Author: Chmshkian Vicken

Georgia pulls out of air defense treaty with Russia

20:33 | 05/ 05/ 2008

TBILISI, May 5 (RIA Novosti) – Georgia has formally notified Russia
that it is withdrawing from a bilateral air defense cooperation treaty,
a Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The treaty was signed between the two countries’ defense ministries on
April 19, 1995.

Tbilisi’s move comes after two Georgian reconnaissance planes were
allegedly shot down over the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia’s
airspace on Sunday.

Irakli Torondzhadze, director of the Foreign Ministry Russia
Department, handed Andrei Smag, Russia’s envoy to Georgia, official
notice.

A Georgian deputy defense minister said his country had seen no
practical benefit from the treaty with Russia.

"Georgia has long stopped participating in any defense or
military-technical cooperation programs within the CIS," Batu Kutelia
said, adding he hoped the Russian side would treat the announcement
"with understanding."

Russia’s Embassy in Tbilisi confirmed that it had received formal
notice from Georgia.

Embassy press attache Alexander Savinov said the note "has been
transferred to Moscow via official channels," but that "no instructions
have been received from Moscow yet."

Asked whether the note had set out the reasons for Georgia’s decision
to withdraw from the agreement, he said: "At this stage we are not in a
position to comment."

The CIS unified air defense system includes Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Ukraine.

Georgia previously withdrew from the CIS Defense Ministers Council
although it formally remained in the CIS unified air defense system.

Abkhazia said earlier on Monday its air defense forces had detected
another Georgian reconnaissance plane, but decided not to engage it.

"Although we downed two drones yesterday, today our [Abkhaz] radars
picked up another surveillance drone… which flew from the direction
of Georgia," Defense Minister Merab Kishmariya told RIA Novosti adding
that the unmanned aerial vehicle remained over Abkhazian territory for
10 minutes, but the decision was made not to shoot it down.

Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow is extremely concerned over
Georgia’s course to resolve its conflicts with breakaway republics by
military force.

"This course unfortunately undermines all agreements, primarily those
regarding the settlement of the Georgian-South Ossetian and
Georgian-Abkhaz conflicts," he said.

ARMENIA SAYS CAN HIT ECONOMIC TARGETS DESPITE VIOLENCE

Reuters
May 4 2008
UK

MADRID, May 4 (Reuters) – Armenia can hit economic growth targets
in 2008, a senior government official said on Sunday, playing down
concerns that post-election street fighting had put off foreign
investors.

Ten people were killed in Armenia after mass riots in March and the
International Monetary Fund said the violence could put at risk the
country’s target for 10 percent economic growth in 2008.

"I do not see why growth should go down," Armenian Deputy Economy
Minister Vahram Ghushchyan said during a presentation at the Asian
Development Bank’s annual meeting in Madrid.

Ghushchyan did not think private investment in Armenia had suffered
since street battles between police and opposition protestors who
were demanding annulment of presidential elections.

"Many investors were dealing with us before the elections and the
same investors are in Armenia after the elections," said Ghushchyan.

Armenia’s economy is growing at a double-digit clip that has eased
poverty but stoked inflation to 4.4 percent in 2007.

The Armenian central bank has targeted 4 percent inflation in 2008. The
IMF says the landlocked country may need to tighten monetary policy
further in light of rising global food and energy prices.

Ghushchyan said inflation might overshoot the central bank’s target
slightly but Armenia could avoid further interest rate hikes if the
country’s dram currency appreciated another 2-3 percent and foreign
investment remained strong.

"It can be achieved through that channel rather than changing the
interest rate," he said. "Inflation may be 4, it may be 5 percent, I
do believe this will be a hard year for any country, not just Armenia."

Inflation rates are rising globally as food and energy costs soar.

The Manila-based Asian Development Bank is owned by 67 members, 48 from
the Asian region. It uses policy dialogue, loans, equity investments,
guarantees, grants and technical assistance in its mission to fight
poverty in the region.

BRIEF: MUSIC EVENTS HELP CELEBRATE SAROYAN

The Fresno Bee
May 2, 2008 Friday
California

May 2–Not one but two musical events on Saturday help celebrate
the yearlong centennial of writer William Saroyan’s birth in Fresno
in 1908.

In the afternoon, Richard Hagopian and his grandsons will perform a 2
p.m. concert at the Fresno Art Museum, 2233 N. First St. Hagopian is
known for his performances of Armenian music, including his expertise
on the oud, a traditional Armenian stringed instrument.

Tickets are $4, $2 for students and seniors, and free to museum
members.

In the evening, the Fresno Community Chorus will perform at 7:30
p.m. in the Concert Hall at California State University, Fresno, Shaw
and Maple avenues. The program will include choral music by Hovhaness,
Stravinsky and Brahms.

Tickets are $15, $8 for students. For more information on this concert,
call (559) 278-2654.

CLASH OCCURS BETWEEN AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN STUDENTS IN MOSCOW

Today, Azerbaijan
html
May 2 2008

A fight occurred yesterday in the Russian University of Friendship
of Peoples in Moscow, involving Armenian, Azerbaijani and Turkish
young people.

15:40

APA reports with reference to the press service for the University
that representatives of different countries set small tents with the
names of their countries and demonstrated various performances.

According to the press service, after an Armenian student came on stage
and sang a song, Azerbaijani students accused him saying that this is
an Azerbaijani song and started to wave flags and chant "Azerbaijan".

Armenians responded by different kinds of chanting and fist fight
started. The law enforcement bodies broke up the crowd to prevent
mass fighting.

Other students and administration representatives tried to urge
Azerbaijanis and Armenians to calm down and continue the festival. Yet
the parties continued to curse each others, in the result of which
the university administration decided to stop the festival.

———— 11:00

The incident occurred during the traditional May 1 concert when
representatives of different countries, studying at high schools,
demonstrate their art and cultural traditions.

Initially, the cross-fire occurred, but then the fight
started. Students from Armenia, on the one side, and from Azerbaijan
and Turkey from the other side, started to throw bottles, sticks and
stones to each other. Casualties were reported.

Special police forces came on the spot and made the fight participants
out of the building, where an event was held. The fight participants
were brought to underground, divided into two parts, isolated by
militiamen.

Later, the law enforcement officers were subjected to fire from Zhiguli
car. The special police forces detained the car passengers and took
traumatic guns away from them. Another car was later detained as well
and it was revealed that the driver also had a gun.

It should be reminded that a conflict between representatives of
Azerbaijani and Armenian youth occurred at the same high school last
year. An Azerbaijani student got a gun wound during the clash.

ARAT DINK RECEIVES GUARDIAN JOURNALISM AWARD

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.05.2008 14:17 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Arat Dink, the son of slain Hrant Dink, received
the Guardian Journalism Award from the campaigning group Index on
Censorship. It was not just to commemorate his father’s work, but
for his own brave refusal to buckle under the censorship laws that
led to his father’s death.

Since it was introduced three years ago, article 301 of Turkey’s
penal code, which makes insulting Turkishness a criminal offence, has
been used to bring charges against illustrious names in literature,
academia and journalism: Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel prize-winning author;
Noam Chomsky; the novelist Elif Safak; Hrant Dink, the Armenian-Turkish
journalist who was assassinated by radical nationalists; and last
year Hrant’s son Arat.

Arat, executive director of Agos, an Armenian newspaper in Istanbul,
was brought to trial as a co-defendant, along with Serkis Seropyan,
holder of the weekly’s publishing license. Their crime was to have
republished an interview that Hrant gave to Reuters in which he
referred to the 1915 massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
as Genocide. Arat was convicted as charged and given a one-year
suspended sentence. The Agos staff continues to be threatened by
extreme nationalists but remain determined in the face of bigotry
and physical threat.

Arat Dink believes both Turks and Armenians are postponing a common
historical reckoning and looks forward to the day when both peoples
can commemorate the events in 1915 as a common part of their history,
without threatening each other’s identity. Like father, like son,
GIBRAHAYER e-magazine reports.

Boston Globe, MA
May 2 2008

Student pays tribute to slain mother at Northeastern commencement

May 2, 2008 02:56 PM
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff

A graduating Northeastern University student paid tribute to her slain
mother today in an emotional speech at the school’s commencement,
saying her mother’s work as a therapist had inspired her to finish
school after the tragedy.

As a public disclosure of her private loss, the speech was a way for
Arminé Nalbandian to turn the page after Diruhi Mattian, a 54-year-old
psychotherapist, was slain in February while making a house call in
North Andover to a troubled patient she had known for a decade.

In the chaos of those first couple of weeks after her mother’s murder,
she said in the speech today, she wondered how she would proceed with
her life.

"And then something happened; I realized that there was nothing to do
but to go on,” she said in the annual student speech before a crowd
of more than 16,000 at Northeastern’s commencement at the TD Banknorth
Garden.

"There was nothing to do but to face this challenge just as I had
faced every other challenge before. So I picked up the pieces, relied
on the support around me and made my way back to the real world," she
said.

Four years after she sat beside her mother as they watched her sister
receive her Northeastern diploma on the same stage, the address helds
deep personal meaning. An original draft of her speech did not mention
her mother, so she reworked it.

"The first version didn’t sit right," she said in an interview on
campus earlier this week. "It wasn’t true to myself. It wouldn’t be
fair to me or to who my Mom was, to glaze over what happened."

Nalbandian, 22, hopes that sharing her story, how she has forgiven the
man charged with murder in her mother’s death and completed her final
semester despite missing six weeks of classes, will inspire others to
rise above adversity and to appreciate life as it happens.

On a personal level, she hopes it brings a measure of catharsis and
maybe closure.

"I’ve always been a private person, and I don’t like to share things,"
she said. "This is sharing everything, so it’s a real test for me. She
took the toughest patients, patients other people didn’t want to
take. So this is a way I can honor her."

A summa cum laude student with a double major in political science and
communication studies, Nalbandian has won a Fulbright scholarship.

A native Armenian whose family fled Soviet rule in the 1980s and
settled in Massachusetts when she was 4, she hopes to return to her
homeland this fall to conduct a yearlong research project on
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

Jim Stellar, dean of Northeastern’s College of Arts and Sciences and a
mentor to Nalbandian, said her determination to fight through her
grief and fight back feelings of revenge is inspirational.

"She’s hurt, but the anger isn’t there," he said earlier this
week. "She draws strength from her remarkable capacity to be
forgiving. She is teaching us all."

ARMENIANS SHOT DOWN OWN HELICOPTER DURING MILITARY TRAININGS IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF AZERBAIJAN

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 30 2008

Aghdam. Teymur Guliyev-APA. On Wednesday, helicopter of Armenian armed
forces was shot down during the trainings of Armenian servicemen in
territory of occupied Uzundere village of Aghdam Region, Azerbaijan.

It is supposed that Armenians mistakenly shot down own
helicopter. Azerbaijani servicemen on the opposite site of contact
line and local residents of frontline areas have also watched the
shooting down.

It was impossible to know about the casualties, but witnesses said
the helicopter became worthless.

Armenians started the military trainings in the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan several days ago. Fires heard in nearby areas. The
trainings ended.

JAIL TERM OF ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS SUPPORTING OPPOSITION EXTENDED

Interfax News Agency, Russia
April 30 2008

The prison term of Armenian parliamentarian Myasnik Malkhasian, who has
been charged with participation in mass unrest in Yerevan on March 1
and an attempt to seize power, has been extended for two more months,
lawyer Melanya Arustamian said.

The Armenian prosecutor general requested on March that the parliament
4 sanction the arrest of parliamentarians Akop Akopian, Myasnik
Malkhasian, Sasun Mikaelian, and Khachatur Sukiasian. The four had
been indicted for the organization of mass unrest and an attempt
to usurp power. Sukiasian’s whereabouts is unknown, and he has been
declared wanted.

The prison term of Akopian was also extended for two months on Tuesday.

In addition, former Armenian Prosecutor General Gagik Jangirian’s
sentence has also been extended for two months.

All these people openly supported the opposition by siding with
presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian, whose supporters refused
to recognize the official results of the February 19 presidential
elections and organized protests, which resulted in clashes with
police on March 1 and 2, The Armenian prosecutor general said.

Ten people were killed and more than 250 injured in the clashes.

PRESS RELEASE
Date: April 29, 2008
Armenian National Committee of New York
69-23 47th Avenue, Woodside, NY 11377
Contact: Doug Geogerian
Tel : 646-468-9061

ANC OF NEW YORK COMMEMORATES 93RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE

New York, NY – On April 25, 2008, the Armenian National Committee
of New York (ANC of NY) and Friends of ANC presented a genocide
commemoration at New York’s City Hall. Co-sponsored by City
Council Speaker Christine Quinn and City Council member Melinda
Katz, this year’s program highlighted the need for collaborative
activism.

The program opened with singer/songwriter Hooshere Bezdikian
singing the national anthems of the Republic of Armenia and the
United States of America. ANCA Eastern Regional Board member Anahid
Ugurlayan, who acted as the evening’s Master of Ceremonies,
followed with welcoming remarks, which called upon the community to
be proactive in ensuring genocide activism by educating non-
Armenians, particularly Turks, about the genocide, and to fight for
justice for the survivors of the genocide in Darfur.

His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Prelate of the Eastern
Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America, delivered the
evening’s invocation, calling for renewed determination to achieve
justice and to ensure that the Armenian community continues to
thrive through its church, its schools and its culture.

Reporting on the current state of Hai Tahd was Karine Birazian,
Eastern Regional Executive Director of the ANCA. Ms. Birazian
detailed the ANC’s advocacy efforts on a variety of issues, from
genocide recognition to maintaining military aid parity for
Armenia. She noted that after the House Foreign Relations
Committee recommended that the full House pass H.Res. 106, the
media published over 3000 news articles, including front page
coverage in the New York Times, informing millions of individuals
around the world about the Armenian genocide.

New York City Council Member Melinda Katz, who is long time friend
of the Armenian community in New York, addressed the audience and
called upon Congress to recognize the Armenian genocide once and
for all. Ms. Katz was followed by Ambassador Armen Martirossian,
Permanent Representative of the Republic of Armenia to the United
Nations, who expressed the need for genocide recognition and called
upon Turkey to create stability in the region by normalizing
relations with Armenia without preconditions.

The evening’s keynote speaker was Dr. Henry Theriault, Associate
Professor of
Philosophy and Coordinator of the Center for the Study of Human
Rights at Worcester State College. Theriault provided a detailed
historical perspective on genocide, which he noted has been ongoing
for thousands of years. Dr. Theriault called upon Armenia,
particularly at the United Nations, to become more proactive in
speaking out against the genocide in Darfur and to work with other
nations impacted by genocide.

Vagharshak Ohanyan accompanied two of his most promising students,
Ms. Jenny Bagdasarian and Ms. Elen Ohanyan, who sang beautiful
renditions of traditional Armenian songs. Duduk player Ruben
Vardanyan performed as well, accompanied by his daughter, Armine
Vardanyan.

Many community leaders were present at the commemoration. Dr.
Svetlana Amirkhanyan, President of the St. Gregory Mission in
Brooklyn, which has helped scores of Armenian immigrants from
Armenia and Azerbaijan settle into New York, spoke about the need
for the Armenian community to be united in its efforts and to never
lose its identity.

Dimitris Molohides represented the Pan-Pontian Federation of USA and
Canada, which speaks for approximately 200,000 Greek-Pontians living
in North America. Molohides, whose grandparents survived the
Pontian genocide, expressed his organization’s solidarity with the
Armenian community, discussed his organization’s efforts to achieve
recognition of the Pontian and Assyrian genocides and urged the
Armenian and Greek communities to work together to achieve their
common goals.

Dr. Aram Cazazian, co-chair of the commemoration and chairman of the
Board of Trustees of St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in
Douglaston, NY, spoke on behalf of the Friends of ANC and stressed
the need for more volunteers to join the Friends of ANC to support
their advocacy work. Maria Nercessian, a member of the New York
Armenian Youth Federation’s Hyortik chapter, urged younger members of
the community to become involved in genocide recognition and to make
their voices heard by participating in Armenian advocacy.
####
Photo Caption #1: New York City Council Member Melinda Katz
presenting Governor proclamation to ANC of NY Chairman Doug
Geogerian
Photo Catption #2: Keynote speaker, Henry Theriault addressing the
crowd

MOST OF RA CITIZENS LEAVING FOR RUSSIA FOR WORKING HAVE STATUS OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS

Noyan Tapan
April 30, 2008

YEREVAN, APRIL 30, NOYAN TAPAN. An international conference on the
subject Migration Tendencies from Armenia to Russia started its
proceedings on April 29 in Yerevan on the initiative of the Eurasia
Cooperation foundation and Soldier’s Mother NGO.

Gagik Yeganian, the Head of the Migration Agency of the RA Territorial
Administration Ministry, presented the migration situation in
2001-2007.

According to him, a growth of passenger circulation, reduction of
migration negative balance and its turning into a positive one was
recorded in those years. Thus, passenger circulation made 14% in 2005,
15.9% in 2006, and 33.1% in 2007. Migration negative balance made
10 thousand people in 2003 against 50-60 thousand of the previous
years. Migration positive balance was registered in the country
from 2004: it made 2 thousand in 2004, 12.5 thousand in 2005, 21.8
thousand people in 2006. However, again migration negative balance,
3.2 thousand people, was recorded in 2007.

G. Yeganian said that 3-3.8% permanent population of Armenia or
96-122 thousand people were involved in the labor migration process
in 2005-2006.

According to sociological surveys, 93.5% respondents mentioned problems
connected with employment in Armenia as the cause of their leaving the
country. 46.5% of them mentioned the circumstance of being unemployed,
43% of low salary. It was also mentioned that most of labor migrants,
93%, have left for Russia. According to G. Yeganian, most of the RA
citizens leaving for Russia for working continue having the status
of illegal migrants. The head of the agency said that issues of
regulation of RA citizens’ legal labor activity in Russia are being
discussed with different RF bodies at present.