Author: Emil Lazarian

USE OF ‘HOLOCAUST’ OFFENSIVE
by: Alex Chazen

New University, CA
University of California, Irvine
May 15 2006

The word “holocaust” stirs up emotions among people all over the
world for many different reasons. The word “genocide,” which most
people agree the Holocaust was, is defined as “the systematic and
planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or
ethnic group.” As you are walking around campus this week, you are
going to see fliers talking about Israel as being the Fourth Reich
and there being a “Holocaust in the Holy Land.” The question becomes,
are these assertions truthful?

The Holocaust (the attempted genocide of Jews in Europe) saw 6 million
Jews murdered, and countless others displaced, many permanently. The
Armenian Genocide saw 1.5 million Armenians murdered at the hands
of the Turks, although many have (sadly) long forgotten about this
horrible period in world history. Currently, in the Darfur region
of the Sudan, over 400,000 people have been murdered, warranting the
label of “genocide” by the American government. Now that this has been
presented to you, I assume you think that the number of Palestinians
who have died since the beginning of the first Intifada in 1987
(no earlier data is available, including at the Muslim Student Union
Web site) would be at least in the hundreds of thousands. Would you
be surprised to find out that the number isn’t even in the tens of
thousands? Despite claims that there is a holocaust in the Holy Land,
not more than 6,000 Palestinians have died since the start of the
first Intifada.

Lumping the “genocide” that is occurring in “Palestine” in with the
other historical genocides is not only shameful, it is hurtful.

Writing as a Jewish person, I know that one of the major historical
narratives of American Jewry is the Holocaust. We know that it
happened. Germany is forced to teach their youth about what happened.

The United Nations has declared Jan. 27 the International
Holocaust Remembrance Day. To hear the word being used to describe
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict angered me. I went back to the
dictionary and looked up “holocaust.” Meriam-Webster defines it as
“a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially
through fire.” Jews were put into ovens and cremated, literally thrown
into the fire. To my knowledge, nobody, including radical Palestinian
advocates, has claimed that Israel is throwing Palestinians into ovens.

Due to my acceptance and approval of the free speech policies of the
UC Irvine campus, I can’t say that I want the MSU to change the title
of their anti-Zionism week, which is what the week truly is. I can’t
ask the president of the MSU to take down signs that compare Israelis
to Nazis, even though typing those words, in such close proximity, is
painful for me. All that I can do is appeal to the campus community
to realize what is being said and what the truth is. Please, don’t
take this the wrong way. I am not decrying the MSU’s policies
of anti-Semitism, nor am I saying that the anti-Israel argument
shouldn’t be heard on campus. I am merely asking that students at
UCI show other students a modicum of respect when it comes to the
history of the group that they belong to.

To compare the plight of the Palestinians (which is substantial)
with that of Jews in Europe, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, or the
people of Darfur is extremely hurtful to those directly involved in
those conflicts, and to cheapen the loss of life suffered in those
conflicts is nothing more than a sad plea for attention.

Alex Chazen is a second-year political science major. He can be
reached at [email protected].

THE CANCER OF ETHIOPIAN MUSIC: THE SYNTHESIZER

Ha’aretz, Israel
May 15 2006

At the Sheraton Hotel bookshop in Addis Ababa – an infuriatingly
luxurious building, which indifferently overlooks an ocean of shanties
and mud houses spread out at its feet – one’s eye is caught by the
book “Abyssinia Swing.” The book, written by French music producer
and scholar Francis Falceto, documents the development of Ethiopian
music from the late 19th century, through the initiative of Emperor
Haile Selassie in the 1920s to bring an orchestra of Armenian orphans
from Jerusalem to Addis Ababa, and up to the golden age of the 1960s,
which produced sophisticated and groovy music such as that of Mulatu
Astatke, featured in Jim Jarmusch’s film “Broken Flowers.”

The books ends in the mid-seventies, and specifically declares its
unwillingness to deal with present-day Ethiopian music. The reason for
that is brought in one clear-cut sentence: “In the year 2000 nothing
remains of the golden age of Ethiopian music, except for recordings
and photos.”

