Author: Chakrian Hovsep

AMERICARES LOOKS BACK ON 25 YEARS
By Natasha Lee

Greenwich Time, CT –
May 17 2007

STAMFORD — Eighteen years ago, Arman Ghazaryan walked off a plane
in Armenia and into the arms of his grandfather.

It was March 1989, three months after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake
rattled his hometown, Spitak, in northern Armenia.

An airlift from AmeriCares a month earlier had flown the paralyzed
Ghazaryan to a New York hospital to undergo surgery to reconstruct
his leg and spine. He was one of dozens of victims transported to
hospitals in Connecticut and New York.

The Stamford-based disaster relief agency was the first organization
to arrive in the former Soviet Union and provided $13 million in
medicine and medical supplies to thousands of victims.

Ghazaryan, then 8 years old, spent three hours trapped under the rubble
of his collapsed grade school. The weight of the debris crushing his
leg and spine; his brain swelling under the pressure.

"I had no hope," Ghazaryan said through a translator on Friday. "I
didn’t think I was going to stay alive."

Last week, Ghazaryan walked off a plane again. This time as a
26-year-old man, returning to the place that gave him a second chance
at life.

AmeriCares celebrated 25 years of service last week with a gala in
New York whose guests included former President George H.W. Bush and
his wife, Barbara; Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor
Elie Wiesel; and African activist Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration
for the movie "Hotel Rwanda."

Ghazaryan also was there. He shook hands with the former president
and his wife, and thanked familiar faces for helping him walk again.

The earthquake destroyed Ghazaryan’s hometown, killing 25,000 people,
including his mother.

"I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to come to this country
and what they’ve done for me," he said.

The worldwide relief agency has evolved from a small operation based
out of a New Canaan home to providing more than $6 billion in aid to
137 countries, including Brazil, Darfur, Iraq and China. AmeriCares
also runs three medical clinics in Fairfield County, and several
community programs that provide health care to low-income, elderly
and disabled people.

"Back then it was swashbuckling, no meetings, no memos, just go —
the need is now," said Eric Weintz, former project director, who
joined the agency in 1988.

Weintz spent three years overseeing missions, unloading bandages and
medicines from airplanes, and transporting victims to safety. His
time with AmeriCares inspired him to become a doctor, and today he
practices emergency medicine in Menlo Park, Calif.

"When you get involved in an organization like that, it’s kind of
hard for it to not change your life," he said.

AmeriCares has been among the first-responders to disasters national
and international from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to Hurricane
Katrina, to the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka.

Greenwich native Robert Macauley founded the agency in 1982 on the
ambition of "act now and worry about the red tape later." Macauley
is now chairman of the board of directors.

The mission hasn’t changed and neither have the challenges, president
and CEO Curtis Wellington said.

Relief workers are still confronted by poverty, a lack of advanced
hospitals and doctors, as well as the number of people affected by
poverty and nonexistent health care.

"It’s still a big problem, in spite of the advances, the number of
people who aren’t being reached is still the same as the population
increases," he said.

The agency is working to partner with pharmaceutical companies in
Europe and America to help increase the flow of medicine supplies to
impoverished countries. The goal is to double the volume of people
the agency serves within the next five years in Asia and Africa.

Despite its expansion, the agency still remains a "tiny" organization
for the size of its impact, Wellington said. Staff has increased from
50 to 200 members worldwide over the last two decades, with help from
hundreds of volunteers.

"As Bob (Macauley) would say, we find someone who needs help and help
them and that principle is what drives AmeriCares," Wellington said.

"Our basic values really haven’t changed."

ARMENIAN PARTY PREPARES COMPLAINT ABOUT MAY 12 POLLS

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
May 16, 2007 Wednesday

Armenia’s opposition party Orinar Erkir (The Country of Law) is
preparing a complaint to the Constitutional Court about violations
in the May 12 parliamentary elections but will not give up seats in
the new parliament.

The leader of this centre-right radical opposition party, former
parliament speaker Artur Bagdasaryan said the complaint concerned
the results of voting at 400 polling stations where the party’s
performance was "deliberately understated".

In his words, there was "mass bribery of voters" on the day of voting.

Bagdasaryan urged all political forces to provide his party with
evidence of falsifications and violations during the elections.

"If necessary, we will go to the European Court," he warned.

Bagdasaryan, 39, who is going to run for presidency in 2008, admitted
some positive changes in the electoral process. He said law enforcement
agencies had not put pressure on candidates in the majoritarian
constituencies, no theft of ballot boxes had been reported, and no
mass power failures had occurred.

According to the politician, violations occurred not at the polling
stations but outside them.

The party will have a faction in the parliament and 9 of 131 seats.

