Author: Chatinian Lara

AGENDA ISSUES FOR ARMENIA
Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on July 02, 2008
Armenia

What will be Armenia’s counter-argument to the pre-attack tactics
successfully pushed forward by the Azeris in the summer session of
the Council of Europe? ARTAK DAVTYAN, member of the NA "Republican"
faction, gives answers to our questions.

"I have to state with regret that we, for the successive time, have
found ourselves in the role of contradictors. We have to respond to the
steps of Azerbaijan which, by ‘permission’ or silent consent of the
international community, blackmails us, speculating the issue of the
‘occupied’ territories. And this happens in a situation when we have
a great number of unused potentials and steps we haven’t undertaken
so far.

With its propaganda mixed with lie, Azerbaijan has actually distorted
the whole history of the Karabakh conflict. I think it is first of all
necessary to clearly recompose that period of history and introduce
it in all the international forums with specific facts and supported
arguments. Our delegations should attend those forums ‘armed’ with a
comprehensive package of relevant facts and arguments to be able to
contradict the anti-propaganda of the Azeris in a timely and effective
manner. This is the first thing to say.

The second important argument is the continuing blockade of Karabakh
and Armenia. We know well that the blockade by the Azerbaijani side
began back in the Soviet times and later acquired a periodic nature. We
know that there were entire troop trains disappearing in the territory
of Azerbaijan during the Soviet years, and after the collapse of the
USSR, no single carriage entered the territory of Armenia.

It is simply unclear why and how the same Council of Europe tolerates
keeping Armenia’s border close by the two CoE Member States –
Azerbaijan and Turkey."

"It is actually a hostile act against our country, a manifestation
of an undeclared war."

"Certainly. Moreover, I repeat that the blockade began much
earlier than the speculations over the issue of the ‘occupied
territories’. This too, is a very important argument that our Foreign
Ministry, the delegations representing Armenia in the international
tribunals and, why not, the Armenian organizations operating in the
Diaspora should introduce to the international community in a clear
and substantiated manner.

Especially considering that the Azeri delegations never miss the
occasion for raising the issue of the ‘occupied territories’ from
the international tribunals.

The fact that the creation of the security zone around Artsakh was
caused by the 100 percent encirclement of Nagorno Karabakh is no
less important. But for that zone, the events which occurred in
Uganda-Rwanda in the 1990’s would have been repeated in Artsakh;
the NKR population would have been annihilated. If nothing else had
happened, the people would have been simply reduced to starvation. The
only salvation and the only way out of this situation was the creation
of the security zone. Unfortunately, our diplomacy won’t raise this
issue either.

I am sure that the adoption of a resolution condemning Armenia’s
encirclement by Azerbaijan and Turkey should be one of the most
important if not the main trend of our foreign policy, no matter
whether such resolution will be passed by the United Nations, the
Council of Europe or the OSCE Assembly.

Suffice it to say that 80 percent of the freight transportation is
carried out via the Azerbaijani railroad; just imagine what tremendous
impact the halting of the process might have produced on Armenia’s
economy.

I think that the Government, on behalf of the Ministry of Economics
and the Statistic Service, also has serious things to do in this
respect. They should set a clear-cut task to estimate the material
damage caused to us as a result of the blockade. Considering that
Turkey and Azerbaijan are members not only of the Council of Europe
but also the World Trade Organization, it is required to submit a
claim to the International Court for the compensation of the damage.

I think this should also become an agenda issue for us.

To be continued

FRANCE ASSUMES EU PRESIDENCY

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.07.2008 12:30 GMT+04:00

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France seized the reins of the European
Union last night, pledging to turn the EU’s crisis of confidence into
an opportunity to make the unloved union more popular with almost
half a billion Europeans.

Sarkozy went on national television to outline his intentions,
portraying himself as Europe’s guardian in a time of anxiety
and confusion. "We must not be afraid of the word protection," he
declared. "We have to reflect on how to turn Europe into a means of
protecting Europeans in their everyday lives."

He said there had been mistakes in the way the union had developed. "We
have to profoundly change our way of building Europe."

During France’s presidency of the union Sarkozy hopes to reverse
Europe’s current mood of gloom by delivering ambitious and popular
policies to combat climate change, cushion consumers against
soaring food and fuel prices, and take tough action against illegal
immigration. He also intends to announce formation of the Mediterranean
Union.

Senior French officials conceded that they were inheriting the
EU presidency at a difficult juncture, its confidence battered by
Ireland’s rejection last month of the Lisbon treaty, the blueprint
for streamlining the way the union will operate and take decisions
in the future.

The Irish no vote has cast a cloud over the French presidency, but
is also concentrating minds and forcing EU leaders to question where
they are going wrong.

With the EU mired in confusion, Sarkozy is relishing the chance to
restore France to the European leadership role it forfeited under
the latter years of Jacques Chirac. He is sparing no expense in the
endeavor, budgeting almost â~B¬200m (£158m) to fund the six-month
presidency, vastly outspending his predecessors.

Apart from seeking to salvage the Lisbon treaty by coaxing the Irish
government into staging a high-risk second referendum, Paris has laid
down four priority policies for the EU – climate change, immigration,
food and farming, and defense. "These are the issues of urgency,"
said the prime minister, Francois Fillon.

The EU has spent the past 15 months refining the world’s most ambitious
global warming package – aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a
minimum of 20% by 2020. But national leaders need to cut a deal at a
summit in December to meet a deadline of next spring for the measures
to become European law. If they fail the EU will be unable to lead
the campaign for more radical action at international negotiations
next year.

The EU’s credibility is at stake, said the French energy and
environment ministry. "Europe will not be able to demand global
distribution of the effort among all the countries if it is not
capable of organizing it among the 27." But east European countries
are resisting, the Germans are pleading for special treatment, and
there are deepening doubts about biofuels.

Sarkozy’s "immigration pact", creating a European system of controlled
legal immigration and facilitating the deportation of illegal migrants,
has already been watered down after running into opposition in Spain
and elsewhere. It has better chances of prompt acceptance and should
be finalized at an EU summit in October.

The crisis wrought by spiraling food and fuel prices looks likely to
stymie any meaningful reform of the EU’s perennially contested Common
Agricultural Policy.

French ministers are calling for action to shore up industries
especially vulnerable to oil price rises, such as the transport and
fishing sectors. Sarkozy also wants to cut VAT on fuel. He is opposed
by Germany, Britain and the European commission.

Paris has also singled out European defense as a priority. It wants
to establish a 60,000-strong EU rapid intervention force and "update"
Europe’s security strategy, and hopes to gain support for a "permanent
European planning capacity" or small EU operational headquarters
in Brussels. This is opposed by the EU’s other main military power,
Britain.

Neutral Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty is also likely to
mute the defense ambitions, as voters there appear allergic to any
talk of a European military.

Sarkozy is to launch his attempt at a political fix to the Irish
quandary next week by traveling to Dublin. If the Irish no vote dents
Sarkozy’s EU presidency his biggest prize would be the climate change
accord in December. If there is no agreement, or a rotten compromise,
that would be his biggest failure, exposing the mismatch between EU
rhetoric and reality.

An opinion poll last week showed that 33% of French people viewed the
EU as a source of fear, while only 30% saw it as a source of hope,
The Guardian reports.

–Boundary_(ID_hzrai1K4VMKfm4lXKC3i5w)–

" AZERBAIJAN HIGHLY APPRECIATING OSCE EFFORTS TO SOLVE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT" – VICE-SPEAKER

Trend
30.06.08 10:51

Azerbaijan highly appreciates the attention and efforts of OSCE to
solve the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," head of
Azerbaijan’s parliamentary delegation, Vice-Speaker of Azerbaijani
Parliament Bahar Muradova said to Trend News in Astana on 30 June.

"President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for
Cooperation & Security in Europe (OSCE PA) Mr. Lennmarker thinks
currently Baku and Yerevan have a ‘golden opportunity’ to solve the
conflict and we appreciate his view," Muradova said.

Speaking at the 17th session of the OSCE PA on 29 June, OSCE
PA President Goran Lennmarker stated that the two South Caucasus
countries have a ‘golden opportunity’ to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict which has been lasting for many years.

"For a range of years we have been striving to solve the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. There is an interim decision and it
will positively affect the mutual relations between Azerbaijan
and Armenia. They have gained a golden opportunity to solve the
conflict. It is the very time to find a solution," Lennmarker said.

"Mr. Lennmarker thinks the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can be solved
peacefully and we understand that. But in spite of all Azerbaijan’s
efforts, no results have yet been reached," Muradova said.

"We are glad to see Kazakhstan’s capital city hosting the next
OSCE meeting. That is not only an Asian area, but also a Muslim
country. Kazakhstanians are our brothers; they are a Turkic language
nation, which makes us double glad," she said.

FRENCH AND HOLLAND FILM DAYS IN YEREVAN

Panorama.am
21:08 26/06/2008

"Our festival has active contacts with the Embassies of USA, Germany
and France in Armenia and we get films produced in recent years from
them," Susanna Harutyunyan, the leader of "Golden Apricot" festival
in a press conference today. According to her on July 14 and 16 French
and Holland film day will be announced in Yerevan.

