Author: Ekmekjian Janet

UNITED ARMENIAN FUND
1101 N. Pacific Avenue # 301
Glendale, CA 91202
Tel: 818.241.8900
Fax: 818.241.6900
30 September 2005
UAF’s 135th Airlift Delivers $1.8 Million of Aid to Armenia
Glendale, CA – The United Armenian Fund’s 135th airlift arrived in
Yerevan on September 30, delivering 1.8 million of humanitarian
assistance.
The UAF itself collected ($712,000) of medicines and medical supplies
for this flight, almost all of it donated by the Catholic Medical
Mission Board.
Other organizations which contributed goods for this airlift were:
Mekhitarist Congregation of Armenian Fathers ($684,000); Nork Marash
Medical Center ($86,000); Shushi Music School Society ($43,000);
Armenian American Cultural Association ($43,000); Foundation Semra
($33,000) and Fund for Armenian Relief ($32,000).
Also contributing to this airlift were: Howard Karagheusian
Commemorative Corp. ($23,000); Armenian Missionary Association of
America ($20,000); Armenian General Benevolent Union ($13,000); Western
Diocese of the Armenian Church ($12,000) and AmeriCares ($12,000).
Since its inception in 1989, the UAF has sent $415 million of
humanitarian assistance to Armenia on board 135 airlifts and 1,237 sea
containers.
The UAF is the collective effort of the Armenian Assembly of America,
the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the Armenian Missionary
Association of America, the Armenian Relief Society, the Diocese of the
Armenian Church of America, the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church
of America and the Lincy Foundation.
For more information, contact the UAF office at 1101 North Pacific
Avenue, Suite 301, Glendale, CA 91202 or call (818) 241-8900.

FIRST STONE OF ARMENIAN EMBASSY IN ABU DHABI LAID
Pan Armenian News
03.10.2005 02:34
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ October 1 Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian departed for the United Arab Emirates on a formal visit. He
is scheduled to meet with the UAE leadership, RA MFA press center
reported. On the same day the first stone was laid into the foundation
of the Armenian Embassy in Abu Dhabi. The building plan has been
already drawn and the construction works will start in the near
future. The territory for the Embassy was granted during Armenian
President’s visit to the UAE in spring 2002. To note, Armenia also
granted a ground area for the construction of the UAE diplomatic
representation in Yerevan.

Boston Globe
Oct 2 2005
Criticism grows as legislatures press for courses on races
By Michael Gormley, Associated Press | October 2, 2005
ALBANY, N.Y. — State legislators are directing schools to teach
students more about the struggles and triumphs of different races and
ethnic groups, and some critics are objecting.
A mission in New York will examine whether the ”physical and
psychological terrorism” against Africans in the slave trade is being
adequately taught in schools.
The commission is named for the slave ship Amistad, which was
commandeered by slaves who eventually won their freedom in a US
Supreme Court ruling.
The recommendations could mean rewriting textbooks, which may
influence educators in other states, according to the National
Council for the Social Studies.
Other states have approved similar measures, the National Conference
of State Legislatures says.
In Illinois, an Amistad commission was also created this year, and
lessons on the Holocaust were added. In New Mexico, the Legislature
required that Indian education lessons be bolstered in kindergarten
through Grade 6.
In 2001, New Jersey created an Amistad commission, as well as a
Commission on Italian and Americans of Italian Heritage Culture and
Education to advise those involved in making policy.
In California, a Cesar Chavez Day was created in 2000; schools were
directed to include lessons about the farm labor activist. Also in
2000, schools in Rhode Island were directed to teach about genocide
and human rights violations, including the slave trade, the Irish
potato famine, the Armenian genocide of the early 1900s, the
Holocaust, and Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime in wartime Italy.
Virginia directed schools that year to teach about the
accomplishments of people from different backgrounds and races.
But while most legislatures approve curriculum changes recommended by
education departments, teachers, and researchers, New York’s Amistad
Commission is a case of the Legislature trying to circumvent the
state’s policy-setting Board of Regents, according to the law’s
cosponsor.
”We feel there is, indeed, a void in our education curriculum in New
York state when it comes to the issue of slavery and the
dehumanization of Africans,” said Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr., a
Brooklyn Democrat.
Critics say that the goal of the commission is laudable but that
teachers have limited time to teach history. They also say educators
are needed on the panel to determine feasibility.

ARMENIAN STUDIES PROGRAM AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
Contact: Prof. Michael E. Stone ([email protected])
Dr. Sergio La Porta
Web:
Hebrew University Armenian Faculty Attend International Conference
Jerusalem – From 7-9 September, over 60 scholars of Armenian Studies
gathered in Vitoria, Spain for the Tenth General Conference of the
Association Internationale des Etudes Armeniennes (AIEA). AIEA, which
was founded in 1980 by Professor Michael Stone of the Hebrew University
and Professor J.J.S. Weitenberg of Leiden University in Holland, is an
organization of scholars of Armenian Studies, with its centre in
Europe. The suggestion to found the organization was made by Dr. Nira
Stone. Professor Michael Stone is Honourary Life President of AIEA.
The meeting was attended by scholars from all over Europe, America,
Armenia and the Middle East. From the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Dr. Sergio La Porta, Professor Michael Stone and doctoral student
Mikayel Arakelian all presented lectures, while Dr. Nira Stone also
participated. They met there Hebrew University Armenian Studies PhD
graduate, Professor Peter Cowe of UCLA, and former Armenian Studies
student Pablo Trojiano who teaches at the Compultensian University in
Madrid. Former visiting researcher Prof. Theo van Lint, Gulbenkian
Professor of Armenian at Oxford University also joined in the Hebrew
University reunion.
All the Armenian Studies faculty from the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem’s Armenian Studies program were there and they all brought
home new and stimulating ideas. They were able to discuss matters with
colleagues, and as a result new directions of cooperative work are
emerging and will soon be announced. The lectures of the Hebrew
University team were enthusiastically received and garnered very
positive reactions.
Professor Stone devoted his lecture to his recently completed
translation of the medieval Armenian epic poem about Adam and Eve,
written by Arakel of Siunik at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The poem, a complex composition of quite startling beauty, contains
over 5,500 lines of poetry, which Professor Stone translated into
English poetry. It is presently being considered for publication.
Quite different, but equally stimulating, Dr. Sergio La Porta presented
a paper on `The Earliest Armenian Scholia on the Works Attributed to
Dionysius the Areopagite.’ Dr. La Porta reported on his most recent
progress in the preparation of an edition and translation of the
Armenian commentary on this highly influential work. He proposed a new
date for the composition of the comments as well as challenging their
modern attributions. In addition to providing a linguistic analysis of
the scholia, Dr. La Porta posited the locus of their production and the
context in which they were composed.
Mikayel Arakelian described in detail the catalogue he has prepared of
illuminated late medieval Armenian manuscripts in Germany. This very
thorough work will make known several hundred unknown or little known
manuscripts, describing their character, context and particularly their
artistic character. Mikayel is writing his doctoral thesis on the
Armenian art of New Julfa.
______________________________
The Armenian Studies program at the Hebrew University was established
in 1966. It offers BA, MA and PhD degrees. For further information
contact Prof. Michael E. Stone ([email protected]) or Dr. Sergio
La Porta ([email protected]). The Jerusalem Armenian StudiesWeb Site
is:

