Author: Chalian Meline

Pan Armenian News
RUSSIAN STATE DUMA CONDEMNED AREMNIAN GENOCIDE THIS DAY 10 YEARS AGO
14.04.2005 07:43
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ This day 10 years ago the State Duma of Russia adopted a
statement on Condemning the Genocide of the Armenian People in 1915-1923 on
14 April 1995, Russky Sever news agency reported. The mass slaughter and
deportation is the most tragic event in the history of the Armenian people.
Within 1915-1923 over 1.5 million Armenians were killed, 600 thousand of
those who escaped from the slaughter, spread around the globe. Armenians
throughout the world have been struggling for many years to attain the
official and unconditional recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the
international community, as such a grave crime against humanity cannot have
a statute of limitation. Argentine and Uruguay were the first to recognize
the fact of the Genocide in 1965, then the acknowledgement by the
parliaments of Cyprus (1990), Russia (1995), Greece (1996), Lebanon (1997),
Belgium (1998) followed. In 2000 the Armenian Genocide was recognized by the
Italian and French parliaments, as well as the Vatican leader John Paul II.
The Genocide is recognized by the 29 out of the 50 US states. On 15 November
2000 the European Parliament passed a resolution demanding that Turkey
recognize the fact of the Genocide.

DAMAGE TO GEORGIAN SECTION OF ALAVERDI SUBSTATION ELIMINATED
YEREVAN, APRIL 14, NOYAN TAPAN. Director of the company Armenian
High-Voltage Electricity Systems Sahak Abrahamian told NT
correspondent that the damage caused by a recent accident at the
Georgian section of the Alaverdi 220 kw high-voltage substation has
been eliminated. As previously reported, as a result of the accident
the power supply to Georgia was cut off. S. Abrahamian noted that 100
megawatt power supply to Georgia has been restored.

Amnesty International
April 13 2005
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: AFR 24/006/2005 (Public)
News Service No: 089
14 April 2005
Embargo Date: 14 April 200500:01GMT
Equatorial Guinea: Prisoners starving to death
At least 70 prisoners held in Equatorial Guinea’s Black Beach prison
in Malabo are at imminent risk of starving to death, according to
Amnesty International.
Those most at risk include 11 foreign nationals sentenced in an
unfair trial in November 2004 and dozens of Equatorial Guinean
political detainees arrested throughout 2004 and held without charge
or trial.
According to information received by Amnesty International, in the
last six weeks conditions have drastically deteriorated with the
authorities halting the provision of prison food and blocking all
contact with families, lawyers and consular officials.
Many of those detained at Black Beach prison are already extremely
weak because of the torture or ill-treatment they have suffered and
because of chronic illnesses for which they have not received
adequate medical treatment.
“Such near starvation, lack of medical attention and appalling prison
conditions represent a scandalous failure by the Equatorial Guinea
authorities to fulfil their most basic responsibilities under
international law. Unless immediate action is taken, many of those
detained at Black Beach prison will die,” said the Director of
Amnesty International’s Africa Program Kolawole Olaniyan.
The provision of food by the authorities was reportedly reduced from
a cup of rice daily in December 2004, to one or two bread rolls and
since the end of February 2005, provision of any prison food at all
has been sporadic.
Prisoners and detainees are now dependent on food handed to prison
guards by families. This means that the 11 foreign nationals and
dozens of Equatorial Guinean political detainees arrested on the
mainland are particularly at risk of starvation because they do not
have families in Malabo to support them.
All those incarcerated are kept inside their cells 24-hours-a-day and
the foreign nationals are also kept with their hands and legs cuffed
at all times.
In addition to the six Armenians and five South Africans convicted
last November, Amnesty International has also learnt that four
Nigerian nationals have been held in Black Beach prison for several
months without charge or trial and without their embassy being
notified.
Two former Black Beach prisoners are now being held at Malabo’s
central police station. Convicted of attempting to overthrow the
government in June 2002 after an unfair trial, Amnesty International
considers them to be prisoners of conscience and is seriously
concerned that they may now be tortured.
Amnesty International is calling on the Equatorial Guinea authorities
to immediately provide regular and adequate food, medical care to all
who need it, remove any hand and leg cuffs, end all incommunicado
detention, and grant international humanitarian organisations such as
the International Red Cross Committee immediate access to all those
detained.
Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International’s press office
in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web:
For latest human rights news view

Civil Georgia, Georgia
April 12 2005
Abkhaz Leader, U.S. Officials Discuss Conflict Resolution
President of breakaway Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh told the visiting
U.S. diplomats on April 11 that Abkhazia will not give up its
uncompromising stance over the region’s independence, Abkhaz news
agency Apsnypress reports.
U.S. Senior Advisor for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy Ambassador
Steven Mann, who is also the Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh
and Eurasian Conflicts, U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Richard Miles and
other officials visited the Abkhaz capital on April 11. They held
talks with Abkhaz leader Bagapsh, vice-president Raul Khajimba and
speaker of parliament Nugzar Ashuba.
The Abkhaz leader reiterated that Sokhumi is presently ready to
discuss only economic issues with the Georgian side, as talks over
the political problems bring the negotiation process to a halt.
Sergey Bagapsh said that the Abkhaz side is ready to contribute to
developing a peace plan, which could guarantee `peaceful co-existence
of the two neighboring states,’ the agency reports.
According to Apsnypress, Ambassador Steven Mann also pointed out that
the United States supports only a peaceful resolution of this
conflict.

The New York Times
April 12, 2005 Tuesday
Late Edition – Final
Currency Is Music in East-West Exchange
By ALLAN KOZINN
Much of Yo-Yo Ma’s musical effort and imagination since 1998 has been
put at the service of his Silk Road Project, a series of concerts and
discs meant to revive and update the kind of cultural interchange
that occurred on the ancient trade route between Asia and Europe. As
a way to prevent his career from devolving into a routine of touring
with the same crowd-pleasing cello works over and over — however
sublimely Mr. Ma would have played them — it has been a brilliant
move.
The Silk Road, after all, is a perfect metaphor for the exchange he
is seeking, not only between Eastern and Western musicians, but also
between traditional and contemporary styles — and, judging from the
copious materials in the program book, between Western and Asian
archaeologists and historians. Even if the venue for this exchange is
now the recording studio and the concert stage rather than the Silk
Road itself, it was clear from the sheer joy of the music making on
Sunday evening at Carnegie Hall that the polystylistic dialogue Mr.
Ma is overseeing is as enlivening for the players as for the
listeners.
The stage arrangement, at the start of the concert, emphasized the
East-meets-West aspect of the project. Mr. Ma sat to one side of the
stage with the makings of a string quartet, plus a double bass and a
pipa (a Chinese lute). Across the way were three percussionists who
played Asian and African drums, and a performer on the duduk (an
Armenian reed instrument). Between them were performers playing a
kamancheh (an Iranian spike fiddle), a tar (an Azerbaijani lute) and
a tabla (an Indian drum).
The concert was at its best when the music was presented on its own
terms. That happened mainly in a set of pieces from Azerbaijan, sung
with passion and dramatic flair by Alim Qasimov, and accompanied by
Malik Mansurov on the tar and Rauf Islamov on the kamancheh.
Where musics were encouraged to meet, the encounters were sometimes
odd, and some worked better than others. When Wu Man played an
eighth-century pipa theme to introduce Zhao Jiping’s ”Sacred Cloud
Music,” a Western listener could not help but note a similarity to
the Dies Irae plainchant and when the strings joined, it was in a
chord progression that could have been borrowed from the Renaissance
— or, for that matter, from a contemporary mystic like Arvo Part.
Gevorg Dabaghyan’s duduk line in a set of Armenian folk melodies
captured the music’s soulful, lachrymose qualities so beautifully
that the string quartet accompaniment sounded contrived.
Perhaps the strangest instrumental combination was a set of Gypsy
dances at the end of the program, scored for strings, percussion and,
of all things, pipa, with solos all around. But the sheer virtuosity,
energy and inventiveness of the performances made it work.
There is a degree to which Mr. Ma’s project is also a stealth
new-music series, and Sunday’s program included several contemporary
scores that draw on Asian traditional themes and, at times, timbres.
”Mountains Are Far Away,” by Kayhan Kalhor, an Iranian composer,
proved a zesty opener, and the works by Zhao Jiping and Zhao Lin
(father and son) were seductively supple. The major modern offering,
though, was Franghiz Ali-Zadeh’s ”Mugam Sayagi,” a 1993 work for
string quartet and percussion that ranges from quasi-Minimalist
meditation to vigorous, spiky harmonies and that has an intensity
matching that of the traditional Azerbaijani music from which it drew
its inspiration.

