Author: Dabaghian Diana

RF MFA: SAAKASHVILI SEEMS CONFIDENT THAT GEORGIAN CITIZENS MUST EXCUSE ALL HIS WRONGDOINGS

PanARMENIAN.Net
08.11.2007 16:44 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia’s Foreign Ministry dismissed Georgian
President Mikhail Saakashvili’s claim Wednesday that Moscow was behind
opposition protests in Georgia.

"Moscow views this step by the Georgian authorities as an irresponsible
provocation," the ministry said in a statement. "Saakashvili seems
confident that Georgian citizens must excuse all his wrongdoings."

Georgian police used truncheons, tear gas and water cannons to
disperse opposition protests in the capital, Tbilisi. Saakashvili
said that tough action was necessary to prevent the ex-Soviet nation
from sliding into chaos and blamed Russia for instigating the unrest.

Saakashvili accused Russian special services of funding and directing
the Georgian opposition and said that several Russian diplomats would
be expelled.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that "horror stories about Russian
spies" and claims that Moscow was behind the opposition protests were
part of Saakashvili’s efforts to cast Moscow as an enemy.

"Once again, the Georgian authorities are trying to replace a
responsible and honest approach to numerous internal problems with
banal attempts to blame everything on plots by ‘an external enemy’
and accuse dissenters of being its agents," the ministry said.

It said that Moscow would protect Russia’s citizens in South Ossetia
and Abkhazia and act as a "guarantor of peace and order in the region."

In what sounded like a call on the United States, the ministry urged
"those who have direct influence on Tbilisi to warn the Georgian
leadership from further destructive steps fraught with unpredictable
consequences." It did not name any nation, the IHT reports.

MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF ARMENIA AND LITHUANIA HIGHLY APPRECIATE LEVEL OF BILATERAL RELATIONS

Noyan Tapan
Nov 8, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. Lithuania shows a great assistance
to Armenia with regard to integration into European structures and
Armenia can adopt the attempt of Lithuania. This statement was made
by Vardan Oskanian, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, at
the joint conference held with Petras Vaitiekunas, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, on November 8.

Estimating the Armenian-Lithuanian bilateral relations as deep and
high-level, Vardan Oskanian mentioned that, particularly, the fact
that the Embassy of Lithuania will open in Armenia and

that of Armenia in Lithuania already speaks about this. He stated
that during the visit of his Lithuanian colleague issues concerning
the regional developments have also been discussed.

Petras Vaitiekunas also highly appreciated the Armenian-Lithuanian
bilateral relations. At the same time he mentioned that the economic
relations are not at a sufficient level

U.S. EMBASSY DONATES LABORATORY EQUIPMENT AND TRAINING TO THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF EXPERTISES

Lragir.am
08-11-2007 12:25:34

On November 8, the U.S. government donated approximately $280,000 of
forensics laboratory equipment to the National Bureau of Expertises,
the U.S. Embassy reports. Signing the donation letter on behalf
of the U.S. Embassy was Chargé d’Affairs Joseph Pennington and,
on behalf of the Government of Armenia, Prosecutor General Aghvan
Hovsepian. Also in attendance were National Academy of Sciences
President Radik Martirosyan and National Bureau of Expertises Director
Artashes Javadyan.

The new equipment was bought by the International Narcotics and
Law Enforcement Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan. The
donation includes two items of particular importance: a ballistics
comparison microscope and a bullet recovery system. Armenia now owns
one of the most modern and sophisticated ballistics microscopes on the
market. Coupled with the recovery system, this equipment will enable
the Bureau’s firearms examination unit to identify spent ammunition
and test a variety of firearms. A representative of the U.S. Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is in Yerevan to train
lab personnel. Members of Georgia’s forensic laboratories arrived this
week to work and train with their Armenian and American colleagues.

Total U.S. government assistance to the National Bureau of Expertise
now exceeds $630,000. In addition to the equipment donated today,
the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Section funded
the renovation of one of the laboratory’s buildings, arranged for
training for Bureau personnel in Armenia and abroad, and funded
various visits by an American Forensics Advisor. The goal is to
achieve accreditation for the Bureau as an internationally recognized
forensics laboratory. In pursuit of that goal, future U.S. government
expenditures over the next few years will exceed two million dollars.

This project is only part of the U.S. government’s comprehensive
law enforcement assistance program in the Republic of Armenia. The
U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, through its International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Section, has funded the renovation of such
facilities as the Police Induction Center in Kanaker, the Border
Guards Training Facility in Yerevan and the Customs Training Center
in Vanadzor. Moreover, the Embassy has donated computer equipment in
all these facilities. The Embassy is also working with the Government
of Armenia to establish a nationwide, computerized border management
information system and a nationwide computer network for the RA
Police. The U.S. Government provides about $3 million a year in law
enforcement assistance to Armenia.

–Boundary_(ID_zZFrnEv5/h+6z2Bve10kPw)–

PanARMENIAN.Net

Zatulin: one should be too naïve to suppose that Armenia will
recognize GUAM peacekeeping contingent
03.11.2007 14:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `The states which are trying to form GUAM
peacekeeping contingent could actually exert efforts within the CIS
peacekeeping mission, said Konstantin Zatulin, member of the Russian
State Duma committee on CIS affairs.

`Certainly we view GUAM’s initiative as a challenge to Russia’s
efforts within the post-soviet space. There are no peacekeepers in
Nagorno Karabakhs. The sides lean on agreement on armistice concluded
in 1994. I do not think Nagorno Karabakh will agree to exchange the
agreement for GUAM peacekeeping forces. Furthermore, one should be too
naïve to suppose that Armenia will recognize GUAM peacekeeping
contingent,’ he said, Day.az reports.

Daily Review Online, CA
Nov 3 2007

On 100th birthday, woman remembers her struggles

Armenian immigrant celebrates life, mourns lost family members

By Arya Hebbar, CORRESPONDENT
Article Last Updated: 11/03/2007 02:40:22 AM PDT

The Janjigian household in Saratoga is abuzz with preparations and the
arrival of family for a 100th birthday celebration.

Laughter and lively conversation, in voices young and old, flow
through the open door leading to the neat garden where Nevart
Karagozian sits quietly, even though she is the focus of the
excitement.
Karagozian, an Armenian who came to America when she was 12, is
celebrating her 100th birthday the next day.

"Oh my. Big party," she says when her daughter Florence Janjigian
reminds her about the impending celebration. Asked how it feels to be
100 years old, she says in accented English, "Same as yesterday. No
different," and chuckles.

But Karagozian’s early days were quite different from the comfort and
security she has enjoyed in recent decades. And the birthday
celebration is clouded by memories of a ravaged homeland and the
lingering desire for justice.

Karagozian is one of the hundreds of thousands of Armenians who fled
their homeland in the wake of the mass killings of Armenians nearly a
century ago. And she is among those who hope their new country ‘
America ‘ will formally recognize the mass slaughter of their
ancestors as genocide.

Janjigian is sad that the vote on the resolution has been postponed.
There are few survivors of that era remaining and she fears soon there
will be no eyewitnesses left.

When her grand daughter asks Karagozian about Turkey denying the
genocide, Karagozian leans forward on her wheelchair and says
animatedly, "If they say it didn’t exist, where are my mother and
father and brother and sister? I have been in it. Outside I laugh,
inside I am crying."

Seated on a step beside her mother, Janjigian opens a plastic
bag. Inside are framed pictures of her mother’s childhood
days. Karagozian cradles the pictures in her wrinkled hands and points
out her father, mother, older sister and baby brother, who she says
were killed or got lost during the genocide. A tear rolls down her
cheek.

"She just went back 95 years," Janjigian says.

Karagozian’s daughter, grandchildren and great-granddaughter surround
her as she looks at the sepia-toned pictures.

Around them, the garden pool is being cleaned of fallen leaves and
chairs are being arranged for the party next day. And a cake with a
hundred candles is on its way.

Panorama.am

22:17 02/11/2007

Information Technology to receive 332.3 thousand dollars

The field of information technologies, which was rated as of utmost
importance by the government, will receive 108 million dram from the
2008 budget, which is around 332.3 thousand dollars. This was revealed
today during budget discussions by trade and economics development
minister Nerses Yeritsyan.

In his words, this would be directed towards social issues, which will
allow to find out the stage and quality of Internet
accessibility. Besides that, the government intends to raise the level
of competition in the field.

The minister reminded that the government would announce a new system
of progress in Internet technology. This includes a program to
stimulate progress in Internet technologies during the next 10-15
years. Events and a plan of action are also part of the program.

