Author: Jalatian Sonya

Armenian Airbus burns down in Belgium

Independent Online, South Africa
May 5 2006

May 05 2006 at 07:30PM — Perevan – An Airbus A320 plane belonging to
Armenian air company Armavia and identical to its airliner which
crashed two days ago, burned down overnight in Belgium during
maintenance works, an Armenian official said on Friday.

The plane, made in 1996, was being serviced by Sabena Technics,
said Armenian civil aviation spokesperson Gayane Davtyan, giving no
further details.

Sabena Technics’ facilities are located at Brussels National Airport
where it serves the aviation industry at large, the independent
aviation maintenance firm said on its Website

Company officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Another Armavia Airbus A320 crashed into the Black Sea off the Russian
coast on Wednesday, killing all 113 passengers and crew on board as
it tried to land in torrential rain.

ARKADY GHUKASYAN BOTH CONTENT AND DISCONTENT FROM ALL ARMENIA FUND

Panorama.am
15:03 05/05/06

Most of the board members of All Armenia Fund say that the fund is
making big steps forward. According to Naira Melkumyan, Executive
Director of the Fund, the organization had 12 mln 700 thousand
drams in income last year which is 2.5 times more than in the year
2003. According to her, the figure indicates great trust from the
side of Diaspora and Armenia. Incomes from Armenia and Artsakh also
increased by 25 percent in 2005, Naira Melkumyan said shortly before
15th session of the Board of Directors. She thinks, however, that this
does not reflect the real Armenian potential which, according to her,
should be USD 20-25 mln.

The Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, Chairman of the Board of
Directors said that the fund is born with independence. It has high
fame within Armenia and within the Armenian community outside Armenia.

The board included three new members in its lines. The members
watched a film on the activities of the fund during 2005 picturing
the achievements of the fund.

“I am both content and discontent,” Nagorno Karabakh President Arkady
Ghukasyan said. He said that Diaspora is a very strong structure and
may be more involved in Karabakh. He also thinks that the fund should
reinforce its control mechanisms.

A. Ghukasyan made hardly any one-man suggestion, leaving the issue
with the board of directors.

RESCUERS GET BLACK BOX SIGNALS AFTER PLANE CRASH

MosNews, Russia
May 4 2006

Airbus specialists working at the scene of the Armenian plane crash on
the Black Sea have detected a radio signal, possibly from the plane’s
black box flight recorders, a Russian emergency official told the
RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday.

The official added that the signal was very weak and they were not
sure of the exact location of the devices. Experts are using special
equipment while searching for flight data recorders from the A-320,
lying at the depth of about 500 meters (1,640 feet) below the surface
of the water, 5 km from the shore.

The plane, owned by Armenian Airlines, crashed at 02:15 local time
(22:15 GMT) as it made an attempt to land at an airport near the
Russian resort town of Sochi. Initial reports suggest bad weather
was the cause of the tragedy. Analysis of the plane’s black boxes
may give more information to allow emergency services to confirm or
disprove the theory.

RA CCI TO COOPERATE WITH CCI OF KOMI REPUBLIC AND MAYOR’S OFFICE OF SYKTYVKAR

Noyan Tapan
May 04 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 4, NOYAN TAPAN. The agreement signed on May 4 between the
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of the Republic of Armenia and
the CCI of the Komi Republic (Russia), as well as the memorandum signed
between the RA CCI and the mayor’s office of Syktyvkar (the capital
of Komi) will regulate the trade, economic and cultural cooperation
issues between the sides. The above mentioned documents were signed
by Chairman of the RA CCI Martin Sargsian, Chairman of the CCI of
the Komi Republic Sargis Manasarian and Mayor of Syktyvkar Roman
Zenishchev. According to M. Sargsian, an agreement was reached that
Syktyvkar mayor’s office will allocate an area in the city for the
RA CCI to build an Armenian Trade House there. It was noted that the
CCIs of Armenia and Komi Republic will cooperate in order to organize
exhibitions, exchange business information and implement joint business
programs. M. Sargsian said that an exhibition of Armenian production
will be held in Syktyvkar in August-September 2006. Programs of
exporting building materials (the Armenian Trade House will be made of
tufa), bioadditives (particularly apricot capsules) and perlite from
Armenia to the Komi Republic and importing of white mushrooms from
Komi into Armenia, as well as projects of setting up agrucultural
produce processing and wood-working joint ventures were discussed
with the Komi delegation on May 3. R. Zenishchev expressed a hope
that the Komi delegation’s visit will mark a new stage in relations
with Armenia. In response to a question of NT correspondent, he noted
that the Armenians of Syktyvkar play a significant role in economic
and social life of Komi Republic, which is also evident from the
fact that the delegation headed by him is composed of 4 Armenians,
including Deputy Mayor of Syktyvkar Victor Hovakimian.