Prime-Tass Business News Agency 2005
April 11, 2005
Russia’s RusAl gets 46.6 mln euro loan from Germany’s BayernLB
MOSCOW, April 11 (Prime-Tass) — Russia’s leading aluminum producer
RusAl has received a 46.6 million euro loan from Germany’s Bayerische
Landesbank (BayernLB) to fund an upgrade of the RusAl Armenal foil
mill, RusAl said in a press release Monday.
RusAl Armenal is an Armenia-based subsidiary of RusAl.
RusAl and German export loan agency Euler Hermes are the guarantors
of the loan, the press release read.
BayernLB is to provide the loan in two parts: an initial, 6.99
million euro 3.5-year loan, and a second, 39.61 million euro 8.5-year
loan.
“The loan raised by RusAl is important not only in terms of the
company’s business development in the region – it’s a landmark
development for Armenia’s economy,” RusAl’s Chief Financial Officer
Vladislav Solovyov said, as quoted in the press release. “BayernLB
has pioneered business lending in the republic and we hope that other
members of the international banking community follow this example,”
he said.
The first stage of the upgrade project is expected to be completed in
autumn 2005. As a result of the upgrade, the mill’s annual production
capacity is expected to reach 25,000 tonnes of foil. According to the
press release, Armenal will focus on thin foil (six to seven microns
thick) production. As a result of the upgrade, the plant’s annual
thin foil output is expected to amount to 18,000 tonnes.
“Armenal’s renovation is one of the largest investment programs in
the Armenian economy,” Armenia’s Trade and Economic Development
Minister Karen Chshmaritian said, as quoted in the press
release.”Thanks to RusAl’s efforts, Armenia will soon acquire a
state-of-the-art foil rolling plant. The economic effect of
BayernLB’s loan, secured with the help of the Russian company, will
significantly improve the investment climate in our republic,”
Chshmaritian added.
In October 2004, RusAl signed an agreement with German rolling mill
manufacturer Achenbach to commence Armenal’s upgrade. The total
investments in the mill’s upgrade are expected to amount to 70
million euros. End

DURING THREE INITIAL MONTHS OF 2005 RUSSIAN FRONTIER GUARDS DETAINED 50 TRESPASSERS
Pan Armenian Network
08.04.2005 05:09
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ During the three initial months of 2005 the border
guards of the Russian Federal Service have detained 50 trespassers,
Lieutenant General Sergey Bondarev, who commands the Russian
border-guard force deployed on Armenia’s borders stated, Arminfo
agency reports. In his words, 49 of them were detained in Zvartnots
International Airport when trying to penetrate into Armenia with forded
documents with the intention to leave abroad. One of the trespassers,
a man of Kurdish origin, who was “looking for better life” in Armenia,
was detained by the Gyumri frontier guards. After the investigation
he was conveyed to the Turkish party, the Russian General informed.

ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR TO USA MEETS WITH CONDOLEEZZA RICE
   WASHINGTON, APRIL 6, ARMENPRESS: Armenian embassy in the USA said
on April 5, 2005, Ambassador Tatoul Margarian met with Secretary of
State Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and presented the copy of the credentials
accrediting him as Armenia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary to the United States of America.
   During the meeting with Dr. Rice, issues of mutual interest to the
United States and Armenia, such as U.S.-Armenian bilateral relations,
and regional developments and challenges were discussed.
   Ambassador Margarian expressed gratitude for the continuous
support of the United States Government since Armenia’s independence
and for constructive involvement of the United States in the
settlement of regional problems, and expressed his readiness to exert
every effort to enhance the bilateral relations and partnership
between the United States and Armenia.
–Boundary_(ID_ZHuciFTP+oy3t+wwO/c9vw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AUTHORIZED CAPITAL OF SIL INSURANCE TOTALS 231.5 MLN AMD
YEREVAN, APRIL 5. ARMINFO. Apr 1 the authorized capital of Sil
Insurance, one of the leading Armenian insurance companies, was
increased nearly fourfold to 231.5 mln AMD, says the company’s director
Levon Mamikonyan.
In 2004 the volume of the company’s insurance premiums grew by 35%
to 234 mln MD. The volume of compensations totalled 32.6 mln AMD –
100% growth against 2003 with the planned level being 79.5 mln AMD. In
2004 the company made 1,099 contracts worth a total of 57 bln AMD.
The net profit fell by 12% to 15.3 mln AMD against 17.4 mln AMD
in 2003 – this because of big volume of compensation. In 2004 the
company dealt with 94 insurance cases against 43 ones in 2003. In
several indices the company has gone 1-2 ranks up.
Mamikonyan says that Sil Insurance continues leading in car
insurance. Last year the company insured 2,960 cars with 452 contracts
made. In 2004 the company increased the number of realty deals –
540 against 183 in 2003. The growth in realty insurance is due to
developing mortgage crediting in Armenia, says Mamikonyan.
Cargo insurances is third in number of deals. In 2002 and 2003 the
company tested this product and in 2004 entered the open market –
95 deals in 2004 against 37 ones in 2003. 99% of the deals are for
international cargo operations. Yerevan Brandy Company, US Embassy
in Armenia, Ararat Cement Plant, Noy Wine-Brandy Plant and other big
companies are Sil Insurance’s clients in the sphere.
In 2004 the company reinsured 88.7% of insurance risks against 90%
in 2003. In reinsurance Sil Insurance cooperates with HSBC Brokers,
TRYG Baltika, Rosgosstrakh, Ingosstrakh and one of the biggest
reinsurance companies in the world French SCOR
Concerning plans Mamikonyan says that this year the company is going to
start providing travel and medical insurance services. Travel insurance
is yet a small market in Armenia. This is a very painstaking business,
says Mamikonyan. This market has been small because an average of
2,000 people have travelled outside the country until recently. But now
the interest is beginning to grow as is the number of travelers abroad.
In Armenia Sil Insurance actively cooperates with Armeconombank,
Artsakh and Prometey banks.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Lowell Sun, MA
Updated: April 03, 2005 1:31 AM MST
Healing the scars
Exhibit at Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center reveals wounds left behind from
the 1915 Armenian Genocide
By STEPHANIE COYNE, Sun Correspondent
Tom
Magarian, of Tyngsboro, a 91-year-old survivor of the 1915 genocide of
Armenian’s by the Turks, stands in front of an exhibit depicting the
horrors his people endured during what is considered the first mass
execution of the 20th century. SUN PHOTO/ BILL BRIDGEFORD
LOWELL — Scars run so deep that nearly a century has passed but the
occurrence still remains fresh in their minds.
The Armenian Genocide of 1915 — the first mass execution of the 20th
century.
Grandparents, parents, siblings, children, all dead — drowned, beaten,
starved, slaughtered by the Turks.
The death toll: 1.5 million men, women, children, babies — it didn’t
matter. The killers weren’t picky.
What hurts the survivors most, the thought that lingers on everyone’s mind:
Why won’t anyone recognize this event and stop pretending it never happened?
This perplexing question
and many others were discussed during the opening ceremony for the 90th
Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide Exhibit at the Patrick J. Mogan
Cultural Center yesterday.
“I don’t understand why they deny it,” said Rose Narzakian, a lifelong
Lowell resident. “It will stop further destruction of other countries.
“It brought on the other genocides.”
Narzakian’s mother was a survivor of the genocide. Her grandmother was
killed along the side of a road as the two walked for months to the Syrian
border.
“They shot my grandmother as she stopped and was washing a few things
along the river,” Narzakian said.
George Simonia experienced loss in his family as well.
One grandfather was taken off on a death march, while his other grandparents
were drowned.
“My mother witnessed the whole thing,” said Simonia, a Chelmsford resident.
“It was very difficult to interpret the word ‘alleged’ to my mother about
the genocide.”
Tom Magarian had a similar story.
Magarian is the last known Armenian Genocide survivor living in the Greater
Lowell area.
He was a toddler when his parents and four siblings were killed. He survived
along with one brother and two sisters.
After marrying, his older sister brought her three siblings to the United
States to live and escape the cruel fate that six members of their immediate
family endured.
Aram Jeknavorian, of Pelham, was a teenager when he first began to hear the
horrific stories about what happened to members of his family.
“Growing up they didn’t talk about the genocide,” he said. “It was
repressed.”
His father was a teenager when the family made arrangements for him to hide
in the basement of a home of a Greek family.
“This family was at great risk doing this for him,” said Jeknavorian.
His grandmother was one of the victims of the genocide and died at the hands
of the Turks.
Jeknavorian, also, wants to hear the Turkish government recognize the
genocide as an official event to begin the healing for the families who lost
so much.
“This is turning into more than just ethnic pride,” he said. “This is still
unresolved.”
Special exhibits and a series of event commemorating the 90th anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide will take place through June 17.
The exhibit is open Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5
p.m., Tuesdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sundays,
1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center, 40 French St.,
Lowell.