Who is to blame for the creative collapse of Ethiopian music? The
Communist regime and the synthesizer. The Communist government, which
carried out a military coup in the mid-seventies, marked American
soul music, which more than anything else had fueled the musical
blossoming in Addis Ababa, as the music of the enemy, persecuted
the musicians who continued to remain loyal to it, and directed the
entire preoccupation with music to military-patriotic channels. The
synthesizer, which captured the market in the 1990s, turned the
wind instruments, the source of the vitality of modern Ethiopian
music, into superfluous objects, and enabled untrained musicians,
who were often untalented as well, to issue discs at one-tenth the
price demanded previously. Abate Barihon calls the synthesizer “the
cancer of Ethiopian music,” thus expressing the feelings of many. “At
a certain point, a few years before I left Addis, the entire city
suddenly became filled with the cancers,” he says.

A visit to the nightclubs in Addis Ababa makes it clear that the
synthesizer continues to rule unchallenged. It is placed in the center
of every stage and fires its programmed synthetic drums into the
air of the club. All the other instruments are optional: Who needs
a bass or a saxophone or a guitar when the synthesizer can imitate
their sound and avoid the need to pay another player?

A visit to the nightclubs therefore begins with reservations about
the rule of the computerized keys, which flatten the music. But
after a few minutes in the first club, Select Pub, something strange
happens. Suddenly it turns out that a lot of interesting things are
actually happening here. The most obvious is the insane turnover of
singers on the improvised stage, which has nothing separating it from
the small dance floor. Instead of the singer being the fixed item and
the many instruments accompanying him supplying variety and interest,
the synthesizer is the fixed item and the many singers who surround
it provide the variety.

Two boys of about 18 are performing a song that sounds like reggae,
but which is still clearly rooted in Ethiopian scales. When it is
finished, they get off the stage, and immediately a man of about 40,
plump and balding, enters from the door next to the bar, and sings
in a style reminiscent of unctuous R & B songs. The plump man is
then replaced by a flirty female singer in 15-cm heels, singing in a
thin, screechy voice, reminiscent of the singers in Indian films and,
finally, a singer in an elegant beige suit gets onstage. The moment he
begins to sing, the gang at the back of the nightclub, who had looked
totally bored, jumps to its feet and begins to dance enthusiastically.

“It’s a Sudanese song, and this group comes from Sudan. That’s why
they’re so excited,” explains a 31-year-old real estate agent, who
now lives in Washington and is visiting her parents in Addis. Why
does she like the Select Pub? “Because when I come here, the last
thing I want to do is to go to a nightclub where most of the people
are Westerners, as happens in the Sheraton, for example.” The
singers, she says, are not professionals, but not total amateurs,
either. Some of them make a living from singing in the club and hope
to be discovered and to develop a successful career, and others have
ordinary jobs and moonlight in the club. The songs they sing are
“hits that every Ethiopian is familiar with. Songs of Mahmoud Ahmed,
and other great singers.”

When the plump, bald man returns to the stage, the young Sudanese
return to nap in their armchairs, and when he leaves, the lighting
gets stronger and two female dancers get onstage, dressed in gilt
tank tops and short-shorts. It would be an understatement to describe
their dance as very energetic pelvic movements. Afterwards the unending
parade of male and female singers returns.

Two days later, at the Mandigo club, Yitzhak Yedid of the Ras Deshen
ensemble is full of admiration at the level of the singers. “All of
them, without exception, sing very precisely,” he says. “But they
are not only precise, they are also very creative, and each of them
has his own style. I think that I have never seen so many outstanding
singers in one room.” (B.S.)

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

KOSOVO, MONTENEGRO, AND THEN WHAT NEXT?
Polina Slavcheva

Sofia Echo, Bulgaria
May 15 2006

EXTENDED HANDS: Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov, right, meets
Macedonian and Serbian-Montenegrin colleagues Branko Crvenovski,
centre, and Boris Tadic, left, on December 15 2005 in Ohrid, where
Mecadonia signed its Ohrid Agreement, setting relations with its
ethnic Albanian minority. Bulgaria has repeatedly stated its bid to
be a factor of stability in the region.It may be hard to notice, but
it is there: the anxiety that the future of Kosovo and Montenegro,
two slabs of land on their way to a possible chip-off from Serbia,
might affect other countries and open a Pandora’s box of separatism,
as Ukrainian prime minister Boris Tarasyuk put it.

