Author: Emil Lazarian

RUSSIA’S LEADERS NOT GOING TO QUARREL WITH ARMENIA
PanARMENIAN.Net
22.03.2006 01:14 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Russia is not going to upset relations with Armenia,
political scientist, publicist Leonid Radzikhovsky told journalists in
Moscow. In his words, Russia is not going to quarrel with Armenia. At
that the political scientist remarked that Armenia is an old partner
of Russia. “Armenians arouse much less national problems when living in
Russia, than Azeris, and if Russia’s foreign policy was not determined
by a vote, sympathy would be on Armenia’s side and not on that of
Azerbaijan,” Radzikhovsky underscored.
At that he remarked that in spite of it, Russian foreign policy leans
more towards economically strong Azerbaijan lately. According to
Radzikhovsky, Armenian leaders felt hurt by such tendency many times,
reports RIA Novosti.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LAWS PASSED WITHOUT A MOMENT’S RESPITE
Panorama.am
13:08 21/03/06
Not long ago 10s of laws and agreements were passed in the NA after
10-minute voting. The laws passed were those discussed yesterday.
The convention about “Cyber Crime” was also passed.
Besides, the NA accepted the covenant about receiving just
another credit from the World Bank. To remind, the credit of 21
million USD will be lent to Armenia to overcome poverty in the
country.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GERMAN-ARMENIAN CONSULTATION
Lragir/am
22 March 06
On March 21 a two-day consultation between the governments of Armenia
and Germany started. Minister of Finance and Economy of Armenia Vardan
Khachatryan and the envoy of the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and
Development Rolf Baldus conducted the meeting at which were present
the German Ambassador to Armenia Haike Renate Peitsch, representatives
of the Yerevan office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development and the ministries of Armenia.
During the consultation the financial and technical programs
implemented in the sphere of energy, health care, environment,
infrastructures and hypothec market development were discussed.
The programs of cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and the
Federal Republic of Germany started in 1993. First mainly technical
programs were carried out, but since 1995 financial programs of
cooperation have been implemented. Since the negotiations between
the governments in 2001, regional programs have been implemented in
the framework of the Caucasian Initiative.
German-Armenian financial cooperation is centered in three main
spheres: energy, private capital, water supply and sewage. Besides,
grant projects of comparatively smaller scale are implemented in
health care and environment.
Besides bilateral programs, the regional programs of the Caucasian
Initiative have been launched, which involve financial and technical
cooperation in the three countries of the South Caucasus in the
spheres of energy and private business, management of tuberculosis,
as well as protection of biodiversities. In the framework of the
German-Armenian cooperation programs for development of hypothec
market are foreseen. Armenia has received about 185 million euros in
the framework of German-Armenian relations.
Ministry Of Economy And Finance.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

POPE: “TERRIBLE PERSECUTION” OF ARMENIANS LINGERS IN HISTORY
AsiaNews.it, Italy
March 20 2006
Receiving members of the Patriarchate of Cilicia, Benedict XVI
praised the loyalty of the Armenians to Christianity and expressed
the hope that continued division between the different Churches will
be overcome.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – “Metz yeghèrn, the great evil”: this
is what Armenians still call the genocide they suffered in the
years of the First World War, at the hands of the then Ottoman
Empire. The phrase was repeated by Benedict XVI when he received
Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Patriarch of Cilicia for Armenians, who
was accompanied by members of the Patriarchal Synod. He talked about
the “great persecution” at the roots of the diaspora of that people,
and also about the division which persists among Armenian Christians,
expressing the hope that it will soon be overcome.
“The Armenian Church that refers to the Patriarchate of Cilicia (in
Lebanon n.d.r.), is certainly a full participant of historical events
lived by the Armenian people throughout the centuries and, especially,
of the suffering they bore in the name of the Christian faith in the
years of the terrible persecution which remains known in history by
the sadly significant name of metz yeghèrn, the great evil. How can
one not remember, in this regard, the many invitations sent by Leo
XIII to Catholics, to go to the rescue of the poverty and suffering
of the Armenian peoples?”
Benedict XVI continued: “The Armenians, who have always sought to
integrate themselves with their industriousness and dignity in the
societies where they found themselves, continue to bear witness to
their faithfulness to the Gospel still today.” This is a fidelity that
is also a “strong attachment, sometimes even to the point of martyrdom,
which your Community has always shown towards the See of Peter,
in a reciprocal and fertile relationship of faith and affection”.
A relationship that the Pope would like to see extended to other
Christian communities of Armenia, which are still divided, although
they recognize St Gregory the Illuminator as their common father
founder and even if “in recent decades all have resumed a cordial and
fruitful dialogue to the end of rediscovering their common roots. I
encourage this rediscovered fraternity and collaboration, with the
hope that new initiatives for a shared path towards full unity will
spring from this. And if historical events have seen the fragmentation
of the Armenian Church, may Divine Providence allow that one day it
will return to being united, with its hierarchy in brotherly internal
harmony and in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.”
–Boundary_(ID_KRsltsoTMXQBn5Pcd83C6Q)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

REVENUES TO THE NKR STATE BUDGET INCREASED COMPARED WITH THE SAME PERIOD LAST YEAR
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 20 2006
January – February 2006 the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) state
budget own revenue made 1 milliard 464,4 million drams, which surpasses
the level of the same period last year by 39,1 %.
According to the information De Facto Information-Analytics Agency
got at the NKR Ministry of Finance and Economy, the budget revenues
have been guaranteed at the expense of the tax receipts, state duty
and operations with capital.
The state budget expenses for the same period made 2 milliard 114,2
million drams.
The budget revenues from the operations with capital made 125,6 million
drams, 62,6 million drams of the sum has been received from the state
property and 63 million from expropriation of the principal funds,
which are considered to be state property.
For current January – February incomings to the NKR Social Insurance
Fund increased by 14,7%, having made 254,4 million drams.

RUBEN SHUGARIAN: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IS A HISTORIC FACT AND ISN’T SUBJECT TO DISCUSSION
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Mar 21 2006
ROME, MARCH 21, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The March 21 live
broadcast under the title “History” from the cycle of information
programs TG1 of RAI UNO Italian TV company was dedicated to the
“Armenian-Turkish Relations of the Past, Present and Future”. The
guests of the program were Armenian Ambassador to Italy Ruben
Shugarian and Turkish Ambassador to Italy Ugur Dziyal, as well as
Turkish historian Omer Turan. An occasion for the program became the
special issue of the RAI UNO TV channel in January 2006 dedicated to
the genocides of the 20th century, which started with the presentation
of the Armenian Genocide, against which the Turkish Ambassador sent
a written complaint to the Italian TV company. The program started
with Charles Aznavour’s interview to a journalist who has experienced
Oswiecim. Then, as Noyan Tapan was informed from RA Foreign Ministry
Press Service, the Turkish Ambassador blamed the Italian press
for a one-sided coverage of the Armenian Genocide asserting that
Turkey doesn’t carry on a policy of denial but only tries to jointly
search for the truth in archives suggesting that an Armenian-Turkish
commission of historians be founded for this purpose. Ruben Shugarian
in his turn began to assert that the interpretation of the issue
by Turkey has nothing in common with the point of view of not only
the Armenian side but also the world community, the majority of
which, including the Italian Parliament, has recognized the Armenian
Genocide. The Armenian Ambassador emphasized that the history can’t
be corrected or changed through censorship. The Armenian Genocide is
a historic fact and isn’t subject to discussion and the 6-million
Armenian Diaspora is the bright proof of this. “Can you imagine,
Shugarian emphasized, a commission consisting of Jewish and German
historians that is to decide, if there has been Oswiecim or not?”. In
this connection RA Ambassador reminded the last year letter of Armenian
President Robert Kocharian to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, in
which it was emphasized that development of bilateral relations is
the responsibility of the governments and we don’t have the right
to move this responsibility on the historians and we need to found
an intergovernmental commission for it, which will discuss and find
the respective solutions to these problems. Touching upon the current
relations between Armenia and Turkey, Ambassador Shugarian presented
Armenia’s readiness to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey
without any preconditions meanwhile mentioning that the borders’
being closed contradicts the European Union’s spirit. Documentary
stills and photographs were also shown in the course of the program.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PUBLIC SERVICES REGULATORY COMMISSION MAY MAKE DECISION OM BID OF HRAZDAN TPP ONLY IN JULY
Noyan Tapan
Mar 21 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 21, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Public Services Regulatory
Commission may make a decision on the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant’s bid
for an increase in the tariff of its electricity only in July. Nikolai
Grigorian, deputy chairman of the commission, told NT correspondentn
that the commission already set the internal tariffs of the Hrazdan
TPP on January 1, and these tariffs are not subject to any change
within 6 months. According to N. Grigorian, it is expected that the
Yerevan TPP will also submit a tariff rise bid within the next few
days. As regards Electric Networks of Armenia CJSC, N. Grigorian noted
that this company will submit a bid only after a decision about the
thermal power plants has been made.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LOVELY DAY FOR WEIGHT OF GOLD
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
March 21 2006
Gold for Deborah Lovely.
AUSTRALIA’S Deborah Lovely won a gold medal after a tight battle in
the women’s 75 kilogram weightlifting event at the Games last night.
It was Australia’s second weightlifting gold of the day, after Alex
Karapetyan earlier won the men’s 94 kilogram event.
Lovely was equal with Nauru’s Sheba Deireragea after the snatch,
but outlifted her by six kilograms in the clean-and-jerk to take
the title. Deireragea won silver and South Africa’s Babalwa Ndleleni
bronze.
Lovely won a silver medal in the same event at the Manchester Games
in 2002.
The woman who won gold on that occasion, India’s Pujari Shailaja,
had been favourite to defend her title here until she was disqualified
from competing after she recently tested positive to a banned drug.
Karapetyan’s 94 kilogram event was an Australian success. He took
gold and compatriot Simon Heffernan silver.
Karapetyan, defending the title he won in Manchester in 2002, was
far too strong for the rest of the field and his win was never in
serious doubt.
The former Armenian’s total of 350 kilograms was well ahead of
Heffernan’s 332 kilograms. Bronze medallist Thomas Yule, of Scotland,
lifted 326 kilograms.
It was Australia’s second weightlifting gold after Ben Turner won
the 69 kilograms event on Saturday night.
Heffernan delighted his home-town crowd with his exuberant
celebrations, including an air guitar solo.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

KARABAKH “WILL INCREASE INVESTMENTS IN MILITARY SPHERE”
Regnum, Russia
March 21 2006
In capital of Nagorno Karabakh – the city of Stepanakert two
12-apartment two-storied houses are put into operation for officers
of NKR Defense Army.
As a REGNUM correspondent in Stepanakert reports, presenting officers
with vouchers for apartments, President of NKR Arkady Gukasyan
mentioned that the republican authorities and the military command
should together solve everyday social problems of servicemen.
According to him, the state will increase investments into the
military sphere.
The state gave 750 million drams for construction of serviceman
housing in 2005. The sum totaled 1,200 million drams in 2006.

ELECTRIC VIOLINIST
By Bradley Bambarger
Star-Ledger Staff
Newark Star Ledger, New Jersey
March 21 2006
Jarvi and London Philharmonic bring rising star to Newark concert
The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s latest tour of the U.S. has had
its share of challenges. The group’s principal conductor, Kurt Masur,
was to lead the tour, but had to pull out due to a viral infec tion.
Neeme Jarvi, music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orches tra,
was one of several conductors enlisted to cover the tour. But,
hav ing fallen ill, too, Jarvi pulled out of the March 12 date in
San Francisco, which Roberto Minczuk covered (as he did yesterday’s
Lincoln Center concert).
But Jarvi was in Newark with the London Philharmonic at the New
Jersey Performing Arts Center on Sunday afternoon, having also led
the orchestra in Greenvale, Calif., the day before. Fit as a fiddle,
he seemed to relish conducting such a sleekly powerful ensemble in
one of his “home” halls. Although the players looked a bit glum,
Jarvi managed to elicit some smiles with his enthusiastic gestures
and occasional hoochie-coochie swaying.
Veterans in the LPO are familiar with Jarvi from’90s’ recording
ses sions of Medtner, Bruckner and Reger. The repertoire wasn’t so
imposing at Prudential Hall, starting with Britten’s Simple Symphony,
the composer’s buoyant recasting of sketches from his youth. This
neo-Baroque suite for strings isn’t all light as air, though. In the
Sara bande section, the London violins had not only surface sheen,
but a crying depth of feeling. The Sara bande’s ideally soft ending
belied what little experience Jarvi and the orchestra had together
in the score.
For all the charms of the Brit ten, the day belonged to Aram
Khachaturian’s 1940 Violin Concerto — and the soloist for the piece,
a 21-year-old fellow Armenian and near-namesake, Sergey Khachatryan.
That this is a sorely undervalued score might be apparent to those
who have heard the pioneering recordings by David Ois trakh and Leonid
Kogan. But Kha chatryan’s electric performance made a case for a work
that would be hard for any music lover to deny.
Frequenters of NJPAC have had the chance to hear exceptional young
violinists in recent seasons, including the Georgian Elisabeth
Batiashvili (in Sibelius) and the Dutch Janine Jansen (Britten).
Khachatryan was their equal — and he needed to be, as Khachatu rian’s
concerto demands that the soloist spin out one long-breathed melody
after another. The violin ist’s face was as expressionless and dark
as his playing was expressive and colorful; his visage only softened
as he communed with the more reflective tunes, many derived from
Armenian folk tradition.
Khachatryan, who made a fine recording of this concerto in 2003,
pushed the first movement at a boldly exciting pace (as did Ois
trakh). But he was lyrically rumina tive in the solo cadenza — that
is, until its finish, where his double- stopping vibrated white-hot.
After the violinist caressed the slow movement like a cradle song and
surged through the rondo finale, the full house’s ovation wrested a
shy smile from him that grew as Jarvi led the applause for a fourth
curtain call.
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, which Jarvi recently recorded with
Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony, was the afternoon’s closer. Doleful and
balletic by turns, this music can be performed more viscerally, but
it would be rare to hear it played more romantically. In the autumnal
slow movement, the cellos sang out with proto-Hollywood sweep, and
the orchestra’s brass had their beautifully tuned say in the finale.
Surprisingly, given Jarvi’s pen chant and the convention for touring
ensembles, there was no en core. But he was obviously pleased, making
a show of eliciting applause for every section of the orchestra,
even wading back to shake hands with the double-bassists.
ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/11429223091 1630.xml&coll=1
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress