Author: Jalatian Sonya

ARMENIA INTERESTED IN RUSSIA INFLUENCE IN REGION – MINISTER

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
May 10, 2007 Thursday 11:15 AM EST

Armenia is not interested in the decrease of Russia’s influence in the
region, Armenian Justice Minister David Arutyunyan said on Thursday.

"As Armenia is interested in stability in the region, the lessening of
influence or the withdrawal of Russia will have a negative influence"
and "will shift the balance, which will result in the escalation
of tension in the region," the minister noted at a conferece on
Russian-Armenian relations and Armenian foreign policy before and
after the elections.

"We consider issues of our own security and link them with Russia’s
presence in the region," he stressed at the conference, organized by
the Institute for CIS Studies (Moscow) with support of the Armenian
government.

According to Arutyunyan, the membership of Armenia and Russia in the
Collective Security Treaty Organization "is a qualitatively new level
of relations between our countries".

He believes interest in the South Caucasus has sharply grown at the
present time, and such players as the USA, NATO, the European Union
and Russia, have marked their presence there. "Although interests of
most sides in the region coincide as far as stability is concerned,
many of them have different means of achieving it," he stressed.

In particular, "each of these forces, in particular the USA, NATO and
Russia, believe their dominant presence in the region is a guarantee
of stability," he noted.

According to Arutyunyan, "synchronization of interests of different
countries in the region can be achieved through the development of
infrastructure, which would make it possible to involve all countries
of the region and make them interdependent".

TOGETHER WE WILL BE GUARANTORS AND WE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE

Azat Artsakh Daily, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]
09 May 07

Mr. Sahakian, four leading parties of the republic made a statement
after consultations that they will support you. What is your thoughts
on this unprecedented event in the home political life? "Frankly
speaking, I am glad that new politicians were nominated for the
post of president. It is evidence that there is every possibility
in NKR to hold a free, fair and transparent election on July
19 to ensure pluralism and competition of ideas and approaches,
therefore, the statement of the four parties to support me does not
drain the attitude of the political sphere and the public towards the
presidential election. I think by the end of the period of registration
of candidates the full picture of the future race will have become
visible, so it appears that the evaluation of the unprecedented event
in the home political life does not describe the moment fully. On the
other hand, in fact, the four parliament parties stated to support
me as a single presidential candidate. They made this decision after
reaching agreement on the principles of the foreign and internal
policies of NKR for the upcoming years. It means I commit to this
principles.

This unity at the moment is a guarantee of a free, fair and transparent
election, and in the future, if we get the confidence of the voters,
it will become responsibility. I believe that together we will be
guarantors and we will be responsible."

AZERBAIJAN NOT AFRAID OF UEFA SANCTIONS: AFFA PRESIDENT

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
May 8 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku / corr. Trend I.Alizade / The President of Association
of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA), Ramiz Mirzayev, said
that Azerbaijan is not afraid of UEFA sanctions.

"Our position on the meeting of the national teams of Azerbaijan and
Georgian remains unchanged. As previously, we do not refuse to hold
meetings. However, the meetings should be conducted in a neutral
stadium in a third country territory. We are ready to play against
Armenia in any country," Mirzayev said.

The AFFA President stated that as countries which meet the requirements
of both countries, Azerbaijan put forward the candidatures of Ukraine,
Austria and Switzerland. According to him, the UEFA Executive Committee
will reconsider this issue and make a decision in June. "The FIFA
congress will take place at the end of May, during which time the
UEFA will make a decision on the place and date of the meeting of
UEFA Executive Committee," Mirzayev said.

He stressed that the Armenian side also does not want to change its
position on this issue and wishes to come to Baku. However, this
does not mean that Armenia can play in Azerbaijan. The AFFA President
said that Armenia understands this very well and is simply trying to
obtain a negative response from Azerbaijan, which may cause sanctions
by the international organizations, he added.

"We give priority to national and State interests. We are ready to
receive any sanctions because release of occupied Azerbaijani land
and returning the internally displaced persons to their native land
is more important than football for us," AFFA President underlined.