Hungarians in Vojvodina, Moldova’s Transdniestria, Caucasus republics,
European Muslims, Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, why not,
Bulgaria’s Turks in the Rhodope Mountains are all examples of potential
provocateurs. Even if most of those are in the sphere of speculation,
however, when the ghost of separatism in Southern Europe and the
Caucasus is awake, it seems that anxiety and caution is “the game of
the rule”, to quote Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco, or helpful
to those temporary glitches in logic so terribly reminiscent of the
Balkans and the wider Eastern European region, not just of Ionesco’s
dramas about discordant families.

When the Contact Group for Kosovo issued hints in January that Kosovo
may become independent by the end of the year, too few were those
convinced that a Kosovo status solved like this would be timely or
enhance regional stability. That uncertainty was recently expressed
by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a conference on NATO
expansion held in Sofia, the above-mentioned Tarasyuk, and Serbian
foreign minister Vuk Draskovic. Draskovic said on May 3 in an interview
with Greek news agency ANA-MPA that a change of the existing borders of
his country would be an omen of “a new Balkan catastrophe”, and Lavrov
told Bulgarian newspaper Standart that “Kosovo’s independence is a
dangerous road that could not only lead to many dangerous consequences
in the region, but set a precedent to other conflict situations”.

A quick peek at Caucasus reveals what he means. Òhe predominantly
Muslim Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, Russia’s separatist
republics, might ask for independence, and so might the
breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and the
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijan region Nagorno-Karabakh, UK-based analyst
Oksana Antonenko told the EU Observer in February. All of that makes
Russia quite sour about the prospects for independence, with China
the only other country supporting Serbia’s territorial claim to Kosovo.

Moldova’s Transdniestria and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska
have also said that they would call for independence if Kosovo gets it.

What the European Union should worry about is Nagorno-Karabakh because
a conflict there would spell trouble for the EU’s Caspian Sea gas
link and ambitions to move away from Russian gas dependency, the EU
Observer said. The EU has promised peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh
but refuses to recognise it, just as it wouldn’t recognise Abkhazia or
South Ossetia. Since it would, seemingly, recognise Kosovo, discussion
on that obvious discrepancy appears to be what the EU should have on
its to do list.

At the moment, however, a international community priority is avoiding
disunity on the issue of Kosovo before the next stage of negotiations,
as UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari said in Sofia on May 8.

So, as to whether independence is a timely and inevitable move or
a United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
move out of its inability to solve the province’s problems, as
the International Crisis Group said last year, is of secondary
importance. And that makes debate on how status talks would promote
a multi-ethnic society, enhance regional stability and Serbia’s
Euro-Atlantic perspectives a bit vague.

While the EU prospect helped in the case of Romania’s Hungarian
minority in Vovodina (in 1995, Hungary renounced all territorial
claims to Vojvodina and Romania reiterated its respect for the rights
of its Hungarian minority), it would take a while to help Serbia,
especially since accession negotiations were stopped on May 3.

What’s a more serious problem, however, is that the international
community itself fails to discuss its own principles on the issue of
sovereignty. Even to some European observers, diplomats and experts,
certain dilemmas of the western Balkans look unsolvable without
a change of borders, as a Bulgarian European Community Studies
Association report said in 2004.

Still, the discourse on Kosovo seems to stop at saying that there
shouldn’t be a change of borders, period. A decision on what to
do about borders should be reached through a consensus both within
the EU and the region itself, the report says. The latter, however,
would be quite difficult.

>>From the inside, it looks like Kosovo would be a time bomb if
it remains a UN protectorate for long. From the outside, though,
an independent Kosovo looks a bit scary.

Macedonia, for one, might be a bit ruffled about its dubious border
with the province, although a visit by Kosovar prime minister Agim Ceku
to Macedonia seemed to settle the issue with a friendly handshake:
Ceku and Macedonian foreign minister Vlado Buckovski agreed that the
problem should be treated as a technical, rather than a political,
one and that its settlement should only be a matter of time and US
cartographic co-operation. Previously, Ceku had said he would push
for a renegotiation of the 2001-set and UN-approved border (then
quite porous and a route for smugglers and rebels).