Yeritsyan noted that this is the first time the budget has included a
special article about expenses. `We have to know the results of the
beginning of the program and be convinced it is productive. That way
we can plan for bigger and better things in the future,’ he said.

Source: Panorama.am

GENERAL STAFF SHEDS LIGHT ON ARMENIAN REALITY

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 2 2007

A seventh volume of archival documents has been published by the
Turkish military to shed light on the Armenian reality in the World
War I era, with copies of original documents.

The Turkish General Staff has added another level to the efforts to
bring the realities of the Armenian genocide allegations to public
attention by publishing the seventh volume of the "Armenian Activities
in the Archive Documents (1914-1918)." The new volume, prepared through
the efforts of the Military History Archives and Strategic Studies
Institute (ATASE) and the Supervisory Directorate of the General
Staff, consists of further copies of original documents written
in Ottoman Turkish, modern Turkish and their English translations,
along with relevant pictures. Without the addition of any commentary
about the documents and pictures, the book details Armenian activities
and organizations and demonstrates through official records who the
real perpetrators were of events that took place in eastern Anatolia
in 1914-1918.

Countering allegations of forced Armenian immigration with official
documents and indicating the reasons for their relocation, the book
shows how the Ottoman Empire was forced to struggle against the
Armenians, who had become the "internal economy," at a time when
the country was dragged into World War I. Contrary to the "genocide"
allegations made by the Armenian community, the book proves that the
relocated Armenian families were welcomed by Turkish families. The
documents and pictures also reveal the sufferings of human beings that
were subjected to torture, cruelty and even massacre by Armenian gangs.

ABE FOXMAN CRITICIZES LOCAL APPROACH ON ARMENIAN ISSUE
By Raphael Kohan

Jewish Advocate , MA
Nov 1 2007

ADL national director calls out Boston’s Jewish community leaders

In an interview published on Oct. 26 by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League,
criticized Boston’s Jewish leadership for its handling of this summer’s
controversy surrounding recognition of the Armenian genocide. Foxman
accused the local community of not giving proper priority to Israeli
interests, singling out Combined Jewish Philanthropies President
Barry Shrage and Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston
Executive Director Nancy K. Kaufman.

In the interview, which was conducted last month, Foxman told the
interviewer that he was "shocked, upset, frightened" that the Boston
Jewish community had rallied so strongly against him, deciding to
side with the local Armenian community rather than with the ADL.

"I got made fun of for it," Foxman said of the ADL’s initial stance
on the Armenian genocide. "[I] said we need unity now because Iran
is a threat, Hamas is a threat, Hezbollah is a threat, anti-Semitism
in Europe and Latin America. The last thing we need now is for Barry
Shrage and Nancy Kaufman to be fighting us."

Kaufman was the driving force on a petition signed by local groups
that urged Foxman to recognize the Armenian massacres as genocide.

"We have nothing to apologize for," said Alan Ronkin, deputy director
of the JCRC. "We have never personally attacked Foxman. The fact that
he personally attacked us is outrageous."

Regional Director Andrew H. Tarsy was not available for comment.

Yet Foxman defended his organization’s original position, saying
that he only yielded to Boston-area Jews like Tarsy and Kaufman to
preserve unity. Foxman maintained that while he has had Israel’s and
Jewish interests in mind for the long-term, Boston leaders chose to
champion current local relations, putting the Armenian issue ahead
of the interests of the State of Israel.

"It was very clear that there are two moral issues, but one trumps
the other. And it was clear to me that I cannot save one Armenian
human being, not one," said Foxman. "We need a strong unified Jewish
community to help Israel … I gave for the greater purpose so that
we can now sit and talk together. It almost destroyed our operation
in Boston."

And what the Boston community revealed about itself during the summer
controversy was disturbing, according to Foxman.

"What I didn’t realize was to what extent the American Jewish community
has reversed Hillel, or at least in Boston and Massachusetts," Foxman
said, referring to Hillel’s famous adage, "If I am not for myself,
who will be for me?"

Foxman attributed the Boston Jewish community’s diminished sense
of self-preservation to the high instance of intermarriage and
assimilation in the Boston area. According to Combined Jewish
Philanthropy’s 2005 Community Study, 29 percent of all Jewish
households in Greater Boston are intermarried.

Locally, CJP has made outreach to interfaith families a priority
in maintaining a strong Jewish community, working closely with
organizations like InterfaithFamily.com.

