Author: Kalashian Nyrie

IT WAS BUT A POLITICAL CALCULATION
A1+
[01:44 pm] 23 May, 2006
“The NA President’s resignation was not determined by the pressure
of internal forces but by the outer ones,” deputy of the Armenian
Republican party Hamlet Haroutyunyan informed “A1+.”
In his words the current events are the result of normal procedure
only the reasons presented by Arthur Bagdasaryan don’t go in line
with the reality. “It is merely a result of political calculation. As
for the inner discord of the Coalition, I haven’t faced any conflict
within the last three years; approaches, positions and conflicts are
quite different.”
Hamlet Haroutyunyan doesn’t deem the three-year work of the NA
satisfactory whereas in his speech the NA President announced that
the NA has worked efficiently and properly, and then added that
there is discord in the Coalition. “The discord cannot be revealed
in three years. Discord on political issues exists from the very
beginning. It shouldn’t be mixed with the babble of a kid who matures
in the course of time and realizes that his pranks are determined by
his age. I think one must be unbiased and frank and say openly that
it is a mere calculation connected with the next parliamentary and
Presidential elections.”

BLACK BOX OF DROWNED ARMENIAN PLANE FOUND
Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
May 22 2006
One of the two flight “black boxes” from an Armenian Airbus that
crashed in the Black Sea May 3 has been recovered. A representative
of a center involved in the recovery effort announced Monday efforts
are continuing to find the second black box. Rescuers are striving
to retrieve the black boxes from a depth of 496 m and 5 m apart from
each other. An Airbus A-320 operated by Armenia’s Armavia flying
from Yerevan came down May 3 in stormy weather 6 km from the popular
Russian resort of Sochi. All 113 people on board were killed.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
May 20 2006
Azerbaijan interested in attracting more number of investors – Azeri
Amb to Germany

Source: Trend
Author: R. Abdullayev

20.05.2006

Azerbaijan is interested in attracting more and more investors to the
country `s economy and successful work in this direction is underway,
Trend quoted Parviz Shabaziv, the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Germany
as stating in an interview for German magazine Diplomatisches
Magazin.
The diplomat noted that to date interests on Azerbaijan have
increased considerably. Many German companies voice their will in
cooperation with Azerbaijan and mutually profitable relationships
have been established.
The same time the Ambassador noted boom ion economic growth of the
country observed over the past few years, in particular opening
of380,000 new jobs.
the diplomat also touched the occupation of 20% of Azerbaijani
territory by Armenia. `We support peaceable resolution of the
conflict and are ready to grant Nagorno-Karabakh with high status of
autonomy, exiting throughout the world,’ Shahbazov underlined. Baku
is ready to open transport corridor to Armenia. The resolution of the
problem was impossible due to Armenia’s non-constructive position,
which desires annexation of this region.
`Armenia should understand that the situation cannot go on in such a
way,’ the diplomat concluded.

ARMENIA UPBEAT ON KARABAKH TALKS IN STRASBOURG
Mediamax news agency
19 May 06
Yerevan, 19 May: Yerevan assesses positively the meeting of the
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers [Vardan Oskanyan and Elmar
Mammadyarov] in Strasbourg on 18 May, the press service of the Armenian
Foreign Ministry has told Mediamax.
“The Armenian side assesses positively the meeting, apart from the
fact that there still remain unsolved and uncoordinated issues,”
the Foreign Ministry said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said that the main aim of the Strasbourg
meeting was to prepare for a visit to the region of high-ranking
diplomats of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries – Russia,
the USA and France.
Vardan Oskanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov first held a meeting in the
presence of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen, the ministers then
continued the talks one to one.
“The principles of and approaches to the settlement of the Karabakh
conflict that are on the negotiating table were discussed at the
meeting,” the press service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry noted.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigoriy Karasin, US Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried,
and French Foreign Ministry political director Stanislas de Laboulaye
are expected to visit Armenia and Azerbaijan on 24-25 May, accompanied
by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen.

