Author: Chatinian Lara

Armenpress

ARTHUR BAGHDASARIAN DECLARES ABOUT HIS RESIGNATION

YEREVAN, MAY 12, ARMENPRESS: Armenian National
Assembly Speaker Arthur Baghdasarian called a special
news conference today to declare his resignation from
the second important post in the country. He said the
decision was made yesterday late at night by the
governing council of his Orinats Yerkir party.
He said he informed about his decision the
Republican Party of Prime Minister Andranik Margarian
and the Armenian Republican Federation – two other
members of the ruling coalition. Arthur Baghdasarian
said they agreed to part in a “civilized way”.
Baghdasarian said that he decided to leave the
coalition because of existing controversies between
him and his partners in the coalition. He said
according to the law, he will present the written
application about his resignation to the next
parliament session that will take place on May 22. He
has to reconfirm his decision within next five days.

Armenia Fund USA, Inc.
152 Madison Ave, S-803
New York, NY 10016, U.S.A.
T/1-212-689-5307
F/1-212-689-5317
e-mail/ [email protected]

Armenia Fund USA Restores Neurosurgical Division of Astvatsatsin
Hospital in Yerevan
~Building on the successful maintenance of somatic division of the same
hospital~

NEW YORK, New York – Armenia Fund USA (Fund), East Coast Affiliate of
Hayastan Himnadram All-Armenian Fund, is pleased to announce that much
needed renovation works to restore the neurosurgical division of the
Astvatsatsin Hospital, Yerevan, Armenia, have started in April, 2006. The
project is a continuation of the previous restoration works done for the
somatic division (a division for children with issues such as malnutrition,
lack of normal growth and other developmental physical conditions) of the
same hospital. Having started last year, the project was brought to its
successful completion through the generous contribution of Mr. Agop
Giritliyan – an Armenian philanthropist from Istanbul where he is well-known
for his assistance to more than 5,000 promising Armenian students.

Agop Giritliyan’s generosity has restored not only two of the most critical
wings of the hospital, but, most importantly, the hope of the children and
staff of Astvatsatsin Hospital for a better quality of healthcare service.
The hospital which provides care for children from ages two to eighteen is
also considered to be the primary emergency care provider in the region.
Built in 1982 and not having undergone any kind of renovation since Soviet
times, the hospital represented an example of a construction in deplorable
conditions suggesting an image of a place to die rather then heal. With Mr.
Giritliyan’s generous support, Armenia Fund USA’s undertaking of the
restoration of this critically important healthcare center was a step to
meet immediate healthcare needs of many children in Armenia.

The renovation of the somatic division last year was implemented in parallel
with a World Bank initiative to moderately renovate the first two floors of
the hospital. This year, building on the success and well-maintenance of the
infrastructure, Mr. Giritliyan is undertaking the renovation of the
neurosurgical division of the children’s hospital. The project is scheduled
to be completed by August 25 of 2006. The state-of-the-art renovation of the
division is a bold initiative to take the provision of adequate healthcare
service to a different level for children who are in desperate need.

The right of every child and adult to proper healthcare, established by
multiple international protocols and conventions, still remains an
unaccomplished task for thousands of children in Armenia and Karabakh. The
Fund’s initiative of renovating the children’s hospital in Yerevan is a
working example of how Armenia Fund USA collaborates with its donors who
have specific philanthropic goals in mind and choose a direction in their
efforts to make a difference. The Fund’s other projects in the area of
public health and medical care include the Armine Pagoumian Polyclinic and
Diagnostic Center in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia Fund USA has distinguished itself by implementing projects ranging
from grassroots development to specific problem-solving initiatives. With
the support of its donors and constituents, the Fund will continue in its
mission of improving lives by building foundations that will sustain the
economic growth and stability of the country and its people.

ABOUT ARMENIA FUND USA: ARMENIA FUND USA, founded in 1992, was one of the
first of Hayastan All-Armenian Fund’s 18 international affiliates and serves
constituents in all states east of the Mississippi. As a non-profit,
non-governmental, nonsectarian organization, the Fund represents all
Armenian constituents.

Armenia Fund USA is the largest contributor among the 18 international
affiliates – supporting strategic infrastructure projects in Armenia and
Karabakh, and having helped build 138 miles of roads, 100 miles of
waterways, 36 schools, 3 electric transmission networks, 210 residential
buildings and 15 healthcare institutions.

Armenia Fund USA’s Mission is the development of strategic socio-economic
infrastructure in Armenia and Karabakh, focusing on major projects such as
major highways, schools, drinking water to communities and humanitarian
programs in education, training and medical facilities. The Fund has adopted
a policy to go “Beyond Bricks and Mortar” to provide sustainability for
projects it sponsors.

A CULTURAL VANGUARD BRINGS PARIS TO THE ISRAELI SPRINGTIME
By Goel Pinto

Ha’aretz, Israel
May 11 2006

PARIS – During a visit to Israel six months ago, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor
decided to hold a French cultural season in Israel. The decision was
certainly not taken thoughtlessly. For the most part, the personal
ideology of someone who believes that culture mirrors everything in
life lies behind the idea to hold a “French spring” in Israel.

Poivre d’Arvor heads the French Association for Artistic Action
(AFAA), which has been operating for over 80 years to create cultural
cooperation between France and the rest of the world. The association’s
headquarters is located in the 7th Arondissement in Paris, between
the Austrian consulate and the military museum, Les Invalides. In the
entrance hangs a picture of the Eiffel Tower painted red, a one-time
gesture by the AFAA to mark the Year of China in France, in 2004.

Each year, France announces it will focus on a different country,
and during that year, the best of that country’s culture is presented
to the French audience. Last year was the Year of Brazil and next
year will be the Year of Armenia, during which a huge concert by the
world’s most famous Armenian, singer Charles Aznavour, will be held.

The Year of Israel took place eight years ago.

Poivre D’Arvor, a man with a dry sense of humor, sometimes – perhaps
deliberately – forgets his diplomatic role. The initiative for a
season of French culture, to kick off next week in Israel, he says,
was not conceived as a gesture of mutuality in the wake of the Year
of Israel in France.

“I still have not received the letter of invitation,” he says with
slight sarcasm.

A few months ago, Israel refused to sign the “Convention for the
Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions”
initiated by UNESCO, and its refusal was what led to the decision.

“We are not all the same,” and “do not all have the same culture,”
states the convention, which is based on a consensus that every
country has the right to promote its culture. It was signed by 148
countries, four abstained and two were opposed: the United States,
which felt that it was an activity directed against the American
culture dominating the world, and Israel, which followed suit.

“Today, everyone’s fantasy is to be American,” says Poivre d’Arvor.

“In another 20 years everyone will want to be Chinese, and in another
50 years we will all be citizens of Dubai or Brazil or India. The
UNESCO document states that differences exist. I don’t understand why
Israel was so quick to refuse to sign the document, since it of all
countries has to protect its very fragile culture, the Hebrew language,
which is spoken by so few people. The founders of the State of Israel
were dreamers, but in order to dream you need culture.

Enough with watching American television all day long,” he says,
raising his voice.

“Halas,” he adds, and for a moment it seems as though he is returning
to the late 1980s, when he served as the director of the French
Institute in Alexandria, Egypt and as his country’s cultural attache
at the embassy. “There is more than that to life. To open a book,
to take an interest in the cultures of others, and then one day the
Israelis will take an interest not only in the sounds of explosions,
but in culture as well.”

We will help the Palestinians

The French season in Israel, which has the charming name “Voila!” –
with a logo that emphasizes the letters “IL” to represent Israel –
will begin on May 16 with a pyrotechnics extravaganza, a performance
and fireworks display by the “F Group.” The group will light up the
skies of Tel Aviv with a cacophony of color, just as it did at the
Athens 2004 Olympics, the Winter Olympics in Torino and the Millenium
festivities on the Eiffel Tower. Poivre d’Arvor says that he chose
this show as the opening shot, because “anyone who has been in Tel Aviv
and does not see that you like craziness, is either stupid or blind.”

Aside from the opening evening, there will be, among other things,
the “Dialogues” fashion show by Christian Lacroix, in the Reading
power station building in Tel Aviv (May 17-June 15), and at the
Jerusalem Film Festival there will be a retrospective of the films
of Isabelle Huppert.

Surprisingly, the season of French culture will take place only in
Israel, and will not spill over to the Palestinian Authority areas.

“I respect Israel,” he says, “because it respects its culture and it
has the means to display important works of art, and cinematheques
in which to present films. In Palestine there are not even minimal
conditions. In the coming years we will help the Palestinians construct
such buildings, so that in the future we will be able to have a season
of French culture there.”

Poivre d’Arvor believes with all his heart that culture can change
situations, even a serious conflict such as that between Israel and
the Palestinians. “I am very familiar with the situation in the Middle
East, I come to Israel often, my partner is Israeli, and I don’t hear,
from any direction, that culture can change the situation between the
Israelis and the Palestinians. It sounds absurd to people, a statement
by Don Quixote on his donkey. But I believe in it. The Jews, like
the Muslims, are a nation with a glorious cultural past. Why are we
connected to the Jewish people? Because of its culture, not because
of the prime ministers, who are replaceable.”

Poivre d’Arvor believes that if Israel were to build a cultural
institution in other countries, it would gain sympathy. “You only
have to look around,” he says. “The British have the British Council,
the Germans have the Goethe Institute and the French have the French
Institute. The goal of all these groups is to connect to countries on
the cultural level. With a relatively modest budget, Israel should also
establish an Israeli cultural institution in countries it considers
important to gain international public opinion. Artists like Daniel
Barenboim contribute to the improvement of Israel’s image in a way
that no foreign ministry can. Nobody can accuse cultural figures of
defending government policy, and that can change everything.”

Poivre d’Arvor, 48, began his career as a journalist at Le Matin de
Paris and afterwards directed a theater group in Lyon. Over the past
20 years, he has served as a cultural attache at French missions in
Alexandria, Prague and London. He is a writer who has written many
novels, some with his brother Patrick, who is 11 years his senior
and one of the most famous journalists in France.

Inferiority complex

Poivre d’Arvor believes that the French connection to Israeli culture,
and vice versa, is no coincidence. “Which country welcomes Israeli
culture more than any other country?” he asks. “I know that the Jewish
community in France, and Israelis in general, have a great deal of
criticism about France’s attitude towards them, but the fact is that
not a day goes by when one opens a newspaper – Le Monde, La Figaro,
Liberation – and doesn’t find an article in it about a new Israeli
book that has been translated, or about an Israeli film.

France has many shortcomings, but in one area, culture, there is a
genuine consensus that culture must be supported. We believe that
the world does not consist only of numbers and economics, but also,
and mainly, of emotions and an exchange of opinions. We have also
been enriched by importing culture and artists. All the great French
artists of the last century were foreigners: Picasso, Chagall, Dali.”

However, even Poivre d’Arvor admits that French culture has declined
in recent years. “It’s true, and it’s a good thing,” he says.

“Culture that consistently remains on a high level becomes arrogant.

Today, nobody has any right to dominate the world. It is important
that we received some blows, that the French language is no longer
spoken and admired, that our cinema does not sweep the world off its
feet, and that our writers are not the greatest writers in the world.

When I read Israeli writers I have an inferiority complex. It was
hard to accept that, and in France there are doubts and questions
regarding this matter. We are trying to change it, not in order to
dominate the world again, but in order to better understand it.”

RESIGNATION OF ARMENIAN SPEAKER NOT RESULT OF CONFLICT WITH PRESIDENT: HEAD OF RPA FACTION

Yerevan, May 12. ArmInfo. “The expected resignation of Armenian
parliamentary speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan cannot be connected with
his interview with the German newspaper ” Frankfurter Allgemeine
” wherein the speaker tried to specify the priorities of Armenia’s
foreign policy ahead of the country’s president,> Galust Sahakyan,
Head of RPA faction, told ArmInfo.

