Author: Frangulian Shushan

San Francisco Chronicle, CA
Aug. 12, 2006

A window into rich life of Cairo apartments
Reviewed by John Freeman

Sunday, August 13, 2006

The Yacoubian Building
By Alaa Al Aswany, translated by Humphrey Davies
HARPERCOLLINS; 253 PAGES; $13.95 PAPERBACK

All novels contain invisible cities, even those set in actual
metropolises. "Ulysses" does not unfold in Ireland but in James
Joyce’s mind. The same goes for the sprawling, heaving Cairo depicted
in Alaa Al Aswany’s tremendously likable new novel, "The Yacoubian
Building."
At the heart of the book is a once-glamorous, now run-down apartment
complex built by an Armenian millionaire. Unlike in New York, where
higher floors come at a premium, the Yacoubian rooftop bows under the
weight of makeshift shanties that house the poor. "The children run
around all over the roof barefoot and half naked," writes Al Aswany,
with a sweep of his narrative hand, "and the women spend the day
cooking, holding gossip sessions in the sun, and, frequently,
quarreling." The men return home from work "exhausted and in a hurry
to partake of their small pleasures — tasty hot food and a few pipes
of tobacco (or hashish if they have the money)."

The third pleasure, of course, is sex, and the vibrations from it
rattle through the rafters to the floorboards, from the poor down to
the rich, giving this book a deliciously lewd throb. There is Zaki
Bey, a 65-year-old cosmopolitan playboy who has enjoyed more lovers
than Casanova, and Taha el Shazli, an ambitious businessman who takes
on a second wife to slake his lust.

The women get by, too. Busyana uses her feminine charms to get a
little extra money out of her boss at work, and then trades up by
making Zaki her lover. Souad, Taha’s new wife, retreats into memories
of her first husband when she is making love to her pompous new
husband, who can barely take his djellaba off some nights because he
is in such a welter of desire. In such moments, it is hard to forget
that she is essentially being paid for her affections.

Everyone is scheming in "The Yacoubian Building," giving this novel
the shape and tone of a soap opera. Zaki’s sister Dalwat tries to get
him declared incompetent so she will have his large apartment all to
herself. Malak, a partially disabled shirt tailor, uses his
customers’ pity against them. Hatim Rasheed, the desiccated
aristocrat editor of Le Caire, a French Cairo weekly, goes to the gay
bar downstairs and lures men to his room with promises of riches.
When one of his lovers leaves him, he shouts: "You’re just a
barefoot, ignorant Sa’idi. I picked you up from the street, cleaned
you up, and I made you a human being."

Ranging widely around his Cairo, Al Aswany describes the many ways
his characters scrabble against one another in this struggle to be
human. Some of them renounce the living world, like a young man who
is tortured for participating in a political protest. The experience
drives him into the hands of radical Islamic sheikhs, whose Wahhabi
interpretation of Islam is especially unkind to the fleshly urges.

If the novel makes any political point, it is that the restrictions
that such religious and cultural police put upon the bodies of Cairo
residents are just another slight against their humanity. For all the
compromises some of them make, Al Aswany argues that, for poor women
especially, sex gives them a chance to be alive. "They do not love it
simply as a way of quenching lust," writes Al Aswany, "but because
sex, and their husbands’ greed for it, makes them feel that despite
all the misery they suffer they are still women, beautiful and
desired by their menfolk."

Al Aswany can manage these soapbox asides because his narrative style
is digressive, and in confidence. Occasionally it seems as if an
indiscreet superintendent, jangling keys and all, is taking us around
the Yacoubian Building, whispering about secrets hushed up. This
vision of life connects high with low, rich with poor, through shared
vices and needs. The clandestine bars of Cairo attract the powerful
and the weak, for both desire the available women who serve the
drinks.

Cairo — at least the one where Al Aswany is mayor — has a choice:
to pay homage to its cosmopolitan roots and respect its diversity, or
close down and oppress its already suffering populations. Happily,
"The Yacoubian Building" does not attempt to fix these odds by
closing neatly. Some plotlines end abruptly, in tragedy, while others
simply vanish into the noise of the street. As in so many Jane Austen
novels, there is a wedding and a funeral, which bring with them an
appropriate mix of hope and despair. The difference here is this book
has shown us everything — and I mean everything — that has led up
to the wedding night.

John Freeman is president of the National Book Critics Circle.

Panorama.am

16:31 10/08/06

YEREVAN SUPPLIED WITH GAS BY 80 PERCENT

Vardan Harutunyan, head of Yerevan branch of
Hayrusgazard, informed reporters today that 80% of
total population in Yerevan has been supplied with
gas. In his words, 7, 8, 9 Nor Nork districts and the
blocks that did not have gas in the past in South West
District and Avan have not been supplied with gas yet.

Harutunyan said 1 billion dram is needed to supply the
mentioned communities with gas. The company expects to
lay gas pipelines to the mentioned blocks by the end
of the running year. /Panorama.am/

SUSPECT DETAINED OVER ATTACK ON ARMENIAN CULTURE MUSEUM

ITAR-TASS News Agency
August 9, 2006 Wednesday 04:34 AM EST

A person suspected of desecrating the Armenian culture museum in
Rostov-on-Don is detained, a police source told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

The suspect is a 23-year-old local resident who was previously
convicted of robbery. The person, as he confesses, belongs to a group
of skinheads.

The attack on the museum was committed on the night to July 31 this
year. The attackers broke three windows and wrote extremist slogans
on the entrance door and on the asphalt before the door.

An official investigation was launched in connection with the
intentional property damaging.

The investigation and search for accomplices are continuing, the
police source said.

LEBANON’S ARMENIANS NOT AFFECTED BY ISRAELI FIRING

Arka News Agency, Armenia
Aug. 7, 2006

YEREVAN, August 7. /ARKA/. Lebanon’s Armenians have not been affected
by the Israeli firing, Lebanese Ambassador to Armenia Gabriel Zheara
told journalists in Yerevan.

"I state with all the responsibility that none of Armenians residing
in Lebanon became a victim of the firing at Lebanese territories,"
According to Zheara, the Armenian community has not experienced
neither physical, nor material losses during bombardments at Lebanon.

"Probably, this is accounted for by the Lord’s love towards Armenians,"
Zheara said and expressed his joy regarding this.

The Armenian community in Lebanon appeared at the end of the 19th
century. After mass persecutions and the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman
Turkey in 1915, the Armenian community in Lebanon became one of the
most numerous ones in the world. It currently consists of 120,000
people. Armenian school function in the country and three daily
newspapers are published. R.O. -0–

ACCORDING TO CASES INVESTIGATED IN FIRST HALF YEAR,
75 PEOPLE SUBJECTED TO SEXUAL EXPLOITATION

YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, NOYAN TAPAN. 17 criminal cases concerning cases of
trafficking and organization of being engaged in prostitution were
investigated under the jurisdiction of investigation agencies of
Armenia in the first half year of 2006. 15 of them were under the
jurisdiction of the investigation department of the Prosecutor’s
General Office, and 2 (concerning organization of being engaged
in prostitution) were investigated in the investigation department
of the Police of the marz of Lori. 5 of the mentioned 17 criminal
cases relate to trafficking (Article 132 of the RA Criminal Code),
and 12 ones relate to organization of being engaged in prostitution
(Article 262 of the RA Criminal Code). The number of criminal actions
brought on the occasion of the fact of trafficking increased by 2
cases in 2006, compared with the same period of time of 2005. 11 of
the investigated criminal cases, towards 16 people, were sent to the
court, among which 2 cases towards 3 people on the basis of Article
132, 9 cases towards 13 people on the basis of Article 262. On the
cases of crimes of the above-mentioned character, courts did not
return materials of preliminary investigation, did not issue a "not
guilty" verdict, the accuser did not refused the presented accusation,
accusations presented by the preliminary investigating body were not
re-qualified at the courts of first instance. According to criminal
cases existed under the jurisdiction of the investigation bodies
in the first half year of 2006, 75 people were subjected to sexual
exploitation, 71 of who were citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
4 were citizens of other countries. 14 of them were subjected to
sexual exploitation in Armenia, 61 of them – abroad, including 55
people in the United Arab Emirates, 6 in Turkey. During the period
of time under review, 37 people were subjected to administrative
liability for being engaged in prostitution.

ARARAT LA QUETE DE L’ARCHE;

Le Monde, France
03 août 2006

Le mont où Noe est cense avoir echoue etait repute inaccessible par
les Armeniens… jusqu’a son ascension, en 1829, par le docteur von
ParrotLes montagnes magiquesLe mont où Noe est cense avoir echoue
etait repute inaccessible par les Armeniens… jusqu’a son ascension,
en 1829, par le docteur von Parrot

par Charlie Buffet

Aujourd’hui, on dirait que le docteur Friedrich Wilhelm von Parrot
etait alpiniste, mais il est mort trente ans avant que le terme fasse
son apparition (1875), et l’on ne peut donc pas savoir quel nom il
mettait sur cette mauvaise habitude qui consiste a grimper sur des
montagnes jusqu’a ce que mort s’ensuive. On connaît par contre son
alibi : la science.

Fils d’un brillant physicien et theologien allemand qui avait rejoint
la cour du tsar Alexandre Ier, Friedrich Parrot ne se serait pas
autorise a gravir une montagne sans un objectif savant. Specialiste du
" nivellement ", il ne se separait jamais d’un fragile baromètre qui
lui permettait de mesurer avec precision l’altitude. Il etait ainsi
parti explorer et cartographier le Caucase en 1811, a l’âge de 20
ans. Sous le sommet du mont Kasbek (5 047 m), il avait ete arrete
par une tempete de neige. Dans une eclaircie, il avait vu, " très
loin vers le sud, un pic très haut et solitaire – très certainement
la couronne argentee de l’Ararat ". La vision s’etait imprimee dans
son esprit, Parrot l’a raconte dans Voyage vers l’Ararat : a 20 ans,
il esperait se dresser sur la montagne de la Genèse – au nom de la
science, et malgre la croyance de ceux pour qui la presence de l’arche
de Noe rendait le sommet inaccessible.

Les annees suivantes, Parrot avait servi dans l’armee du tsar contre
Napoleon et il etait devenu professeur d’histoire naturelle et de
philosophie a l’universite imperiale de Dorpat, aujourd’hui Tartu,
en Estonie. L’espace d’un ete, il avait traverse les Pyrenees de
l’Atlantique a la Mediterranee, en s’arretant toutes les deux heures
pour relever l’altitude. Le raid avait ete accompli dans un delai
tellement rapide, sept semaines, qu’on imagine que l’aspect sportif
n’etait pas secondaire… Alpinisme ? Edward Peck, qui consacre a
Parrot un bel article dans The Alpine Journal, commente : " Il vivait
avant qu’il devienne a la mode de laisser la joie d’etre en montagne
supplanter les exigences meticuleuses de la science. "

Au debut de 1829, l’occasion de sa vie se presente enfin. Le tsar
Nicolas Ier, quatre ans après son accession au trône, vient d’affronter
les Turcs et de s’assurer le contrôle du mont Ararat, que la Russie
disputait jusqu’alors aux Empires ottoman et perse.

Friedrich Parrot quitte Dorpat, traverse la Russie occidentale de la
Baltique au Caucase a travers la plaine du Don et la steppe kalmouke.

Au debut de l’automne, après un mois et demi de quarantaine
aux portes d’Erevan a cause d’une epidemie de peste, Parrot est
accueilli dans le monastère d’Etchmiadzine par le patriarche de
l’Eglise armenienne. Grâce aux relations privilegiees de son père
avec le tsar, il a pu financer une

veritable expedition qui comprend, outre un attache militaire, quatre
scientifiques : un mineralogiste, un astronome, et deux etudiants en
medecine. Un jeune diacre, Katchadour Abovian, est embauche comme
interprète. Il explique le sens des deux reliques en bois qui leur
sont presentees : l’une serait un morceau de la lance d’un soldat
romain present lors de la crucifixion du Christ, l’autre un fragment
de l’arche de Noe. Selon la legende, cette dernière aurait ete ramenee
par un moine parti mille ans plus tôt vers le sommet du mont Ararat. Le
moine s’etant endormi, un ange lui serait apparu pendant son sommeil
pour lui remettre la pièce de bois et lui expliquer que sa devotion
les avait liberes, lui et ses semblables, de la necessite de gravir
le mont Ararat. Depuis ce jour, les Armeniens considèrent le sommet
sacre comme inaccessible.

Parrot et ses compagnons se dirigent neanmoins vers le versant
nord-ouest de la montagne et franchissent le fleuve Aras – qui
marquera longtemps l’hermetique frontière de l’empire sovietique. Ils
etablissent leur camp de base a 2 400 mètres d’altitude, non loin du
monastère de Saint-Jacob (detruit en 1840 par un seisme), a l’endroit
meme où le prophète Noe est repute avoir plante la première vigne
pour rendre grâce a son Dieu en descendant sain et sauf du sommet
après le Deluge.

Une première tentative les conduit, après une nuit glaciale où l’on
s’emmitoufle dans l’epais papier buvard prevu pour les herbiers,
jusqu’a l’altitude de 4 700 mètres. Les crampons n’existent pas. A
la descente sur la neige dure, Parrot se laisse desequilibrer par
son compagnon. La glissade sur plusieurs dizaines de mètres s’achève
sur les rochers. Les deux hommes sont indemnes, mais le baromètre
est brise. On decide, compte tenu de la superstition entourant le
sommet, qu’aucun membre armenien de l’expedition n’aura connaissance
de la chute.

Parrot n’etant pas du genre a s’avouer vaincu, le baromètre est repare
et un second assaut s’organise. Il y aura cette fois une lourde croix
de bois (la plus grande des deux poutres fait 3,50 mètres de long et
15 centimètres de section), pourvue d’une plaque de plomb, offerte a
Nicolas Ier par le comte Paskevitch d’Erevan, qui vient d’acheter pour
le tsar les terres entourant le mont Ararat. La croix est benie par
l’archimandrite, et ses deux branches sont chargees sur une paire de
boeufs. Trois soldats russes et quatre paysans armeniens sont enrôles
et tirent la croix avec des cordes une fois que les betes ont declare
forfait. La procession s’arrete au pied d’une pyramide de neige où,
ecrit Parrot, " aucun etre humain ne s’est jamais dresse depuis le
temps de Noe ". Le baromètre indique une altitude de 4 900 mètres. La
croix est erigee et la descente decidee, deuxième echec. Pendant une
semaine, tandis que le mauvais temps règne sur le mont Ararat, on se
remet des fatigues au monastère de Saint-Jacob, avec force truites
saumonees et sangliers sauvages chasses par les cosaques.

Enfin, le temps s’eclaircit, un groupe de dix personnes se met en
route pour la troisième tentative. On a fait fabriquer une croix
plus legère, plus petite qu’un homme et de 5 centimètres de section
seulement. Le temps est doux, il neige, tous les Armeniens jeûnent,
certains rebroussent chemin. Le lendemain, 9 octobre 1829 a 15 h 15,
ils sont six a se dresser au sommet, a 5 165 mètres d’altitude.

Parrot jubile : " Ces glaces eternelles dont aucune pierre, aucun
rocher ne brise l’unite, c’est l’austère tete argentee du vieil
Ararat. " L’instant est solennel. Abovian, l’interprète, qui a fait
toute l’ascension le ventre vide et vetu de sa robe d’ecclesiastique,
a pris l’initiative de planter la croix de telle sorte que l’astronome
Federov, reste au monastère, peut effectuer un releve de l’altitude
(il se trompe de 80 mètres). Le soldat Chalpanov, du 41e regiment
de chasseurs, porte son grand uniforme et ses decorations sous sa
cape. Le groupe boit a la sante du patriarche Noe. Le lendemain,
on tire les fusees de la victoire depuis le monastère.

Certes, il n’y a aucune trace de l’arche sur la cime, mais Parrot
laisse une porte ouverte : elle a pu reposer entre les deux sommets
de la montagne ou etre ensevelie sous la glace.

Si les faits sont tetus, la foi peut l’etre plus encore. L’ascension
a ete observee depuis le bas, et elle a six temoins. Mais, bientôt,
le journal de Tiflis qui a publie le recit de Parrot se fait l’echo de
rumeurs. On y affirme (après tout, on le fait depuis un millenaire),
que gravir la montagne sacree est impossible. Indigne, Parrot demande
a tous ses compagnons de temoigner sous serment. Les deux soldats
s’executent sans broncher, mais les paysans armeniens, illettres,
effectuent leur deposition avec l’aide d’un pretre. Elle est redigee
de manière a installer la confusion entre les deux croix et a laisser
entendre que " la raideur de la pente, entièrement en glace vive ",
a empeche le groupe de parvenir au sommet. Un autre villageois, qui
n’a pas participe a la tentative decisive, affirme sous serment que
" l’ascension est impossible a cause du froid qui empeche de respirer
", tandis que " les pentes de glace vive s’elèvent comme des murs ".

Le jeune diacre Katchadour Abovian, quant a lui, a probablement
temoigne de vive voix en faveur du scientifique allemand. Parrot,
en effet, l’a parraine pour qu’il vienne etudier a ses côtes a Dorpat.

Il y a vecu plusieurs annees, s’impregnant de culture russe, avant
de revenir a Tbilissi pour enseigner. Choque par la mainmise russe
sur son pays a partir de 1840, il a pris la plume. Avec son roman Les
Blessures de l’Armenie, il est considere comme l’un des pères de la
litterature armenienne moderne.

Il est une chose que Friedrich Parrot avait bien comprise, c’est ce
que sa " non-decouverte " au sommet avait d’insupportable : " Tous
les Armeniens sont fermement convaincus que l’arche de Noe reste a
ce jour au sommet d’Ararat ", ecrira-t-il. Et il comprenait ainsi
l’interdiction faite a quiconque de s’en approcher. Il fallait que
la croyance puisse survivre.

Le mont Ararat, berceau de l’arche de Noe : l’image est trop belle pour
se laisser detrôner par un simple constat de visu. En ete, ses neiges
eternelles vibrant dans l’air brûlant de la plaine rappellent qu’il
tutoie les couches froides de l’atmosphère, celles où nous placons
volontiers nos dieux. Tel le zouave du pont de l’Alma revelant les
crues de la Seine, il temoigne de la hauteur du Deluge, auquel Noe,
sa famille (donc nous) et quelques espèces choisies survecurent il
y a quatre mille a cinq mille ans.

C’est un cône parfait, borne-frontière Orient-Occident sur la route
des Indes, veillant, au-dela du jeune Euphrate, sur la Mesopotamie
et les origines de la civilisation. Ses courbes de niveau dessinent
sur la carte des cercles concentriques, comme la pierre plongee dans
l’eau, comme le souvenir de troubles anciens ou l’annonce de ceux a
venir : emblème armenien amarre en territoire turc, le volcan endormi
n’est paisible qu’en apparence. Pleure par l’Armenie au nord, le mont
Ararat domine au sud des ruines d’eglises et des villages kurdes où
patrouillent des soldats turcs a cran. L’ascension n’est autorisee
qu’episodiquement, depuis 1982, et un guide turc publie dans les
annees 1990 annoncait la couleur : " Notez categoriquement que seule
la route sud est autorisee. Les cordees s’eloignant vers d’autres
voies s’exposent aux tirs sans sommation des patrouilles militaires.

" Dogubayazit, l’ephemère station alpine du mont Ararat, au sud, a vu
toutes ses agences de trek fermer boutique après dix ans d’interdiction
totale. Trop facile pour attirer beaucoup d’alpinistes, le mont Ararat
est a l’epicentre d’une region trop instable pour etre investie par
les tours-operateurs. Mais il est d’autres touristes qui suffiraient
presque a lui assurer un fonds de roulement : la confrerie des
chercheurs de l’arche perdue.

Pour certains chretiens, en effet, retrouver l’arche est devenu une
obsession. (Les juifs n’y songent pas et les musulmans imaginent
plutôt que l’arche de Nuh, l’un des cinq principaux prophètes
de l’islam, s’est echouee sur le mont Djudi, près de Mossoul –
sourate 11). Depuis qu’en 1916 un aviateur russe a repere une forme
de coque près du sommet, on a beaucoup scrute la calotte glaciaire,
bien retrecie ces dernières annees. Un alpiniste espagnol a trouve
une pièce de bois dans une crevasse en 1952 ; l’astronaute americain
James Irwin a cru a l’impossible, puisqu’il avait marche sur la
Lune, mais ses deux expeditions de recherche, dans les annees 1980,
n’ont eu aucun succès. Un aventurier anglais a reussi a attirer
des touristes credules vers une formation rocheuse naturelle au sud
de la montagne qui ressemblait vaguement a un bateau fossilise. En
2004, un homme d’affaires d’Honolulu, Daniel McGivern, a achete des
images satellites du sommet et annonce qu’il etait pret a mettre
1 million de dollars dans un projet d’expedition pour explorer l’"
anomalie d’Ararat ", une tache sombre sous la glace près du sommet –
qui s’est revelee etre une simple tache de glace sombre. A eux tous,
ils n’auront pas demontre grand-chose, sinon peut-etre que la science
ne peut rien pour la religion.

En 1877, James Bryce a reussi en solitaire la troisième ascension du
mont Ararat. Il a ramene du sommet un fragment de poutre en bois qui,
dans ses mains, n’etait autre qu’un vestige de l’arche de Noe. Selon
toute probabilite, il provenait d’une des deux croix montees un
demi-siècle plus tôt par l’expedition de Friedrich Parrot.

Charlie Buffet

A lire : La Genèse.Où est la terre des promesses ? d’Annemarie
Schwarzenbach (Payot/Voyageurs), pour la beaute desenchantee des
descriptions.

–Boundary_(ID_nd0Cek02WQNTsVF8 AK2Qsg)–

Turk-Israeli Friendship Group on verge of dissolution

ArmRadio.am
03.08.2006 14:43

The Turkish-Israeli Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group has come to
the brink of dissolution, with members resigning one by one in protest
of Israel’s military assaults in Palestinian territories and Lebanon,
Turkish Daily News reported.

Opposition Motherland Party (ANAVATAN) Hatay deputy Zuheyir Amber
resigned from the 263-member parliamentary group yesterday, bringing
the number of deputies who have stepped down from the group to
25. Amber, who is also deputy leader of ANAVATAN, applied to the
Parliamentary Speaker’s Office yesterday to submit his resignation.

"It is not possible to accept what Israel has done. … I condemn
Israel and resign from the friendship group," Amber said in
his resignation. Amber also said he believed that international
friendship groups played effective roles in contributing to peace,
human rights and respect

"I had earlier said I would not resign from the Turkish-Israeli
Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group as I thought it would be healthier
to prevent what was being done by remaining within the group," he said.
Amber said Israel’s non-stop attacks targeting unprotected civilians
and children without recognizing the law and without any respect for
human rights caused him to change his mind.

"The merciless killing of almost 60 innocent civilians and children
in the [southern Lebanese] town of Qana was the last straw," he said,
noting that the bombing of Lebanon’s fuel stores and petrol stations
by Israel had caused an environmental disaster that could spread to the
Mediterranean."Those facts caused me to resign from the Turkish-Israeli
Friendship Group," he said.

City News Service
July 26, 2006 Wednesday 5:11 PM PST

Man Arrested in Armenia Ordered to Stand Trial on Murder Charge

VAN NUYS

A man returned last year from his native Armenia was ordered today to
stand trial for murder.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Meredith Taylor found sufficient
evidence to require Akop Akopyan, 33, to stand trial for the Sept. 4,
2000, slaying of Garnik Madoyan in North Hollywood.

Akopyan allegedly argued with the victim before shooting him and
fleeing in a white Jeep Cherokee driven by someone else.

Akopyan was arrested last Aug. 12 in Yerevan and turned over to the
FBI last November.

He is due back in court Aug. 9 for arraignment.

Now Margaryan wants Court to block Inquiry

Capital FM, Kenya
July 27, 2006

By Rob Jillo/Maryanne Mbogo

Controversial Armenian Artur Margaryan has now gone to court seeking
to have the Kiruki Commission of Inquiry stopped from conducting
its proceedings.

Through lawyer Oscar Avedi, Margaryan complains that the Commission
has denied him legal representation despite being adversely mentioned
in the hearings.

He also wants the court to declare the previous proceedings null and
void and compel the commissioners to allow a lawyer to subsequently
represent him.

Constitutional judge Roslyne Wendoh has now directed his lawyer to
serve the commission with the suit papers so that the case can be
heard in the presence of all parties on Wednesday next week.

The Kiruki commission was appointed in June and had been expected to
conclude its sittings next week.

Meanwhile, police today came under sharp criticism for conducting
haphazard and unprofessional investigations into the Artur brothers.

Lawyer Jane Ondieki who is representing suspended CID director Joseph
Kamau accused the police of mishandling the items that were recovered
from the Armenians’ Runda Residence.

She questioned Head of the Special Crimes Prevention Unit Richard
Katola, why they did not secure the scenes from which evidence was
gathered as is required by procedure.

Ondieki: Were you wearing gloves when you opened these vehicles?

Katola: No, my Lords

Ondieki: Did you consider it necessary to have scenes of crime personel
dust these items for fingerprints before you trumpled all over them?

Katola: No

Earlier, Jiwan Yusuf whose company transported 2 containers to the
Kensington Holdings warehouse in Nairobi told the inquiry that he
has since been unable to trace the people who hired him to do the job.

"After transporting he told me to wait for the payment. But after a
month, I went to the office and found no office, they had relocated,"
he said.

Hearing continues.

Armenia air crash blamed on crew

BBC NEWS:
europe/5216210.stm

Investigators examining what caused an Armenian airliner to crash
with the loss of all 113 people on board have blamed pilot error.

The Armavia A320 Airbus plunged into the Black Sea on 3 May as it
tried to land near the Russian city of Sochi.

"The human factor in bad weather played a role," Russian Transport
Minister Igor Levitin said.

Investigators said the crew lost control of the plane during the
descent and were unable to regain altitude.

Most of the victims were Armenian, but there were also 26 Russian
citizens. Among those on board were six children.

‘Lost control’

Mr Levitin was speaking in Moscow to announce the results of an enquiry
into the crash held by the Russian government and investigators from
Armenia and France.

Tatyana Anodina, head of the inter-governmental committee that took
part in the enquiry, said that during the descent the captain "did
not ensure control of the plane as far as angle and altitude were
concerned," according to Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency.

Ms Anodina said that the co-pilot also failed to "ensure necessary
control".

She added that an alarm system had gone off as the plane was plunging
but it was too late to regain altitude.

The investigators said that there had been no engine failure or
fuel shortage.

The A320 crashed at about 0215 (2215 GMT) as it made a second attempt
to land at Adler airport, just outside Sochi.

It was initially refused permission to land because of poor weather.

The plane reportedly hit the sea at an angle of 60 degrees, six
kilometres (four miles) from the coast.

Armavia said the plane was in good condition and that the crew were
experienced. The Airbus was manufactured in 1995.