As to the wider Muslim community in the Balkans, and the potential
for further country splits, the problems that seem to arise come from
the lack of deep knowledge about the Muslim community as a whole.

During a debate on the the Muslim community in Bulgaria and the global
challenges it faces, Bulgarian journalist Georgi Koritarov said that
his impressions from a study on media coverage of Muslim topics in
Bulgaria was that media coverage showed a negative approach and lack
of deep understanding of Bulgarian Muslims’ problems.

However, he also expressed concern about the conflict potential of
Muslim societies, which he said had still not been exhausted because
of the unsolved Kosovo status.

“I am not sure that things are moving toward a stable formula,”
he said. Bulgaria was, so far, successful in painting itself as an
island of stability to a backdrop of war, he said. It also did well
in promoting its Bulgarian ethnic model. What it will do from then on,
however, is another issue.

The Muslim community in Bulgaria, Koritarov said, has the potential to
become the representative of Balkan Muslims in the EU as an integral
party of a future multicultural Europe. However, at the moment
Bulgaria lacks the civil and intellectual resources to capitalise on
this potential. Moreover, whoever pronounces such an idea in Bulgaria
automatically gets shoved to the sphere of so-called corruption rings
of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, he said.

If Bulgaria can use its Muslim minority as part of a successful EU
diplomacy, choices and decisions for Serbia are much harder: it is
either Kosovo, or the EU, as former US ambassador to the UN Richard
Holbrooke told Serbian television. At least at the moment, however,
gazes seem turned toward Montenegro and its May 21 Montenegrin
referendum on independence. If Montenegro and then Kosovo become
independent, that would be the end of Balkan and Eastern European
disintegration, or would it?

–Boundary_(ID_K+1EU2GU+w4NdqkndowOhA)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FRENCH VIEW OF HISTORY THREATENS TRADE WITH TURKEY
by: Nicolas Cheviron

Agence France Presse — English
May 15, 2006 Monday 3:06 AM GMT

French businessmen in Turkey are bracing for a vote in their country’s
National Assembly this Thursday that could prove disastrous for trade.

France’s Socialists have stirred up a very sore point in relations
with Turkey over an issue that dates back to World War 1, when hundreds
of thousands of Armenians perished.

At stake for French business is an estimated 9.6 billion dollars
worth of French-Turkish trade.

The Socialists want to punish anyone who denies that a crime of
genocide was committed by Turkish troops, and have submitted a bill
proposing five years jail and a 45,000-euro ((57,000-dollar) fine
for those denying genocide.

The Turks have always denied that genocide occurred, and are already
furious with the French over their view of history.

In 2001 the French National Assembly seriously antagonised Turkey
by passing legislation officially declaring that the tragedy between
1915 and 1917 was to be regarded as genocide.

The Turks concede that there were many deaths 90 years ago but resist
the legal term “genocide”, a word which is poison here. They insist
the Armenians were instead the victims of a terrible war.

Massacre and deportations of Armenians claimed 1.5 million lives,
according to the Armenian side. The Turks say no more than some
300,000 died.

Last Wednesday Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appealed
to France to block the contentious new bill, warning of the threat
to relations posed by it.

France, with the largest expatriate Armenian population in Europe,
has a special interest in the Armenians’ fate.

But Luc de Noirmont, head of the major French retailer Carrefour,
appealed to his country’s legislators to “be guided by reason.”

In fact political observers predict that the bill is likely to fall
because the opposition will not be able to muster enough votes on
Thursday.

But French executives are still nervous and will be able to heave a
sigh of relief only when Thursday is past.

For they have been feeling the heat in the run-up, as Turkish tempers
rise at the very mention of the proposals of French Socialists.

Several French companies including the electronic and hi-tech
giants Thomson and Alcatel have already been deliberately kept out
of invitations to tender by Turkish authorities, and a clamour has
arisen in Turkey for a boycott of French goods.

“In 2001, the effects of the (French) genocide law were diluted by
the fact that Turkey was going into serious economic crisis,” said
Francois Sporrer, head of the French economic mission in Istanbul.

