
is not generally supposed to be significant in events such as
this. “The overwhelming protocol is that you don’t distinguish between
the size of a country, just on the status of the person from there who
is representing it,” he says. “When you stop to think about it, it’s
the only way you can work it, that every sovereign state has equal
status. Though of course in the real world it doesn’t work that way.”
Indeed it does not. The positioning of the presidents of Finland,
Azerbaijan, Austria and South Korea in the second row suggests the
heads-of-state-come-first rule has not been adhered to in this case.
Once the heads of state and heads of government have been accounted
for, things get “a lot more complicated”, according to the former
ambassador. “A deputy prime minister should rank above a foreign
minister, for example, but there are sometimes other considerations.”
Richard Muir, former ambassador to Kuwait and Oman, offers a different
explanation for Mr Prescott’s apparently lowly positioning. “These
things are normally done by the protocol people, and that will then be
submitted to the political chiefs to look at. The UK system would be
to do this very carefully and in advance. In Russia there well may be
much more ad-hockery,” he says. “I think in countries less well
organised than the UK there is always an element of muddle to all
this. It may well be the ‘cock-up’ theory rather than a conspiracy at
work.”
Key to heads of state:
Back row (left to right): Glafcos Clerides, former president of
Cyprus; General Wojciech Jaruzelski, former president of Poland;
Imants Freibergs, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, president of Latvia; John
Prescott, British deputy prime minister; Peter Cartwright; Silvia
Cartwright, governor-general, New Zealand; Mirela Moisia; Alfred
Moisiu, president of Alb-ania; Drogica Paravac; Borislav Paravac,
presidency member, Bosnia & Herze-govina; Lawrence Gonzi, prime
minister of Malta; Samuel Schmid, president of Switzerland;
Nzadsurengiin Oyunbileg, wife of Mongolian president; Natsagiyn
Bagabandi, president of Mongolia; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister
of Turkey; Traian Basescu, president of Romania; Livia Klaus; Vaclav
Klaus, president of Czech Republic; unknown
Third row: Branko Crvenkovski, president of Macedonia; Yasmina
Crvenkovski; Jan Peter Balkenende, prime minister of the Netherlands;
Herman de Croo, chairman of house of representatives,
Belgium; Anders Fogh Rasmussen, prime minister of Denmark; Bertie
Ahern, prime minister of Ireland; Halldor Asgrimsson, prime minister
of Iceland; Bjorg Bondevik; Kjell Magne Bondevik, prime minister,
Norway; Dalma Madl; Ferenc Madl, president of Hungary; Moshe Katzav,
president of Israel; Gila Katsav; Jolanta Kwasniewski; Aleksander
Kwasniewski, president of Poland; Michael Jeffery, governor general of
Australia; Photini Michaelides, wife of Cypriot president; Tassos
Papadopoulos, president of Cyprus; unknown; Jose Socrates, prime
minister of Portugal; Stjepan Mesic, president of Croatia; Janez
Drnovsek, president of Slovenia
Second row: Karolos Papoulias, president of Greece; Goran Persson,
prime minister of Sweden; Svetozar Marovic, president of Serbia and
Montenegro; Djina Marovic; Dr Pentti Arajarvi; Tarja Kaarina Halonen,
president of the Republic of Finland; Kurmanbek Bakiyev, acting
president of the Kyrgyz Republic; Maryan Bakiyev; Bella Kocharian;
Robert Kocharian, president of the republic of Armenia; Nursultan
Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan; Ilhan Aliev, president of
Azerbaijan; Mehriban Aliyeva; Emomali Rahmanov, president of
Taijikistan; Roh Moo-hyun, president of South Korea; Kwon Yang-suk;
Zorka Parvanov; Georgi Parvanov, president of the Republic of
Bulgaria; Heinz Fischer, president of Austria; King Mihai I of Romania
Front row: Margarita Barroso; Jose Manuel Borroso, president of the EU
Commission; Jean-Claude Junker, president of Luxembourg; Junchiro
Koizumu, president of Japan; Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister of
Italy; John Saul; Adrienne Clarkson, governor general of Canada;
Gerhard Schroeder, chancellor of Germany; Doris Schroeder; Jacques
Chirac, president of France; Lyudmila Putin; Vladimir Putin, president
of Russia; George Bush, president of the USA; Laura Bush; Hu Jintao,
president of the People’s Republic of China; Manmohan Singh, prime
minister of India; Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, president of Spain;
Sonsoles Zapatero; Kofi Annan, UN secretary general
No, after you . . . all friends after the shoot
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

940 News Radio, Canada
April 23 2005
Armenian rememberance
2005-04-23 11:55:30
This weekend marks the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in
which a million-and-a-half Armenians were killed and tortured during
the 1915 genocide in turkey. At 7 Saturday evening, a special service
will take place at St. Joseph’s Oratory, to remember those who lost
their lives during the massacre. Religious leaders from Montreal and
a number of politicians are expected to attend the
multi-denominational mass. A number of the remaining survivors of the
genocide will also be in attendance.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Students Join Hands on Anniversary of Armenian Genocide
By CATHERINE CHANG
Daily Californian, CA
April 22 2005
Friday, April 22, 2005
Senior Vehanoush Ghookasian, left, joined more than 200 students in
a demonstration on Sproul Plaza yesterday to commemorate the 90th
anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, when some 1.5 million
Armenians were killed.