"Boycott is not the best method of political struggle," Bagdasaryan
said.

He confirmed that the goal of his party is gradual European integration
and European Union membership.

Earlier, the head of the opposition People’s party of Armenia, Stepan
Demirchyan, claimed that the parliamentary elections in Armenia could
not be regarded as free and fair and the new parliament had not been
formed through a free expression of the will of the people.

According to preliminary results, this centre-left party failed to pass
the 5-percent barrier and was not elected to the National Assembly.

The party, however, admitted its own mistakes and said they would be
studied most thoroughly.

Demirchyan believes, for example, that the opposition should have
pooled its ranks before the elections.

Meanwhile, the European Union said the elections in Armenia were on the
whole fair and free and consistent with the country’ s international
commitments.

Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan, who is also the head of the
Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), said earlier his "deepest wish"
is that the people and numerous international observers recognise
the current parliamentary elections as the best in the history of
independent Armenia.

Sarkisyan said the elections were held in strict compliance with
democratic standards.

The prime minister believes that the opposition in Armenia "is quite
mature and will not resort to law offences".

At the same time, he said "the opposition forces are free to hold"
rallies.

Responding to the opposition’s claims that the results of the elections
would be falsified, the prime minister said, "My party would also
make such statements if it received a small number of votes in the
elections."

He believes his party, which is considered to be a hopeful, has
"rather high" chances of success.

President Robert Kocharyan said he had cast his ballot for "the future
of Armenia, for continued economic and social reforms".

The president declined to say for whom he had voted but expressed
confidence that "everything will be fine" especially since the election
had been "calm".

According to Kocharyan, "What is important is that the country should
go back to normal businesslike life after the elections".

"Despite equal opportunities for all, the party that will get the
majority in the parliament will have a better start-up position in
the presidential election next year," he said.

Following the constitutional reform, if the president has no strong
support in the parliament he will hardly be able to become an effective
head of state but will become "a figure head".

Kocharyan said he would like a constructive opposition – "political
parties of Armenia, not representative offices of foreign forces" —
to be elected to the parliament.

US STATE DEPARTMENT WEBSITE POSTS ANNOUNCEMENT DISPUTING AZERBAIJANI TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 17 2007

The State Alumni website -an online community
of alumni of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs has posted
one more announcement that disputes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

The announcement calls all interested persons to participate in
the conference on "Sushi’s role in Armenian history" to be held on
June 20-25.

The announcement falsifies the name of ancient Azerbaijan town of
Shusha stressing its role in the "liberation" movement during the
first Karabakh war and as the cultural centre of Armenians.

Another dirty fact is that the organizers of the conference are
Kamo Atayan, ‘education minister’ of ‘Nagorno Karabakh Republic’
and Hamlet Grigorian ‘Artsakh State University’s rector’.

The Association of Azerbaijani students studied in US has already
applied to the editors of the web-site with protest letter.

DEUTSCHE BANK AND DRESDNER BANK REPRESENTATIVES REFUSE TO MEET WITH AMERICAN ARMENIAN ATTORNEYS

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 16 2007

BERLIN, MAY 16, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. German representatives
of the Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank refused to meet with three
American Armenian attorneys Vartkes Yeghiayan, Mark Geragos and
Brian Kabateck who are in Berlin. To recap, the attorneys brought a
criminal action the last year against those two German banks as the
latters hid the property deposited by Armenian before the World War
I and Armenian Genocide and hindered from their compensation.

But, the American Armenian attorneys managed to meet with the German
officials. The attorneys mentioned that the meeting was effective
for both sides.

The meeting details are kept secret. During the press conference
followed the meeting, the attorneys called on the banks representatives
to cooperate with them and discuss the demands presented by them
round the negotiation table.

The American Armenian attorneys were in Paris earlier to bring a
criminal action against the AXA Insurance Company as that French
company did not pay the compensation of 17.5 mln dollars to be given
to heirs of the 1915 Armenian Genocide victims.

Martin Marothy from attorneys reached an agreement with the New York
life company which was obliged to pay 20 mln U.S. dollars to heirs
of the victims.

In Vartkes Yeghiayan’s words, those agreements with the banks and
insurance companies bring the world recognition of the Armenian
Genocide a step close, making all those who disprove the Genocide
not being aware of the 1915 cases, and particularly those Turks who
were for years led into error by the state propaganda, conciliate
with the reality and understand that if there was no genocide, those
structures would not pay compensation of millions of dollars.

Heirs of the Armenians insured their life at the AXA Insurance Company
in 1880 and 1930 may visit web
site to get detailed information.

TAX COLLECTIONS SURPASSED ESTIMATE BY 20 PERCENT

KarabakhOpen
15-05-2007 10:39:47

In the first quarter of 2007 the budget receipts totaled 2721.6
million drams, surpassing the estimate by 20 percent.