G. Sahakyan believes that “withdrawing from the coalition, “Orinats
Yerkir” team is settling its own tasks.> He thinks it untimely
forecasting the election of the new speaker. Naming no nominee from the
RPA, G. Sahakyan stressed the role of the party in the election of the
new speaker. “The frames of cooperation with political forces remain
wide enough and our legislative activity will not be interrupted,
he says.

Commenting on the statement by “Orinats Yerkir” representative
Hovhanness Margaryan, that “OY” displayed readiness to leave the
posts for ideas, hereby gaining new voters, G. Sahakyan says:
“We shall only welcome if they gain new voters.”

YOUNGEST DELEGATION HEAD FOR EURO CONTEST: MEET DIANA MNATSAKANYAN FROM ARMENIA!

esctoday.com, Netherlands
May 11 2006

We already knew Diana Mnatsakanyan is the Armenian delegation head
before, but now we can reveal more about the person behind!

Active member
Diana is the head of the international relations department of Armenian
broadcaster ARMTV. After making ARMTV an associate member of the
European Broadcasting Union, she managed to get the Armenian national
broadcaster the status of active member last year, which opened the
way to Armenian Eurovision Song Contest participation for 2006.

Youngest delegation head
So far, no news. However, everyone who knows that Diana is 24 years
young, it’s hard not to admit that she achieved big things already
at such a young age.

To esctoday.com, Diana spoke out about Andre’s first rehearsal on
stage, earlier this morning. “I learn a lot from all the other
delegations! Everyone seems to be very eager and professional”,
she said, adding that she is giving Andre “as much as feedback as
possible”.

Esctoday.com welcomes Armenia and Diana, as responsible Head of
Delegation, to the Eurovision Song Contest!

for photo:

MOLLAZADEH PERFORMS AT 5TH PLENARY SESSION OF INITIATIVE GROUP WITH SOUTH CAUCASIAN PARLIAMENT
Author: J. Shakhverdiyev

TREND Info, Azerbaijan
May 11 2006

Within the 5th plenary session of Initiative Group with South
Caucasian parliament, Azeri delegation met with German Foreign Minister
and representatives of Bundestag’s group for friendship with South
Caucasus, reportedly said Asim Mollazadeh, member of Azeri delegation
and chairman of Democratic Reforms Party.

5th plenary session of Initiative Group with South Caucasian
parliament started May 9, 2006. Mollazadeh said within the session
its participants led a conference entitled “Globalization and its
influence on South Caucasus”, where they exchanged opinions on
globalization impact on political, economic, public life of the region.

Mollazadeh said also Armenian delegation missed the session for some
uncertain reasons. “There were only Azeri and Georgian delegations
at the session. For this reason, no serious decision was made at this
event. We just spoke on globalization on South Caucasus”, – he said.

Azeri delegation includes MPs Siyavush Novruzov, Asim Mollazadeh,
Mirkazim Kazimov, Arastun Javadov, Fuad Muadov and Zahid Orujov. The
delegation is arriving in Baku May 12.

The International Herald Tribune
May 5, 2006 Friday

Civility vs. free speech: A democratic quandary;
Europa

by Richard Bernstein

Some years ago there were a number of unsuccessful efforts at
American universities to enact hate-speech codes that would have
punished students and faculty for expressing opinions or hurling
epithets that would have insulted others because of their race, sex,
sexual orientation or handicap.

Most of these efforts failed, in part because they presented too
sharp a contradiction with the right of free speech. And indeed,
despite the United States’ sad history of slavery and racism, the
American value of free speech, even deeply offensive free speech, has
generally taken priority over the value of protecting the feelings of
minorities.

There have been a few reminders lately that this is not the case in
Europe, with its even sadder history of genocide I say sadder
because, however bad American racism has been, it never involved a
systematic effort actually to wipe out a people. David Irving, the
renegade British historian, has actually been sentenced to a term in
prison in Austria for the crime of Holocaust denial.

There is no doubt that Irving denied the Holocaust for years.
Moreover, the law is the law and to fail to enforce it on the
possible grounds that, however objectionable Irving’s views may have
been, it seems excessive to toss somebody in prison for them would
sap the law in general of its dignity.