Bilateral trade fell in any case because of this crisis, with French
exports plunging from 3.53 billion dollars in 2000 to 2.28 billion
dollars in 2001, according to figures of the national statistical
institute here.

But things are different now. Five years on, Turkey has made a
comeback, notching up new growth records of 5.9 percent 2003, 9.9
percent in 2004 and 7.6 percent last year.

“Few countries are experiencing an economic boom comparable to that
of Turkey at present,” said the head of Carrefour.

“This time the consequences will be more serious,” warned Esref
Hamamcioglu, Turkish director of the French catering group Sodexho.

“The government is better organised and feels stronger especially since
we have become official candidates for entry into the European Union.”

And Yves-Marie Laouenan, head of the French chamber of commerce in
Turkey, issued a warning.

“It’s going to be worse this time. If the bill is passed, going
to France and saying there was no genocide would be like mark of
patriotism.”

“The most serious thing that happened in 2001 was an underhand form
of boycott applied by individuals inside government, especially
the customs who took it upon themselves to defend national honour,”
he recalled.

The 430-member Turkish chamber of commerce has intensified appeals
to French leaders including a letter to President Jacques Chirac,
urging them to abandon Thursday’s vote.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

DU NEGATIONNISME CONSIDERE COMME UNE ATTEINTE A L’ORDRE PUBLIC
par Sevane Garibian

Le Monde, France
12 Mai 2006

La loi du 29 janvier 2001 sur la reconnaissance legislative
du genocide armenien de 1915 est, en l’etat, un texte de nature
simplement declarative. Geste politique fort, mais a charge juridique
nulle, face a un negationnisme actif et organise de la part d’une
Turquie candidate a l’integration europeenne dont la virulence s’est
publiquement exprimee, une fois de plus, recemment a Lyon. Depuis
l’annonce d’un debat a venir au Parlement sur un texte relatif a
la penalisation de la negation du genocide armenien, les pressions
d’Ankara sont vives, menacant la France de “consequences irreparables”
sur les relations bilaterales.

Le 10 mai, la commission des lois de l’Assemblee nationale a rejete de
fait la proposition de loi socialiste, mais le debat parlementaire peut
encore avoir lieu si les deputes le decident par un vote a main levee.

Pour des raisons evidentes, il n’y a pas lieu de repondre au discours
negationniste, mais un tel debat pourra etre l’occasion de revenir
sur les critiques dont font l’objet les textes de loi reprimant
la negation de genocide. Selon les detracteurs de ces lois – en
particulier le collectif Liberte pour l’histoire, qui se declare
“profondement choque” par la discussion prevue le 18 mai -, de
tels textes seraient contraires aux valeurs democratiques ; ils
entraveraient la liberte d’expression du fait de l’immixtion des
juges dans le travail des historiens.

Il est utile de rappeler que l’adoption de lois visant a prohiber
la negation de genocides attestes par les historiens et reconnus
comme tels n’equivaut pas permission aux tribunaux d’intervenir sur
la qualification d’un evenement historique. Ce qui importe au juge
dans les affaires de contestation de crimes contre l’humanite, ce
n’est pas la question de savoir si ce que dit l’historien est vrai,
mais celle de savoir si son travail et ses allegations revèlent une
intention de nuire ou repondent au devoir d’objectivite et aux règles
de la bonne foi.

En d’autres termes, le rôle du juge, en l’espèce, est identique a celui
du juge confronte a l’histoire dans le cadre d’un procès en diffamation
: si la pratique historienne est une remise en cause permanente des
evenements, elle ne permet pas pour autant a l’historien de confondre
jugement de valeur et jugement de realite.

La liberte du scientifique ne rime pas avec son irresponsabilite. Ce
que condamne le juge, le cas echeant, ce n’est pas d’avoir pense
differemment, c’est de profiter de la legitimite conferee par le debat
scientifique et le statut d’historien pour soutenir une ideologie
negationniste.

Surtout, l’element le plus determinant afin de comprendre la raison
d’etre de tels textes reste le caractère potentiellement dangereux
pour l’ordre public, dans une democratie, des propos reprimes par
la loi. Ce danger peut provenir de discours mensongers en tant
qu’expression d’une propagande antisemite, raciste ou haineuse,
en particulier lorsque l’on percoit la negation comme atteinte a la
sauvegarde de la dignite humaine.

Tout d’abord, si la dignite de la personne humaine est bafouee par
l’execution de crimes contre l’humanite, quels qu’ils soient, elle
l’est aussi par la contestation de ces memes crimes generalement
consideree comme l’etape ultime de tout processus genocidaire :
“Le negateur fait au temoin ce que le bourreau fait a la victime”
(Frederic Worms). Ensuite, et dans la continuite de l’observation
precedente, la sauvegarde de la dignite humaine est, en France, non
seulement un principe a valeur constitutionnelle depuis les decisions
du Conseil constitutionnel du 27 juillet 1994, mais aussi, selon le
Conseil d’Etat, une “composante de l’ordre public”. Le principe du
respect de la dignite apparaît aussi regulièrement, depuis 2000,
comme une limite a la liberte d’expression en matière de presse,
erigee en tant que telle par la Cour de cassation – sans compter
l’usage très large qui en est fait par les juridictions ordinaires.

Enfin, il est important de souligner que le principe du respect
ou de la sauvegarde de la dignite humaine a une portee a la fois
individuelle et collective. Droit de l’individu, certes, la dignite
est avant tout un droit propre a la personne en tant que membre de la
communaute humaine. Sa portee collective est d’autant plus evidente
et essentielle en matière de crime contre l’humanite et/ou de leur
negation. Le concept meme de crime contre l’humanite (et a fortiori
de negation de crime contre l’humanite) comprend en son sein cette
idee-force.

Ainsi, contrairement a ce que laisseraient penser certaines critiques,
ce n’est pas tant l’adoption d’un texte de loi visant a penaliser la
negation du genocide des Armeniens, sur le modèle de la loi Gayssot,
qui est difficilement conciliable avec les exigences d’une societe
democratique. C’est la negation en tant que telle. La negation
comme atteinte a l’ordre public et, plus fondamentalement encore,
au droit au respect de la dignite humaine dans sa portee collective ;
c’est-a-dire un droit qui exprime la solidarite entre les humains et
fonde le principe meme de leur egalite. Un droit dont la reconnaissance
merite protection.

Sevane Garibian est juriste, doctorante en droit public a l’universite
Paris-X-Nanterre.

–Boundary_(ID_bfM ypGbyEbV8OtzDH/UUXA)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PASSIONS SOOTHED IN THE YSU

A1+
[08:47 pm] 15 May, 2006

During the elections of the Yerevan State University rector which took
place in the University hall Aram Simonyan was elected rector. 41 of
the 72 members of the University Council voted for him. Dean of the Law
faculty Gagik Ghazinyan received 24 votes, four people voted against
both candidates and one member was not participating in the elections.

“The election was held in a friendly atmosphere, following all the
corresponding rules. 50 days is a good period for people to revise
their decisions”, President of the YSU Council, Defense Minister
Serge Sargsyan said. Let us remind you that on March 22 none of the
candidate received the necessary amount of votes.

Immediately after the results were announced Gagik Ghazinyan left
the University and we failed to learn his opinion.

And rector Aram Simonyan answered all the questions of the journalists,
“I think the election was held in a democratic atmosphere. I was
content with the March 22 elections, and I am content now. No,
actually I did not expect that I would be elected”. He was not worried
by the fact that the President of the Council is Serge Sargsyan,
“I think his presence is good for the University. He knows that we
have expectations for him”.

After the previous elections several changes were introduced into the
council. On May 11 by the decision of Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan
seven members of the Council were changed according to the 5th part
of the 77th article of the RA Law. The President of the Council said,
“This question is not intended for me as I am not responsible for
the changes. But I must say that the changes correspond to the law
and questions are improper here”.

It is noteworthy that during the previous elections Gagik Ghazinyan’s
votes prevailed and he was not elected because of one vote only.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PUBLIC OFFICIALS OFFER A SURPRISE TO TRADESMEN

Panorama.am
13:43 15/05/06

Yerevan municipality officials accomplished their plan in prohibiting
street trade after their visit to central streets and avenues of
the city.

At this point they are going to offer surprises to tradesmen on the
streets, Arman SAHAKYAN, deputy mayor, told a briefing today. “We
organize inspections together with Yerevan municipality trade and
service department and police officers,” he said.

They confiscated ice cream and juice boxes in the second phase of
the inspection. About 217 sites were inspected by May 1, violations
recorded in 165 of them. The city authorities fined the tradesmen in
the amount of 4 mln 507 thousand drams as a result of checks. Most
of the money ran from Kentron and Arabkir communities.

Despite of what the deputy mayor says, passers-by notice that street
trade continues in Yerevan streets.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SECOND STAGE OF SEARCH OF CRASHED A320’S BLACK BOXES LAUNCH
By Ruzan Poghosian

AZG Armenian Daily
16/05/2006

Aleksander Davidenko, head of RF Transport Ministry’s Federal Agency
of Marine and River Transport, stated that “Cheleken” ship began
taking samples out of the water, where the airbus plunged. He added
that “Navigator” ship will continue the search in the place of the
crash. It is envisaged that marine research equipment will be taken
on the board of “Navigator” to get concrete data on the signals that
come from the seabed. The specialists state that the first stage of
the search works is completed. “We have elaborated the information we
had in the first stage and that will help to begin the second stage of
the search works. We expect soon to find the “black boxes.” Davidenko
said, adding that they will look for more powerful marine research
equipment in all the countries of the world to successfully complete
the search works.

The specialists state that though they know where the signals come
from, that will be very hard to take the “black boxes” out of the
seabed.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SENTENCING RESCHEDULED IN PONZI SCAM TARGETING ARMENIAN-AMERICANS

City News Service
May 1, 2006 Monday 11:46 AM PST

Los Angeles

Sentencing has been rescheduled to June 14 for a Van Nuys man who
ran an investment scam that primarily targeted Armenian-Americans and
took in nearly $20 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced today.

Melkon Gharakhanian, who authorities say also used the name Mike
Garian, pleaded guilty in January to one count of mail fraud.

If U.S. District Judge George Schiavelli follows the recommendations
in a plea deal between Gharakhanian and prosecutors, the 43-year-old
defendant could be sentenced to two to four years behind bars.

Gharakhanian admitted that between 1999 and 2001, a Glendale investment
firm that he and others ran, National Investment Enterprises Inc.,
took money from people who believed they were investing in specific
stocks — including initial public offerings for Internet businesses
and other high-tech companies.

Contracts and other documentation seemed to back up that assertion,
the plea agreement states.

In reality, investor funds were used to buy non-liquid stocks that
were never listed on account statements, according to the court
document. Investor money was also being used to pay returns to other
investors in what is known as a Ponzi scheme.

Some of the investor money also went to pay salaries and other expenses
for National Investment Enterprises, the plea deal states.

Although some of the investors were paid more money than they invested,
Gharakhanian and prosecutors have agreed that the amount victims lost
in the scam was between $2.5 million and $10 million.

Beyond that range, the amount remains in dispute, and a judge must
make a finding on the issue. The total amount that victims lost in the
scam will be a major factor in how long a prison term is recommended
under advisory sentencing guidelines.

Under the law, the maximum term that could be imposed for the mail
fraud count would be five years.

In addition to the prison time, Gharakhanian will likely be ordered
to pay restitution to his victims. However, the lead prosecutor in
the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wilner, said a previous
$2.6 million judgment against Gharakhanian — stemming from a related
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil action — has so far
been unrecoverable.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

UCLA CONFERENCE ON ARMENIA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

ArmRadio.am
15.05.2006 13:28

“Armenia: Challenges of Sustainable Development” was the theme of an
international conference at the University of California, Los Angeles,
on May 6.

Specialists in economics, finance, and public policy assessed
the achievements and shortcomings of Armenia in economic growth
and poverty reduction and issues related to tax revenues, business
investment climate, and financial sector development.

The conference was organized by the Armenian Educational Foundation
Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA and the Armenian International
Policy Research Group, with support from the UCLA Center for Near
Eastern Studies and Department of Economics.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress