Author: Chakrian Hovsep

ARMENIAN MEN TEAM MOVES INTO THE LEAD AFTER 6 ROUNDS OF 37TH CHESS OLYMPIAD
Turin, May 29. ArmInfo. Men team of Armenia toppled Uzbekistan 2.5:1.5,
hereby moving into the lead of the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin. The
Netherlands’ won over Russia, the former leader 1.5:2.5.
Top leaders: Men – 1. Armenia – 18; 2. Netherlands – 17,5; 3. Russia – 17; 4.
Belarus – 17; 5. Ukraine – 16,5; 6. USA – 16,5; 7. Sweden – 16,5; 8. India –
16,5; 9. Uzbekistan – 16.0; 10. Georgia – 16.0. Women. 1. Russia – 14,5; 2.
Ukraine – 14,0; 3. Slovakia – 13,5; 4. USA – 13; 5. Romania – 13; 6. India –
13; 7. Bulgaria – 13; 8. Hungary – 12,5; 9. China – 12,5; 10. Estonia – 12,5.

ECONOMIC MONOPOLY IMPACTS RADIOS
Lragir.am
30 May 06

The results of a poll conducted by the Center for Survey of Public
Opinion suggest that people are dissatisfied with radio stations in
Armenia. According to the facts the Center presented in a discussion
on May 30, listeners expect better music, better news programs and a
better format.
The directors of radio stations participating in the discussion say
they broadcast what is popular to attract companies to place their
advertisements.
The directors of radio stations say this sphere is young in Armenia
and there is shortage of professionals. Money is essential for quality
programs, which always lacks. Armen Amiryan, the director of the
Public Radio, thinks that the radio stations do not have quality
production because they have money shortage. Armen Amiryan says
economy in Armenia is monopolized, there is no competition and
advertising, therefore radio stations are not sustainable. The
director of the Public Radio assures that one of the first steps
towards improvement of radio production would be ending monopoly to
establish the necessary economic environment for the development of
this sphere.

ARMENIAN EX-SPEAKER VOWS TO STRUGGLE FOR BETTER ARMENIA
Mediamax news agency
29 May 06
Yerevan, 29 May: The leader of the Orinats Yerkir [Law-Governed
Country] Party, Artur Bagdasaryan, officially relinquished his
authority as chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia today.
Speaking at his final news conference today, Bagdasaryan said that
the party would hold a special congress to outline its tactics and
strategy and lay out a “clear position” on its further activities.
“We will struggle to create an Armenia of our dreams,” the ex-speaker
said.
Bagdasaryan expressed readiness of the Orinats Yerkir to cooperate
with all political forces in the country “for the sake of real hopes
for the future and progress”.
“Our party has its own path forward which we will follow,” Bagdasaryan
said.
The new chairman of the National Assembly will be elected at a special
session of parliament, the date of which is yet to be set.
[Passage omitted: background info]

Galust Sahakyan: Electing Tigran Torosyan would be a correct choice

ArmRadio.am
26.05.2006 17:00
Head of the NA Republican Party faction Galust Sahakyan, who was the
first to predict the collapse of the coalition, has some predictions
about the future composition of the Parliament.
`Naturally, I have predictions, but because of the tense political
atmosphere I do not consider it proper to publicize these today,’ he
declared at a Parliamentary briefing on May 26.
In response to the question about the possible suggestion of his
candidacy for the Chairman of the National Assembly, Mr. Sahakyan said
that by expressing such will the Deputies are trying to do him a
favor. He excluded such opportunity.
`I have my own circle of duties, which I consider very important.
During these years I have been carrying a greater burden. I think that
the correct choice is electing Tigran Torosyan,’ Galust Sahakyan
noted.
According to him, in the elections Tigran Torosyan will receive the
necessary 66 votes. Galust Sahakyn predicts that Tigran Torosyan will
receive 78 votes.

WILL GURGEN ARSENYAN AGAIN IMPORT CIGARS?
Panorama.am
01:09 26/05/06
Today the National Assembly of Armenia adopted by a second reading the
draft law on making amendments in the Law On Fixed Fees on Cigarette
Products. Mnatsakan PETROSYAN, NA Unified Employment Party (MAK)
block member, has had this idea since 2005. He is also the author of
the draft.
According Mnatsakan Petrosyan, the studies show that 3800 cigars have
been imported into Armenia with customs cost of about USD 10 thousand
in 2004. In 2005 only 400 cigars were imported paying 600 thousand
Armenian drams in customs tax. However, the deputy is sure that in
2005 20,000 cigars are imported into Armenia by illegal channels. In
2006, no cigars have been imported. He says that high customs fees
determine shadow economy in import of cigars, paying 1500 Armenian
drams per one cigar whereas in the shops they cost only 1200-1500
Armenian drams. “It is not possible. We see risk for corruption
here. We should bring that out of shadow economy,” he says.
After the amendments are made in the law, cigar importers will pay
only 550 AMD as customs tax which is double cheaper.
But doesn’t this law support another MAK member Gurgen Arsenyan’s
business? The latter deals with import of cigars through ArsOil
company.
“Gurgen Arsenyan does not import cigars any more. We try to contribute
to the state budget. The state will win in the long run. This is a
real change,” Petrosyan says.

DEFECTORS FROM ORINATS YERKIR FORM NEW GROUP
Armenpress
May 25 2006
YEREVAN, MAY 25, ARMENPRESS: Ten parliament members who have defected
from the embattled Orinats Yerkir party of the outgoing parliament
chairman Arthur Baghdasarian, have formed a new parliamentary
non-partisan group, it emerged today. Only one defector, Melik
Manukian, refused to join the group which its founders named
“Businessman.”
All of the ten deputies are wealthy businessmen.
They defected from Orinats Yerkir’s parliament faction just in few
days, hastening Baghdasarian’s resignation and his party’s pullout
from the governing coalition.
One of the defectors, Grigor Margarian, was elected head of the group.
Under the existing National Assembly statutes, a non-partisan
group must have at least ten deputies in order to have an official
status. The 131-member assembly has already one such group, the
People’s Deputy, that holds 16 seats.

YUGOSLAVIA R.I.P.
By Gwynne Dyer
AZG Armenian Daily
25/05/2006
Within days of Montenegro’s successful referendum on independence on
Sunday, Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic will be arriving in Brussels
to open talks on joining the European Union, while other Montenegrin
diplomats arrive in New York to seek admission as the 193rd member
of the United Nations. A country that was extinguished 88 years ago
has risen from its grave — and the mini-empire that absorbed it has
finally come to an end.
With Montenegro’s independence, the last vestige of former Yugoslavia
is gone: Serbia has lost its seacoast and reverted to its land-locked
borders of 1918. Yugoslavia was a project that was bloody at the start,
bloody again in the middle, and exceedingly bloody in its last years
in the 1990s. The lesson we should draw from this is: no more shotgun
marriages in the name of tidiness.
As the Ottoman (Turkish) empire retreated down the western side of the
Balkans during the 19th century, half a dozen Christian ethnic groups
who spoke closely related South Slavic dialects were candidates for
nationhood, but not all of them got it. The Slovenes and Croatians
became part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which eventually absorbed
the Bosnians as well. Serbia and Montenegro became independent states
in 1878, but after the Balkan wars of 1911-12 the Macedonians were
just handed over to Serbia (which almost doubled in size).
As early as the mid-19th century, many Serbs believed that all the
western Balkans should eventually be ruled from Belgrade. In his famous
Nacertanije (Programme) of 1844, Ilija Garasanin, Minister of Internal
Affairs in a Serbia that was still technically under Ottoman rule,
outlined the stages by which Serbian control might gradually extend
to include the whole of the region, and generations of Serbs were
taught to dream of that Greater Serbia.
Their opportunity came with the First World War, which destroyed the
Austro-Hungarian empire and left the Slovenes, Croatians and Bosnians
free to seek their own destinies.
Where they all ended up, however, was in the new, Serb-dominated
state of Yugoslavia. The victorious great powers let the Serbs
have their way in part because they owed Serbia a favour (since it
had fought on the winning side), but mainly because it was a tidier
arrangement than cluttering up the western Balkans with half a dozen
small countries. They even bundled long-independent Montenegro into
the new Yugoslavia (although some Montenegrins immediately revolted
against rule from Belgrade).
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was dominated by Serbia from the start: all
of its prime ministers were Serbs, as were 161 of its 165 generals. So
it fell apart at once when Nazi Germany invaded in 1941, and a Croatian
fascist regime set out to take revenge on Serbians and assert its own
independence: over half a million people died in Croatian concentration
camps. Then Communist guerillas took power after the Second World
War and reestablished Serbian domination, killing all those (mostly
Croatians and Bosnians) who had collaborated with the Germans.
Communist Yugoslavia lasted almost half a century, but when it started
to break apart in 1992 the Serbs would not let go, and it took four
wars and a quarter-million deaths before Serbia finally accepted the
loss of its South Slav empire. Even after that the European Union tried
to hold Serbia and Montenegro together, bullying the Montenegrins into
accepting a lopsided two-country federation (Serbia has twelve times
as many people as Montenegro) in 2003. But the Montenegrins insisted
on the right to a referendum on breaking up that union after three
years, and last Sunday they exercised that right.
Kosovo will almost certainly also get official independence from
Serbia by the end of this year, and there will then be seven countries
where fifteen years ago there was only one. It is very untidy, and you
could certainly accuse some of these countries of being driven by the
“narcissism of small differences.”
But THEY cared about these small differences, and bad things happened
when they were ignored.
Serbia wanted to rule the western Balkans, but it never conquered
the other ethnic groups. They were pushed into Serbia’s arms by great
powers that wanted to keep things simple, and the result was almost
a century of resentment and intermittent murder. Now it’s over, and
they have to learn to live alongside one another again. It will be
much easier if they have some larger context in which to submerge
their differences, and there is one at hand: the European Union.
Slovenia is already an EU member, and Croatia and Macedonia are
candidates. Montenegro is applying now, and Serbia would open talks
tomorrow if it could get around the EU’s insistence that it hand over
the worst Serbian war criminals first. Bosnia will take much longer,
as it remains deeply divided between its Serbian, Croatian and Muslim
“Bosniak” communities, and Kosovo isn’t even officially a country yet.
Will the EU actually take them all in? For the sake of peace in
Europe, it should, but it will be up to 27 governments when Romania
and Bulgaria join next year.
Adding the western Balkans would increase the number of EU member
states with full voting rights by another 20 percent while increasing
the total population by only 5 percent. It’s a lot to ask, and we
won’t know the answer for years.

SOME PROGRESS FIXED IN KOSOVO STATUS TALKS
PanARMENIAN.Net
24.05.2006 13:59 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The delegations of Serbia and Kosovo Albanians
managed to fix some progress at the talks held in Vienna. As
U.N. mediator, Austrian diplomat Albert Rohan said, the parties
agreed on protection of cultural and religious sites in Kosovo. That
first of all refers to the Serbian Orthodox Churches in the regions
inhabited mostly by ethnic Albanians. However the main item of the
Vienna negotiations remains unsettled. The Albanians of Kosovo demand
complete independence while the Serbian government is ready to grant
Kosovo the status of autonomy only, reported Deutsche Welle.

RUSSIAN TV SHOWS “UNIQUE” ROBOT RAISING BLACK SEA CRASH FLIGHT RECORDERS
Channel One TV, Moscow
23 May 06
[Presenter] The search for the second black box of the [Armenian] A-320
aircraft which crashed over the Black Sea near Sochi at the start of
May is continuing. The work had to be suspended several times today
because of bad weather. The first flight recorder was raised on the
previous day. It looks like it is going to be deciphered by specialists
in France, the country where the aircraft was constructed. It remains
to be seen whether complete information about causes of the crash is
going to be obtained. The flight recorder was badly damaged. Today we
received footage of a unique operation to raise the black box. Aleksey
Sonin reports.
[Correspondent] This is how Russian specialists worked on the ship
deck to improve the (?RT-1000) deep-water equipment during breaks in
the submersion operations. At the beginning, a direction finder was
fixed onto the body of the apparatus in order to be as accurate as
possible when determining the section of the bottom of the sea where
the flight recorder was emitting radio signals. Then they had the idea
of fitting the robot with a special vacuum cleaner in order to suck
up silt. In the opinion of French specialists present on board the
search ship, each of the new technological solutions can be patented.
[Aleksandr Davydenko, captioned as head of the operation to raise the
flight recorders] They were really impressed by this. Our specialists,
just like [18-th century legendary Russian inventor Ivan] Kulibin, kept
coming up with innovative solutions according to the situation. This
was highly appreciated. They [the French experts] even confirmed that
they had not such robots yet.
[Correspondent] The screen of the monitor clearly shows large fragments
of the plane. Smaller fragments are hidden beneath the silt. It was
established during previous search operations that the robot passed
above the black box several times but failed to spot it.
The silt gets several metres deep at certain sections of the seabed.
The operators switch on the underwater vacuum cleaner. And now the
flight recorder becomes visible on the screen. However, locating the
flight recorder is only half of the problem. The most difficult part
is to bring it to the surface from a depth of 500 metres. It took
the specialists a long time to design a way for the manipulator to
grab the item.
[Davydenko] It turned out that it had a handle by which it could be
transported. We made the decision to get it out of the hole and place
it onto some even surface. We put a hook through the handle but there
was not anywhere even for us to put it on. It kept sinking into the
silt. A very risky decision was made to use the hook to raise it to
the surface. This was perhaps the most serious phase of the operation.
[Correspondent] When there were just 10 metres left to the surface,
a diver went underwater, as an insurance against risks. He tied the
flight recorder to the body of the robot, so that it did not become
detached during the lifting onto the ship. The first stage of the
operation is over. It was for the first time that our specialists
carried out an operation like this. The engineers are now preparing
the robot for another submersion operation. The second black box
remains to be retrieved.
[c/r 171350-171550, video shows the operation in progress]

THE YELLOW BADGE OF DENIAL
American Thinker, AZ
May 23 2006
Controversy still swirls over allegations that Iran’s government plans
to require non-Muslims to wear identifying clothing. The Canadian
National Post has retracted its May 19, 2006 report about a putative
Iranian Law requiring non-Muslim minorities-Jews, Christians, and
Zoroastrians-to wear color-coded strips of cloth attached to their
garments, to distinguish them from Muslims. Mr. Amir Taheri, author
of the article, is standing by his report.
Possible overzealous reporting by The National Post aside, the
plausibility of such a law being implemented should not be dismissed
based on the living legacy of Shi’ite religious persecution of
non-Muslims in Iran since the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy in
(then) Persia under Shah Ismail, at the very outset of the 16th
century. Inchoate dress code proposals for non-Muslims apparently
made in the Khatami era are consistent with the original story, and
an Iranian source still maintains “Mr. Taheri was correct in saying
this measure is being discussed and considered.”
Deep Roots
During the intervening half millennium (since 1502), the profoundly
influential Shi’ite clerical elite have emphasized the notion of the
ritual uncleanliness (najis) of not only Jews, but also Christians,
Zoroastrians, and others, as the cornerstone of inter-confessional
relationships towards Iran’s non-Muslims. Non-Muslims’ spiritual
impurity was linked in concrete and indelible ways to their physical
impurity. Professor Laurence Loeb’s seminal analysis of dhimmi Jews
in Shi’ite Persia/Iran (“Outcaste- Jewish Life in Southern Iran,”
1977 ), documents the social impact of najis regulations, beginning
with the implementation of a badge of shame [as] an identifying symbol
which marked someone as a najis Jew and thus to be avoided. From the
reign of Abbas I [1587-1629] until the 1920s, all Jews were required
to display the badge.
With regard to dress, specifically, the stipulations of Al-Majlisi
(d. 1699)-perhaps the most influential Shi’ite cleric of the Safavid
theocracy in Persia-from his late 17th century treatise on non-Muslims
(revealingly entitled, “Lightning Bolts Against the Jews”), are
consistent with the requirements purportedly under discussion by the
contemporary the Iranian Parliament (although, the “color-coding”
differs): it is appropriate that the ruler of the Muslims imposed upon
them clothing that would distinguish then from Muslims so that they
would not resemble Muslims. It is customary for Jews to wear yellow
clothes while Christians wear black and dark blue ones. Christians
[also] wear a girdle on their waists, and Jews sew a piece of silk
of a different color on the front part of their clothes.
The bizarre, humiliating, and enduring nature of the dress regulations
imposed upon the Zoroastrian community of central Iran (Yezd) were
captured in this eyewitness account by Napier Malcolm, (Five Years
in a Persian Town, New York, 1905, pp. 45-50) published in 1905:
Up to 1898 only brown, grey, and yellow were allowed for the qaba
[outer coat] or arkhaluq [under coat] (body garments), but after that
all colors were permitted except blue, black, bright red, or green.
There was also a prohibition against white stockings, and up to
about 1880 the Parsis [Zoroastrians] had to wear a special kind of
peculiarly hideous shoe with a broad, turned-up toe. Up to 1885 they
had to wear a torn cap. Up to 1880 they had to wear tight knickers,
self-colored, instead of trousers.
Following a relatively brief hiatus under Pahlavi reign (marked
by efforts at both secularization and Pre-Islamic revival, from
1925-1979), the Khomeini-inspired restoration of a Shi’ite theocracy
in Iran has been accompanied, predictably, by a revival of najis
regulations. Ayatollah Khomeini stated explicitly, “Non-Muslims of
any religion or creed are najis.” The Iranian Ayatollah Hossein-Ali
Montazeri further elaborated that a non-Muslim’s (kafir’s) impurity
was, “a political order from Islam and must be adhered to by the
followers of Islam, and the goal [was] to promote general hatred
toward those who are outside Muslim circles.”
This “hatred” was to assure that Muslims would not succumb to corrupt,
i.e., non-Islamic, thoughts.
The dehumanizing practical impact of najis regulations were
again observable at points of contact between Muslims and
non-Muslims-wherever non-Muslims owned or operated businesses or
manufacturing facilities whose personnel or products might “pollute”
Muslims (see here, p. 137). For example (see this), shops that sold
sandwiches or bakery goods (foodstuffs associated with minorities)
were forced to display signs stating “especially for minorities.”
Eliz Sanasarian’s important study of non-Muslim religious
minorities during the first two decades after 1979 provides a
striking illustration of the practical impact of this renewed najis
consciousness:
In the case of the Coca-Cola plant, for example, the owner
(an Armenian) fled the country, the factory was confiscated,
and Armenian workers were fired. Several years later, the family
members were allowed to oversee the daily operations of the plant,
and Armenians were allowed to work at the clerical level; however,
the production workers remained Muslim. Armenian workers were never
rehired on the grounds that non-Muslims should not touch the bottles
or their contents, which may be consumed by Muslims.
Thus, if formal badging requirements for non-Muslims were now to be
implemented, these measures would simply mark the further retrogression
of Iran’s non-Muslim religious minorities, completing in full their
descent to a pre-1925 status.
Invoking the Nazis?
Many people have reacted to these reports with a comparison to
Nazi requirements of Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their
clothing. Major Jewish organizations, including both The Simon
Wiesenthal Center (in an almost apoplectic statement by Rabbi Marvin
Hier, “This is reminiscent of the Holocaust…Iran is moving closer
and closer to the ideology of the Nazis.”
and The American Jewish Committee,
“…the story, with its chilling echoes of the Shoah, is another
heinous example of the Iranian regime’s contempt for human rights”
have followed this rhetorical path.
I sent my original background essay on this sad state of affairs
to ranking officials in the Wiesenthal Center, and the American
Jewish Committee (AJC). Their responses were neither edifying nor
reassuring. The Wiesenthal Center official acknowledged that my essay
raised an “historical and Islamic context” which “factored in”, but
was (apparently) trumped by this non-sequitur observation, i.e., the
“…proliferation of Iranian websites and blogs that are appearing
in the last two months that specifically embrace and promote Nazism”.
The official from the AJC rebuked me for even discussing
“…legislation that to the best of our knowledge at this time does
not exist.”
In response I posed the following five questions to the AJC official
(and they certainly apply to the Wiesenthal Center as well), which
remain unanswered:
~U Why doesn’t the American Jewish Committee (AJC) discuss…what
najis is, how najis (practices) have been restored under Khomeini (and
continued under his successors), and thus why the initial report of
“badging” was plausible?
~U Why didn’t the AJC include this clear statement from Prof. Laurence
Loeb’s study of the Jews of Iran (Loeb lived there to do his
anthropological field work) published in 1977, as appropriate
background?
[the] badge of shame [as] an identifying symbol which marked someone
as a najis Jew and thus to be avoided. From the reign of Abbas I
[1587-1629] until the 1920s, all Jews were required to display
the badge
~U What does any of this have to do with “Nazism”?
~U Why can’t AJC and the other major Jewish organizations speak
honestly based upon the real (and sadly living) history of
such sanctioned Islamic doctrines-najis, the dhimmi condition,
discriminatory badging, etc.-and their implementation for centuries
(in Iran)?
~U What is to be gained by such denial and obfuscation other than
further isolating us (i.e., Jews-I was writing as a Jew, albeit a
“lapsed” Jew) as a tiny minority from the rest of the victims of jihad
hatred (in this case the Christians and Zoroastrians also targeted
by the putative dress regulations)?
While memories of the Holocaust are fresher and more widely held than
memories of traditional Islamic oppression of Jews, such comparisons
should be avoided. To invoke the Holocaust blinds us to the far
longer and much more deeply-rooted traditions in the Islamic world
which predate the rise of Nazism by well over a millennium.
In our struggle to defend our civilization and our freedoms, we must
understand our enemy. Those who insist that anti-Semitism be seen
exclusively through the lens of Nazism and the Holocaust divert our
attention and hobble our understanding of the forces against which
we defend ourselves.
It is my fervent hope that I receive serious, informed responses
to the five queries posed to the AJC so as not to squander this
“teachable moment.”
Andrew Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad.
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