“United Hands Across Cal” was organized by the Armenian Students’
Association, which joined forces with several other student groups,
including Bears for UNICEF, Amnesty International and Campaign to
End the Death Penalty, to take a stand for human rights.
Participants held hands and lined up in front of Sproul Hall, where
several speakers read survivor accounts and spoke on the issue. The
line of students began at the corner of Bancroft Way and Telegraph
Avenue and stretched across Sproul Plaza, nearly reaching Sather Gate.
“Standing for human rights and standing against crimes against humanity
is really a universal thing,” said junior Kristina Bedrossian, an
event organizer. “In the end, we’re all human-we need to be able to
join together to recognize history.”
While many association members attended the event to commemorate
the genocide, students who participated in the event were given
tags so they could write down any own personal causes they had come
to represent.
Students addressed other issues such as education, awareness, ending
the death penalty and universal human rights.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pan Armenian News
ARMENIAN NA SPEAKER TO DEPART FOR MOSCOW APRIL 12
11.04.2005 06:59
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ April 12 the Armenian delegation headed by NA Speaker
Artur Baghdasarian will depart for Moscow, RA NA press service reported. The
visit will be held on the invitation of Chairman of the Russian State Duma
Boris Gryzlov. The delegation members are scheduled to meet with Boris
Gryzlov, Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly
Sergey Mironov, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and co-chair of the
Armenian-Russian interparliamentary commission Igor Levitin. It should be
also noted that an exhibition dedicated to the 90-the anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide will be opened in the building of the Federation Council.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Messenger.ge, Georgia
Tuesday, April 5, 2005, #061 (0835)
New railways in the South Caucasus
Economic – and political – ambitions unfold in plans for new rail lines
connecting East to West
By M. Alkhazashvili
Several new railway projects are currently being considered across the South
Caucasus, railway lines that would allow the region to at least partly
capitalize on its potential as a transit hub.
Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish engineers are in Baku on April 4-5 to work
on the issue of the proposed Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway.
According to reports, meanwhile, Russia is seeking to rent the Kars-Gyumri
railway linking Turkey with Armenia. Kazakhstan has also proposed a
cross-continent line linking China with Turkey, though the current route
will bypass the Caucasus and run via Turkmenistan and Iran.
Transporting cargo between Asia and Europe remains an economic, and
geopolitical, problem in need of resolution, but is also an area of huge
potential for the strategically located countries of the South Caucasus. The
economic collapse in the region in the 1990s, along with the various
conflicts, has meant that the region is yet to capitalize on this potential.
One example is the Kars-Gyumri-Yerevan-Nakhichevan-Baku railway linking
Turkey with Azerbaijan via Armenia. The line has been closed since the
beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and its reactivation remains
dependent on the successful resolution of this frozen conflict.
As a result, it was proposed more than a decade ago that a new railway be
constructed linking Turkey with Azerbaijan via Georgia. This would meaning
constructing a new line between Kars in Turkey and Akhalkalaki in southern
Georgia. Such a line would not only link the three countries’ railway
systems together, it would also allow cargo to be transported from the
Caspian to the Mediterranean direct.
Construction of this railway could potentially jeopardize relations with
both Russia and Armenia, however, and as Rezonansi writes, the Shevardnadze
administration was never courageous enough to take this risk. Although they
would benefit economically from the link, furthermore, the predominantly
ethnic Armenian population of Akhalkalaki have always opposed the railway.
Since the Rose revolution, however, the governments of Turkey, Azerbaijan
and Georgia have taken strides towards constructing the railway, which will
cost an estimated USD 1.5 billion. 68 of the 96 km stretch is in Turkey, and
the Turkish government has already pledged to finance the main part of the
work.
Meanwhile, Russia is hoping that the project will be made unnecessary by the
renewal of the Kars-Gyumri railway. Russian Minister of Transport Igor
Levitin said this week that Russia had asked to rent the railway line,
adding that transporting cargo via this line would be twice as cheap as by
the Kars-Akhalkalaki section. The Minister told the countries to put aside
their political differences and discuss the issue solely from an economic
point of view, although it is virtually impossible to keep politics out of
it, as Russia’s offer is motivated less by economics and more by politics.
Even if Turkey agrees to this, however, Azerbaijan will not permit cargo to
cross between Armenia and Azerbaijan, even if via a third country such as
Georgia and bound for a fourth – Turkey. The Karsi-Gyurmi railway can thus
not be seen as an alternative to the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway.