BLACK BOX FROM CRASHED ARMENIAN JET FOUND

United Press International
May 4 2006

Salvage workers Thursday located one of the two black boxes from an
Armenian jetliner that crashed into the Black Sea Wednesday off the
Russian coast.

The A-320 crash killed all 113 aboard. Twenty-eight of the 53 bodies
recovered so far have been identified, a spokesman for the Russian
General Prosecutor’s Office told the Itar-Tass news agency.

Some 18 ships and 11 launches from the southern port of Sochi were
involved in the recovery effort. Victims’ relatives were housed in two
hotels and provided with food and medical attention, Itar-Tass said.

The plane was en route from the Armenian capital of Yerevan to Adler
when it went down.

Investigators have ruled out terrorism in the crash.

CONSUMER BASKET COMPONENTS’ WEIGHTS AND BASIS YEAR FOR CALCULATION OF CONSUMER PRICE INDICES CHANGED IN ARMENIA

Noyan Tapan
May 03 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 3, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA National Statistical Service
included another 70 goods and services (91 goods and service
representatives) in the consumer basket, thus increasing the number of
goods and services used for calculation of price indices from 400 in
January 2006 to 470 (560 goods and service representatives). NT was
informed from the RA National Statistical Service that 2005 instead
of 2002 has been taken as a basis year for the calculation of price
indices in 2006. A research of Armenian households’ standard of living
was conducted in the period of March 31, 2004 to April 1, 2005, as a
result of which considerable changes in the consumer basket components
were registered. Taking into account the price changes in the calendar
year of 2005, the National Statistical Service made a recalculation
of specific weights of the goods and service representatives included
in the consumer basket.

DARFUR PROTEST IN WASHINGTON ELICITS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMPARISON

Hurriyet, Turkey
May 2 2006

At a Washington, DC protest to gather support for stopping the violence
and killing in Darfur, Sudan, an American pastor from the Evangelical
National Foundation, Richard Cizik, told crowds that there was a
similarity between what was happening in Darfur, and what Turkey had
done to the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century. Said

Cizik, “The world remained silent before the genocides of the
Armenians, the Jews, the Cambodians, and the Rwandans. On the global
agenda, there can be no item more pressing than saving the people of
Darfur from extermination.”

The White House has already said that it acknowledges what is happening
in Darfur as a genocide, while the United Nations has not yet used
that term.