Note that on July 13-20 "Golden Apricot" fifth international film
festival is organized in Yerevan.

TIGRAN SARGSYAN: ‘E-GOVERNMENT STARTS FROM US’

Panorama.am
14:25 26/06/2008

Today the Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan had a meeting with
the representatives of mass media and said that they should make it
distinct which fields of economy should be invested by information
technologies. "We need to make certain those branches of economy
where the IT should be invested," said Tigran Sargsyan after "DigiTec
Business Forum" opening ceremony, today.

The Prime Minister said that the current forum will give the Government
such opportunity. The Prime Minister has also mentioned that the
participation of international organizations to the forum will give
an opportunity to Armenia to have equal perspectives. "We have a good
deal of expectations from this forum and I guess that the dialogue
between the businessmen and IT companies which is held today will be
rather effective," said the Prime Minister.

Tigran Sargsyan said that e-government investment conception is being
discussed by the business society and assured that RA Government will
be the first body to apply the system.

PACE SUMMER SESSION SET TO DISCUSS GEORGIA, ARMENIA, KOSOVO

RIA Novosti
June 23, 2008
Russia

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will discuss
a number of issues during its summer session June 23-27, including
Kosovo, Georgia’s elections, Azerbaijan and recent protests in Armenia.

Although Kosovo is expected to be the center of attention with
Serbian President Boris Tadic due to address the assembly on Thursday,
Armenia’s February presidential elections and the ensuing violence
and crackdown by the authorities on the opposition and public meetings
are planned for discussion in an urgent debate.

Ten people were killed, 265 injured and over 100 arrested in clashes
between police and opposition protesters in Yerevan March 1, when
protests turned violent following President Serzh Sarkisyan’s victory
in the February 19 presidential elections.

PACE co-rapporteurs, who visited Armenia June 16-17, said that
insufficient progress had been made in carrying out the EU’s demands
urging institutional reforms, less state interference in the media
and more rights for opposition groups.

Democratic institutions in Azerbaijan, protecting the environment
on the Caspian Sea and Georgia’s parliamentary elections are also on
the agenda at the Council of Europe meeting.

The head of the State Duma’s international affairs committee,
Konstantin Kosachyov, said "the report [on Georgia’s elections] will
be extremely hard-hitting for Georgia’s authorities," but failed to
elaborate further.

The five-day session could also see the Council of Europe discuss
a future report on the 1931-33 famine in the former Soviet Union
which affected millions of people in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus,
as well as Russia’s grain producing regions of the North Caucasus,
Urals, West Siberia and the Volga Region.

In April, during PACE’s spring session, the Assembly supported a move
by a number of Ukrainian politicians, that the famine or Holodomor
be considered an act of genocide against Ukrainians by the Soviet
authorities. Ukraine is planning to draft a document on the Holodomor.

Russia’s delegation, however, wants a joint document to all the
estimated 7 million victims of the famine following the brutal
introduction of collectivization by Soviet authorities. Europe has
given its approval for the drafting of a joint document, but Ukraine
is insisting the famine be considered as separate acts.

Kosachyov said: "A key decision to draft a joint document has been
made, but no decision as yet on the document’s title, and, more
importantly, on the authors."

SCREAM QUEEN PENS SEXY VAMPIRE NOVEL
Cindy Adams

The New York Post
June 24, 2008

ADRIENNE Barbeau. You know her. Hollywood’s scream queen. From those
horror flicks "The Fog," "Swamp Thing," "Creepshow." Also Bea Arthur’s
daughter on TV’s "Maude." Also originated the Rizzo role in B’way’s
"Grease." You know her.

What you don’t know is she’s now written her first novel. A sexy
vampire mystery. And what that means, I haven’t the foggiest. I,
myself, have personally never seen vampires Doing It. Anyway, the
thing is set in the movie colony. Naturally. Like, where else for
bloodsuckers, right? ‘Tis the saga of siren Ovsanna Moore, horror film
legend, cutthroat producer . . . and vampire. When everyone around
starts dropping dead, Ovsanna teams with hunky cynical cop Peter King,
who thinks he’s seen it all. They form an unholy alliance to fight the
undead. The lead vampire is Armenian. Sparks fly. And so do creatures
of the night. And, she hopes, so will book buyers.

Out July 8, published by St. Martin’s, it’s titled "Vampyres of
Hollywood." The "Y" is collaborator Michael Scott suggesting the
European spelling might set the title apart a bit. OK, fine, but
why’s she writing this? Says Adrienne:

"The first time I met Michael he suggested a novel for my horror
genre fan base."