A1+
| 12:11:02 | 30-09-2005 | Politics |
TURKEY RENOUNCES EU
Turkey renounced the negotiations about the membership to EU which were to
take place on October 3, the Foreign Minister of Turkey Abdullah Gyul
announced. He said that the EU must keep Turkey aware of its plans. {BR}
In any case, according to the Foreign Minister, the sides continue to work
in order to eliminate the disagreements.
The Turkish Prime Minister Rejeb Tayip Erdoghan in his turn announced that
Turkey will participate in the negotiations but will not accept the EU
conditions. Let us remind you that the EU conditions put forward against
Turkey referred to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and Greek
Cyprus.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
September 29, 2005 Thursday 12:34 AM Eastern Time
Georgia PM to attend inter-govt panel meeting in Yerevan
By Eka Mekhuzla
TBILISI
Georgia-Armenia cooperation in the fields of transport, the power
industry, tourism, and construction will be discussed at a meeting of
the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation in Yerevan
on Thursday. The meeting will be attended by Georgian Prime Minister
Zurab Nogaideli, an official in Georgia’s Office of the State has
told Itar-Tass.
During a one-day working visit to Yerevan, Nogaideli is also to hold
talks with Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan, Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan, and Artur Bagdasaryan, Chairman of the National
Assembly.
In the light of acute shortages of electric power in Georgia in
recent years, Armenia supplies the neighbouring country with up to
160 megawatts of power, or about 10 percent of the entire amount that
Georgia needs.

Mediamax news agency
29 Sep 05
CIS INTERIOR MINISTERS GATHER IN ARMENIAN CAPITAL
Yerevan, 29 September: A session of CIS interior ministers opened in
Yerevan today.
Addressing the opening ceremony, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Markaryan said that “today, when the whole world faces new
challenges, we need to draw up a strategy and organize a vigorous
counter-attack against the most dangerous elements of crime”.
“Terrorism, organized crime, illegal drugs and weapons trafficking,
illegal migration and human trafficking are the phenomena that do not
recognize state or political borders and are a real force able to
oppose governmental structures and threaten the national securities
of countries,” the head of the Armenian government said.
Andranik Markaryan pointed out that it is “well-coordinated actions
by all CIS countries that could stamp out terrorism”.

ERDOGAN SAYS EP DECISION WON’T HARM TURKEY’S EU PROCESS
NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Sept 29 2005
Ankara never claimed its declaration on not recognising the Greek
Cypriot Administration was a legal document, the Prime Minister said.
Guncelleme: 04:19 ET 29 Eylul 2005 PerºembeABU DHABI – The decision
of the European Parliament to defer the ratification of Turkey’s
extended customs union with the European Union would not have any
impact of the opening of accession negotiations next week.
Responding to the European Parliament’s decision Wednesday to delay
a vote on the amended customs union protocol due to Turkey’s refusal
to recognise the Greek Cypriot state, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said the parliament’s decisions were not binding. “The decision
would not have an impact on our EU process,” he said during a visit
to Saudi Arabia.
Erdogan said that the European Parliament’s vote calling for Turkey’s
recognition of the alleged genocide by the Ottoman Empire against
its Armenian citizens during the First World War was also not binding.
The Turkish Prime Minister said that the EU risked being labelled
a Christian club if it blocked Turkey’s accession. What will the
EU achieve by admitting Turkey? It will become a bridge between the
1.5-billion strong Muslim world and the EU. It will start an alliance
of civilisations,” he said.
Erdogan also slammed a report in the US paper The Washington Times
claiming that he condemned European values and freedoms and was
turning Turkey into a Islamic-fascist state. Erdogan said that no
one could pass such a sentence on a prime minister.
–Boundary_(ID_4oOA84iHdTeAzUz00pUpSg)–

Agence France Presse — English
September 28, 2005 Wednesday 1:11 PM GMT
Britain warns stalling Turkey’s EU membership bid would be a
‘betrayal’
BRIGHTON, England
It would be “a huge betrayal” if the European Union were suddenly to
slam the door on Turkey’s bid to join the bloc, British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw said Wednesday.
Straw told the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton,
southeast England, that launching accession talks with Turkey next
Monday was one of the “highest priorities” of Britain’s turn at the
rotating EU presidency.
“It would now be a huge betrayal of the hopes and expectations of the
Turkish people and of Prime Minister (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s
programme of reform if, at this crucial time, we turned our back on
Turkey,” he said.
Straw will chair an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg next
Monday that is to finalise a negotiating framework, or set of guiding
principles, for the accession talks that would start the same day,
but last many years.
EU leaders gave Turkey a green light at a summit in Brussels last
December for the talks to begin. But strains flared anew after Ankara
reaffirmed last July its refusal to recognize the government of
Cyprus.
Turkey has also come under pressure to recognize what Armenians call
a genocide against their people in the final days of the Ottoman
Empire during World War I — an event that remains highly sensitive
for Turks.
Worries about overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey was a key factor as well
in the stunning rejection of the EU constitution by French voters in
a referendum last May.
Straw said Wednesday: “The decision on Turkey will be made by EU
foreign ministers next Monday, under our presidency… But the test
next week will be of the EU as a whole.”
“Like the United Nations, the EU has to change with a changing
world… Turkey would lose from a ‘no’ decision — but Europe and its
people would lose even more.”
Straw drew a round of applause from Labour delegates when he linked
Turkey’s EU aspirations to the need for the West to engage the Muslim
world, particularly the Middle East.
“Anchor Turkey in the West and we gain a beacon of democracy and
modernity, a country with a Muslim majority, which will be a shining
example across the whole of its neighbouring region,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday in Strasbourg, the European Parliament gave its
cautious backing to next week’s start of talks with Turkey, while
demanding that Ankara recognise Cyprus and the Armenian “genocide”
during the negotiations.
Turkey’s refusal to recognise Cyprus, which joined the EU last year,
has so far proved to be the main stumbling block to the opening of
talks, which could last for 10 to 15 years even if all goes well.
Turkey has steadfastly refused to endorse the internationally
recognised Greek-Cypriot government since Ankara’s troops occupied
the island in 1974 in response to a coup aimed at uniting Cyprus with
Greece.
Speaking to the European Parliament, Britain’s Europe Minister
Douglas Alexander sought to allay fears about the financial burden of
absorbing Turkey, a developing country in relation to the rest of
Europe.
“The negotiations with Turkey will be the most rigorous yet,
reflecting lessons learnt from the previous wave of enlargement. They
are also expected to take many years to conclude,” he said.

A NEW FILM ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AT ‘MOSCOW’ CINEMA
By Tamar Minasian
AZG Armenian Daily #173
28/09/2005
Cinema
On October 16, “Moscow” cinema will show the premiere of “Arakel”,
film director Zohrap Bek-Gasparents told journalists yesterday. The
movie depicts events of 1910-15 in Eastern Armenia. It is a story
of a frustrated love that continues and gains momentum as deported
Armenian workers and intellectuals carry out their exile. “This is
a real story that happened to my grandpa’s brother. On this road it
is love that saves them, love that is peculiar only to Armenians and
their faith in God”, the filmmaker said.
The preparatory works of the film began in December of the last
year. The film was shot in Lori, Gyumri, in the surroundings of
the Lake Sevan and Yerevan. The budget of “Arakel” amounted to
$100.000. The film director thinks that this is a very small sum for
a fiction but it’s more important that one has a wish to shoot. Zohrap
Bek-Gasparents thinks that everybody should work hardly in his sphere
to gradually approach the day of Armenian Genocide’s international
recognition.
The film is currently being translated into Russian, English and
French. The authors of the film will make every effort to show it
in Turkey. They also work to represent the film at international
festivals and have so far made several arrangements.
“We have to go back to our faith. We can only pin our hopes on our
God and us. The Armenians are very forgiving. If someone apologizes
for a crime he committed he is sure to be forgiven. As far as our
neighbor lacks nobility to say sorry, we have to present as many
films and books as needed to make them understand”.