Two meetings are expected to take place between the national football
teams of Armenia and Azerbaijan during the selection tournament of 2008
European Championship. Azerbaijan insists on conducting the meeting
in a neutral country, but the Armenian is insisting on Yerevan or
Baku. The final decision on this issue should be made by the AFFA
Executive Committee.

CYPRUS ARMENIANS ALLOWED TO RETURN TO MONASTERY AFTER 33 YEARS

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
May 6, 2007 Sunday 6:18 PM EST

Nicosia

Two hundred Armenians returned to the abandoned medieval monastery of
Saint Magar in the Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus Sunday,
where prayers were said for the first time in 33 years.

The pilgrims, most of whom used to spend holidays at the monastery
until the Turkish invasion in 1974, travelled in a convoy of five
buses escorted by a United Nations patrol and Turkish Cypriot police.

But despite the anticipation of return, the enthusiasm of many was
dashed by the poor state of the church and the destruction of all
inscriptions by prospective developers who had earlier set their
sights on transforming the monastery to a casino.

The looting of the site since the war that divided the island, had
also taken its toll on the buildings, many of which had no roof and
could fall within a few years, some bystanders said.

Archbishop Varoujan Hergelian led those present in a prayer of grace,
Hayr Mer in Armenian, while some had brought candles with them

to mark the holy day of the monastery’s saint, a Coptic recluse who
had lived in the caves below the present site of the monastery in
the 12th century.

"I held service and performed my last christening here in 1973,"
added Hergelian, who had travelled in civilian clothes so as not to
incite any reaction from Islamists or Turkish nationalists living in
nearby villages.

"It is in a tragic condition," he said, adding that the baptismal was
totally defaced from his last visit to the derelict monastery three
years ago.

But reconstruction of the monastery dating back to 1642 is highly
unlikely. The UN must ask the Turkish forces for permission since the

buildings and the 9,000-acre estate of olive, citrus and carob trees
that leads down to the northern sea shore, lies within a military
zone and near a Turkish Army camp in the Kyrenia mountain range.

"We only managed to halt the plans for development by the
intervention of the Vatican," said the Armenian deputy in the House
of Representatives, Vartkes Mahdessian, who had organized the trip.

Previous members of the Cypriot parliament had sought the intervention
of the Council of Europe when Turkish Cypriot developers

allegedly won the privatization license for the land and advertised
plans for a casino, hotel and leisure cafeterias.

"I will try to organise a similar pilgrimage next year as well, as
we must remind ourselves of our heritage before the older generations
start to disappear, the MP said.

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
May 6 2007

Searches held in apartments of 2 oppositionists in Armenia

06.05.2007, 03.55

YEREVAN, May 6 (Itar-Tass) – Armenia’s National Security Service has
held many-hours-long searches in the offices and apartments of two
major oppositionists – former deputy prime minister Vagan Shirkhanian
and former foreign minister Alexander Arzumanian.

Both men are cofounders of the Civic Disobedience movement and they
abstain from the parliamentary election scheduled for May 12.

Armenia’s law enforcement agencies did not make any comments on the
situation by the time of reporting.

"COUNTRY IS THREATENED WITHOUT LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT"

A1+
[06:48 pm] 04 May, 2007

The Republic Party, the New Times and the Impeachment Alliance held
their first joint meeting on May 3. They addressed a joint message
to Armenian citizens. "The regime which seized power through
falsification, coercion and fraud has shattered the foundation
of the Ar menian state, turned Armenia, a dignified member of
the international community, into a subject of mockery, and led
the Nagorno-Karabakh issue into a prostrating deadlock. Citizens’
rights of independent state are shortened in the republic, a whole
generation is demoralized and perverted," runs the joint message.

The three political forces, the authors of the message, state that
their goal of running in the election on May 12 is to impeach Robert
Kocharyan and his administration. "Despite the difference in our
programs and outlooks, we came together to solve the primary problem
of forming a legitimate government," state the Republic Party, the
New Times Party and the Impeachment Alliance. For instance, they
consider a legitimate government as the only chance for the country
to develop. They say the country and people are threatened without
a legitimate government.

"The election campaign of the Republic Party, the New Times Party and
the Impeachment Alliance made sure that these goals have considerable
support of all the layers of the public. In other words, if the outcome
of the parliamentary election is not distorted and turned upside down,
we will be parliament majority and impeach the president," runs the
joint message of the three forces. Together they urge the citizens of
Armenia to support the Republic Party, the New Times Party and the
Impeachment Alliance in the election of May 12 with natural desire
and determination to live a free and dignified life. The message was
signed by Nikol Pashinyan (Impeachment Alliance), Aram Zaven Sargsyan
(Republic Party) and Aram Karapetyan (New Times Party).

"HORROR FILMS" WILL ACCOMPANY MAY 12 ELECTIONS

A1+
[05:31 pm] 04 May, 2007

"The population want to see honest and decent people in the Parliament
without any nicknames," says the former Ombudsman Larissa Alaverdyan,
who is on the Heritage Party majority list for the upcoming elections.

It is supposed that May 12 elections will be faked according to the
violations registered by the party, particularly Larissa Alaverdyan is
concerned about the atmosphere of fear and ignorance in rural places.

Voters even have declared which candidate or party they are going
to vote. The most striking is that residents of big towns are also
subjected to psychological abuse.

Ms Alaverdyan envisages that the election day will be accompanied with
horror scenes and "dead people in line with live ones" will participate
in the elections. "We receive the data of pre-election violations on
daily bases. The Heritage Party considers these violations were not
coordinated and systematized by the Government. Besides, there are
inaccuracies in the electoral rolls."

The Heritage Party doesn’t trust the figures introduced by sociological
centers. "According to Aharon Adibekyan only the Bargavach Hayastan
and the Republican parties will forge the upcoming elections as only
these two parties have electorate," says Larissa Alaverdyan.

Larissa Alaverdyan stated that the Armenian mass media’s role in
democracy building processes is more vivid and actual than that of
non-government organizations. "NGOs are scared to a special extent.

Mass media is more active in the pre-election period.

Anyway, the Central Electoral Commission and the RoA Prosecutor’s
Office ignore numerous election violations disclosed by the mass
media."

"ARMENIA AGREED ON STEP-BY-STEP VARIANT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT," ALIEV SAYS

PanARMENIAN.Net
04.05.2007 16:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Armenia has broken the agreement on confidentiality
over the negotiation process around the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
settlement, Azeri President Ilham Aliev stated in Sabunchi district
of Baku speaking in the opening ceremony of a special village of
Ramani, which has been built for 450 displaced persons. He said,
"information about the negotiation process that the Armenian officials
are spreading, is being presented to the society in a distorted form."

Ilham Aliev stated that, "there exists a common agreement on returning
the 7 occupied regions of Azerbaijan by step-by-step approach, after
which displaced Azeri population will unconditionally return to their
native places." At the same time he says that both Armenia and the
international mediators accepted these offers.

Aliev stated the status of Nagorno Karabakh "can be discussed only
in the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Alongside
Azerbaijan does not oppose the idea of placing peacekeepers on this
territory, which actually is Armenia’s initiative."

GARRY KASPAROV MAKES TIME 100 LIST

Chessbase News, Germany
May 4 2007

04.05.2007 – Once a year Time Magazine compiles a list of the 100
most influential people in the world. Oprah Winfrey made the list
a record five times, Bill Gates four times, George W. Bush, Bill
Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Condoleezza Rice three times. The 2007 list
which hits the newsstands today includes a chess player who today is
"leading a lonely fight for greater democracy in Russia."

Details.

TTIME 100 is an annual list, compiled by Time Magazine, of the 100
most influential people in the world. The list was first published
in 1999 as a list of the 100 most influential people of the passing
century. It soon became an annual feature, listing the 100 people
influencing the world most greatly every year. They are separated
into five groups: Leaders and Revolutionaries, Builders and Titans,
Artists aand Entertainers, Scientists and Thinkers, and Heroes and
Icons. Each category has 20 nominees, sometimes in pairs or small
groups. The magazine made it clear that the people recognized are
those who are changing the world – for better or for worse.

Record holders for TIME 100 nominations are Oprah Winfrey, who was
listed five times, followed by Bill Gates (four times), George W.
Bush, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Condoleezza Rice (three times).

