Author: Jagharian Tania

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
April 6 2004
MEETING WITH US EMBASSY OFFICIALS AT SPAA
[April 06, 2004, 18:39:15]
The meeting with chief of department of the U.S. embassy to
Azerbaijan Mrs. Caryn McClelland has been held at the State Public
Administration Academy / SPAA / under the President of Azerbaijan.
Addressing the meeting dealing with U.S-Azerbaijan relations, Rector
of the academy, honored worker of science, Prof. Seyfaddin Gandilov
told of the work done towards development of ties between the two
countries. At the same time, he updated the audience on the efforts
to apply the international experience in public administration.
Mrs. Caryn McClelland has highly rated Heydar Aliyev’s political
course now continued by President Ilham Aliyev in relation to
settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to her, as a member of the OSCE Minsk Group USA will
further support the peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Finally, the guest responded to questions from the participants.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 27, 2004 Saturday
US diplomat says Caucasus may be America’s good partner
By Viktor Shulman, Sevindj Abdullayeva
BAKU
Countries of the Caucasus may become good partners of the U.S. once
they eliminate the conflicts smoldering in this region, Richard
Armitage, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, said here Saturday when
meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
He stressed the Americans’ support to a peaceful solution of the
Karabakh conflict.
Armitage thanked the Azerbaijani government for supporting the U.S.
war on international terrorism and for the courage that Azerbaijani
peacekeepers were displaying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
President Aliyev pointed out the high level of Azerbaijan’s
cooperation with the U.S., saying a number of large-scale energy
projects, like the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline would have been
unfeasible without U.S. assistance.
He also underlined the high level of military cooperation and said it
would continue developing.
As he mentioned the problems of regional security, Aliyev said the
Azerbaijanis hoped that the Minsk group of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which the U.S. is a
co-founder, would play a good role in the solution of the Karabakh
conflict between the Azerbaijanis and ethnic Armenians that has been
dragging on since 1988.

CIS security chief due in Kyrgyzstan around 29 March
Kyrgyz Radio first programme, Bishkek
27 Mar 04
Secretary-General of the CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization;
members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Russia Nikolay Bordyuzha will come to Bishkek on a working visit early
next week.
He is expected to meet Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev, Kyrgyz
Security Council Secretary Misir Ashirkulov, and the heads of the
Interior Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry and the
Drugs Control Agency as part of the visit.
Preparations for the forthcoming session of the CSTO and the
coordination of efforts aimed at ensuring stability and security in
the CSTO area will be discussed at the meetings.

Glendale News Press
LATimes.com
March 25 2004
THE LANGUAGE OF LEARNING
>From ‘silent’ to savvy

Immigrant students must absorb a lot of new language quickly in order
to beat the graduation clock.
By Gary Moskowitz, News-Press
GLENDALE – After living most of her life in Iran, Larisa Malek
Aghakhan moved to Glendale about six months ago with exceptional
language skills in Armenian and Persian but little knowledge of
English.
With just six months to prepare, the Hoover High School sophomore
recently took the California High School Exit Exam, because by state
law, she had to. She doesn’t know how she did.
Although the California Department of Education recently agreed to
postpone the exam as a graduation requirement for high school
students, the test will be reinstated as a graduation requirement
beginning with the Class of 2006 – Larisa’s graduation year.
“The test is scary,” said Larisa, 16. “I know I need it to graduate,
so I’m hoping next year I can pass it, because I don’t think I had
enough time this year. I’ve learned many words and have a vocabulary
now. I know if I keep trying, I will make the test. I know it’s good
for my future, because I want to go to college.”
INSIDE THE CLASS
Throughout the year, the school district admits students like Larisa,
who, for various reasons, have moved to the country in the middle of
a school year.
The district by law must provide each of those students with a fair
shot at a high school diploma. The district’s Intercultural Education
Department operates the district’s English Language Development
program, which helps students like Larisa become proficient in
English.
Larisa spends about two hours a day in her English Language
Development class at Hoover High School, during which she and other
English-language learners speak, write, read, draw, watch television
shows and films, and even sing songs to improve their English skills.
Larisa takes notes in her daily journal while watching movies like
“Gone with the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz,” describing what she sees
and what people are saying.
She often exchanges notes with hand-drawn pictures about prepositions
like “inside,” “around” and “near” with classmate Juan Herrera, who
moved to Glendale six months ago from Mexico.
Although Juan is much more comfortable speaking in Spanish, he can
have lengthy conversations with Larisa about topics discussed in
class, like American currency, freedom of religion and what the
lyrics of songs like “God Bless America” mean.
Juan’s English Language Development journal has fictional written
passages based on pictures he has cut out of magazines. His teacher,
Cynthia Oei, reviews all journal entries.
“I feel good because I’ve learned so much in so little time,” said
Juan, 17. “My first week, I understood nothing, but a month later I
started to understand more words. I’ll have to take finals soon, and
I think I will make the [final exam].”
‘WHEN I SEE THEM, I SEE ME’
Oei’s favorite part of teaching English-language learners is finding
common things that a group of students from different countries can
share a laugh over.
Oei, whose grandfather was Chinese, was raised in a household where
Dutch was the primary language. She teaches English-language
learners, ninth-grade English and creative writing at Hoover.
Colleagues often ask Oei if she misses teaching more “intellectual”
classes like Advanced Placement courses, but her response is always a
resounding no.
“ELD is my favorite thing to do,” Oei said. “To me, it’s exciting and
really fulfilling to help people who have left everything they know
behind. They’ve lost physical things like pets and their favorite
objects they couldn’t fit in a suitcase. We give them a new home and
begin to create a situation where they belong.
“I spoke Dutch before I spoke English. When I see them, I see me,
over and over again. I was born in the States, but spoke Dutch at
home and spoke English with friends, and my clothes were not like
other kids’. Our school is bigger than some of the villages these
kids came from,” Oei said.
The long-term effects of removing an English learner from the
English-language learner program is difficult to assess early on, but
research shows that removing students can be detrimental to their
long-term learning, said Mary Mason, principal at Keppel Elementary
School. Mason is a former ELD teacher.
“Some of what happens by pulling them out [of ELD] doesn’t play out
for several years,” Mason said. “You’d have to track them and see
three years down the road how they are doing. But what we know from
research is that it takes [English learners] five to seven years to
catch up to their peers. The regular curriculum doesn’t stop for
them, and grade-level standards don’t change. The kids have to
accelerate as fast as possible to catch up. That’s why we have the
ELD program, to try to give them access to the core curriculum.”
Jennifer Romeo teaches kindergarten classes at Columbus Elementary
School, where 68% of the students are English-language learners. Many
of Romeo’s students come to her with little or no English skills.
“Many of them go through a silent stage at first,” Romeo said. “We
know they are taking it all in, but they don’t say much. Luckily, we
have educational assistants who help translate, and the students’
peers help out a lot. They are like little sponges, and it’s amazing
what they pick up.
“Our major goal is to provide them with their first learning
experience and make it fun, and to let them know school is a fun
place to come. I definitely believe in that. Start them off on a
positive note. The most challenging part is that we have kids of
multiple levels of learning in every class. Everyone is not on the
same level,” Romeo said.
PARENT EDUCATION IS CRUCIAL
Columbus Principal Kelly King said the greatest gift immigrant
parents can give their child is a solid foundation in their primary
language. The second best thing they can do is get involved and stay
involved.
“With 68% of our kids in ELD, I would be happier if all of those
parents actually knew what ELD means,” King said. “We have very few
who take the next step by getting involved.
“It’s hard, because many parents are not familiar with the school
system. We have parents come in and say, ‘My son is in ELD and I want
him out.’ But that is an educational opportunity for us, really, to
explain everything to them so they can make an educated decision.
“There is a fear that the ELD kid is missing out on something
instructionally, but actually, it’s the opposite. We have an
obligation to help them meet state standards, so it wouldn’t do us
any good as a school not to do everything we can to meet that goal,”
King said.
Daily High School Principal Gail Rosental and her staff started a
two-week orientation program for incoming students and parents in
2000, because they had noticed that students and their parents – many
of them not fluent English speakers – did not how the school or the
district operated.
The orientation process begins with a three-hour student and parent
meeting that explains how students earn class credit; the school’s
tardiness, dress code and discipline policies; and how parents can be
involved and contact the school.
During the remaining time, students come to campus for four hours a
day to discuss goal-setting, anger management, reading and writing
assessments, how to assess their learning styles and learn their
teacher’s teaching styles, career assessments and alcohol awareness,
Rosental said. All of the information is translated into Armenian,
Korean, Spanish and other requested languages.
Rosental said the orientation program has yielded “amazing” results.
“We noticed that when kids came here, they didn’t feel connected, and
parents didn’t know how we operated, what they could expect from us
and what we expected from them,” Rosental said. “We have found that
parents are more than willing to come and really eager to support
their kids, if we just reach out to them.
“Many come to us with a preconceived notion that Daily is a dangerous
place, so what we want to communicate is that we know what we’re
doing, we are safe and we are happy to be here every day. If they
trust us and believe in what we’re telling them, they are going to
come out successful,” Rosental said.

Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA
March 21 2004
Habitat planning trip to Armenia
Habitat for Humanity Santa Cruz County is gathering a group that will
build homes for low-income families in Armenia from May 22 to June 5.
Larissa Printzian of the nonprofit group is recruiting 10 people for
the trip. Participants pay their own way, many by seeking donations.
Many Armenia families have been living in metal containers, called
domiks, since 1988, when they were brought to the country as part of
the relief effort after the 1988 earthquake, Printzian said. The
domiks are hot in the summer and provide little shelter from cold
during winter months, she said.
For information call 685-0671 or e-mail [email protected].

Mar 22, 2004, 05:59
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Armenians and Tibetans, two peoples who “share the same fate,” banded together last Friday in a gesture of solidarity.
“The noble Tibetan people are also victims of injustice and a cultural genocide to this day, while the rest of the world looks on,” said Azad Chichmanian, a member of the Ad Hoc Armenian Committee in Support of Tibet-China Negotiations. Like Armenia, Tibet is a “small but proud nation, working hard to gain recognition for crimes against humanity,” he added.
Chichmanian said that a group of Armenians “saw an opportunity to contribute in a positive way and help.” The Ad Hoc Committee joined forces with Armenian student associations from Concordia, McGill and Université de Montréal to host an information night at UdeM.
“It means so much to the Tibetan community,” said Thubten Samdup, national president of the Canada-Tibet Committee. “It has been played up on the Tibetan radio, in the newspapers. We feel like we’re not alone.”
Addressing the small crowd, Samdup said pressuring the Prime Minister’s office to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a key issue. He will be visiting the nation’s capital on April 24, which happens to coincide with the day Armenians will be commemorating the Armenian Genocide.
The Canada-Tibet Committee is not asking the federal government to take a firm position on the matter, but simply to broker dialogue between the leaders, Samdup said.
“We’re not going to beg for a photo-op with the Dalai Lama, we want something tangible,” he explained. Human rights are the cornerstone of Canadian policy, he said, and our nation is in a unique position to take this leadership role.
For Samdup, it is a matter of preserving Tibet’s identity. “I definitely don’t want to sit back and be a witness to my culture and people being wiped out.”
Following the Canada Tibet Connittee president’s address, the Ad Hoc group encouraged audience members to sign letters for their MPs, asking them to support Canada-Tibet negotiations. “The message is, we don’t want this repeated. We’ll stand shoulder to shoulder [with Tibetans],” Viken Attarian, a member of the Armenian group, said.
As of yet, 137 of 298 members of parliament have signed on and expressed support for the initiative. Samdup contends that if a majority of representatives are sympathetic to their cause, Prime Minister Paul Martin will have to consider taking action. “If China’s going to listen to anyone, it might be Canada.”

Agence France Presse
March 19, 2004 Friday 9:25 AM Eastern Time
Armenia files protest over British refusal to recognize ‘genocide’
MOSCOW
Armenia said on Friday that it had lodged an official protest after
Britain’s ambassador denied that “genocide” was committed when the
Ottoman Empire killed up 1.5 million Armenians, according to
Armenia’s count, at the end of World War I.
The issue of whether various nations recognize that “genocide” was
committed is one of the most sensitive in Armenia.
The episode also remains one of the most controversial in Turkish
history. Turkey recognizes that 300,000 Armenians had died along with
a large number of Turks at the end of the war.
“We regret the position,” taken by British ambassador Thorda
Abbott-Watt, foreign ministry spokesman Hamlet Gasparyan told AFP.
“Every country has a right to make up its own mind on this, based on
their own strategic interests. But on Armenian soil, the ambassadors
have to be more sensitive and delicate.”
Abbott-Watt recently told the California Courier, an English-language
weekly run by the Armenian diaspora in the United States, that “the
British government had condemned the massacre as an atrocity at the
time.
“But the evidence was not sufficiently unequivocal that what took
place could be categorized as genocide under the 1948 United Nations
Convention on Genocide.”
She added that Armenia and Turkey had to “look into the future” and
stop squabbling over the one word.
One Armenian newspaper ran a series of letters from its readers
demanding that the British ambassador make a public apology for her
remarks.

A1 Plus | 16:25:27 | 17-03-2004 | Official |
LABORATORY TO THE MINISTRY
At the first meeting of the Armenian National Intersectorial Coordinating
Board of National Health Programs, Mr. Peter Krakolinig, Head of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Armenia, announced that
the National TB Reference Laboratory (NRL) had been handed over from the
ICRC to the Ministry of Health (MoH).
Under the terms of the agreement – which came into force on March 4, 2004 –
the building, equipment and all consumable materials that had been supplied
by the ICRC during the previous 2-year period, were donated to the MoH.
The NRL, located within the premises of the Abovyan State Anti-Tuberculosis
Dispensary of the Ministry of Health, was built in 2001 with the funding and
technical assistance provided by the ICRC. It has been fully operational
since March 2002 and serves both civilian and detained TB patients.
The ICRC will continue to support the activities of the NRL by organizing
extensive training programs for staff members with the aim of strengthening
the laboratory’s capacity for all diagnostic procedures related to
tuberculosis.
—

Azeri leader, OSCE chairman discuss Karabakh conflict
Azerbaijani TV Channel One, Baku
16 Mar 04

[Presenter] President Ilham Aliyev today received the visiting OSCE
chairman-in-office and Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Solomon
Passi. They exchanged views on Azerbaijan’s closer integration into
European organizations. Aliyev regretted that there was still no
progress in the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group which is tasked with
resolving the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagornyy
Karabakh.
[Correspondent over video of the meeting] Aliyev and Passi met in
private first. They discussed Azerbaijan’s relations with the OSCE and
closer integration into other European organizations. Aliyev talked
about the political and economic reforms that are under way in
Azerbaijan. The social policy will continue, he said.
Aliyev told Passi that the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict between Armenia
and Azerbaijan remained unresolved. It is essential that the
international community should take more effective steps to resolve
the conflict, Aliyev said. It is possible to resolve the conflict
within international legal norms, Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity
and the return of Azerbaijani refugees to their native lands, he said.
Passi said that he highly rates Azerbaijan’s commitment to European
values. The world welcomes Azerbaijan’s course of integration and
democratic reforms. The European organizations understand the
importance of solving the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict between Armenia
and Azerbaijan for a lasting peace in the region. He said that he will
discuss ways to resolve the conflict during his upcoming visit to
Armenia.
The meeting between Aliyev and Passi continued in a broader
format. During the conversation, Aliyev said that Azerbaijan will
continue its policy of integration into international bodies. He
especially noted all the achievements Azerbaijan has made in every
sphere of life. Building a democratic society is Azerbaijan’s
strategic line, he said.
Aliyev once again drew Passi’s attention to the fact that the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict still remained unresolved. Armenia’s nonconstructive
position is a threat to regional stability and stable development,
Aliyev said.
[Aliyev in Azeri] Unfortunately, due to Armenia’s nonconstructive
stance, the Armenian armed forces are unwilling to withdraw from the
occupied territories. Thus, this creates a big threat to the region as
a whole. In order to resolve the conflict, the principles of
international law have to be observed first of all. Only on the basis
of those principles, can the conflict be resolved, and the essence of
that is in ensuring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, in
withdrawing the Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories
and returning refugees and internally displaced people to their native
lands.
We hope that the OSCE and its Minsk Group will continue their efforts,
and that the conflict will be soon resolved in a fair way and in
accordance with the principles of international law.
[Correspondent] Passi congratulated Aliyev on his election as
Azerbaijan’s president and on success in his work. I am visiting Baku
with pleasure, he said, respectfully noting that Azerbaijan has rich
history and cultural heritage.
Speaking about integration into Europe, Passi said that Azerbaijan’s
achievements in this regard are visible. The integration of Azerbaijan
and Bulgaria into the Euro-Atlantic community is becoming a reality,
he said. He is certain that closer integration will intensify in the
Black Sea basin and in the Caucasus. All possible assistance will be
rendered to Azerbaijan in every area, Passi said.
The Nagornyy Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a
truly serious problem. All we can do to resolve the conflict is to
speed up the talks, he said. Passi thanked Aliyev for his constructive
position and said that he will talk about his impressions in Yerevan.

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
March 17 2004
Minsk group will present new proposals for Karabakh at meeting of FMs
Baku Today 17/03/2004 12:47
Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers will meet in Prague by the
end of March according to Turan News Agency.
OSCE Minsk group chairmen are to present new proposals for peaceful
settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, according to the 525th newspaper.
The timing of the meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents
is still to be arranged, said Trend News Agency.