UNION SQ. NORTH-END RENOVATION GETS FINAL APPROVAL
By Albert Amateau
The Villager, NY
May 19 2006
The city’s Art Commission on Monday unanimously approved the
much-revised renovation plan for the north end of Union Square Park,
with some further modifications.
The vote by all eight of the 11 commissioners present at the May
15 meeting means that construction on the Union Square north plaza,
the pavilion with a controversial seasonal private restaurant and an
expanded playground, can begin this year.
The renovation, sponsored by the Union Square Partnership business
improvement district with the Parks Department, has been planned,
hotly debated and revised several times over the past several years.
Playground space, renovation of the now underused and decrepit pavilion
and preserving the north plaza as a place of public assembly and as
a venue for the largest Greenmarket in the city have long been points
of debate.
Neighbors who have been anticipating the renovation were gratified at
the final conclusion. Ken Salzman, who lives a block away from Union
Square with his family including three young children, said he hoped
the playground would be done before his children were too old to use
it. He also lauded the proposed new restrooms, one of which would be
accessible only by children and their caregivers.
Gabrielle Tessler, who also lives a block from the square, praised
the playground proposal, which includes equipment for older children.
Tessler visits Union Square with her daughter, Julia, a 6-year-old
pupil at P.S. 41 in the Village.
But several elected officials joined the chorus of neighborhood
opponents against a pavilion renovation that depends on use as a
restaurant six months of the year.
Nevertheless, the Art Commission commissioners made it clear that
they had jurisdiction only on the park design and had no say at all
on the use of the pavilion.
The commission approved the plan for the pavilion as submitted by
the Department of Parks and the landscape architect Michael Van
Valkenburgh Associates, but demanded the elimination of a proposed
cantilevered balcony on the south side, which was added to provide
the seasonal restaurant with a terrace for 10 additional restaurant
seats. Commissioners agreed with several neighborhood critics that
the balcony with its 4-foot-high banister was not appropriate for
the pavilion.
The commission also eliminated a proposed row of trees next to the
north side of the pavilion, saying the trees obscured the view of
the pavilion, which was built in 1932. But the commission did endorse
the disputed proposal for a row of eight trees along 17th St. at the
north end of the open plaza, plus a row of trees on the west side of
the plaza between 15th and 17th Sts.
The commission called for the new trees to be planted 30 feet apart
in a continuous trench rather than in individual tree pits. The
planting arrangement is intended to give the trees a chance to grow
in a high-risk location. A row of trees planted in pits along 17th
St. in the 1980s to commemorate the Turkish massacre of Armenians in
the 1920s did not survive longer than four years.
Jack Taylor, a preservation advocate and public member of Community
Board 5, and other critics, have called for a north plaza – the
historic site of mass public protests – to be free of any trees or
barriers that would inhibit public assembly.
“We urge you to remember that Union Square is a national historic
landmark, designated for the role of the north plaza in accommodating
mass demonstrations, rallies, parades, political and social protests
and the exercise of citizens’ rights of peaceful public assembly and
free speech,” Taylor said. “An unhindered and unadorned space has
been maintained there since 1882 and even earlier,” he said.
However, William Castro, Manhattan Parks commissioner, told the
Art Commission that since the renovation of the south end of Union
Square Park was completed four years ago, 98 percent of permits for
public assembly at Union Square were issued for the 14th St. end of
the park. Nevertheless, he added, the north plaza is still available
for public demonstrations.
Castro also pointed out that the new playground will be three times
the size of the present playground, and the restaurant space in the
renovated pavilion will be smaller than the space that Luna Cafe,
the current seasonal outdoor restaurant, occupies on the south side of
the pavilion. The plan originally called for a year-round restaurant
in the pavilion but was changed last year to seasonal use.
Longtime critics of the plan, including former City Councilmember
Carol Greitzer, Paula Schaeffer and Geoffrey Croft, also denounced
the proposal for a restaurant in the 31/2-acre park. Castro, however,
said that City Councilmembers Christine Quinn and Rosie Mendez,
have accepted the plan.
But some critics derided as “public outhouses” the two proposed
free-standing restrooms for public use to be built on the east and
west sides of the pavilion. Critics said the restrooms within the
pavilion should be reconstructed and made public all year-round.
Under the approved plan, the pavilion restrooms will be for restaurant
patrons during its seasonal operation and open to the public the rest
of the year.
Critics including Barry Benepe, a founder of the Greenmarket and the
father of Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, criticized the location
of the playground in the sunken area now occupied by Luna Cafe.
“Nowhere else is there a playground that you have to walk into down
a flight of stairs or a ramp,” he observed. Benepe also denounced
the restaurant use of the pavilion in an area with many prominent
restaurants.
Aides for Borough President Scott Stringer, Assemblymember Richard
Gottfried, State Senator Tom Duane and Congressmember Carolyn Maloney
called for work to begin as soon as possible on the playground. But
they also denounced the pavilion restaurant.
Earlier this year, Community Board 5 approved the plan by a vote of
29 to 1.

DEBATS PARLEMENTAIRES EN FRANCE SUR LE GENOCIDE ARMENIEN: EREVAN PRUDENT
Agence France Presse
19 mai 2006 vendredi
Les autorites d’Erevan se sont montrees prudentes dans leur reaction
vendredi au report d’un vote a l’Assemblee nationale francaise sur
une proposition de loi visant a penaliser la negation du genocide
armenien de 1915.
“Nous avions salue le fait que cette question soit placee a l’ordre
du jour mais nous considerons qu’il s’agit d’une question interne du
Parlement francais”, a declare a l’AFP un porte-parole du ministère
armenien des Affaires etrangères, Vladimir Karapetian.
Un vote prevu jeudi a l’Assemblee nationale francaise sur une
proposition de loi visant a penaliser la negation du genocide armenien
de 1915 et qui divise la classe politique francaise, a ete reporte
sine die après un debut de debat houleux.
La Turquie, qui nie avec vigueur tout genocide, a aussitôt encourage
les deputes francais a abandonner pour de bon l’examen du projet,
qui a accru les tensions entre Paris et Ankara.
Les analystes armeniens estiment pour leur part que l’Assemblee
nationale marque simplement une pause face a ces tensions et que la
proposition sera votee cet automne.
“Ce serait un pas en arrière si le Parlement votait contre la
proposition. Cela porterait un prejudice moral a la France en tant
que porteur des valeurs de la democratie”, a declare le politologue
et depute armenien Amaïak Ovannissian.
“Le report de la question ne changera pas la position de la France
qui a deja reconnu le genocide armenien de 1915. Le Parlement a deja
montre qu’il avait une attitude positive pour le règlement de cette
question”, a declare de son côte l’historien Babken Aroutiounian.
–Boundary_(ID_pJskzii/2eB/IIm6+pWF 4g)–

ARMENIANS BELIEVE IN ANDRE
A1+
[07:51 pm] 19 May, 2006
Andre who represents Armenia in the music competition “EUROVISION-2006”
was included in the top ten of singers after yesterday’s semifinals.
This was a surprise for the Europeans, but not for Armenians. Prior to
the semifinals the international bookmakers assessed the possibility
of Andre’s success with the index 1.95. In Armenia the index was
1.7. By the way, many people gambled on Andre yesterday.
Now the indexes for the winner of the competition are
established. According to the international bookmakers, of all the
24 participants Andre has the least chance of winning. His index is
45 which is quite high. In Armenia the index is 18 which is high too.
The main candidates are the representative of Greece (taking into
account the fact that she sings in her home country), Sweden and
Romania. Representative of Russia Dima Bilan is the 5th in the list
with index 9.

SPLIT OF RULING COALITION – CATASTROPHE FOR ARMENIA’S POLITICAL FIELD
Yerevan, May 17. ArmInfo. The split of the ruling coalition may
bring the whole political field of Armenia to a catastrophe, says
independent MP Hamayak Hovhanissyan.
He says that the political and business elites are showing tendency
to merge. This has already resulted in forces like United Labor Party
and People’s Deputy group. But if earlier the economic elite accepted
the services of the political one, now it wants to serve itself. So
the parliamentary elections 2007 will be anti-political – everything
will be decided by oligarchs and this will kill the political field.
Commenting on the split of the Orinats Yerkir party and its leader
Artur Bagdassaryan from the ruling coalition, Hovhannissyan said that
after the elections 2003 Bagdassaryan began posing as “successor
of the presidential seat” – something the coalition and President
Kocharyan could not stand. So, they simply threw Bagdassaryan and
his party off the government. And now it will take him a long time
to prove to the people that he has no more links with Kocharyan.
One should not compare Bagdassaryan with Yuschenko or Saakashvili
because Kocharyan is not Kuchma or Shevardnadze, he is more like
authoritarian Yeltsin, who crushed all of his potential opponents.
Concerning the presidential election 2008, Hovhannissyan says that
everything will become clear already during the parliamentary elections
2007. The hyper-strong political force Republic party will push its
candidate for prime minister who will later become president. “Show
me just one person who doubts that this will be Defence Minister
Serzh Sargsyan,” says Hovhannissyan.
Hovhannissyan says that the vacant post of parliament speaker will
become a bone of content inside the government. This will give a
good chance for the opposition to get together and to nominate its
candidate for the post, for example, the leader of the National Unity
party Artashes Gegamyan.

TURKEY PROPOSES BILL THAT SAYS FRENCH COMMITTED GENOCIDE IN ALGERIA
Pravda, Russia
May 18 2006
The proposal was a tit-for-tat move, and the latest expression of
Turkey’s disapproval of NATO ally France, whose parliament on Thursday
postponed voting on a similar bill that would make it a crime to deny
that Turks committed genocide against Armenians around the time of
World War I.
Mahmut Kocak, a legislator from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development
Party representing the city of Afyon, said his proposal included making
May 8 of every year “The Genocide Carried out against the Algerians”
day. Under Kocak’s proposed law, anyone who denied that the French
committed genocide against the Algerians could be put in jail and
fined up to 100,000 Turkish lira (about US$70,000).
Turkey’s government has argued that designations of genocide should
be debated by historians, and not legislated by politicians.
Nonetheless, several countries, including France, have passed
resolutions recognizing the killings of as many as 1.5 million
Armenians in Turkey as genocide.
The bill in the French parliament would have taken recognition one step
further, however, by making it a crime to say Turks did not commit
genocide, similar to a French law that makes it a crime to deny that
Nazi Germans committed genocide against the Jews during World War II.
Turkey vehemently denies that it committed genocide against Armenians,
saying many were killed as the Ottoman Empire fell but it was not
part of an organized genocidal campaign, the AP reports.
The Turkish legislator’s remark was aimed to hit a sore spot in
French history.

WORLD VISION’S KAPAN TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM CONTINUES
Noyan Tapan
May 18 2006
KAPAN, MAY 18, NOYAN TAPAN. Rather large work has been done during two
years under the World Vision organization’s Territorial Development
Program that has been implemented in the communities of Kapan region
since 2003 October. As Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed
by program head Sergei Arzumanian, water-pipes were repaired in
17 rural communities, as well as the needs of the population were
studied. Parallelly food was distributed among needy layers, summer
camps were organized, in which children registered in the Kapan
Territorial Development Program are involved. Within the framework of
program of primary health protection doctor-specialists render free
medical service in 18 remote rural communities. It was mentioned that
at present works of building a canal for Kapan Aram Manukian street,
as well as repairs of Garegin Nzhdeh street’s canal and roofes of 5
tenement-houses are underway.