Author: Dabaghian Diana

CHIEF MINISTER OF DELHI TO VISIT ARMENIA IN SEPTEMBER

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 27 2007

YEREVAN, August 27. /ARKA/. Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister of
Delhi, is to come to Armenia in September, Armenian Foreign Ministry’s
press office reported on Monday.

Dikshit has already discussed this visit’s details with Ashot
Kocharyan, Armenian ambassador to India.

Kocharyan stressed the importance of the visit and noted that it
coincides with the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic
ties between Armenia and India.

At their meeting, the Delhi chief minister and the Armenian diplomat
expressed satisfaction with quickly developing Armenian-Indian
cooperation and various areas and pointed out doubled trade turnover
between the two countries as convincing evidence of that.

The ambassador expressed the firm belief that Dikshit’s visit to
Armenia would give another impetus to the relations, especially
between the two countries’ capitals.

"Pointing out the fact of centuries-long friendship between Armenian
and Indian nations, Dikshit and Kocharyan stressed the necessity of
spurring cooperation between the capitals", Armenian Foreign Ministry’s
press office reports.

According to official statistical data, trade turnover between Armenia
and India totaled $8.6mln in the first half of 2007 against the same
period of 2006.

Commodities worth $741thnd were exported from Armenia to India at
the first half of 2007. This result is 6.7 times greater than that
of the same period a year earlier.

Indian imports in Armenia totaled $7.9mln.

Trade turnover between the countries grew 41.1%, compared with whole
2006, and reached $23.3mln by late June 2007.

Heritage Florida Jewish News
Aug 23 2007

Genocide controversy rages in Boston

Andrew Tarsy was fired as head of the ADL’s Boston office after
publicly challenging the organization’s position on the Armenian
genocide.

By Ben Harris

NEW YORK (JTA) – A fierce feud has erupted between the Anti-Defamation
League and Boston-area donors over the organization’s firing of its
regional director and refusal to call the World War I massacres of
Armenians a genocide.

The ADL last week fired Andrew Tarsy, the head of its New England
office, after he publicly called the organization’s stance on the
Armenian massacres `morally indefensible.’ In subsequent days, Tarsy
has drawn support from members of the ADL’s New England regional
board and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.
In addition, several prominent Jewish communal figures in
Boston – including a former AIPAC chairman, the chairman of Americans
for Peace Now and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz – have either
voiced support for Tarsy’s side or directly criticized the ADL.

The ADL has been under fire since the Armenian community in
Watertown, Mass., one of the country’s largest, began agitating to
have the town rescind its participation in a popular anti-bigotry
program the ADL sponsors, `No Place for Hate.’ On Aug. 14, the Town
Council unanimously voted to end its relationship with the program,
and other Massachusetts communities are reported to be considering
similar moves. Watertown’s Armenian community was piqued by the ADL’s
longtime refusal to support legislation pending in Congress that
would recognize the massacres as genocide. The ADL’s regional board
is reported to be supporting the resolution, but the organization’s
national director, Abraham Foxman, has refused to support the
measure, which is vigorously opposed by Turkey, Israel’s closest
Muslim ally.

Foxman and Glen Lewy, the ADL’s national chair, responded to the
controversy in a 3-page letter in which they rejected the regional
board’s call to retain Tarsy as `impossible to honor.’ While ADL
employees are not required to abandon their personal beliefs, the
letter said, they should resign if they are unable to carry forth the
organization’s policies. Boston’s regional board was due to meet
Wednesday to discuss further measures, according to its chairman,
James Rudolph.

Foxman has said that the genocide question should be resolved by
historians, and in a statement to be published as an advertisement in
regional newspapers this week, the ADL called the legislation
`counterproductive.’ While he has previously acknowledged that
concern for the safety of Turkey’s Jewish community is a factor in
his thinking, the letter to the Boston board provides the clearest
glimpse yet of the difficulties inherent in balancing the ADL’s
universal commitment to human rights and the particular needs of the
Jewish community.

We recognize that `we are a Jewish agency whose mission is to work
for the community while paying attention to the more universal goals
we share with others,’ the letter states. `And when those two
elements of our mission come into direct conflict, we do not abandon
the Jewish community.’ For some, that position reflects a narrow,
short-term perspective.

`National ADL has adopted a policy which is consistent with what it
has done on other issues, which simply disregards morality believing
that the highest interest is what it conceives as the short-term
interest of Israel,’ said Franklin Fisher, a Bostonian and the
national chair of Americans for Peace Now, who stressed that he was
speaking on behalf of himself, and not his organization.

`I think that’s a disgraceful way to behave, and I think it’s
extremely short-sighted in terms of the long-term interests of the
Jewish People and the long-term interests of Israel,’ Fisher said.
`We must not take the position that we will take the side of anybody
who does anything if they are willing to have a decent position as
regards Israel. In the long run that makes us terribly unpopular.’
The ADL’ s policy and the firing have sparked widespread outrage in
Boston, where the Jewish and Armenian communities have good
relations.

The Boston Globe reported Monday that two members of the ADL’s
regional board have resigned. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz
co-wrote an op-ed in Saturday’s Globe describing the ADL’s regional
board as `courageous and correct’ to affirm the genocide. Steven
Grossman, a former chairman of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and a former member of ADL’s regional board, reportedly
called the firing `a vindictive, intolerant, and destructive act’
that would harm the organization’s fundraising. The Boston Jewish
Community Relations Council, of which ADL is a member, issued a
statement affirming its position on the genocide and expressing
support for Tarsy and the ADL’s regional board.

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, CA
Aug 24 2007

Despite the suffering of his family, man pursues peace

By Imani Tate, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 08/23/2007 11:00:00 PM PDT

Dr. Garbis Der Yeghiayan of La Verne believes in peace and
reconciliation, even when such beliefs are met with resistance and
rancor.
"I don’t believe our children should inherit hatred or carry the
torch of hatred," he said, explaining the need to reconcile the
Armenian genocide by the Young Turks in the early 20th century. "We
cannot go on with the status quo."

Rotary International recently gave Der Yeghiayan the Service Above
Self Award, its highest honor, for his unswerving devotion to global
peace.

He conceded peace is not popular with some Armenians and Turks.
Turkish textbooks still switch the roles each side played, claiming
Armenians killed Turks. The Turkish government refuses to admit to, or
apologize for, the genocide claiming 1.5 million Armenian lives.

Peace is not cheap, asserted the man who lost 41 relatives to
genocide. It cannot be achieved sitting silently on the sidelines and
waiting for someone else to take up the gauntlet, he said.

Der Yeghiayan is a spiritual man whose lineage is filled with men of
faith. His first name, another version of paternal grandfather
Garabad’s name, means forerunner.

Yeghia Der Yeghiayan, his paternal great-grandfather, was the
archpriest of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Kharpert, the ancient
Armenian city now in Turkey and re-named Elazig. In 1913, his arms
were chopped off from his naked body and he was thrown into the
Euphrates River because he refused to deny his faith.
Der Yeghiayan’s grandfather survived the genocide because he was
working in the U.S. Returning home, he found only one aunt, Varvar,
had survived the mass slaughter.

"He then went to the orphanages, searching for an orphan girl from
his village to marry. My grandmother was 17 and he was 35," Der
Yeghiayan said, "but she married him because they were from the same
village and she had no relatives left. They moved to Syria. The first
of their eight children was my father."

The couple told their 35 grandchildren stories of sacrifice, faith,
family and culture and taught them compassion and tolerance even
towards those harboring hatred, he recalled. Der Yeghiayan, 57, grew
up in Beirut, but spent summers with his grandparents in Syria.

His great-aunt, who lived to be 108, encouraged him to go to their
family’s ancient home, now in Turkey, a pilgrimage he finally made in
1987.

He climbed the steep, rocky hill to the fortress above the Euphrates
River. His ancestors were forced to make the same climb before being
thrown to their collective doom. He dipped his hands in the river that
had run red for three days with his people’s blood, performing a
ceremonial baptism honoring the martyrs.

In 1985, La Verne Mayor Jon Blickenstaff and his wife, Joan,
accompanied Der Yeghiayan to modern Armenia in what was then in the
Soviet bloc. They received "warm, welcoming red-carpet treatment
because of people’s respect for Garbis," Blickenstaff said.

"Garbis is beyond passionate in his quest for a better world," he
added. "He can’t find enough hours in the day to pursue his vision of
people getting along with each other."

His convictions are unbowed by bigotry or even loss of income when
benefactors withdrew support from Mashdots College, the Armenian
college in Glendale he founded in 1992, said Dr. Daniel Young, a
Rotarian and close friend.

Der Yeghiayan’s convictions were nurtured by his parents, Hagop and
Lydia. Their emphasis on education led Garbis and sister Knar to
careers in education, brother Samuel to a federal judgeship and
brother Joe to immigration law.

He and Angela, his wife of 34 years, also emphasize education with
their sons. Jimmy Paul is a sports medicine therapist and Johnny
Samuel is a youth pastor.

Der Yeghiayan was in his first year at the American University of
Beirut when his High School of Life principal asked him to return and
teach there.

"I said, `come on, I’m only 17,"’ Der Yeghiayan remembered saying,
laughing because some

of his students were 18 and he felt they wouldn’t listen to him. "He
said `they know and respect you. You won’t have any problems."’

And he didn’t.

He taught physics, chemistry and math. When he completed

a bachelor of arts in political science and public administration and
bachelor of science in educational administration at age 21, he was
appointed principal.

Der Yeghiayan, who speaks nine languages, has doctorates in
educational management from the University of La Verne and in human
development and social policy from Northwestern University.

He and Angela came to the U.S. in 1976 when he was named dean, at age
26, of the new American Armenian International College in La Verne.
He served as AAIC president from 1981 to 1992.

In 1990, he and La Verne Rotarians founded a Rotary club in Yerevan,
Armenia, the first behind the Iron Curtain. Echmiadzin, Armenia, is
La Verne’s sister city. In 2005, Der Yeghiayan and Erhan Ciftcioglu,
Rotary district governor in Turkey, co-organized the first peace
conference for Rotarians from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

ource=most_emailed

ADL’S AX SHARPENED GENOCIDE DISPUTE
By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF, [email protected]

Worcester Telegram, MA
08210673/1116
Aug 21 2007

Armenians laud effort of ex-director

WORCESTER- Local Armenian-Americans are rallying around the former New
England director of the Anti-Defamation League, who was fired last
week after he said the prominent human rights organization should
acknowledge the slaughter by Ottoman Turks of up to 1.5 million
Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as a "genocide."

Andrew H. Tarsy, who served over the past two years as the ADL’s
regional chief, was axed after he told national director Abraham H.

Foxman that the organization should rethink its position on the
killings.

Armenians, academics and many countries have recognized the systematic
massacre as genocide.

The Turkish government, however, refuses to do so, and the ADL’s
national leadership has also avoided labeling the purge as such,
fearing reprisals against Turkish Jews and not wanting to upset
relations between Israel and Turkey, one of the few Muslim nations
with warm diplomatic ties to the Jewish state.

"He (Tarsy) deserves our full support," said George Aghjayan, chairman
of the Armenian National Committee of Central Massachusetts.

The issue began simmering a few weeks ago when elected officials in
Watertown decided to pull out of an antibigotry program after they
learned that it was sponsored by the ADL.

Watertown is home to about 8,000 Armenian-Americans.

The ADL’s stance has upset Armenians for years and tensions ratcheted
up when the organization’s leadership decided not to support pending
congressional legislation that would acknowledge the deaths as
genocide.

Mr. Tarsy reportedly had been struggling with the ADL’s position for
weeks and told Mr. Foxman last Thursday that the organization’s view
was "morally indefensible."

U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, said the legislation, House
Resolution 106, has been proposed every congressional session since
he was elected.

However, he said some lawmakers and the Bush administration are
blocking the resolution out of fear of upsetting Turkey, a key
strategic ally of the United States.

"I find it shameful that the U.S. won’t take a position on this issue,"
said Mr. McGovern, one of 226 co-sponsors of the legislation.

"Everybody who cares about human rights should sign on. Truth is
truth and it has to be acknowledged, no matter how painful."

Todd Gutnick, a spokesman for the national ADL, said advertisements
outlining the organization’s position will appear this week in the
Boston Globe, the Boston Jewish Advocate, and smaller daily and
weekly newspapers in Waltham, Newton, Somerville and other eastern
Massachusetts communities.

An "Open Letter to the New England Community" has also been posted
on the ADL Web site ( ).

Critics of the ADL warned the organization stands to lose thousands
of dollars in donations if it does not change its mind on the issue.

They noted that several prominent Jewish leaders in the Boston area
have come out against the ADL because of its stance.

In the message posted on the Internet, the ADL said it has acknowledged
and never denied the "massacre" and added that it has urged the
Turkish government to "confront its history."

But it said that it views legislative efforts outside of Turkey to
be counterproductive to having that nation come to grips with its past

"The Jewish community in Turkey has clearly expressed to us and other
major Jewish American organizations its concerns about the impact of
congressional action on them and we cannot ignore those concerns,"
the posting said. "We are also keenly aware that Turkey is a key
strategic ally and friend of the United States and a staunch friend
of Israel and that, in the struggle between Islamic extremists and
moderate Islam, Turkey is the most critical country in the world."

Mr. Aghjayan, however, said it’s important that the massacre be labeled
as a genocide so that similar atrocities won’t occur in the future.

Mr. Tarsy could not be reached yesterday for comment.

About 5,000 Armenian-Americans live in Central Massachusetts. Many
who survived the Ottoman assault settled in Worcester.

BACKGROUNDER: IRAN PRESIDENT TO SEEK IMPROVED TIES WITH AZERBAIJAN
By Emil Kaziyev and Saeed Barzin

BBC Monitoring
20 August

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad will start a two-day official
visit to Azerbaijan on 21 August.

Tehran and Baku are expected to sign several agreements on cooperation
and the two countries hope to put their relations on a better
footing. However, fundamental issues still remain to be resolved
between them.

Foreign policy orientations

Relations between Iran and the Azerbaijani Republic are governed
by different foreign policy orientations as well as the dynamics of
their respective domestic politics.

Iran is a Shi’i country of over 70 million people with a large Azeri
population. Foreign policy is defined by the principles of the 1979
Islamic Revolution and a strong anti-US stance.

Azerbaijan is a country of more than eight million people,
predominantly ethnic Azeri Shi’is. The republic emerged as an
independent state 16 years ago and today has close relations with
Washington.

Both countries conduct their external relations according to different
interpretations of their national interest in a changing political
region.

While the ethnic element is more prominent in Baku’s foreign
policy outlook, the Islamic perspective dominates Tehran’s view of
international politics.

In both countries political opposition groups that could modify
foreign policy are restricted. The two countries share a 700 km border.

Azerbaijan tends to view its US partner as a balancing factor
vis-a-vis its larger southern and northern neighbours, Iran and
Russia. Azerbaijan sees itself as a corridor for the delivery of oil
and gas to the West through the strategic Caucasus region.

At the same time, Baku wants functional political and economic ties
with its southern neighbour, while maintaining a degree of neutrality
in the greater scheme of things.

In contrast, Iran seeks to limit US and Western influence in the
region.

Tehran is therefore critical of Azerbaijan’s ties with Washington,
and particularly of Baku’s relations with Israel.

Iran finds Azerbaijan’s ethnic perspective a source of concern and,
in turn, seeks to use religion to gain some leverage in the social
structure of its northern neighbour.

However, Tehran-Baku relations are not critical to Iranian foreign
policy, and Tehran is seeking a gradual expansion of bilateral ties.

Recent history

Iran and Azerbaijan have a long common history, and both countries
sought to restore their relations after the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991.

However, relations between the two countries did not get off to a
good start following Azerbaijan’s independence.

The then nationalist president of Azerbaijan, Abulfaz Elcibay,
openly supported the idea of independence for the Iranian province
of Azarbayjan.

Elcibay’s explicit pro-Western and anti-Iranian stance prompted
Tehran to pursue a policy of tacit support for Armenia, which was
involved in armed conflict with Azerbaijan over the predominantly
Armenian-populated region of Nagornyy Karabakh.

Although Tehran officially recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity, many in Baku suspected Iran of helping Armenia during the
conflict. Iran still maintains close economic ties with Armenia.

Relations between the two nations improved somewhat under Azerbaijan’s
new president, Heydar Aliyev, who came to power in 1993. The two
countries’ leaders exchanged visits in an attempt to improve ties.

However, while refraining from nationalist rhetoric, Aliyev sought
to curb the influence of pro-Iranian forces, jailing leaders of the
Islamic Party of Azerbaijan for allegedly conducting espionage on
behalf of Iran.

Meanwhile, some high-ranking Iranian officials warned the Baku
government that Iran might consider recovering the northern part of
its province of Azarbayjan.

Baku’s policy should not be aimed at encouraging such a demand from
Tehran, the Azeri newspaper Ekho quoted Iran’s Expediency Council
Secretary Mohsen Reza’i as saying.

Iranian reactions to the activity of groups in Baku campaigning for
Azeri separatism emerged in some web publications. They referred
to the Azeri republic as "Northern Iran" and demanded the return of
territory of the Azerbaijani republic that was a part of Iran during
the 19th century.

Despite tensions, the two countries are actively cooperating in
various spheres and have signed a number of bilateral agreements.

Baku has promised Tehran not to allow any third country to use its
territory for actions against Iran. An agreement to this effect was
signed during a visit to Tehran by Azerbaijan’s former president
Heydar Aliyev in 2002.

Ethnic tensions

The question of Iranian Azarbayjan remains a source of tension between
the two countries.

Nationalist groups in Baku accuse Iran of violating the rights of the
Azeri community, while Tehran suspects Baku of encouraging separatism
in its Azeri-speaking provinces and sheltering ethnic dissidents
from Iran.

In March 2006, some participants in the World Azerbaijani Congress in
Baku addressed the idea of a united Azerbaijan, and spoke of human
rights abuses against ethnic Azeris in Iran, remarks which sparked
a diplomatic row between the two countries.

The then Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan, Afshar Soleymani, expressed
outrage at the views of some of the participants in the congress.

May 2006 saw protests in Iran’s Azeri-speaking provinces sparked
by the publication in the newspaper Iran of a cartoon that Iranian
Azeris thought was insulting.

The media in Azerbaijan extensively covered the subsequent
developments.

Azeri nationalist groups accused Tehran of violating ethnic rights
and staged protests outside the Iranian embassy in Baku.

However, Azerbaijani officials refrained from making comments. The
Azerbaijani ambassador to Iran, Abbasali Hasanov, said that the
protests were an internal affair of Iran.

According to the Baku media and anti-Iranian websites, the protests
were suppressed by Iran’s security forces and many ethnic activists
were arrested and jailed.

Caspian Sea

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the legal status of the Caspian
Sea was defined by the agreements between Iran and the Soviet Union.

Since then, the legal status of the sea has been an ongoing dispute
among the littoral states, including Iran and Azerbaijan.

The littoral states have been able to agree on the environmental issues
of the Caspian Sea. However, rights over the surface and the seabed,
border demarcation, use of common resources, fishing and rights of
vessels remain on the agenda.

Various legal concepts have been presented as a solution to the
divergent and often conflicting interests of the states. They range
from a complete division of the sea to the joint use of resources.

Iran favours an equal division of the water and its resources,
and wants free commercial shipping, no shipping under the flag of
non-littoral states and a fishing belt.

Azerbaijan seeks different, unilateral, arrangements. Baku has
held talks with Russia and Kazakhstan and signed agreements on the
delimitation of the seabed based on the median line approach.

There have been cases of heightened tension over the status of the
sea and over Baku’s cooperation with foreign oil companies.

In 2001 Iranian naval vessels forced an Azerbaijani survey vessel to
leave a disputed area of the sea, and subsequently UK oil major BP
suspended its exploration pending a resolution.

Talks between President Aliyev and President Ahmadinezhad could
help facilitate a future Caspian summit meeting. However, for the
time being, there is no consensus over an agenda or on a date for a
meeting of the leaders of the Caspian littoral states.

A summit held in Ashgabat in 2002 was an achievement in itself but
there were no solid results.

The Plank
08.20.07
The New Republic

GENOCIDE, REALPOLITIK, AND THE ADL:

Anyone who read my recent story about the explosive Washington politics of
the Armenian genocide will be interested in this dramatic flare-up in
Massachusetts: The Anti Defamation League has fired its New England
regional direction for insisting that the group recognize as genocide the
circa-1915 slaughter of perhaps a million Armenians by the Ottoman
Turks. (Two regional board members, including a Boston City Councilor and
the former chairman of Polaroid, have subsequently resigned.)
A resolution pending in Congress would make it official U.S. policy to
recognize that the Armenians were genocide victims. But the ADL, along with
other leading Jewish-American groups, apparently considers friendly
relations between Israel and Turkey–whose government takes genocide claims
as a massive provocation–more important than the underlying historical
question. As the ADL is explaining via an open letter in Boston newspapers:

We believe that legislative efforts outside of Turkey are counterproductive
to the goal of having Turkey itself come to grips with its past. We take no
position on what action Congress should take on House Resolution 106. The
Jewish community in Turkey has clearly expressed to us and other major
American Jewish organizations its concerns about the impact of
Congressional action on them, and we cannot ignore those concerns. We are
also keenly aware that Turkey is a key strategic ally and friend of the
United States and a staunch friend of Israel, and that in the struggle
between Islamic extremists and moderate Islam, Turkey is the most critical
country in the world.

Meanwhile, the House resolution mentioned above now has 226 co-sponsors
(see the list here)–eight more than a majority. The only question now is
whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had ardently supported the Armenian
cause in the past, wants to press ahead with a vote–one that the Bush
administration opposes and which is sure to infuriate the Turks, possibly
even with consequences for the war in Iraq.

Update: I’d missed Alan Wolfe’s posting over at our Open University blog
yesterday calling the ADL "tone deaf." Check it out here.
–Michael Crowley

Thu, Aug. 16, 2007

An entrepreneur’s final act of generosity
By Gayle Ronan Sims
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Jirair S. Hovnanian accomplished one final dream last week —
surrounded by his family, he helped to build a home for free and gave
a Camden family a new start.

Mr. Hovnanian, a Mount Laurel home builder whose business developed
6,000 homes in South Jersey over four decades, died Tuesday, 10 days
after he participated in an episode of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition.

"On the morning of his death, my grandfather had been animated and
talking about a new project," said grandson, Garo. "Then his heart
just stopped." Mr. Hovnanian was pronounced dead a short time later
at Virtua West Jersey Hospital Marlton.

A funeral service will be held Friday for Mr. Hovnanian, 80, who never
stopped striving to make the world a better place for his family, the
Armenian people and the underdog. The Iraqi-born Armenian American
died after collapsing at his Mount Laurel residence that day.

The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Gregory’s Armenian
Apostolic Church, 8701 Ridge Ave., Philadelphia. Friends may visit at
9 a.m. Friday.

Burial will be in Lakeview Memorial Park, Cinnaminson, N.J.
Mr. Hovnanian, who lived the American dream and helped others do the
same, founded the home-building firm J.S. Hovnanian & Sons of Mount
Laurel, N.J.,in 1964.

On Aug. 4, Mr. Hovnanian’s firm completed a house in 96 hours for
ABC’s television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The Pennsauken
home was built for Victor Marrero and his five sons. The Marrero
family had been featured along with three other Camden families in an
ABC 20/20 documentary in January about children growing up in poverty.

"Mr. Hovnanian gave me and my sons a lifeline. I will love him all my
life," said Marrero. "He was quiet and always in the back. He was not
a showoff. He told me ‘I know you and your boys will be all right.’ He
threw so much loveat me."

"My grandfather inspired others and was happy to help the Marrero
family," his grandson said. "He was thrilled when our company was
chosen to build the house. We tried to keep him out of the heat by
bringing him to the site at night when it was cooler. But he was there
when they moved the bus and when the Marrero family first saw their
new home."

"It was incredible to see how tight the Hovnanian family is," said
Shannon Oberg, development and marketing coordinator for Urban Promise
in Camden, the organization that donated the land in Pennsauken for
the Marrero home. "Mr. Hovnanian’s sons and grandson show such
respect and admiration for him. It was sweet to watch them. Building
the home for the Marreros and the love of the Hovnanian family for
their patriarch was like his legacy blown up in a hugeway right before
my eyes."

Mr. Hovnanian, whose Armenian parents fled to Iraq in 1915, was one of
six children. His father, Stepan, owned a construction company in
Baghdad. Mr. Hovnanian, who graduated from a Jesuit high school in
Iraq, immigrated to North Philadelphia in 1948.

"He knew very little English and owned nothing – but he had big
ideas," his grandson said. Mr. Hovnanian married Elizabeth
Vosbikian. On a wing and a prayer, her family had founded Quickie
Manufacturing Corp., which makes Quickie broom, mops and nearly 100
other popular inventions.

Determined to succeed and make a better life for his family,
Mr. Hovnanian earned a bachelor’s in business in 1952 from the Wharton
School at the University of Pennsylvania.

He and his three brothers founded a building firm in the early 1950s
which eventually split into four companies. Mr. Hovnanian started
J.S. Hovnanian & Sons which over the past four decades has built more
than 6,000 homes in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties.

During the 1970s, Mr. Hovnanian worked for the enactment of New Jersey
laws protecting buyers of new homes such as the Uniform Construction
Code, the Municipal Land Use Law and the 10-year Home Owner’s Warranty
Program.

Mr. Hovnanian’s interests branched out into other personal and
business ventures such as building a school which bears his name in
1978 in New Milford, N.J., for Armenian children.

He also financed and founded the Center for the Advancement of Natural
Discoveries using Light Emission (CANDLE) in Armenia, a huge facility
which generates beams of ultraviolet light for protein crystallography
and to employ scientists in his homeland.

A champion rose-gardener, Mr. Hovnanian, along with two scientists,
founded Nature’s Wonder, a local company producing an extract of peat
product that encourages plant growth.

A long-time supporter of the Burlington County Boy Scout Council, he
started the Jirair S. Hovnanian Scholarship Fund. As part of their
application, college-bound Eagle Scouts write essays on "What it Means
to Me to be an American."

In 2006, Mr. Hovnanian was given the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for
his contribution to America and for outstanding citizenship by the
National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations Inc. Mr. Hovnanian was
president of the New Jersey Builders Association and life director of
the National Association of Home Builders.

In addition to his grandson and wife, Mr. Hovnanian is survived by
sons Stephen and Peter; five more grandchildren; two
great-grandchildren; three brothers; and two sisters. Donations may be
made to the Jirair S. and Elizabeth Hovnanian Family Foundation, 900
Birchfield Dr., Mount Laurel, N.J. 08054.

IRAQ RESCUERS SIFT THROUGH RUBBLE AFTER SUICIDE BLASTS THAT KILLED 200

Guardian Unlimited
Published: Aug 15, 2007

Rescuers were today digging through the muddy ruins of clay houses
in north-west Iraq where suicide bombers last night detonated fuel
tankers rigged with explosives, killing at least 200 members of a
minority sect.

The incident near the Syrian border was one of the deadliest since
the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

More than 300 people were injured, said Dakhil Qassim, the mayor
of the nearby town of Sinjar, when the fuel tankers blew up in the
remote villages of Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair. Officials
today imposed a curfew on the area.

The villages are about 75 miles west of the city of Mosul, a stronghold
of Sunni Islamic militants. The attacks targeted people from the
Yezidi religious minority, whom Sunni extremists regard as infidels.

Four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously yesterday. The
death toll was higher than in any other concerted attack since last
November, when 215 people died following mortar fire and five car
bombs in Baghdad’s Shia Muslim enclave of Sadr City.

Mr Qassim said four trucks approached from dirt roads and all exploded
within minutes of each other. He said the number of dead and wounded
was expected to rise.

"We are still digging with our hands and shovels because we can’t use
cranes because many of the houses were built of clay," he said. "We
are expecting to reach the final death toll tomorrow or day after
tomorrow as we are getting only pieces of bodies."

A US military spokesman, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, said he
believed the bombings were the work of al-Qaida.

"The car bombs that were used all had the consistent profile
of al-Qaida in Iraq violence," Gen Bergner told reporters in
Baghdad. "We’re continuing to investigate, and we’ll learn more in
the coming days."

Kurdish officials said they had volunteered to protect minority
groups in the area but Baghdad had failed to take them up on the
offer because of its political paralysis.

According to officials in Sinjar, the bombers drove petrol tankers
laden with explosives into three busy commercial neighbourhoods,
flattening residential blocks and causing fires that raged out
of control.

"This is an outrageous and cynical terrorist act against innocent
people," said Jaasim Sinjari, a local official. "The Sunni Arabs are
trying to wipe us out."

He said US helicopters had airlifted the many injured from the base
at Mosul to hospitals in Tal Afar and Kurdish-controlled Dohuk.

Khadir Shamu, a 30-year-old Yezidi who works for the government,
said he and a friend had been relaxing in the centre of Tal Uzair
when the blasts shattered the peaceful evening.

"My friend and I were thrown high in the air. I still don’t know
what happened to him," he said. "Some time later I could feel people
carrying me to an ambulance."

He said the rescue vehicle was packed with 12 other wounded people,
including one who had lost both legs. "Inside the car, there were only
screams of pain for an hour and a half before we reached the hospital."

The White House condemned the bombings as "barbaric attacks" and added:
"Extremists continue to show to what lengths they will go to stop
Iraq from becoming a stable and secure country."

The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, warned
residents last week that an attack was imminent because Yazidis were
"anti-Islamic".

The explosions capped a grim day in which five US troops were killed
in a helicopter crash, four died in other incidents and a suicide
truck bombing near Baghdad destroyed a bridge and killed at least 10.

In Baghdad, dozens of uniformed gunmen abducted a deputy oil minister
and four other officials.

Iraq’s senior figures meanwhile continued a series of meetings aimed
at reviving the country’s political process, and the US military
announced a fresh push to rid the volatile Diyala province of militants
affiliated with al-Qaida.

Kurdish intelligence officials in Mosul say the crackdown on Sunni
extremists in Diyala, and in Anbar province west of Baghdad, has
forced militants towards Mosul, a traditional Sunni heartland.

The Yezidis, who are mainly ethnic Kurds, have inhabited areas to the
west and east of Mosul for centuries. Other communities exist in Syria,
Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. Their faith is a mixture of ancient
and living religions that draws upon Zoroastrian and Mithraistic
elements. However, Christians and Muslims have often regarded Yezidis
as devil worshippers because of their recognition of Satan.

Under Saddam many Yezidi families were driven from their ancestral
lands and were the targets of brutal crackdowns. Since the fall of the
regime in 2003, the fate of Yezidi communities, particularly those in
the insurgent-infested areas west of Mosul, has been just as uncertain.

In April gunmen shot dead 23 Yezidi factory workers in Mosul in
apparent retaliation for the stoning of a teenage Yezidi girl several
weeks earlier.

Police said local Yezidis had stoned the girl to death after she fell
in love with a Muslim man and converted to Islam.

Kurdish authorities in the self-rule region to the east want to
absorb the Yezidi areas, but a planned referendum on the issue is
still months away.

CANADIAN COMPANY LOOKING FOR NATURAL GAS IN ARMENIA

The Messenger, Georgia
Aug 15 2007

Canadian company Transeuro Energy will start exploring a natural gas
field in the Armavir region of Armenia from August 22, reports the
news agency Regnum.

The preliminary project will last three to four months at a cost of
around USD 10 million. If initial test drills are encouraging the
company will increase its investment.

Current geological data suggests significant natural gas reserves
in the field, but technical feasibility studies are needed before a
major extraction operation is commissioned.

A discovery of large reserves could change the geopolitical map of
the South Caucasus, experts predict.

"MEGAFON" PRESENT ROAMING SERVICES TO "NAGORNO-KARABAKH REPUBLIC"

Ïðaâî Âûaîða, Azerbaijan
Democratic Azerbaijan
Aug 14 2007

"Megafon", one of the mobile operators of Russia since 2002 to
date actively develops telecommunications in occupied by Armenian
armed forces Azerbaijani territory – Nagorno-Karabakh and present
international roaming services. The roaming services are carried out by
"Megafon"s partner – "Karabakh Telecom" company.

The official site of "Megafon-Moscow" has reference to "Karabakh
Telecom" company where Nagorno-Karabakh is presented as separate
unit and says that "in the north and east the Nagorno-Karabakh is
bordered on Azerbaijan, in the south – Iran and west – Armenia." It
says that "under official data by 1 January, 2006 the Nagorno-Karabakh
had 144,336 inhabitants, including 56,782 in the capital." It is
appropriate mention that in the site cooperation with "Karabakh
Telecom" is not mentioned as separate line among partner countries.

The company is included to Armenia. So, in the site where in
alphabetical order partner countries are placed with which "Megafon"
cooperates there is only Armenia, and then in the section Armenia says
about cooperation with "Armenia Telephone Company" operator, then
follows "Karabakh Telecom". At the same time, the list has Abkhazia
but in parenthesis "Georgia" is written. "Karabakh Telecom" functions
under the direction of Pierre Fatuch but license is given by "Minister
of Economy and Structural Reforms of the Nagorno-Karabakh". As the
site reports, "purpose of "Karabakh Telecom" is to be the leading
telecommunication company in Caucasus."

The Embassy of Azerbaijan to Russia detailed examines this issue and
of course, will take appropriate steps, as it has been repeatedly.

–Boundary_(ID_ZTckKZQRNXKx+ykuvskxDw )–