RAFFI HOVANNISIAN TAKES PART IN TRANSATLANTIC FORUM IN BRUSSELS

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 02 2006

BRUSSELS, MAY 2, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. First Armenian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, represented Armenia at an international
policy conclave which was convened here from April 28 to 30 under
the auspices of the German Marshall Fund of the United States,
the Federal Government of Belgium, and the Bertelsmann Stiftung
of Germany. According to the report provided to Noyan Tapan
by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies,
entitled “Transatlantic Challenges in a Global Era,” the Brussels
Forum brought together world leaders, public figures, diplomats,
academicians, activists, and renowned journalists in order to
reassess the transatlantic agenda from American, European, and
neighborhood perspectives; to discuss the threats of terrorism and
pandemics across the globe of the 21st Century; to explore global
competition in the public and private sectors; to chart the course
of democracy and geopolitics in wider Europe, the Middle East, and
China; and to contemplate transatlantic energy security, national
identities, and international integration. In his intervention, Raffi
Hovannisian addressed the track record of the transatlantic alliance
and examined its contribution to the transition from Cold War to
European cooperation. He also underscored the imperative correlation
between collective security and shared core values both within the
alliance and for potential partners on its periphery. In particular,
he urged the stringent and equal application to all national actors
of the highest standards of democracy, rule of law, human rights
protection, and genocide prevention and condemnation–irrespective of
their place and role in the international system. Against the backdrop
of contemporary democracy movements and geopolitical developments,
Raffi Hovannisian held informal meetings with Dr. Javier Solana,
Secretary General of the Council of the European Union; NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer; Romanian President Traian Basescu;
and United States Senators John McCain and Bob Bennett. In the
margins of the conference, Raffi Hovannisian also met with Crown
Prince Philippe of Belgium; Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt;
General James Jones, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe; Chairman
Elmar Brok of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs;
Belgian Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman-in-Office Karel De Gucht;
Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay; U.S. Senators George Voinovich
and John Edwards (former); Jordanian Senator Marwan al-Muasher; former
Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio; DaimlerChrysler Chairman Dieter
Zetsche; and several others. Hovannisian and his conference colleagues
were received at the Royal Palace by His Highness King Albert of
Belgium. Raffi Hovannisian, who is founder of the Armenian Center
for National and International Studies and the National Citizens’
Initiative, currently chairs the Heritage Party of Armenia.

25 BODIES RECOVERED FROM BLACK SEA AIR CRASH SITE

RIA Novost
09:55 | 03/ 05/ 2006

MOSCOW, May 3 (RIA Novosti) – A total of 25 bodies have been recovered
from the site of an air crash near Russia’s Black Sea coast, emergency
services said Wednesday.

More than 100 people are feared dead after an Airbus liner flying
from the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, to the resort town of Sochi
crashed in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Airline Armavia said
113 people were on board.

The Airbus sunk 400 meters into the sea and 23 vessels, including
13 Russian Emergency Situations Ministry vessels, are working at
the scene.

Viktor Beltsov, an official with the ministry, said the cause of the
crash would only become known after the A-320’s flight recorders were
recovered and the data deciphered.

“The flight data recorders have not been discovered so far,” he said.

Beltsov said the nationality of the passengers who were on board the
airliner was being identified at the moment. He added, citing the
flight plan, that most of them were Armenian citizens.

Earlier reports suggested at least 23 Russians had died, but Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said there were at least
26 Russians on board.

Beltsov said the airliner had disappeared from radars at 2:15
a.m. Moscow time (10:15 p.m. GMT) and rescuers spotted it at 04:05
a.m. Moscow time (12:05 GMT). The airliner is thought to have crashed
when it was making another attempt to land.

Russian investigators are studying all versions and have refused to
rule out any possibility.

“The aircraft fell into the sea from an altitude between 30 and 40
meters,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar said
the airliner was making its approach to land, but the air traffic
controller suggested it return to Yerevan due to stormy weather. Later,
however, two runways were made available to the aircraft with
visibility of 100 and 360 meters.

“Visibility was poor, but it was possible to land in such visibility,”
a representative of the local prosecutor’s office said.

Another 22 Emergency Situations Ministry rescuers, including seven
divers, have arrived in the region.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Revaz Gachechiladze: Georgia Not Interested in Armenia’s Isolation

28.04.2006 23:24 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The cosio-economic problems of Samtskhe-Javakhetia
are like those the other mountainous regions of Georgia
experience. Despite all this, the Georgian government intends to spend
one third of the funds rendered by the MCC on the building of roads in
Javakhetia, Georgian Ambassador to Armenia Revaz Gachechiladze stated
in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net. In his words, schools are being
repaired in the region. `We are hopeful that the rich Armenian
Diaspora will make a contribution to the industrialization of
Javakhetia,’ he remarked.

The Ambassador also noted that the economic projects always bear a
certain political load. `Georgia is not interested in Armenia’s
isolation, via transport infrastructure, for example. You have never
heard Georgian journalist say something like `Armenia and Iran isolate
Georgia with Russia’s assistance’ in case the gas pipeline from Iran
has a small diameter and does not extend to the Georgian border, have
you?’ Revaz Gachechiladze underscored.