But there have been other signs recently in some European countries
that the effort to protect people from insult has taken priority over
the value of free expression of uncivil views, and these instances
make one wonder whether Europe has made the right choice.

There is, for example, the case in Poland of Kaziemira Szczuka, a
well-known television personality, who, a few weeks ago, mimicked the
high-pitched voice of a severely disabled 18-year-old who frequently
reads prayers on a far-right Roman Catholic radio station, Radio
Maryja. The station that aired Szczuka’s little satire was fined the
equivalent of ¤125,000, or $157,000, by Poland’s National
Broadcasting Council, which found the satire an unacceptable insult
to a disabled person and to religious belief, even though Szczuka
said she didn’t know the young prayer reader was disabled.

One could certainly argue that civil behavior does not allow ridicule
of anybody’s religious belief viz: that small Danish newspaper and
its satirical cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad. But mockery, even if
it is in bad taste, cannot be made a criminal offense in a democratic
society.

This is especially true if the mockery is of Radio Maryja, which is
estimated to have four million to six million listeners a day and
does not hesitate to take part in Poland’s political battle,
entreating its listeners to vote for President Lech Kaczynski’s Law
and Justice party and against Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform in
elections last autumn.

The radio’s emphasis on piety, exemplified in the broadcast prayers
of the young handicapped woman, provide a kind of support for its
political urgings.

There are other problems with the Szczuka case. A few weeks after her
television station was punished because of her remarks, the Polish
authorities conspicuously did not punish Radio Maryja itself after
one of its regular guests made some remarks that Poland’s
professional journalists’ association and many others found to be
blatantly anti-Semitic. This unevenness of enforcement suggests that
hate-speech codes can be politically interpreted and politically
enforced.

Several European countries, committed to a sort of absolute civility,
enforce laws against hate speech almost routinely. In March, the
German government banned a group of Turkish nationalists who wanted
to march in support of their tasteless and erroneous idea that the
genocidal massacres of Armenians in Turkey during World War I never
took place.

And there is an ongoing trial in Mannheim of Ernst Zundel, an
Internet purveyor of primitive anti-Semitism and of the notion that
the Holocaust is a Jewish myth created to exact tribute from a
gullibly guilty world. Zundel, who committed his acts of Holocaust
denial while living in Canada and the United States, is a challenge
to free-speech absolutists. Look up ”Zundelsite” on the Internet
and you will see what I mean.

You will also find on the Web that Zundel is viewed as a sort of cult
hero by an undeterminable number of people who have come to support
his 25-year career of Holocaust denial and who see him, now that he
is on trial for his views, as a martyr to a suppressed truth.

The trial itself has been a circus, well described in the German
press. At one point, Zundel’s lawyer was barred from the court after
making what the journalistic observers saw as neo-Nazi speeches, even
finishing up one peroration with the phrase, ”Heil Hitler!” She
played successfully to a courtroom audience made up of 80 to 100
Zundel supporters who have raised their arms in what appeared to be
the Nazi salute.

The trial itself, in other words, has at least to some extent become
a platform for the propagation of the very ideas whose expression
brought about the trial in the first place. Equally perverse, in
prosecuting Zundel, the state has helped to create a thrilling sense
of illicit community and radical solidarity among those interested in
rebellion against the established moral order.

In Germany, of course, it is not difficult to understand the yearning
to enforce the rules of civility. The victims of the Holocaust are
certainly morally entitled to protection from the vicious calumnies
of people like Zundel.

The question is: Should they also be legally entitled to that
protection? Perhaps, sadly and although this flies in the face of a
near European consensus they shouldn’t be.

During the uproar over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, Muslims
attacked the Holocaust denial laws in several European countries as
rank hypocrisy because those same countries permitted insults to
Muslims, and, as the American legal scholar Ronald Dworkin observed
recently in The New York Review of Books, they had a point. But,
Dworkin continued, the response should not be to broaden the coverage
of the laws against insult to religion but to strike them down.

Free speech, he argues, is an indispensable requirement of a
democratic society, not something that can be bargained away to
mollify this or that offended group.