"I am very proud of our community," said Shrage. "I understand Abe’s
concerns, but he is wrong about the Boston Jewish community. I think
he knows he is. We are allowed to disagree in our community, but he was
wrong to characterize the Boston Jewish community in the way he did."

Foxman and others predicted fallout in U.S. and Israel’s relationship
with Turkey if a congressional resolution recognizing the genocide
were passed. And those fears seemed to be realized when Turkey recalled
its ambassador to the U.S. in October.

"This is simply a conflict between the more narrow or limited local
idealistic interests which focused on local politics and acknowledging
a past genocide, versus the broader and more pragmatic concerns of
the national leadership which focused on support for preventing a
future genocide," said Grand Rabbi Y. A. Korff.

In perhaps his most biting criticism of the local community, Foxman
asserted that area Jews no longer care about the fate of the Jewish
state as much as they once did.

"Israel is no longer as significant," Foxman said. "Some of this stuff
I read and hear about in Boston was, ‘Why do we have to sacrifice our
relationship with our Armenian friends and neighbors for Israel?’ I
heard people say to me if the [Jews in Turkey] are in trouble, let
them leave. That’s what I miscalculated."

But according to Kaufman, Foxman’s information is misguided.

"He got it all wrong," she said. "He does not understand the
Boston Jewish community at all. We are absolutely, unequivocally,
passionately, and universally supportive of Israel. The Boston Jewish
community should be outraged by his comments."

The national ADL office was not available for comment.

When asked if Foxman’s remarks – despite his assertion that unity is
needed among Jews – would widen the divide between himself and the
Boston Jewish community, Kaufman declined to comment.

Kaufman added: "While Abe has been an incredible Jewish leader
nationally, he does not know how to behave locally."

See Weekly Poll

Molly Ritvo and Rachel L. Axelbank contributed to this report.

ks_issue/news/?content_id=3928

r/?id=110010808

Garry Kasparov, Dissident

Running for president in Russia is a dangerous enterprise.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER

Thursday, November 1, 2007 12:01 a.m.

One of the current truisms of the news business is that the Internet
has shrunk the world, and that everyone knows everything from the Web
the moment it happens. Yet sometimes, we know nothing. Last month, the
former world chess champion Garry Kasparov announced his candidacy for
the presidency of Russia, to be decided in March. The world shrugged
at the Kasparov candidacy, and went back to surfing the Web.

Is this because we in the wired world already know all there is to
know about what’s up in 21st century Russia? Or in fact are we
clueless about the place Churchill described as the deepest enigma?
Garry Kasparov believes the latter, and so as leader of a grab-bag
coalition called Other Russia, he has undertaken his doomed effort to
succeed Vladimir Putin. He works hard to get his message out in the
West, but he is given relatively short shrift by the professional
skeptics among the Western media and its intellectuals. Yes, he has no
chance, but the inattention is a mistake.

I believe Garry Kasparov should be regarded as Russia’s first
post-Soviet dissident. Starting in the 1960s, deep in the Cold War,
the world essentially put under its protective custody a generation of
anti-Soviet dissidents. Their names became household names–Sakharov,
Sharansky, Bukovsky, Medvedev, Sinyavsky, Kopelev,
others. Solzhenitsyn, too hot to handle, was exiled in 1974.

The primary reason for analogizing Mr. Kasparov to these dissidents is
not for his opposition to the Putin government and his views on
Mr. Putin, though these are worth listening to. The more relevant
reason is that he believes his life is in danger.

In an interview this past weekend for "The Journal Editorial Report"
on Fox cable news, Mr. Kasparov spoke with his characteristic force
and animation about what he believes are the underlying weaknesses of
a Russia that looks to be thriving under Mr. Putin. Mr. Kasparov was
scheduled to fly back to Russia a few days after the interview, and at
the end he was asked if he feared for his safety. One could not help
but notice that his answer came after a brief but obvious hesitation.

"Yes," he said, "I am. I’m afraid, my family’s afraid. It’s our
greatest concern."

Why? Logic argues against killing Mr. Kasparov. The street
demonstrations in Moscow by his group number in the low thousands
(though they attract truncheon attacks by a small army of police
agents). A murder would make him a martyr in Russia, where he is still
revered as a Soviet and Russian hero. As a political threat, he is a
fly on the back of the Putin rhinoceros.

But this is Russia. For all the same reasons one could have said the
same of the Russian journalists killed or mysteriously dead there in
recent years. Their names are also a "dissident" list: Ivan Safronov
of Kommersant, Iskandar Khatloni of Radio Free Europe, Paul Klebnikov
of Forbes Russia, Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta. Freedom House
estimates some two dozen journalists have been killed since Mr. Putin
came to power. Earlier this month, in Prague and Washington, Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty held symposiums on the status of Russian
media, tied to the first anniversary of Ms. Politkovskaya’s
murder. Mr. Kasparov was there. Other than the Washington Times, the
symposiums received virtually no press coverage in the West.

Mr. Kasparov is no political dilettante. His first article on the
status of democracy in Russia appeared on this page in August 1991. He
was 28 years old. He came to our offices near the World Trade Center
for lunch, and one has to say that at first it was hard to set aside
that the fellow discoursing over Chinese food on the West’s unseemly
affection for Mikhail Gorbachev possessed the most mammoth chess brain
in history.

We made him a contributing editor to the Journal editorial page, and
in the years since he has written often for these pages on Russia’s
wild ride to its current state. Across 16 years, Mr. Kasparov’s
commitment to democratic liberty in Russia and in its former republics
has been unstinting. At that September 1991 lunch, Mr. Kasparov
proposed an idea then anathema to elite thinking in Washington and the
capitals of Western Europe: The West should announce support for the
independence of the former Soviet republics–the Baltics, Ukraine,
Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and the rest.

One suspects that Vladimir Putin noticed what the young chess champion
was saying in 1991 about the old Soviet empire. The Russian president
has famously said, "The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest
geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Russia today is not what it was. Mr. Kasparov, however, has not
stopped analyzing what it has become. Briefly, he argues that
Mr. Putin’s internal and external politics should be seen almost
wholly as a function of oil prices, the primary source of revenue for
the Russian state and the prop beneath the extended Putin political
family. Mr. Putin’s "unhelpful" policies on Iran and the like,
Mr. Kasparov argues, keep the oil markets boiling–but not boiling
over. Money in the bank, at $94 a barrel. He says Mr. Putin is the
glue that binds this fabulously wealthy family, and if he left
politics in any real sense they would start killing each other.

As to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s argument that the West
needed Mr. Putin inside the G-7 structure so it could "influence" him,
the former chess champion replies: "Occasionally you have to look at
the results of your brilliant theories." Bringing Mr. Putin in as G
No. 8, he says, "jeopardized the whole concept of this club, seven
great industrial democracies."

Arguably these views make Mr. Kasparov a dissident even in the
increasingly cynical, "pragmatic" West. To their credit, the West’s
political elites in the 1970s protected the Soviet Union’s
dreamers. Today Mr. Putin wants Russia to be seen again as
dangerous. It is that. Garry Kasparov deserves protection. He stands
for something important. A word from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would be
a start.

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial
page. His column appears Thursdays in the Journal and on
OpinionJournal.com.

Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ACCORDING TO RELIABLE INFORMATION, ROBERT KOCHARIAN TO OFFER NA VICE-SPEAKER ISHKHAN ZAKARIAN’S CANDIDATURE FOR CONTROL CHAMBER CHAIRMAN’S POST

Noyan Tapan
Oct 31, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, NOYAN TAPAN. According to reliable information,
RA President Robert Kocharian is going to offer the candidature of
Ishkhan Zakarian, the NA Vice-Speaker, a member of Bargavach Hayastan
party’s Board, to the post of Chairman of independent Control Chamber,
which will replace RA National Assembly’s Control Chamber soon. Though
the deadline of appointing the Control Chamber Chairman is November 7,
nevertheless, in all probability, that issue will be discussed at the
NA special sitting to be held on November 2. It should be mentioned
that the appointment will be done by a secret ballot.

If I. Zakarian is appointed the Chairman of the Control Chamber,
then, according an intra-coalition agreement, the right to offer a
candidate to the NA Vice-Speaker’s vacant post will be reserved for
the Bargavach Hayastan Party. According to rumors being spread in
the National Assembly, the most probable candidate is Avet Adonts,
the current Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee for
European Integration.

It should be also mentioned that in case of holding the post of the
Control Chamber Chairman, I. Zakarian’s deputy authorities will
be stopped ahead of schedule. As he was elected a deputy by the
proportional system, the vacant deputy mandate will be handed over
to the next candidate registered on BH’s electoral roll.