Author: Boshkezenian Garik

Armenian MOD delegation to participate in the exhibition of armaments
ArmRadio.am
10.07.2006 13:20
Tomorrow the Armenian delegation will participate in the 5th
international exhibition of armaments, defense technology and
ammunition to open in Nizhniy Tagil. Press Service of RA Defense
Ministry informs that employees of the Armaments Agency, Colonels
Vasili Bondar and Ashot Danielyan have already departed.
According to Russian media, Mi-26 heavy-lift helicopters, SU-25
attack aircrafts, SU-24 fencers and Mi-24 military helicopters will
demonstrate their capacities during the exhibition of armaments. 16
countries will participate in the exhibition as guests.

GENERAL AMNESTY GRANTED
Lragir.am
07 July 06
On July 6 the National Assembly discussed President Kocharyan’s
proposal on general amnesty and adopted it on July 7. As we have
already informed, 300 people will be released.
There was only one change in the decision on general amnesty. The
representative of the president Davit Harutiunyan, Minister of Justice,
offered to include Article 268 of the Criminal Code as well, namely
defiling cemeteries and dead bodies. Amnesty will be granted to persons
who committed a crime before June 1, 2006, convicts sentenced to 3-5
years of imprisonment, inmates aged over 60, disabled convicts of
categories 2 and 3.

KARABAKH STATUS CAN BE DETERMINED AFTER REFUGEES RETURN – AZERI SPOKESMAN
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Military Newswire
July 4, 2006 Tuesday 1:03 PM MSK
A decision on the status of Nagorno- Karabakh can be taken only after
all refugees return to the predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave and
after safe living conditions for the Azeri and Armenian communities
have been established there, Azeri Foreign Ministry spokesman Tair
Tagizade told Interfax.
“Only after the pre-conflict demographic composition of the
Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan has been restored, after
security has been guaranteed and after conditions allowing the two
communities to live side-by-side peacefully have been established,
will it be possible to speak about a democratic constitutional way
to determine the status of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said on Monday that conflict
settlement initiatives presented by the OSCE Minsk Group “are generally
acceptable for Armenia. We are ready to continue talks with Azerbaijan
on ways to settle the Karabakh conflict,” he said.
“In my opinion, it is obvious that Armenia could have and should
have accepted them. You do not have to search for anything new. The
statement by the [OSCE Minsk Group] co-chairmen overwhelmingly
confirmed it,” Tagizade said.
“We are speaking about liberating all occupied districts of Azerbaijan
outside Nagorno-Karabakh, withdrawing Armenian troops from the areas,
carrying out mine-sweeping operations, restoring road links, helping
refugees return to the districts and guaranteeing security,” the
spokesman said.

REVERBERATIONS IN ARMENIAN COMMUNITY TO KAREKIN II’S COMMENTS ON GENOCIDE
Hurriyet, Turkey
July 5 2006
The recent visit to Istanbul by the leader of the worldwide Armenian
Orthodox Church, Catholicos Karekin II, has reportedly divided
members of his wide spread community. Karekin II, who was in Turkey
between June 20-27, made several widely publicized statements about
Armenian claims of genocide by the Turks, noting that it was Turkey’s
responsibility to officially recognize the genocide.
Speaking after Karekin II’s departure from Turkey, Patriarch Mesrob
II, the leader of the Armenian Orthodox community in Turkey, stated
that he did not agree with Karekin II’s comments on Armenian claims
of genocide. These comments from Mesrob II in turn elicited an angry
reaction from the Turkey-based Armenian language “Agos” newspaper,
whose editor, Hrant Dink, claimed in an article that “a trap had been
laid” for Karekin II on his visit here. Dink’s comments were supported
by statements issued on the “PanArmenian” web site, which said that
the Turkish government had appointed Mesrob II to his position.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATES ATTACKS ON MINORITIES
By Anton Troianovski, Associated Press Writer
Hinesberg Journal, Canada
July 3 2006
MOSCOW – Prosecutors said Monday that they are investigating the
weekend stabbings of five ethnic minorities as hate crimes.
Russia has seen a wave of hate crimes in recent years, with hundreds
of attacks reported, including many on dark-skinned immigrants from
former Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains region.
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian condemned the attacks
and urged Russia to do more to head off a rising tide of violent
xenophobia.
Meanwhile, three suspects in the Saturday stabbing of a Kazakh
citizen were arrested for a racially motivated crime, the Interfax
news agency reported.
Alexander Brod, who heads the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, said
the surge in attacks might be tied to two high-profile conferences
that opened in the capital on Monday before a summit of the Group of
Eight major industrialized nations that begins next week in St.
Petersburg.
Interfax quoted an Armenian community leader, Ara Abramian, as saying
the attacks were “a direct provocation before the G-8 meeting,”
and sharply criticized Moscow law enforcement for failing to prevent
such assaults.

YEREVAN’S FUTILE EFFORTS
By Semih Idiz
Anatolian Times, Turkey
July 3 2006
MILLIYET- Armenia believes in the bad state of Turkish-US relations
and thinks it can take advantage of the international situation.
However, it couldn’t help being excluded from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline project, which is very important for its interests in the
European Union and the US.
So now Armenia is exerting most of his efforts to hinder another
project between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Kars-Ahilkelek
railway project. If this 100-kilometer railway worth $400 million can
be laid, Azerbaijan and Turkey will be connected through a railway
over Georgia.
This situation would make any resurrection of the Kars-Gumru railway
line irrelevant. In addition, it would further deepen Armenia’s
isolation in the region. Yerevan has set its strong Armenian lobby
in the US in motion and started to move on a bill in Congress banning
the issuance of credit for the Kars-Ahilkelek project by US financial
institutions. Officials from the EU Commission have been saying since
the beginning of this year that the EU wouldn’t support this project
financially. As a matter of fact, as Foreign Ministry Spokesman Namik
Tan stated recently, the countries pursuing this project don’t need
the EU or the US in terms of finding money. Yerevan saw this and now
started to send certain signals that it’s ready to make important
concession so the country’s isolation doesn’t get worse.
Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian visited Tbilisi last week
and, when he saw that he would be unable to convince the Georgian
government to give up Kars-Ahilkelek line, made an interesting
suggestion. As Armenian journalist Emil Danielyan wrote on the ‘Eurasia
Insight’ website, Oskanyan said that if this project was given up,
Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan would be use the existing Gumru railway
line on Armenian territory without Armenia’s participation.
In other words, Yerevan stated that he was ready to provide the
‘right of free entry.’ Of course, the three countries which have
serious problems with Armenia could never accept this suggestion. It
would also be hard for the Armenian people to accept this. If Yerevan
considers the issues at the root of its isolation more realistically,
instead of making such useless suggestions, it would better serve
their long-term interests. However, it can’t do this as a country
with its eyes fixed on the past, rather than the future.

DetNews.com, MI
July 1 2006
Is GM ultimate risk for Kerkorian?
Billionaire investor appreciates dangers and rewards of betting on
ailing firms, analysts say.
Bryce G. Hoffman / The Detroit News
Global stunner: Link GM, Renault-Nissan

Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire General Motors Corp. shareholder
angling for a three-way alliance of GM, Renault SA and Nissan Motor
Co., has always liked taking risks.
But this is a big one, even for a guy who owns 9.9 percent of ailing
GM, the world’s largest automaker.
Some observers say Kerkorian is drawn to GM by the same thing that
drew him to the casinos of Las Vegas, where he became one of Sin
City’s original high rollers.
“It’s the love of the game,” said Joe Phillippi, president of Auto
Trends Consulting in Short Hills, N.J. “It’s not for money per se,
because he’s got plenty. And it’s not about saving a great American
icon, though he uses that phrase a lot.”
Phillippi thinks Kerkorian is attracted to the automotive industry by
its scale.
“Every bet in the automotive business is a billion dollars,” he said.
“It’s a very expensive game to play.”
Born in California to Armenian immigrants in 1917, Kerkorian dropped
out of school in the eighth grade and earned his pilot’s license by
milking cows for a flight instructor. He went to Canada to join
Britain’s Royal Air Force before the United States had even entered
World War II, volunteering for what many fliers regarded as suicide
missions in exchange for $1,000 a trip.
Kerkorian not only lived to tell about it, but also used his earnings
to start a small charter service back in the States when his tour of
duty ended. That took him to Vegas.
In 1962, he bought 80 acres on the Strip for just under $1 million.
He leased it to the builders of Caesars Palace and made $4 million
off the deal before selling it to the casino for another $5 million
in 1968.
Kerkorian went on to become one of the most successful hotel and
casino tycoons in Las Vegas and became the 19th richest person in
America, according to Forbes, which estimates his personal fortune at
more than $10 billion.
The billionaire investor manages his vast empire through his Beverly
Hills, Calif.-based Tracinda Corp. His interest in the automotive
industry dates back to 1990, when he started buying shares of
Chrysler Corp.
Kerkorian soon became Chrysler’s largest shareholder and a close ally
of then-CEO Lee Iacocca. Five years later, with Iacocca retired and
the company’s share price slumping, the pair made a play for control
of the company. Their hostile takeover bid failed, but Kerkorian did
convince Chrysler to put a Tracinda representative on its board, buy
back shares to increase their price and boost dividend payments.
Kerkorian acceded to what was pitched as Daimler-Benz AG’s “merger of
equals” with Chrysler in 1998. But he later sued the new company,
DaimlerChrysler AG, after then-CEO Juergen Schrempp told a London
newspaper he called the deal a “merger” just to get it done.
Kerkorian, represented on Chrysler’s board, claimed he had been duped
into supporting what had all along been a straight acquisition of
Chrysler. From the beginning, the Germans referred to the deal as
“die Uebernahme,” or the takeover.
Last year, in a closely watched case, a federal judge ruled against
Kerkorian. But John Casesa, who follows the industry as a principal
of the Casesa Shapiro Group LLC in New York, said Kerkorian had
little to regret.
“I doubt very much it would have happened without him,” Casesa said.
“He did get them to sell the company a high price. He made a lot on
that deal.”
Last year, Kerkorian set his sights on GM. Already a major
shareholder, he began increasing his stake in the company even as
other investors were abandoning it. By December, he had amassed 9.9
percent of GM’s shares and was ready to start shaking things up.
In January, Tracinda demanded that GM cut its dividend payments in
half, cut executive compensation and consider selling off some of its
weaker brands. The company agreed to the first two demands. A month
later, Kerkorian forced GM to give Tracinda representative Jerry York
a seat on its board.
Kerkorian’s moves were seen as a challenge to GM Chairman and CEO
Rick Wagoner, even though the savvy mogul insisted in regulatory
filings that his interest was purely “passive.”
“They’re persistent in pushing their agenda,” Casesa said. “These
guys will not let up.”
Why does Kerkorian do it?
Casesa said Kerkorian is a contrarian investor who fully appreciates
the risks and rewards of betting on troubled companies like GM, and
Chrysler before it. When he invests in a company, it is usually with
an eye to altering the corporate course to boost share price and book
a profit on his usually sizable investment.
“It is hard to rival buying into Chrysler at the bottom but he
certainly has been one to see the restructuring alternatives on the
other side of the blind panic that often creeps into these
situations,” said Glenn Reynolds, an analyst with CreditSights, a New
York-based research firm. “He buys when others run scared, and he
uses his leverage or even the fear of his leverage to effect change.”

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
THE CATHOLICOSATE OF CILICIA PARTICIPATES IN THE MEETING OF EDAN
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has been actively involved in issues
related to the disabled since 1971. For the first time ever, 21 disabled
people participated in the WCC 6th Assembly in Vancouver in 1983.
EDAN, the Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network was established by the WCC
8th Assembly in Zimbabwe in 1998. The aim behind founding the network was to
invite churches to provide more opportunities to the disabled and to involve
them in the churches’ mission. The network today has disabled
representatives in seven regions. They coordinate the union’s works.
A consultation meeting organized by the WCC Middle East office, was held
21-24 June 2006 at the Bristol Hotel, between the general secretary of EDAN,
Samuel Kabue (a blind man from Kenya), representatives from the WCC Middle
East office, the general secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches
(MECC), Gerges Saleh, as well as disabled representatives of churches from
Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Palestine and spiritual and lay social
workers.
Kevork Merdjanian represented the Catholicosate of Cilicia in this meeting.
The disabled expressed their concerns and praised the work of the network in
the life of churches. They presented proposals on developing the work of the
network in the Middle East. Two people from Lebanon were appointed to
coordinate the network’s activities in the Middle East.
Representatives from several communities were present at the meeting’s
concluding session. Rev. Fr. Housig Mardirossian represented the Armenian
Church at this session. Conveying the Pontiff’s greetings to the meeting,
the reverend said: “the disabled have always been in the prayers of His
Holiness Aram I throughout his 15 year chairmanship of WCC as well as
today.” He added: “Rest assured that the concerns of the disabled are the
concerns of our churches and our personal concerns. We hope that the
creation of this union in this region would further obligate the churches
you represent and particularly yourselves and that you would exert all
efforts for its success.’ He then thanked the organizers of the meeting.
##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the Ecumenical
activities of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

TREND, Azerbaijan
June 30 2006
Majority of last loud statements on Nagorno-Karabakh do not reflect
reality – senior state officer

Source: Trend
Author: E.Huseynov

30.06.2006

The majority of last loud statements on Nagorno-Karabakh do not
reflect the reality, Novruz Mammadov, the head of the Foreign
Relationships Department of the President’s Apparat, told Trend in an
exclusive interview.
Speaking on the last statements by the US Ambassador Matthew Bryza,
the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, Mammadov said that he is the newly
appointed diplomat who held a very important in the parliament and
very closely familiar with the region. Appointing him as the co-chair
the United States wish to be more active and do much in the
negotiation process.
`At the same time Bryza wants to state that he is well familiar with
the negotiation process and wants its progress. Therefore, he
submitted different ideas for discussion, which do not reflect either
Azerbaijan, or Armenia. They might be Bryza’s private position and
even the stance by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. Therefore, there
is necessity to comment on them,’ Mammadov underscored. The
negotiations are held behind the closed doors, he reminded.
The senior ranking official assured that the President of Foreign
Minister of Armenia today are very much imposed to pressures by
public and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, as well as position and
rating of Azerbaijan worldwide. `Therefore, they are very upset today
and reached the deadlock,’ Mammadov emphasized. The conflict should
be resolved, the occupied lands must be liberated, territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan should be restored, as the United States and
all countries urge.
Now the key task of Baku is not to respond speculative statements by
the Armenian leadership, but continue peaceable negations this year.
`The Armenians fear that unless they come to an agreement with
Azerbaijan, the developments in other way will result their
catastrophe.

Kent Good Times Dispatch, CT
June 30 2006
Writer to deliver paper on Graves in Mallorca
A work begun long ago will find an outlet this summer when Georgianne
Ensign Kent presents a paper, “Poet to Poet: T.E. Lawrence and the
Riddle of S.A.,” at the Robert Graves Conference in Palma, Mallorca,
in July.

The theme of the conference, sponsored by the Robert Graves Trust, is
“Robert Graves and His Collaborators.”
Ms. Kent, who has made Kent her home since 1991, said she was first
attracted to the story of T. E. Lawrence, the impossibly enigmatic
hero of a World War I “Arabian Nights” adventure, after the film,
“Lawrence of Arabia” was produced in 1962. “I was looking for an idea
for a book,” she said succinctly, adding that she wanted to present
an existential view of the largely medieval Lawrence.
“Existentialism was hot back then, but by the time I finished the
book it was not so hot,” she observed wryly.
Still, researching the book brought her to Dorset, England, a place
she came to love so much she returned there to work on a second book.
The Lawrence project gave her an opportunity to have discourse with
the poet Robert Graves, and it introduced her to the worlds of
archaeology and the Middle East.
Graves, was her first outlet. Born in Wimbledon, England in 1885,
educated at Oxford and equally at home as a writer of fiction,
non-fiction and poetry, he was both friend and biographer to T.E.
Lawrence. It was to Graves that Lawrence turned for criticism of his
dedicatory poem in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and it was to Graves
that Ms. Kent turned for insight into her subject.
Ms. Kent’s paper, which details Graves’ rewriting of a verse of
Lawrence’s poem and the mystery of the identity of the person to whom
it was written, will include a correspondence that she conducted with
the English poet.
“Lawrence sent his poem to Graves and asked him if it were poetry or
prose,” Ms. Kent said, adding that Graves gave an equivocal answer.
“He rewrote one of the stanzas and sent it back to Lawrence. It was
very beautiful,” said Ms. Kent. “Of course, that was not what
Lawrence wanted and he didn’t use it.”
Graves apparently retained his reservations about Lawrence’s poetic
abilities. When Ms. Kent later asked him if he considered Lawrence to
be a poet, he replied yes, “not for what he wrote, but for the way he
lived.”
Graves was nevertheless a friend of Lawrence’s and profited from the
association. Lawrence sent him truncated chapters of “Seven Pillars
of Wisdom,” his account of the war in the desert, for Graves to
publish during a period of financial need. And Graves later wrote
“Lawrence and the Arabs,” a successful biography of the warrior.
In return, Graves was protective of his friend’s legacy. When
Lawrence’s sole surviving brother sought to stop the production of
“Ross,” a play that depicted Lawrence as homosexual and sadistic,
Graves joined in the battle.
Ms. Kent eventually dropped the Lawrence book and moved on to other
projects, later publishing three works under her maiden name: “The
Hunt for the Mastodon,” “Great Beginnings: Opening Lines of Great
Novels,” and “Great Endings: Closing Lines of Great Novels.”
It was not until much later, when she was participating in an
archaeological dig in Mallorca, that the path of her life crossed
Graves’ again. “I was on a dig in Mallorca where he lived and I
wanted to see his house,” she related. “It was inhabited by his
widow, but she died before I got there. So I wrote to his oldest son,
William, who said the house was going to become a museum, but that he
would show it to me. I had the amazing good fortune to be shown
Graves’ house by his son.”
During that tour she told William Graves of her correspondence with
his father about Lawrence and he suggested her participation in the
upcoming conference.
Ms. Kent said that the passage of decades required her to go back and
prepare her Lawrence material again. “I did a lot of research,” she
said. “Last year I was in Oxford and did some work at the Bodleian
Library [the main research library at the university].”
The work on her Lawrence paper temporarily put on hold her most
recent project, a biography of her Armenian grandmother, Vartanoosh,
which will be published later this summer.
Here, again, other interests have grown in fields sown by her early
Lawrence research. “Lawrence introduced me to England, to archaeology
and to the Middle East,” she said. “I wouldn’t have gone to the
Middle East when I did or to the places I went, if it were not for
Lawrence.”
The story the Armenians, a culture that suffered genocide during
World War I, and of her family’s emigration to the United States
struck an emotional chord with her. She began to research her family
background, spending a month with her aged grandmother in Florida,
taping her memories of the past.
“My grandmother came to this country in the late 1880s after first
escaping to Beirut,” she recounted. “I stayed with her for a month,
taping her memories-some of which she embroidered. I started with
that, but then I would check the stories on the Internet and many
have turned out to be right. For instance, there were rumors of a
possible massacre in Beirut, so they moved inland to a town called
Zhale. She described how the houses were built one on top of the
other. I found a picture of the town on the Internet and the houses
were exactly as she described them. She was a really dynamic woman.”
Ms. Kent said she will self-publish the book, titled “Vartanoosh,”
and expects its main distribution to be among the extended family.
Ms. Kent studied journalism at Northwestern University, expecting to
pursue a career in magazine writing. She found herself sidetracked
into advertising, however, and spent 25 years-“broken up by decisions
to go write books”-in that field. Eventually she left advertising
altogether and worked for a while in a medical office, a position
that she loved.
“Then I met my husband and moved her in 1991,” she said. While in
Kent she penned her two anthologies of first and last great lines.
She said her current goal is to complete her book on her grandmother.
“I have other ideas [for future works], but nothing that has
crystallized yet,” she said.