And so, as an American in Europe and a Jew mightily offended by
Holocaust denial, I nonetheless come down on the side of free speech
rather than on the prohibition of offensive speech. One of the
cultural differences between America and Europe in this regard is
that in America this issue is debated. In Europe it is not.

–Boundary_(ID_WaltCu64u4F1SZUgkZmOtg)–

Genocide armenien: Serge Klarsfeld soutient la proposition anti-negation

Agence France Presse
3 mai 2006 mercredi 2:56 PM GMT

L’association Les Fils et Filles des Deportes juifs de France,
presidee par l’avocat Serge Klarsfeld, a annonce mercredi son soutien
a la proposition de loi socialiste visant a sanctionner penalement
la negation du genocide armenien.

“L’association des Fils et Filles des Deportes Juifs de France soutient
fermement la proposition de loi du groupe socialiste de l’Assemblee
nationale” en ce sens, selon un communique. “Nous esperons que cette
loi sera votee a l’unanimite”.

Cette proposition vise a completer la loi du 29 janvier 2001 sur la
reconnaissance du genocide des Armeniens de 1915 “en sanctionnant la
negation de ce genocide par l’application des memes peines que celles
applicables a la negation des crimes contre l’humanite”, rappelle-t-il.

La proposition de loi prevoit de punir d’un an d’emprisonnement
et 45.000 euros d’amende “ceux qui auront conteste l’existence du
genocide armenien de 1915”. Elle a ete deposee fin avril par le
groupe socialiste et sera discutee lors de la niche parlementaire de
ce groupe, le 18 mai.

Le vice-president UMP de l’Assemblee nationale Eric Raoult a indique
avoir depose une proposition de loi similaire.

Garegin II condoles on plane crash over Black Sea
By Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 3, 2006 Wednesday

His Holiness Garegin II expressed condolences on the A-320 plane
crash over the Black Sea.

“On behalf of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Supreme Spiritual
Council I want to express my condolences on the A-320 plane crash,”
Catholicos Garegin II said on Wednesday.

“We express grief over the tragedy and numerous losses of lives,”
the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church said.

Armenia has declared May 5 and May 6 a national day of mourning to
commemorate those were killed in the air crash near Sochi.

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan signed a decree to this effect
on Wednesday, the presidential press service reported.

Twenty-eight Russian citizens were aboard the crashed Airbus belonging
to the air company Armavia. The list of passengers placed in the hall
of the Yerevan international airport Zvartnots showed it.

These are mainly people of Armenian origin.

Well-known aviator, former director general of the Armenian Airlines
Vyacheslav Yaralov, chief of the hall for official delegations of
the Yerevan airport Albert Azaryan, Aram Petrosyan, the son of
Lieutenant-General Karlos Petrosyan, the former director of the
Armenian governmental security service, are among those killed.

Rescuers have found 16 bodies of those killed as a result of the crash
of the airplane A-320 in the Black Sea so far, Deputy Emergencies
Minister Yevgeny Serebrennikov told Itar-Tass.

He noted, “An active stage of the search operation in which more than
ten vessels are involved is underway at the incident site.”

More than 40 specialists, including divers, are working in the
catastrophe area.

The airplane was carrying 113 people, including the crew. Sixty-three
men, 36 women, six children, including a newborn and eight crewmembers
were aboard the airplane, the information department of the Emergencies
Ministry told Itar-Tass.

The airplane A-320 was en route Yerevan-Sochi. During another attempt
at an emergency landing the airplane disappeared from the radars and
crashed in the sea at the depth of 300 meters, five kilometres off
the shore where the Adler airport is situated.

WITHDRAWAL OF 62ND RUSSIAN MILITARY BASE TO START MAY 15

PanARMENIAN.Net
05.05.2006 23:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The withdrawal of the 62nd Russian military base
located in Akhalkalaki will start May 15. Before this the equipment
will be kept in the autopark near the bay in Tsalka and then will be
transported to the Russian military base in Gyumri.

The process is expected to be completed by August 15.

Presently some 700 military devices and artillery mounts are placed
in the Akhalkalaki base, reported Novosti-Georgia.