This year’s list includes Queen Elizabeth, US presidential hopefuls
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
Pope Benedict XVI, YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, film
director Martin Scorsese, and supermodel Kate Moss. Separately, Time
named 14 "power givers" including Bill and Melinda Gates, Angelina
Jolie, Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordan, George Soros. The list
includes 71 men and 29 women from 27 countries. It does not include
President Bush.

On the current TIME 100 list we find actors Leonardo DiCaprio,
Sacha Baron Cohen (of "Borat" fame), as well as entertainment
newsmakers Brad Pitt, Justin Timberlake, Cate Blanchett and America
Ferrera. Politicians include California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Nancy Pelosi (writeup by Newt Gingrich!), Michael Bloomberg, Angela
Merkel, Tzipi Livni, Sonia Gandhi and Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Amongst
the Scientists and Thinkers we find Al Gore, Neil deGrasse Tyson and
Richard Dawkins. Builders and Titans include Richard Branson and Steve
Jobs, while Heroes and Pioneers include (tennis star) Roger Federer,
Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney and Michael J. Fox.

"The TIME 100 is not a hot list. It’s a survey not of the most powerful
or the most popular, but of the most influential," writes Editor
Richard Stengel. "We look for people whose ideas, whose example,
whose talent, whose discoveries transform the world we live in. Yes,
there are Presidents and dictators who can change the world through
fiat, but we’re more interested in innovators like Monty Jones,
the Sierra Leone scientist who has developed a strain of rice that
can save African agriculture. Or heroes like the great chess master
Garry Kasparov, who is leading a lonely fight for greater democracy
in Russia." Here’s his writeup:

Garry Kasparov By Michael Elliott Garry Kasparov likes to say he has
been in politics all his life. In the Soviet Union, the nation in
which he grew up, chess was a way of demonstrating the superiority of
communism over the decadent West, and a chess prodigy was inevitably
a political figure. Kasparov never dodged that fate; when he took on
and eventually defeated Anatoly Karpov, the darling of the Soviet
chess establishment, in 1985, his image as a prominent outsider –
Kasparov is half Jewish, half Armenian – was fixed.

Kasparov’s status has been maintained in post-Soviet Russia. His
organization, the Other Russia, a coalition of those opposed to the
rule of President Vladimir Putin, has held a series of demonstrations,
often broken up by the police. For Kasparov, Russia today, dominated
by a combination of huge energy enterprises and former security
apparatchiks (such as Putin), is a betrayal of those who dreamed of
democracy in the early 1990s.

Putin’s foes are fragmented and run from old-fashioned nationalists
to modern liberals; Kasparov, 44, insists he is just a moderator, not
a leader, of the movement. But by giving a voice to those who believe
that Russia can develop in a way different from the authoritarianism
that seems always to have been its fate, the retired grand master
shows that he has not yet made his last move.

SHAVARSH KOCHARIAN DOES NOT CONSIDER OYP AS OPPOSITION FORCE

Noyan Tapan
May 03 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 3, NOYAN TAPAN. The election campaign has a theatrical
character and reminds of a feast table where representatives of all
political forces say things like toasts. Shavarsh Kocharian, Chairman
of National Democratic Party, characterized the election campaign
this way. In his words, everybody lavishes promises irrespective of
the fact will he fulfil his promises or not.

Touching upon NDP’s preelection program, S. Kocharian confirmed his
thought voiced earlier that the key of solving the problems accumulated
in the country is to make the power controllable by the people. For
this, in the words of NDP leader, the voters should receive the
right to recall deputies, mayors, village heads not having proved
their value.

Touching upon the fact of holding joint rallies by the Impeachment
bloc, Nor Zhamanakner and Hanrapetutiun parties, S. Kocharian said
that it is impossible to achieve power shift through purely rallies:
this is purely means of gaining votes. As he affirmed, it is possible
to carry out a power shift in two cases: when oppositionists receive
majority of votes in the parliamentary elections or when a strong
wave of protest rises in case of falsifications.

S. Kocharian refused to comment upon the overheard talk of Orinats
Yerkir Party Chairman Artur Baghdasarian and the British diplomat, as,
in his words, "overhearing is an anti-constitutional phenomenon." In
his words, he does not consider OYP as an opposition force, as the
leader of that party "was Msra Melik yesterday and today wants to be
like David of Sassoun."