Adrienne lives in LA, has a farmhouse in Jersey, husband
writer-producer Billy Van Zandt, who’s Steven Van Zandt’s brother,
three sons – and she just finished an Alfre Woodard film, a 3-D
animation opening in August and a TV feature premiering in September.

Great Balls of Fyre.

LIKE record producer Phil Spector, who gets retried in September in
California for allegedly murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003, needs
more problems. LA’s Westin Bonaventure Hotel filed a $100,000 suit
against him. Failure, they say, to pay accommodations for his lawyers
and witnesses during his mistrial. The lawsuit alleges all kinds of
things – fraud, breach of contract, maybe somebody heisting an ashtray.

LANCE Armstrong at La Palestra Fitness Center, 99th and B’way. From
the p.r. emanating from his love life, no wonder he needs more
fitness . . . Barbara Corcoran: "I first learned real estate as
one of 10 children whose parents always looked to upgrade where
we lived." . . . Photographer Bettina Cirone reports Mark Shriver
got a Father of the Year Award, and mom Eunice Kennedy said: "Your
father, Uncle John and your Uncle Ted all got that same one – and
they were younger than you." . . . The Spitzers, the whole family,
vacationing in Vietnam . . . CBS boss Les Moonves on the big ratings
for "Password": "It’s Regis. Everybody wants to have dinner with
Mr. Everyman Regis." . . . Enough already with this rain. Where was
I when the Groundhog crept out and said: "To hell with my shadow,
I’m going to Hawaii!"

IN that "Kit Kittredge" movie, those little girls are all named
Abigail, Madison, Willow. And with last names like Smith. Along comes
big girl co-star Jane Krakowski. A really grown-up girl teetering on
6-inch platforms. I asked how she walks in them. Said Jane: "Please,
I own lots of them. I discovered men love them. They seem never to
comment on any shoes I’ve ever worn, ever – except when I wear these
Christian Louboutins." OK by me, kid, but besides ending up in a
splint there must be an easier way to nail a guy.

BASEBALL stuff. Anyone know Maury Povich was once a batboy for the
Washington Senators? . . . Or that in ’82, shoe salesman Omar Minaya
and Yankee Willie Randolph – whom he hired and fired subsequently as
Mets manager – did a TV commercial for Canon Cameras? Omar got $200;
Willie, $5,000, and Canon still has a big billboard at Yankee Stadium.

I’M remembering my conversation a few years ago with George Carlin, who
just left us. He’d just completed a literary output. Or outburst. The
title was "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" His take on the
media: "Equal parts business, politics, advertising, p.r. and show
business. Enough bull – – – – for Texas to open a chain of branch
offices." (What that meant I didn’t know, but he talked so fast
there was no time to ask.) On the sexes: "Women are crazy, men are
stupid. Main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid."

Hygiene: "Who says people making my sandwich should wear gloves? I
don’t want glove residue all over my food. Who knows where those
gloves have been?" Language: "The way we’re going, soon we’ll be
calling ugly people ‘those with severe appearance deficits.’ "

And only two weeks ago: "Our species could have been so great, but
now all anybody wants is something new, like maybe sneakers with
lights in them. That’s what we’ve settled for."

EILEEN Fulton, after nearly 50 years on "As the World Turns," got a
new apartment and called Verizon to install the DSL devices. Three
times they made an appointment. Three times she waited. Three times
nobody showed. Three times they insist they were there and nobody
was home. Friday, June 13, came their e-mail that states – and I
have this e-mail in my hands – that they came June 16 (three days
into the future) and "nobody home."

PUBLIC COUNCIL – MISSION INACCURATE INTERPRETATION

Panorama.am
18:03 21/06/2008

The role of establishing Public Council is to improve values and
mission of the national ideology, but today its structure and
objectives are inaccurately interpreted, said Aharon Adibekyan,
the director of "Sociometer" independent sociological center.

According to him some part of the society is driven out from target
of the National Assembly and their voices are not distinct. The main
objective of the Council should make them visible and audible in
the Government.

"If the council is to become a battle field for the opposition and
authorities or if it will be like some cafe discussions, then it is
useless to form such a council," he said.

To conclude the mission of the council should become filling the gap
of the NA and Government.

Ottawa Citizen, Canada
June 21 2008

The right of self-defence

David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, June 21, 2008

It will be recalled, by readers who follow world news, that the
President of Iran has on many occasions unambiguously declared both
the desire to annihilate Israel, and the expectation that Israel will
soon be annihilated. It will also be recalled, that on the balance of
evidence, the Iranian state has been working assiduously to acquiring
the means for this act of genocide. Iran is in direct defiance of UN
resolutions to stop enriching uranium, and playing Saddam-like games
with UN inspectors.

If a man were threatening to kill you, and declaring that you will
soon be dead, while reaching for a gun, I think most readers would
allow you were within your rights to kick that gun out of his reach.

The word "genocide" — which has been seriously cheapened and abused
by rhetorical posturing in the "culture wars" of the West — does have
a meaning. It is an awkward word, with the Latin for "kill" tacked
onto the Greek for "tribe," but it acquired a reasonably precise
definition in international law when the convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was promulgated through the
United Nations in 1951 (after a little watering down to appease the
Soviet Union).

And while that Convention was obviously inspired by the Holocaust in
which at least six million European Jews were annihilated by Nazi
Germany, work towards it had begun much earlier. Curiously enough it
had not borne fruit in the days of the League of Nations, owing to the
need felt in the 1930s to appease the demands of Nazi Germany.

The examples then were the huge massacres of Armenian Christians,
across what is now Turkey, of Assyrian Christians, in what is now
Iraq, and of Greek Christians along the Black Sea coast, in the waning
days of the Ottoman Empire, during the First World War. To this day
all these events are disputed in Turkey, and elsewhere in the Muslim
world, but the weight of evidence is overwhelming. At least two
million died in the death marches, obviously designed not to relocate,
but to eradicate these ethnic groups, whose loyalty to the Ottoman
cause was profoundly doubted.

The relativist phrase "One man’s terrorism is another man’s freedom
struggle" has been popularized by the Left, and could as well be
paraphrased, "One man’s genocide is another man’s self-defence." This
playing on words, while avoiding the things the words signify, has
become a commonplace of "political correctness" at the present day. A
wanton confusion between "genocide," which is clear and factual and
very bloody, and "hate speech," which is entirely interpretive, has by
now been written even into various western criminal codes, including
Canada’s.

In international law "genocide" means specific acts intended to
physically destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial,
or religious group. These range from outright massacre, down to
imposing conditions in which the group cannot reproduce itself, or its
members are forcibly indoctrinated, its children kidnapped, its women
systematically raped.

"Hatred" is an emotion. It should not even come into the discussion of
what genocide means, and is only brought into the discussion to
confuse the issue — to use all the emotions associated with the
Holocaust for the purpose of advancing some other dark agenda.

The Iranian state is officially represented not only by President
Ahmadinejad, but also in similar statements made by other leading
ayatollahs, promising the utter annihilation of Israel. Iran openly
arms and funds Hezbollah and Hamas, which likewise publicly promise to
annihilate Israel.

Actual command of a state, or at least a large paramilitary force, is
moreover entirely necessary to make the threat of genocide
meaningful. For an attempt at genocide requires the means. Some
adolescent neo-Nazi, raving on an Internet thread, is not in a
position to attempt genocide. President Ahmadinejad is in such a
position.

Israel recently rehearsed a military operation over the eastern
Mediterranean, on a scale and of a kind to foreshadow a raid on Iran’s
nuclear installations. Little attempt was made to conceal it, and we
can only conclude it was meant to send a breeze up the ayatollahs’
skirts. But rather than condemn the Israelis, reflexively and
neurotically, for "war-mongering," we should confront the cold, hard
reality.

Under the Genocide Convention, as currently received, Israel would be
entirely within her rights to launch such a raid on Iran — to, by
analogy, "kick away that gun." Alternatively, Iran must demonstrably
withdraw those genocidal threats, and unambiguously recognize Israel’s
permanent right to existence.

David Warren’s column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday.

COURSE OF ARMENIA-EUROPEAN UNION ACTION PLAN’S REALIZATION POSITIVELY ESTIMATED IN BRUSSELS

DeFacto Agency
June 20 2008
Armenia

YEREVAN, 20.06.08. DE FACTO. The situation in the South Caucasus
was discussed in the course of the RA FM Edvard Nalbandian’s meeting
with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissar of the European Commission for
External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, held in Brussels
on June 18.

According to the RA MFA Press Office, on the Commissar’s request
Armenian FM presented the course of the Karabakh talks.

During the meeting the parties positively estimated the course of
realization of Action Plan within the European Neighborhood Policy
frames by Armenia.

Edvard Nalbandian noted Armenia would continue the realization
of consecutive steps targeted at rapprochement with the European
family. He thanked the EU countries for their assistance in the
realization of amendments in Armenia.