Author: Kalashian Nyrie

ONE MORE ARMENIAN CHURCH WILL SURVIVE

Yerkir
20.03.2007 12:45

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – In February 2007, the first stage of the
St. Echmiadzin Church reconstruction was completed in Tbilisi.

The 200-year-old church was not functioning for the last year. Due
to frequent earthquakes and construction works of the underground,
dangerous surface fractures appeared on this architectural monument
and it eventually appeared on the edge of destruction.

In July, 2006 the Argentina affiliate of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
Executive Board and the US West Coast diocese of Holy See Echmiadzin,
the first stage of the church reconstruction was launched.

It included reinforcement of the church base, internal columns and
walls of the building with the help of metallic structures. The
reasons that caused water collection under the building have been
eliminated. The "Karutsapatum and Spasarkum GAK" CJSC (Author
Sergey Atoyan; Architect Henrik Aghalaryan) are in charge of the
reconstruction design of the church.

It is envisaged to start internal renovation in the near future.

Primate of Georgian Diocese Bishop Vazgen Mirzakhanyan is hopeful
that by the end of the year the Saint Echmiadzin church of Tbilisi
will be reopened.

Thus the 150000 Armenians based in Georgia will have the opportunity
to preserve their national and spiritual pride.

ANM EXPECTS 20% VOTES OF CONFIDENCE

A1+
[07:14 pm] 19 March, 2007

Aram Manoukyan, member of the Armenian National Movement (ANM), claims
that the party will enjoy 10-20% votes of the electorate despite the
current pressures. He thinks that RA citizens are ill-disposed to
ANM today. ANM will run for the elections with the following motto,
"Open Frontiers, Peace and Integration". "The main objective of ANM
is to restore people’s right to vote", says Mr. Manoukyan.

The Armenian National Movement will not initiate expensive campaign
with posters, video reels and films. They will merely visit people
and rely on their vote of confidence. Aram Manukyan called on the RA
authorities to preserve 15- 20% votes they enjoy as he anticipates
hard times for the authorities; one day the people’s hidden energy
will burst out and public will revolt". Member of the Armenian
National Movement assumes that the RA NA won’t manage to complete
its activity. The geopolitical developments will contribute to it;
Russia’s influence decreases in the region whereas that of the USA
increases. Besides, Georgia is trying to engage into NATO.

Aram Manoukyan also dwelt on the large-scale breaches and frauds
which are already evident in posters, programs and reels.

While speaking of the ideological bases of parties, Mr. Manoukyan
noted that the RA parties lack ideological bases with the exception
of Armenian National Movement, ARF Dashnaktsutyun and Communists.

US Embassy almanac labels the killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide

ArmRadio.am
19.03.2007 13:02

While debates continue in the US over a resolution presented to
Congress on the Armenian Genocide, an almanac distributed by the US
Embassy in Ankara lists Turkey as a country that has committed
genocide, Turkish "Today’s Zaman" wrote, French journalist Jean Eckian
informs.

"The World Almanac and Book of Facts" was first published in 1868 by
the New York World newspaper and has long been distributed by the US
Embassy in Ankara. However this year’s version contains a reference to
the early 20th century killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as
"genocide," a label Turkey vehemently denies. The most recent version
of the annual almanac, which covers important events in US and world
history, mentioned Turkey in the "Crime and Terrorist activities;
Genocide" section.

The almanac noted that the term "genocide" was first used by
Dr. Raphael Lemkin in 1944 and asserts that the definition of the
world contained the practices of "members of a group being killed,
serious bodily injuries to members of a group, prevention of births
and children being removed from the group."

The almanac continued with the following statements: "The year: 1915,
the event: Armenians being destroyed by Young Turks, the location:
Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, estimated deaths: some 1 million."

Other examples of genocide listed in the 2007 World Almanac of Books
and Facts were the events that occurred in Ukraine in the 1930s, the
experiences of Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945, the
activities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia from 1975-1979, the murder
of Iraqi Kurds in 1988, the experience of Bosnians from 1992-1995, the
events that took place in Rwanda in 1994 and the events in Sudan’s
Darfur region ongoing since 2003.

Ahmadinejad to open first stretch of Armenian gas pipeline from Iran
AP Worldstream Published: Mar 19, 2007

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Armenian counterpart on
Monday are to formally open the first stretch in Armenia of a natural
gas pipeline.

Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian are to open the
40-kilometer (25-mile) section in the town of Meghri, just over the
border from Iran. Under the first stage of the project, Iran is to
deliver up to 400 million cubic meters (14 billion cubic feet) of gas
a year; when the pipeline is completed and extends to the capital,
Yerevan, the volume could rise to 2.5 billion cubic meters (88 billion
cubic feet) a year.

The project was launched in 2004 after more than a decade of
negotiations.

Russia, which supplies most of Armenia’s gas, had objected to the
project. Armenian officials said last year they were discussing the
prospect of Russia’s natural-gas monopoly Gazprom purchasing the
Armenian section of the pipeline from Iran.

Landlocked Armenia has developed its relations with Iran amid economic
troubles caused the closing of its borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan
in the wake of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of
Azerbaijan occupied by Armenian and ethnic Armenian Karabakhi forces.

Iran also has sought projects and influence in other parts of the
former Soviet Union, mostly in Central Asia.

Last year, Ahmadinejad opened an Iranian-financed tunnel improving
connections between impoverished Tajikistan’s north and the capital
region. Tehran has focused mostly on transport and infrastructure
projects and restoring historically close cultural ties.

The Ottawa Sun, Canada
March 18, 2007 Sunday
FINAL EDITION

Swiping at identity theft;
Ontario’s privacy czar has her hands full

BY CHRISTINA BLIZZARD

For the past 20 years, she has been a quiet warrior fighting a
neverending battle against an unseen enemy.

The war is on your privacy — which is increasingly under attack from
dumpster divers, hackers, Eastern bloc con artists, organized crime,
intrusive government agencies and even sloppy computer practices by
big hospitals and big businesses.

The province’s privacy commissioner is a tiny, elegant woman. But
don’t be fooled. She’s one gritty fighter.

Dr. Ann Cavoukian has a passion. And it’s your privacy. And the right
to privacy, she believes, is intrinsically linked to your freedom.

"The linkage between privacy and freedom is one of the strongest
associations, because the first thing that goes when society changes
from a democracy to a totaliatrain state, the first thread to
unravel, is privacy," she said in an interview.

DEFENDING OUR RIGHTS

In the Internet era, it seems rarely a day passes that Cavoukian
isn’t front and centre defending our right to keep our personal
information just that — personal. Most recently, she issued an order
requiring hospitals to take measures to ensure the safe storage of
patients’ records after a doctor at the Hospital for Sick Children
had a laptop computer — along with thousands of patients’ medical
records — stolen.

Identity theft and debit and credit card fraud using stolen personal
information have exploded in the two decades Cavoukian’s been in her
job.

"Organized crime is now into the area of identity theft big time, so
they are looking for access to personal information," she said.

Most worrying is individuals can take all the protective measures
they can to keep their personal data safe — and they are still
vulnerable to attack.

As long as businesses don’t encrypt their databases of personal
information, rogue employees and hackers have a steady stream of
identifiable data they can sell to the highest bidder. Ditto for
businesses where employees take unencrypted information home with
them on laptop computers or BlackBerries. All it takes is for the
device to be lost or stolen and your most vital information has been
compromised.

"The major two sources of identity theft have nothing to do with
consumers’ best practices," she said. "Consumers can do everything
and their information could still be subject to this enormous risk.

"If all the major companies started tomorrow encrypting the personal
identifiers associated with information they have in their databases,
you could significantly minimize the incidence of identity theft,"
she said.

Cavoukian would like the province to bring in "breach notification,"
legislation that would require businesses, hospitals and other
organizations to inform customers, clients and patients when their
personal information has been compromised. Companies that encrypt
data would not be exempt.

If the public is made aware of security breaches, they can defend
against it, Cavoukian says. They can contact credit bureaus, for
example, and ask for a fraud alert that would stop any organization
from automatically extending credit unless the victim is notified.

There are now web sites that instruct people on how to mine personal
information such as dates of birth, social insurance numbers and
driver’s licence information. That information is then sold to
organized crime.

"And that is the fear," she said. "Once it becomes big business you
are going to have more and more people entering the field — more and
more rogue employees."

But identity theft isn’t Cavoukian’s only concern.

Red flags went up on privacy recently about a plan by convenience
store owners to swipe driver’s licences as proof of age for purchases
of cigarettes, lottery tickets and other age-restricted products.
Cavoukian’s office was consulted about the program and they are
satisfied it not only doesn’t retain information from the licence, it
actually restricts the amount of information the store clerk gets —
since he or she doesn’t need to read the licence, just swipe it. They
see only the year of birth.

FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE

One alarm bell Cavoukian has been ringing has to do with on-line
"social network," web sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Her office
has produced a brochure in partnership with Facebook which, she says,
unlike other web sites, has strong privacy protection measures.

Schools now ask her to speak to students to warn them of on-line
risks.

"Parents and teachers are getting very concerned with the naivete,
especially of high school students," she says.

She reminds students, "this can come back to haunt you.

"You are going to be applying for jobs in a couple of years," she
tells youngsters, and tells the cautionary tale of a girl who was a
prefect at a university — until the administration saw an on-line
picture of her smoking a joint at a party.

"This information lives for life," Cavoukian points out. "So if
you’ve got pictures of yourself at drunken parties doing things that
you think is funny now, do you want this in the hands of a
prospective employer? What about a professor? This is going to follow
you forever. What happens if it gets into the wrong hands?" she asks.

She reminds them there are pedophiles out there who prey on the
naivete of young people. Don’t let anyone access your profile. Limit
it to people you know and never, ever put an address or locator
information in your profile.

When Toronto Police wanted to install surveillance cameras on the TTC
and in Dundas Square, she gave them guidelines of acceptable ways to
do it. The first was the public had to be notified the cameras were
there. Next, there had to be assurances that the images captured by
the cameras would be only used for the purpose for which they were
collected — and destroyed as soon as possible. And she urged police
to keep strict control on who is authorized to access the information
and how it could be used.

"One of the big problems in London, England was there are millions of
surveillance cameras and they were abused," she said. Attractive
women were tracked by people who had access to the information,
Cavoukian said.

Like freedom and democracy, privacy is often something society only
values when it has been lost. And Cavoukian’s personal background is
such that she never takes those values for granted. Of Armenian
background, her family was living in Egypt when it was nationalized
from British rule. The ensuing loss of personal freedom forced her
family to flee to Canada when she was four years old.

"My parents gave up everything so they could raise their children in
freedom. So for me the message of freedom has been drilled home" she
said.

Cavoukian’s message is slowly getting through to all of us. Because,
litttle by little, most of us have felt the gnawing vulnerability of
a privacy breach. Each time our debit card is compromised, each time
a department store acknowledges they have compromised thousands of
accounts, we feel defenceless. And we all loose a little freedom.

BORAT MADE ME HIP
Rick Fulton, The Daily Record
Published: Mar 17, 2007

ALONG with hundreds of friends and colleagues, Ellen Davitian watched
her excessively fat husband wrestle naked with another man.

But far from burying her head in her hands, Ellen was more worried for
her husband Ken’s new hip.

Armenian/American actor Ken, 53, is the wonderful hang-dog producer in
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation
of Kazakhstan, the hit movie also starring Ali G creator Sacha Baron
Cohen.

Ken plays Borat’s put-upon producer Azamat Bagatov, who travels from
their native Kazakhstan to America on a road trip few in the States
will ever forget.

And the nude wrestling scene, which sees the men burying their
genitals into each other’s faces as they fight in a hotel room, is a
scene that’s hard to forget.

Ken, who has two grown-up sons, Robert and Aaron, with his wife of 30
years Ellen, revealed: "The first time the wife saw it was at the
premiere. She was in a room with 1000 people from Hollywood and every
time something happened her voice got higher, saying’Oh, oh, oh’.

"But fortunately I have a very sympathetic and loving wife so when she
saw me thrown off the stage, her reaction instead of saying’you
humiliated me, you were naked, how could you do this?’ was ‘oh my God,
I’m glad you bounced and didn’t break your hip,’ because I’d just had
my left hip replaced two months before."

His sons also thought his part in the film was fantastic.

It’s certainly made his career. A jobbing actor for more than 15 years
with roles in Boston Legal, ER, Six Feet Under and adverts for
Budweiser, Ken is now in the Hollywood elite and will star in Get
Smart, a new movie with Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin and
Terence Stamp.

And the actor is happy to admit ‘The Genius’ as he calls Sacha, hasn’t
just given his career a shot in the arm – he’s taken him from a nobody
to a Hollywood sensation.

Ken said: "Working with Sacha changed my life. I think when I die
there will be a photo of me smiling and they’ll still show the naked
fight.That’s great. I wish it follows me forever."

However, Ken admits he hopes he doesn’t have to strip again.

He laughed: "My only concern is getting naked again. I don’t think
I’ll do that unless it’s with a very attractive woman.

"I turn the light off during sex. It’s not my wife who does it, it’s
me."

On a whistle-stop trip to the UK, Ken is in a London hotel room
keeping the jet lag at bay by drinking Red Bull. It’s 11am and he’s
already had two.

Of course while there are plenty of other fantastically funny moments
in the film, the one scene everyone wants to talk about is the naked
scene. From the fight in the hotel room to the naked dash down a hotel
corridor, into a lift with shrieking woman and then into a banquet
hall packed with mortgage brokers, Ken and Sacha were butt-naked all
the way.

Ken also reveals they used separate hotels for each part.

"We found we couldn’t walk around naked in a hotel very long," he
says.

Given his size, Ken admits at first he didn’t want to strip for the
cameras.

He said: "When they told me about the nude scene I asked who would
want to see me nude?

"I kept telling them ‘this is aWes Craven movie, this is not going to
be funny. Let me put on a pair of boxers because naked is going to be
more scary’."

While the rehearsals for the nude fight scene were in boxers, Ken and
Sacha stripped for the main event.

And while Sacha has an exaggerated black silhouette hiding his modesty
superimposed on the film, Ken’s rolls of fat meant you couldn’t see
anything.

The actor knows what I’m getting at and laughs:"It was cold. It was
the first thing going on in my mind, but we were committed to doing
it.

"If The Genius is going to get naked, I’m going to get naked."

After the naked wrestle, the chasing scenes from the corridor to lift
to convention could only be done once.

While they escaped into a waiting car after scaring an elevator full
of hotel guests, Ken and Sacha weren’t so lucky after gate-crashing
the banquet hall.

Ken said: "After we were fighting on the stage, we were both taken
away by security.

"Sacha was taken by the town’s police who knew it was a film.

"But I was detained by hotel security and it was worrying but they
handed me over to the police who threw me into a van naked.

"It was another 30 minutes before someone brought me some clothes."
Ken admits everywhere they went in America they caused chaos and had
some narrow escapes.

During filming they were detained by Dallas police, the United States
Secret Service, had Homeland Security come to their hotel and were
even stopped by a Louisiana State Troopers’ roadblock. And while
they’ve been through a lot, it’s back to the naked scene which Ken
reckons has made him and Sacha life-long friends.

He said: "When you see someone naked there’s a definitely feeling
about seeing them the next time.

"You don’t have to say ‘hello, how are you?’ it’s like you’ve seen
them only yesterday. It’s a comfortable feeling.

"Sacha thinks of me as a big brother and I think of him as a little
brother."

He may not want to strip again but if Sacha starts…

"I always take my lead from Sacha," laughed Ken, "If he starts
disrobing, I’ll start disrobing."

Ken wanted to act from when he was five or six years old after seeing
his grandmother perform in an Armenian acting troupe.

He was a theatre arts major in college Los Angeles and did hundreds of
plays.

He said:"I just thought that acting was cool. I liked it and for me it
was easy." But his family were in waste removal and despite an early
role as Fat Bartender in 1977 movie American Raspberry after college,
he got married and settled into business.

He said: "My family’s waste removal business was very lucrative. We
picked up trash at different commercial locations like apartments and
markets.

"Then I stared up a sandwich making business.

"I was always dabbling in food and if you’ve seen my body you know I
like food."

Since 2003 he has co-owned an LA-based French sandwich chain called
The Dip, but in the early Nineties he dipped his toe back into acting
in the flick Bikini Summer and by 1995 he decided to give acting
another go full-time.

He’s appeared in American television shows like ER, Becker, The Shield
and even S Club 7’s L.A. 7.

When he heard about auditions for Sacha Baron Cohen’s project he was
desperate to move from cameo or one episode actor to something bigger.

Ken knew the part called for a foreigner, so he arrived at the
audition in character, speaking only broken English in a thick
Armenian accent.

He said: "I knew there were about a dozen people Sacha and the
producers wanted to see for a third time so I had only one chance.

"I wore the same suit that’s in the movie and the same accent. One
time they asked if I could ad lib so I said: ‘What do you mean adding
one, two, three?’

"Then an executive producer said ‘no can you do improvisation?’ And I
said’oh I take it in classes.’

"I fooled them. I was doing improv with Sacha and he actually started
to laugh and walked off camera.

"I broke character at the end and said ‘thanks gentlemen, give me a
call if you liked it.’

"That’s when everyone stood up and said wait a minute."

After a recall to make sure Ken was an actor and not a"crazy old man"
he was given the job with Sacha, admitting that if they’d known he was
an actor from the start, they wouldn’t have liked the audition.

Then the movie fun began, which culminates with Pamela Anderson
running away shrieking from a book signing after Borat tries to kidnap
the ex-Baywatch star in a large bag.

Many have felt that the blonde beauty must have known what was going
on but Ken dismisses this.

He said: "I’m sure she knew something was going to happen but she knew
nothing about the bag.

"I know she didn’t think she was going to be chased outside, but she
knew something was going to happen.

"All you have to do is look at her face. Look at the terror."

With the part of an evil assistant in Get Smart, a Hollywood remake of
the American television secret agent comedy series, Ken is also going
back to ER with a part specifically written for him. He said: "I
couldn’t be happier."

And his wife? "She is too and she hasn’t asked me to do any more naked
wrestling."

Borat is out now on DVD.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Conflicts like that of Nagorno-Karabakh take time to be resolved

Ilham Aliyev’s zeal for war has lately been subdued a
little, and one may only guess what stands behind it.
16.03.2007 GMT+04:00

Another meeting over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict regulation
was held between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Ministers of Foreign
Affairs and as it was expected no crucial decisions were made. The
question is whether or not the OSCE Minsk Group will manage to bring
the parties to a common solution in coming several years or
not. Conflicts like that of Nagorno-Karabakh are not resolved even in
10 years. For instance the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has existed
for already 60 years; however it doesn’t seem to be resolved soon.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Israeli’s stubborn unwillingness to face the
existing facts periodically brings to armed conflicts, which delay the
conflict regulation process. It is obvious that Azerbaijan intends to
follow Israeli’s example and threatens with war from time to
time. However Ilham Aliyev’s zeal for war has lately been subdued a
little and one may only guess what stands behind it. Most likely
Bernard Facie’s announcements about the possible enrollment of
Nagorno-Karabakh representatives in the negotiations played its
role. Pressure displayed by the International Community, which is
interested in the stability of the region is not excluded either. In
the opinion of the RA Minister of Foreign Affairs the negotiations for
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict regulation move on very slowly. Vartan
Oskanyan mentioned that; `An attempt to discuss the second part of the
document according to Karabakh conflict regulation principles was
made, and though there is the clear conception of the opposite party’s
position, considerable differences do still exist.’ Differences first
of all concern Nagorno-Karabakh status, returning the refugees, and
clearing the territory of mines. It is also necessary to mention that
the role of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh in the process is
mentioned in passing. This gave the Nagorno-Karabakh President Arkadi
Khukasyan reasons to announce about `some differences of opinions with
Armenia.’ `Because we are not considered immediate participants of the
negotiations, we are deprived of the opportunity to feel all the
nuances existing in the process of negotiations.’ Both minor and major
differences over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict regulation exist between
Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Perhaps it will not be correct to speak
about these differences, as it is our home business. However we do not
lose hope that the differences of the opinions between Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh may be overcome,’ Khukasyan mentioned. Let us hope,
that those differences will indeed be overcome, otherwise Azerbaijan
will benefit from them.

Resuming the meeting the OSCE Minsk Group made a traditional joint
statement, which said, `The ministers led open and constructive
discussions of the issues raised by the parties after the Aliev –
Kocharyan meeting held in Minsk in November 2006. The ministers
grounded their positions regarding the matters giving rise to some
disagreements. This will allow continuing the discussions of the basic
principles of the future regulation of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.’

It should be mentioned that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both
countries are intending to meet in April and perhaps in May for
preparations for the future meeting of the two presidents. However, as
the French mediator noticed it is very frivolous to speak about any
meeting between the two presidents by the termination of the
Parliamentary Elections in Armenia. «PanARMENIAN.Net»
analytical department

ARMENIA TO SHIFT TO SUMMER TIME ON MARCH 25

ArmRadio.am
16.03.2007 13:42

According to Armenian legislation, the last Sunday of March, at 02:00
the pointers of the clock will be drawn an hour forward, marking the
start of " summer time."

RA Deputy Minister of Trade and Economic Development Garnik Badalyan
told Armenpress that the "summer time" which starts in Europe and
CIS countries the last Sunday of March is artificial and is targeted
at the effective use of summer days and weakening of overloading of
the energy sector. The real geographic time in the republic is the
"winter time," which starts on the last Sunday of October.

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT CHAIR SAYS VIOLATIONS AT PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS ARE POSSIBLE

Regnum, Russia
March 15 2007

Armenia’s society has been developing at a faster rate than its
political forces, Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Member of the
Republican Party Tigran Torossyan said at a news conference on March
15, adding that society is prepared for qualitatively new elections.

A REGNUM correspondent quotes him as saying that the forthcoming
parliamentary elections in Armenia are of exclusive significance,
as, first of all, they will determine the way the country will be
developing within next 20-25 years. "The balance of political forces
in the parliament, formation of the coalition government are secondary
issues; today, the top priority is to conduct fair elections," the
speaker said. European institutions are closely watching the election
process; leadership of Challenges of the Millennium project says
that the program can be suspended, if the elections are held with
violations. At the same time, fair elections are necessary, first of
all, for Armenia, the speaker said adding "it is more important than
several million dollars."

At the same time, Torossyan did not rule out a possibility that
violations can occur at the elections, particularly, by supporters
and members of the Armenian Republican Party (RPA). "RPA has several
dozens thousands members; it is impossible to control each of them
and avouch for everyone," Torossyan noted. According to him, the
key task of all political forces is to respond to violations as soon
as possible, prevent from them and not to allow them affecting the
quality of the forthcoming elections.

CIS MILITARY TREATY OFFICIAL SAYS HIS VISIT TO ARMENIA, NATO WEEK COINCIDENCE

Mediamax news agency
15 Mar 07

Yerevan, 15 March: Armenia is an active member of the [CIS] Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and sees the provision of its
security within the framework of this very organization.

Mediamax reports that the CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha,
who is in Armenia for a visit, said this today during the meeting
with the students of the Yerevan State University.

According to him, at present the CSTO is elaborating three directions
of structural development: collective response to extreme situations;
peacekeeping operations both within the framework of the CSTO and
other regions if there is a corresponding request of the UN Security
Council, as well as provision of information security.

Nikolay Bordyuzha also noted that he did not take part in the NATO week

in Armenia, and his visit coincided with the schedule of events within
the framework of the [NATO] week.