Return on tax provided 87.9 percent of receipts and totaled 2392.6
million drams, surpassing the estimate by 25.7 percent (684.4 million
drams).

Budget expenditure totaled 5886.7 million drams, 81.2 percent more
than the estimate. In the first quarter of 2007 2739.8 million drams
was allocated for building, which is two times more compared with
last year.

RA FM AND AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR DISCUSSED VIENNA’S ASSISTANCE IN ARMENIA-EU ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

PanARMENIAN.Net
14.05.2007 18:30 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Newly appointed Austrian Ambassador Marius Calligaris
handed the copy of his credentials to the Armenian Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian. The parties considered bilateral cooperation
and Vienna’s assistance in the implementation of the Armenia-EU
Action Plan. By the Ambassador’s request, Mr Oskanian briefed on the
preliminary outcomes of the parliamentary elections and the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement talks, the RA MFA press office reports.

ARMENPRESS

PRO-GOVERNMENT PARTIES WIN MAJORITY OF SEATS IN PARLIAMENT

YEREVAN, MAY 13, ARMENPRESS: Armenia’s Central
Election Commission (CEC) announced the voting returns
from all 1,923 polling stations throughout the
country.
According to it, 1,389,521 citizens or 59.9
percent of eligible voters out of 2,316,038
participated in the elections. The votes have been
distributed in the following way:
The National Democratic Party received 8,591 votes.
The National Accord- 4,251 votes.
The National Unity – 49,863 votes.
The Prosperous Armenia – 204,443 votes.
The Dashink (Alliance) – 33,093 votes.
The Heritage Party – 80,890 votes.
The People’s Party – 37,034 votes.
The Democratic Path – 8,468 votes.
The Impeachment bloc – 17,808 votes.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation – 177,192 votes.
The Democratic Party of Armenia-3,780 votes.
The Youth Party of Armenia – 2,303 votes.
The People’s Party of Armenia – 23,629 votes.
The Communist Party of Armenia – 8,835 votes.
The Republican Party – 457,032 votes.
The Marxist Party – 2,896 votes.
The Hanrapetutyun (Republic) – 22,609 votes.
The United Labor Party – 59,307 votes.
The New Times Party – 47,018 votes.
The Orinats Yerkir Party – 95,256 votes.
The overall number of inaccuracies is 10,942.

Armenian prime minister’s party takes most votes in parliamentary
election; observers note improvements

AVET DEMOURIAN, AP Worldstream
Published: May 13, 2007

The party of Armenia’s prime minister garnered the most votes in
parliamentary elections, officials said Sunday, as foreign observers
praised the vote and opposition parties accused authorities of fraud.

Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian’s Republican Party was leading in the
list of five parties topping the 5 percent minimum for seats in the
131-seat National Assembly.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, meanwhile, commended the vote, saying it was, on the whole,
better than the previous one four years ago.

"The election campaign was dynamic with extensive media
coverage. Election day was calm, with no major incidents reported, but
a few cases of fraud schemes were observed," the OSCE’s election
monitoring team said in a report. "Some procedural problems arose
during the count and tabulation of votes as well as isolated cases of
deliberate falsifications."

The organization also said there were some problems and
inconsistencies in election regulations, and officials were slow to
correct irregularities.

Central Elections Commission figures said the Republican Party, with
32.8 percent of the vote, was trailed by Prosperous Armenia, with 14.7
percent, and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, with 12.7
percent. Two other parties, Country of Law and Legacy, got less than
10 percent each, but enough to obtain seats in parliament.

Of the 131 seats, 90 are chosen according to proportions that parties
get nationwide and 41 in single-mandate contests.

Roughly 1.37 million people, or about 60 percent of registered voters,
cast ballots in Saturday’s election, officials said.

The Country of Law party, meanwhile, said it had noted "mass election
violations," including bribery and improper balloting and
vote-tallying. The party’s representative to the election commission
refused to sign the final protocol and promised to file suit against
election officials to keep final results from being published in the
official register.

Election officials refused to comment on the allegations.

Most political observers said Republican Party would likely join with
Prosperous Armenia and Armenian Revolutionary Federation to form a
ruling coalition and return Sarkisian to the post of prime minister.

Prosperous Armenia is a comparatively new player on the political
scene, having been formed in 2004, and its origins are unclear. Some
observers suggest it was formed at the initiative of President Robert
Kocharian as a way to have a counterbalance to the Republican Party.

All the main parties call for addressing economic and social problems,
including finding ways to increase the population of about 2.9
million. The population has dropped sharply in the post-Soviet period
as the birth rate declined and an estimated 900,000 people emigrated,
largely because of economic problems.

The tiny South Caucasus nation has few natural resources and its
economic development is restricted by the closing of its borders with
Azerbaijan and Turkey _ both of which were shut in protest against
ethnic Armenian troops taking control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory
in Azerbaijan, during a six-year conflict in the early 1990s.

Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
May 13 2007

Head of the CIS Observation Mission meets the Armenian President

Yerevan, May 13. /Mediamax/. The Head of the CIS Observation Mission,
the Executive Secretary of the CIS Vladimir Rushailo met the Armenian
President Robert Kocharian in Yerevan today.

As Mediamax was told in the presidential press service of Armenia,
Vladimir Rushailo stated that the elections proceeded in accordance
with the functioning electoral legislation, and assessed them as
`free, fair and transparent’.

The CIS Executive Secretary also informed the Armenian President on
some technical shortcomings and presented proposals of the observers
for eliminating them.–0–

Agence France Presse
13 mai 2007 dimanche 5:29 PM GMT

L’OSCE salue les législatives en Arménie, un pas vers la démocratie
(ACTUALISATION, PAPIER GENERAL)

EREVAN 13 mai 2007

Les observateurs occidentaux ont salué dimanche les élections
législatives organisées la veille en Arménie, estimant que ce scrutin
remporté par les partis pro-présidentiels, mais critiqué par
l’opposition, favorise le développement de la démocratie dans cette
ex-république de l’URSS.

"Ces élections marquent une nette amélioration par rapport aux
élections précédentes et cela est bon pour la démocratie arménienne",
a déclaré le coordinateur de la mission d’observation de
l’Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE),
Tone Tingsgaard.

Les législatives arméniennes se sont déroulées "selon les normes
internationales", pour la première fois depuis la chute de l’URSS en
1991, a souligné M. Tingsgaard.

L’OSCE qui avait dépêché près de 300 observateurs en Arménie a mis en
relief une campagne électorale "dynamique" avec une "large couverture
médiatique", peu d’irrégularités le jour du scrutin et un décompte
des voix plus transparent qu’autrefois.

L’opposition arménienne a cependant dénoncé des "violations massives"
dans ce scrutin alors que l’OSCE n’a noté que "des cas isolés de
falsifications délibérées".

Le soutien de l’OSCE est un triomphe pour le président arménien
Robert Kotcharian et son gouvernement qui risquaient de perdre l’aide
financière de l’Occident accordé à leur pays miné par la pauvreté.

Les Etats-Unis et l’Union européenne, grands pourvoyeurs d’aide à
Erevan avec la diaspora arménienne, ont en effet averti qu’une
élection falsifiée aurait des conséquences négatives dans ce domaine.

Une suspension de l’aide étrangère aurait été lourde de conséquences
dans un pays sans ressources naturelles où 30% de la population vit
avec moins de deux dollars (1,50 euro) par jour.

Trois partis d’opposition — Les temps nouveaux, la République et la
Dissolution– qui n’ont pas réussi à entrer au Parlement ont réuni
près de 2.500 manifestants à Erevan, réclamant "une enquête sur les
falsifications".

Trois des neuf membres de la Commission électorale centrale,
représentants de l’opposition, ont refusé de signer les protocoles
sur les résultats du scrutin.

Le parti d’opposition Le pays de la Loi a dénoncé dans un communiqué
"un large éventail de violations". Des "Menaces, distribution massive
des pots-de-vins, bourrage d’urnes, irrégularités dans le décompte
des voix, déformation des résultats mettent en doute la légalité des
élections", selon ce communiqué.

Les opposants ont promis une nouvelle manifestation vendredi.

Selon les résultats préliminaires, cinq partis vont pouvoir entrer au
Parlement qui compte 131 sièges: trois pro-gouvernementaux et deux de
l’opposition.

En tête, le parti Républicain du Premier ministre Sarkissian qui a
recueilli près de 32,9% de voix. M. Sarkissian est le successeur
désigné du président Kotcharian qui doit quitter son poste l’année
prochaine, à l’issue de son second mandat.

Le parti pro-gouvernemental L’Arménie prospère du millionnaire Gaguik
Tsaroukian a acquis 14,7% de voix, suivi par la Fédération Arménienne
révolutionnaire, membre de l’ancienne coalition au pouvoir avec
12,8%.

Loin derrière, deux partis d’opposition : Le pays de la Loi dirigé
par Artur Bagdasarian avec 6,9% et l’Heritage conduit par un
ex-ministre des Affaires étrangères, Raffi Hovannissian, avec 5,8%.

Environ 1,3 million d’Arméniens, sur 2,3 millions d’inscrits, ont
participé au scrutin.