These ongoing disputes between the South Caucasus countries are holding the
region back from fully capitalizing on its potential as a transit hub, and
this can be seen in Kazakhstan’s initiative to build a 4,000 kilometer-long
railway from the Kazakh-Chinese border that would bypass the Caspian and
South Caucasus and pass instead through Turkmenistan and Iran.
The project was presented recently by Kazakh Transportation and
Communications Minister Hajimurat Nemanov, who said that the railway would
be constructed entirely from scratch, as current railway systems in
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan do not adhere to European standards and are
unable to carry modern cargo trucks. Nemanov stated that cargo could be
transported along this route from Chinese eastern ports to the major Dutch
port of Rotterdam in just 13 days, as reported by newspaper Akhali Taoba.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Seconds Out
March 29 2005
Darchinyan Unstoppable says Fenech
IBF/IBO champion Vic Darchinyan

Paul Upham
Contributing Editor
After IBF flyweight world champion Vic Darchinyan’s win over IBO
champion Mzukisi Sikali by 8th round TKO on Sunday night in Sydney,
his trainer Jeff Fenech says that the improving “Raging Bull” will be
unstoppable once he learns to fight for the full three minutes of
each round.
“When he learns to do what I want him to do, that is punch for three
minutes, nobody can beat him,” said Fenech. “He stops and starts and
I don’t want him to get hit and he doesn’t need to get hit because of
his power. We have to do everything perfect in our preparation.”
29 year-old Darchinyan 23-0 (18), making the first defence of his IBF
title after he had stopped long-reigning former champion Irene
Pacheco last December, was simply too powerful for the experienced 33
year-old South African 29-6-2 (17). The only negative for the
Armenian born Australian citizen was his obvious tiredness from
rounds four to six.
Watching amongst the live audience at ringside, undisputed world
junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu feels that Darchinyan is
not training properly. “Vic needs to train harder,” he said. “He
needs to work harder and smarter in the gym and be able to fight for
twelve rounds.”
Co-trainer Billy Hussein felt that Darchinyan went out too fast early
looking for a spectacular knockout. “Vic trains hard, but because he
threw a lot of hard punches, you expect him to get tired,” he said.
“By about the 6th round, he got his second breath. Usually, he starts
slow, but with the excitement of fighting at home, he is trying to
impress his fans.”
Commentating for television, Team Fenech team-mate Hussein Hussein
who established his own reputation amongst the flyweight division
elite against Mexican Jorge Arce one week earlier in the USA, felt
that Darchinyan’s power was too much for Sikali.
“I was impressed with Vic, his power, strength and his speed,” he
said. “I knew as the rounds progressed, his power was going to wear
Sikali out. He was taking too many clean punches. He stood there
trading punches and you don’t do that with Vic Darchinyan. He punches
like a middleweight.”
Can Darchinyan be considered the best flyweight in the world yet? “I
think he has to beat WBC champion Pongsaklek Wonjongkam or WBA
champion Lorenzo Parra first,” said Hussein.
Fenech, the three-time world champion, has no doubt that Darchinyan
will prove to be the undisputed world champion. “We have two belts,
but there is a couple more to go yet,” he said. “Vic can beat
Wonjongkam and Parra. But he has to get in better condition in his
sparring. What he did here was what he does in the gym. I want him to
punch continuously and when he does that, nobody will beat him.”
Was Fenech happy with Darchinyan’s first world title defence?
“No,” he replied with a smile. “Because I know he is better than
that. I’m never happy with him because I just know he is so much
better.”
There has been talk of a match-up in Japan next, but Darchinyan
doesn’t care where he fights, he just wants to fight the best. “I
want the WBA champion Lorenzo Parra,” he said. “He is rated No.1 by
Ring Magazine and I only want to fight the best and I want to win the
WBA title.”
Photo: ;cs=15931
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SCHOLAR OF “GENOCIDE” CLAIMS MEETS WITH BAYKAL
Turkish Press
March 22 2005
Justin McCarthy from Louisville University, an expert on the Armenian
“genocide” claims, yesterday met with opposition Republican People’s
Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal and Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc.
Baykal stressed the importance of rectifying a “great deception” on
this issue, adding, “We want to make sure the debate will move away
from a political framework to a scholarly one based on historical
documents.” Arinc also said that Turkey is ready to make available
every document in its possession on Armenians and that it has never
committed a genocide. McCarthy added, “There was a war in eastern
Anatolia during World War I, not a genocide campaign against the
Armenians in the region.” Stressing that the Armenian accusations
of genocide were illogical, McCarthy said Turkey was one of the most
important countries in the world and a model country in its region.
He also emphasized that resolutions taken by several countries’
parliaments concerning the Armenian genocide claims were politically
motivated. /Hurriyet/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress