Author: Emil Lazarian

RUSSIA’S GAZPROM UPS STAKE IN ARMROSGAZPROM TO 60.69%

Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
December 19, 2006 Tuesday 6:46 PM EET

Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has increased its stake in
Armenia’s ArmRosgazprom to 60.69% from 45%, Gazprom said in a
statement Tuesday.

The change in ArmRosgazprom’s ownership became effective November 20.

Prior to the deal Armenia’s Energy Ministry held a 45% stake in
ArmRosgazprom, while Russian natural gas producer Itera held 10%.

In October, Gazprom’s board of directors approved increasing the
company’s stake in ArmRosgazprom to 58% through the purchase of
ArmRosgazprom additional shares.

ArmRosgazprom, created in 1997, has a monopoly on the import and
distribution of Russian natural gas in Armenia. It also specializes
in the transportation, storage, processing, distribution and sale of
gas, as well as in the reconstruction and expansion of underground
storage facilities and gas transportation systems in Armenia.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SHAMEFUL REWRITING OF HISTORY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Robert Fisk Columnist

Belfast Telegraph
December 18, 2006 Monday
CTY Edition

OH how – when it comes to the realities of history – the Muslims
of the Middle East exhaust my patience. After years of explaining
to Arab friends that the Jewish Holocaust – the systematic, planned
murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, is an indisputable fact –
I am still met with a state of willing disbelief.

And now, last week, the preposterous President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
of Iran opens up his own country to obloquy and shame by holding a
supposedly impartial "conference" on the Jewish Holocaust to repeat
the lies of the racists who, if they did not direct their hatred
towards Jews, would most assuredly turn venomously against those
other Semites, the Arabs of the Middle East.

How, I always ask, can you expect the West to understand and accept
the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 men, women and children from Palestine
in 1948 when you will not try to comprehend the enormity done the
Jews of Europe?

And, here, of course, is the wretched irony of the whole affair. For
what the Muslims of the Middle East should be doing is pointing out
to the world that they were not responsible for the Jewish Holocaust,
that, horrific and evil though it was, it is a shameful, outrageous
injustice that they, the Palestinians, should suffer for something
they had no part in and – even more disgusting – that they should be
treated as if they have. But, no, Ahmadinejad has neither the brains
nor the honesty to grasp this simple, vital equation.

True, the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem shook hands with
Hitler. I met his only surviving wartime Palestinian comrade before
he died and it is perfectly true that the intemperate, devious Had
al-Husseini made some vile anti-Jewish wartime speeches in German, in
one of which he advised the Nazis to close Jewish refugee exit routes
to Palestine and deport Jews eastwards (why east, I wonder?) and helped
to raise a Muslim SS unit in Bosnia. I have copies of his speeches and
his photograph hangs in the Yad Vashem Museum. But the downtrodden,
crushed, occupied, slaughtered Palestinians of our time – of Sabra and
Chatila, of Jenin and Beit Hanoun – were not even alive in the Second
World War. Yet it is to the eternal shame of Israel and its leaders
that they should pretend as if the Palestinians were participants in
the Second World War.

When the Israeli army was advancing on Beirut in 1982, the then Israeli
Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, wrote a crazed letter to US President
Ronald Reagan explaining that he felt he was marching on "Berlin"
to liquidate "Hitler" (ie Yasser Arafat, who was busy comparing his
own guerrillas to the defenders of Stalingrad).

That courageous Israeli writer Uri Avnery wrote an open letter to
Begin. "Mr Prime Minister," he began, "Hitler is dead." But this did
not stop Ariel Sharon from trying the same trick in 1989. He said
that, by talking to the US State Department, Arafat was "like Hitler,
who also wanted so much to negotiate with the Allies in the second
half of the Second World War", Sharon told the Wall Street Journal.

"… Arafat is the same kind of enemy".

Needless to say, any comparison between the behaviour of German
troops in the Second World War and Israeli soldiers today (with
their constantly betrayed claim to "purity of arms") is denounced as
anti-Semitic. Generally, I believe that is the correct reaction.

Israelis are not committing mass rape, murder or installing gas
chambers for the Palestinians.

But the acts of Israeli troops are not always so easy to divorce
from such insane parallels. During the Sabra and Chatila massacres –
when Israel sent its enraged Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias
into the camps after telling them that Palestinians had killed their
beloved leader – up to 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered. Israeli
troops watched – and did nothing.

The Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua observed that, even if his country’s
soldiers had not known what was happening, "then this would be the
same lack of knowledge of the Germans who stood outside Buchenwald
and Treblinka and did not know what was happening".

After the killings of Jenin, an Israeli officer suggested to his men,
according to the Israeli Press, that, with close quarter fighting,
they might study the tactics of Nazi troops in Warsaw in 1944.

And I have to say – indeed, it needs to be said – that, after the
countless Lebanese civilian refugees ruthlessly cut down on the roads
of Lebanon by the Israeli air force in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and
again this summer, how can one avoid being reminded of the Luftwaffe
attacks on the equally helpless French refugees of 1940? Many thousands
of Lebanese have been killed in this way over the past 25 years.

And please spare me the nonsense about "human shields". What about
the marked ambulance of women and children rocketed by a low-flying
Israeli helicopter in 1996? Or the refugee convoy whose women and
children were torn to pieces by an equally low-flying Israeli air
force helicopter as they fled along the roads after being ordered to
leave their homes by the Israelis?

No, Israelis are not Nazis. But it’s time we talked of war crimes
unless they stop these attacks on refugees. The Arabs are entitled to
talk the same way. They should. But they must stop lying about Jewish
history – and take a lesson, perhaps, from the Israeli historians
who tell the truth about the savagery which attended Israel’s birth.

As for the West’s reaction to Ahmadinejad’s antics, Lord Blair of Kut
al-Amara was "shocked" into disbelief, while Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert responded with more eloquent contempt.

Strangely, no-one recalled that the Holocaust deniers of recent years –
deniers of the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenian Christians in
1915, that is – include Lord Blair, who originally tried to prevent
Armenians from participating in Britain’s Holocaust Day and the then
Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, who told Turks that their
massacre of the victims of the 20th century’s first Holocaust did
not constitute a genocide.

I’ve no doubt Ahmadinejad – equally conscious of Iran’s precious
relationship with Turkey – would gutlessly fail to honour the Armenian
Holocaust in Tehran. Who would have thought that the governments of
Britain, Israel and Iran had so much in common?

RA PRESIDENT AND DEFENCE MINISTER TRY TO PROVE THAT ONLY THEY ARE ABLE TO SOLVE NAGORNO KARABAKH PROBLEM, ANTI-CRIMINAL MOVEMENT’S STATEMEN READ

Noyan Tapan
Dec 19 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. "Political arbitrariness has
reached its peak in Armenia, as the authorities act under the slogan
"it is possible to achieve something only by force." Nor Zhamanakner
(New Times) Party Chairman Aram Karapetian made such statement at the
December 19 sitting of the Anti-criminal Movement. Touching upon RA
President Robert Kocharian’s recent interview to three TV companies,
A.Karapetian said that being the first person of the country he
should not lay the whole responsibility on the political forces or
declare that there will be falsifications during the elections. In
A.Karapetian’s words, the country’s President should offer a way of
preventing these falsifications and not call the oppositionists for
not being bribed during the elections. According to the Anti-criminal
Movement’s statement, R.Kocharian and RA Defence Minister Serge
Sargsian "try to form an impression among the international community
and the leadership of the OSCE Minsk Group country-co-chairs that
allegedly the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is fraught
with very serious consequences, even danger of coup." So, the statement
read, Kocharian-Sargsian duet tries to prove to the international
community that only they are able to solve the Nagorno Karabakh
problem and beg the latter’s indulgence for reproducing themselves
at the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections at the
expense of already planned falsifications."

A.Karapetian declared that the Anti-criminal Movement condemns the
adventurous policy and instigating actions of the authorities.

THERE IS HIGH CORRUPTION IN ARMENIAN UNIVERSITIES

Yerevan, December 19. ArmInfo. 1,821 of the 2,000 students questioned
by the Tkhruni youth center said that there is high corruption in
Armenian universities, reports the center.

95% of the 250 questioned students of Yerevan State Agricultural
University said that their university is corrupt and 83% of then
gave bribes themselves. One exam there costs $20-50. 74% of the 100
questioned students of Mkhitar Heratsi Medical University personally
gave bribes. One exam there costs $200 and more.

Among the other corrupt universities are Yerevan State Economic
University (81% of students), Yerevan State Pedagogical University
(79%), Yerevan State University of Foreign Languages (75%), Yerevan
State University (42%), Yerevan State Conservatory (14%).

Most of the students said that the best way to eliminate corruption in
universities is to raise the salaries of tutors and to toughen control.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IN HIS BATTLE WITH PESTS, THE FUN IS IN THE ARSENAL
by: Doug Struck, Washington Post Foreign Service

The Washington Post
December 17, 2006 Sunday
Final Edition

Dan Frankian peered over a city fence and saw his target. There,
plump and oblivious, were the intruders. The freeloaders had simply
moved in from the country, gorged themselves on the abundance of the
city and left a nasty trail wherever they went. They were Canada geese.

Frankian mulled over the tools at his command this day. Digger,
looking expectantly from the front of his pickup truck, has been
Frankian’s loyal companion for 20 years. The springer spaniel is
slowed by age but still game for a good chase.

In the back of the truck was Cody, another spaniel, half Digger’s
age and just itching for a run. And finally, in a dark cage fashioned
from a garbage pail, was his secret weapon: Clara.

Clara is a 5-year-old Harris’s hawk. If the Canada geese scorned the
dogs, Clara could be loosened from a secure strap on Frankian’s arm
to take to the skies, to wreak terror on any avians below.

"Usually, just the sight of a bird of prey will work," he said.

For Frankian, who considers his company the SWAT team of pest
controllers, the fun is in the arsenal. While most competitors do
their work with some traps or fireworks or nets, Frankian and his
Hawkeye Bird Control offer a full range of persuasive techniques.

Like five dogs. More than 100 hawks and falcons. A few owls. And even
three bald eagles — "the big bang in bird control" — which can be
unleashed to reclaim the sky from unwanted wildlife.

Toronto and its environs are rife with such wildlife, in the air and
on the ground. The urban center lies on a major flyway for millions
of Canada geese, swans, ducks and songbirds. They join the regular
city slickers — pigeons, and sea gulls from nearby Lake Ontario —
to infest any available water and to foul parks, lawns and green space.

The city also is overrun with raccoons, which gleefully feast on trash
collection days despite a minor industry built around garbage can
locking devices. The raccoons and squirrels often move inside homes
for the winter, making holes under eaves. And not far from town,
Canada’s iconic beavers industriously rework streams to make lakes
and chomp down forests into stumps.

Frankian, 42, takes on all. Most pest control companies here are
permitted only to cart a trapped raccoon, for example, for release
a half-mile away, barely a commuter trip. James Bond-like, Frankian
is licensed to kill in some circumstances. But he would rather not,
he said.

"If I can move an animal without killing it, and it can go on living,
I’ll do it. I won’t needlessly shoot something for nothing," he said.

Often, he outlines the choices to his clients.

"They look at me and say, ‘What do you think we should do?’ I say:
‘If I walk up and shoot it, it’s going to cost this much. A live trap
costs this much. A kill trap costs this much.’ "

And how many clients take the cheapest option? "About 50-50," he said
with a shrug. Governments are often most averse to culling pests.

"Even the military seems to have a conscience these days."

Frankian, like the birds he chases, also has flitted about. An Armenian
born in Lebanon, he immigrated to Canada when he was a youth, served
in the Canadian military and then turned a hobby of falconry into a
business with four offices and 18 employees.

He has obtained an unusual array of permits, including a fur trapper’s
license, and specialties that include mountaineering on city buildings
and using hazardous-material equipment to remove bird droppings.

His clients are governments that want to clean up their municipalities,
airports that want to reduce landing hazards, companies that are
finding fowl on their property too foul and residents plagued by
wild visitors.

He has worked in mines (pigeons in the shafts), oil rigs (gulls)
and refineries (birds and animals). He’s chased skunks out of mills
and worked as far afield as Thailand and Ecuador, he said.

This day, he decided Cody and Digger would do the work.

"The dogs are really effective," he said. He typically brings them
every day for a couple of weeks to clear a municipal park or a business
site. This client is a food processing plant that does not want bird
droppings on its grounds. Eventually, the "birds decide it’s not a
good place to be. They move on, and we don’t have to kill any."

If that doesn’t work, his birds of prey do. Frankian sounds like a
proud parent as he describes the diving attack of a hawk.

"You just hear a big thud and see a puff of feathers," he said. "All
the other birds see that, and they start flying like crazy out
of there."

As Frankian’s blue pickup truck approached the Canada geese, the birds
looked up, straightening necks. The moment was still. And then Cory
and Digger bounded out of the truck, spaniel ears flapping, throats
in full bark.

With surprising speed, the geese leapt into the air, abandoning the
slow takeoff of their usual leisurely flight. They rose and receded
into the distance with honking complaint.

They might be back, Frankian admitted. But so will he.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NUMBER OF POLYCLINIC VISITS GROWS IN YEREVAN IN JANUARY-NOVEMBER

Noyan Tapan
Dec 19 2006

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. In January-November 2006, the
number of visits to Yerevan polyclinics made 1 million 664 thousand,
exceeding by 29.1% the index of the same period of last year. Armen
Soghoyan, Head of the Health and Social Security Department of
Yerevan Mayor’s office, stated this during the December 18 press
conference. According to him, in the 11 months of this year, the number
of visits to family practitioners increased by 25%, to pediatricians –
by 20%, and to narrow specialists – by 47.7%. The number of laboratory
examinations grew by 40.6% in the indicated period on the same months
of 2005. A. Soghoyan said that provision of free medicines to the
city population is continuing: medicines of 280 mln drams (about
700 thousand USD) were provided in January-November 2006. The number
of births in Yerevan grew by 3% in the eleven months of 2006 on the
same period of last year and made 13,181, while mortality declined by
7.7%. A. Soghoyan announced that starting January 1, 2007, citizens
may choose doctors and medical institutions, whose medical aid they
prefer to receive. 2,300 citizens may be registered to receive services
of a doctor. It was noted that 148 family doctors and 11 nurses have
already undergone training under the World Bank credit program.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TYRANTS ARRESTED SEFILYAN

A1+
[08:32 pm] 18 December, 2006

Leader of Liberal -Progressive Party of Armenia Hovhannes Hovhannisyan
considers the arrest of commander of the Shushi special regiment
Zhirayr Sefilyan the recurrent attempt of the authorities to intimidate
the people.

As for Serge Sargsyan’s attempt to compare Zhirayr Sefilyan to Monte
Melqonyan, he said, "He who fought for the independence of our country,
is a hero to me.

During the war some of the heroes died, other remained soldiers,
and others became generals. Those who left behind their well-being
in the Diaspora and came to fight are the bravest heroes of all. We
must all bow to them".

According to Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, the arrest of Zhirayr Sefilyan was
a trick. "They could have arrested Sefilyan in his own house. I don’t
think he would have run away. One must not intimidate his own people",
said Mr. Hovhannisyan and reminded that only tyrants intimidate the
people when they seize the country.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Stallone’s deft as Rocky in the Q&A ring

By Michael Booth
Denver Post Staff Writer

DenverPost.com
Article Last Updated:12/16/2006 12:27:21 PM MST

Facing the barbs of the insatiable media, Sylvester Stallone is as gracious
and imperturbable in answering all questions as Rocky was deflecting the
insults of classless opponents.

With the sixth Rocky movie arriving in theaters Wednesday, Stallone at 60
knows full well many critics label him a one-note writer and actor.

No one will cry for Stallone, with his millions in crafty percentage deals,
but he can be called a victim of his own success: Thirty years ago, he wrote
and starred in one of the iconic American movies, and as Stallone put it in
an interview here, "therein lies a dilemma."

One career direction means "you fall back on something you know the audience
wants to see, but it’s not going to break any new ground or gain any new
respect from your peers. Next thing you know, it will be ‘Cobra 3.’ That is
a real problem," Stallone said, in Denver to publicize "Rocky Balboa."

"Or is it that you’re so locked into the ‘Rocky’ persona, that anything
other than that is going to be a disappointment, a letdown. That happened in
a real good film like ‘F.I.S.T.’ There’s an expectation. That’s human
nature," he said.

In other interviews, Stallone has spoken nostalgically of the 1976 "Rocky"
as "setting the bar too high." His first major role, his first finished
script, and the film was the year’s top box office draw, won the
best-picture Oscar, and garnered acting and writing nominations for
Stallone.

With "Rocky Balboa" putting the aging Philly fighter seemingly irretrievably
into retirement (yes, again), Stallone said he’s ready to put the Italian
Stallion’s saga behind him.

"If this film reaches the audience the way I hope it does, and I had a
chance to never act again and just direct, I’d take that in a second," said
Stallone, looking appropriately middle-aged yet fairly buff in blue jeans
and an open-necked shirt.

"Rocky Balboa" finds Adrian dead and Rocky wandering his old haunts in
Philly, running a restaurant and reminiscing to excess. Then ESPN pits
champion-era Rocky against current champ Maxon "The Line" Dixon (Antonio
Tarver) in a simulation. Rocky wins, and the miffed Dixon challenges
long-retired Rocky to an exhibition.

While the movie is no revelation, it revives a beloved character that
Stallone plays well. Rocky is part of the collective American consciousness
of perseverance and decency, whether real or imagined. There is something
sweet and appropriate in watching both Stallone and Rocky contemplate aging
and making their later years useful.

And the truth-myth of how "Rocky" got made only adds to the movie’s place in
popular culture. Stallone was a small-part actor struggling to break through
who began writing scripts with parts to suit his ambition. He’d knocked
around the Philadelphia docks and gyms, getting to know people with severe
"lack of expectations," he said.

Hollywood producers loved the script and said they’d buy it. Stallone
refused to sell unless he could play Rocky. David Thomson’s "New
Biographical Dictionary of Film" tells it this way: "Instead of taking
$265,000 for it from Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, he held out for
$75,000, a percentage and the lead part."

Fifty-six million dollars later, "Rocky" won the box office that year over
runner-up "A Star is Born," at $37 million.

Asked why he thinks people love the Rocky character, Stallone said it has
little to do with sports and victories.

"Rocky is about abandonment. He had no parents, never did. He literally is a
waif of the streets. He’s America’s waif. He gathers these other broken
people and they create a family unit," Stallone said, a theme he continued
in writing the script for "Rocky Balboa."

Then, once Rocky begins to see some success, he acts in a way that people
admire, but which they don’t see often in their real-life leaders in sports,
politics or business.

"Rocky considers himself better than no one. He’s not judgmental. He’s just
a sweet guy. He’ll accept your insults and still reach out and try to
embrace you. Those are real Christian ideals," Stallone said.

Stallone acknowledges he also has considered making another "Rambo" picture,
the money-dangles from producers too lucrative to ignore. But his better
self pushes him to spots behind the cameras for the remainder of his career.

"I would like to spend it in writing and directing, less in the public eye
but providing something for the public."

So what is the Stallone Surprise, the project he’s always wanted to write or
direct?

For years Stallone’s wanted to create an epic, and the book that intrigues
him is Franz Werfel’s "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," detailing the Turkish
genocide of its Armenian community in 1915. (After futile attempts to turn
the novel into a movie, filmmakers finally succeeded in 1982, but it was a
low-profile production.)

French ships eventually rescued some Armenians, and Stallone has his
favorite scene memorized: "The French ships come, and they’ve dropped the
ladders and everybody has climbed up the side. The ships sail. The hero, the
one who set up the rescue, has fallen asleep, exhausted, behind a rock on
the slope above. The camera pulls back, and the ships and the sea are on one
side, and there’s one lonely figure at the top of the mountain, and the
Turks are coming up the mountain by the thousands on the far side."

A pretty great shot.

The movie would be "an epic about the complete destruction of a
civilization," Stallone said. Then he laughed at the ambition. "Talk about a
political hot potato. The Turks have been killing that subject for 85
years."

Source:

–Bou ndary_(ID_W23SseTioJPTkZ40fD9qAQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NEW OSCE CHAIRMAN TO DISCUSS NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT DURING HIS VISIT TO RUSSIA

Today, Azerbaijan
Dec 18 2006

The visit of Spanish Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-office from
2007 Miugel Angel Moratinos to Russia has started today.

Spanish Foreign Minister will meet with his Russian counterpart. The
ministers will discuss Russia’s view point in connection with priority
issues of OSCE, Russian Foreign Ministry told APA.

‘Frozen conflicts’ in Moldavian, Georgian and Azerbaijani territories
will also be discussed. They will discuss the issues concerning Near
East, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea, as well.

Miugel Angel Moratinos stressed out that OSCE is deeply concerned
about the issue of ‘frozen conflicts.’

URL:

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NEW STATEMENT ON ARREST OF SEFILYAN AND MALKHASYAN

Lragir, Armenia
Dec 18 2006

The arrest of Jirair Sefilyan and Vardan Malkhasyan cannot be
considered as the start of persecutions before the election. The
reason is that the persecutions started when the Bolshevists were
in power, and continue in independent Armenia. Paruir Hairikyan,
the leader of the National Self-Determination Union, described the
arrest of Sefilyan and Malkhasyan on December 18 at the Friday Club.

According to him, the government is afraid of polarization and took
this step to prevent the danger that threatened it. Even if we admit
that Jirair Sefilyan made an appeal for a coup, the punishment is
a fine, not arrest and charges, Paruir Hairikyan says. He disagrees
with Member of Parliament Manuk Gasparyan that Sefilyan was arrested
in connection with the problem of Akhalkalaki. Hairikyan says it is
an opinion which has the right to exist, but he thinks that Sefilyan’s
arrest is related to home problems.

Paruir Hairikyan also informed that the anti-criminal movement is
preparing a new statement on the arrest of Jirair Sefilyan and Vardan
Malkasyan, which runs that the government arrested Sefilyan to flatter
the West, namely the forces who support an agreement on settlement
of the Karabakh conflict to show that there are militaristic forces
in Armenia which may try to obstruct a peace settlement. Hence,
according to the new statement of the anti-criminal movement, the
government is trying to aggravate the situation and gain the support
of the West for reelection by means of manipulation.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress