Author: Kanayan Tamar

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MAKES SPEECH AT FORUM IN BLED

Noyan Tapan
Aug 27 2007

BLED, AUGUST 27, NOYAN TAPAN. At the invitation of the foreign
minister of Slovenia Dimitri Rupel, the Armenian foreign minister
Vartan Oskanian took part in the forum held in the city of Bled on
August 26-27. According to a press release submitted to NT by the RA
MFA Press and Information Department, among forum participants were
representatives of the European Union, high-ranking officials from
European, Caucasian and Central Asian countries.

V. Oskanian made a speech at the round table "The Economic and
Political Directions of the South Caucasus and Central Europe: the
Role of the EU, and the OSCE". His speech concerned general positive
developments in the economy, whose continuation will become a stimulus
for positive developments in the political sphere.

Speaking about the region’s development, the Armenian foreign minister
underlined the importance of focusing on sustainable economic
development problems. He called on the international community to
view the region not only from the viewpoint of oil and gas export
but also as a community with its own powerful human resources which
should be used and encouraged.

V. Oskanian pointed out that European structures greatly assisted with
democratization of the newly independed states, and the continuous
involvement of these structures can be conducive to the formation of
necessary institutions and to comprehensive economic growth.

The lion must eat every day, it is a beast: A representative of
Armenian opposition about Russia

arminfo
2007-08-25 08:56:00

` To support Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan’s candidacy at the
presidential election in Armenia, Russia apparently can’t be satisfied
with the things it has already received. The lion must eat every day.
It is a beast,’ Ruzan Khachatryan, the press-secretary and a member of
the People’s Party of Armenia (PPA), told ArmInfo correspondent,
commenting upon the rumors about possible selling of VivaCell mobile
operator to the MTS company (Russia).

According to her, `the possible implementation of this transaction is a
logic continuation of the policy conducted by the ruling clan since
1998′. She recalled that as early as 2000 the PPA came out against the
evil policy of privatizing the strategic spheres of economy. `For this
very reason we left the Unity bloc, which was ruling at that time, and
joined the opposition,’ R.Khachatryan said.

She qualified `Property for Debt’ as the ugliest of similar
transactions. According to `Property for Debt’, Armenia handed over 5
large industrial enterprises to Russia instead of paying 100 mln USD
debt. Touching upon the prospects of support of Serzh Sargsyan’s
candidacy by Russia, Ruzan Khachatryan emphasized: `One should support
a big political figure whose victory will contribute to development of
relations between the two countries. As it is hard to see such a
political figure in this case, it remains for Russia to take away more
from the small country’.

MICROSOFT INCREASES SALES OF ITS PRODUCTION IN ARMENIA

Noyan Tapan
Aug 23, 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 23, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian IT company Bi Line
started distribution of Microsoft software a year ago. Hayk Khanjyan,
Bi Line’s president, told NT correspondent that over the past few
months, as many software packages have been sold a month as in the
first six months.

He said that a year ago 90-98% of Microsoft software packages used
in Armenia were pirate ones. Now this index has declined by at least
5% thanks to Bi Line’s efforts and the fact Microsoft RA company,
Microsoft’s representative, opened in Yerevan a year ago. Measures
to promote the use of licensed Microsoft software are being taken
both at private organizations and state government structures.

H. Khanjyn expressed satisfaction over the fact that sales of Microsoft
software are increasing thanks to explanatory work rather than due
to compulsion. "If we consider Armenia a country which will have its
say in the IT sector, particularly in the field of programming, and
if we want our software to be sold, in this case we have to purchase
licensed software of others and respect their copyright," he noted.

ETHNIC ARMENIAN MUSICIANS TO PLAY IN YEREVAN IN SEPTEMBER

ARMENPRESS
Aug 22, 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 22, ARMENPRESS: Ethnic Armenian musicians from Germany,
Spain, France, Belgium, Portugal and Armenia proper will play for music
lovers in a series or concerts in Yerevan from September 19 to 30.

The 10-day music event, titled "Return Festival’ will be held under
the high sponsorship of Armenia’s First Lady Mrs. Bella Kocharian.

The goal of this festival is to present to music lovers of Armenia
the latest achievements of super class ethnic Armenian musicians.

The musicians will also play for a charitable concert in Armenia’s
second largest town of Gyumri.

HISTORY LESSONS: WHAT WE’RE TAUGHT AND WHAT’S IGNORED
By Keith Goetzman, Utne Reader

Utne Reader Online
tory/12741-1.html
Aug 21 2007

It’s been nearly 30 years since historian Howard Zinn fired a shot
across the bow of Columbus’ ship with A People’s History of the United
States (Harper & Row, 1980), a landmark book that viewed U.S.

history through the eyes of ordinary Americans and punched holes in
some of the nation’s most enduring myths: that Columbus was a gallant
adventurer, for instance, that class and race divisions have largely
been swept away, and that most of the country’s wars have served the
"national interest." The book turned "revisionist historian" into
a rote epithet among many conservatives, and turned Zinn into an
oft-struck lightning rod in the culture wars.

Zinn has endured the long storm with grace and perseverance, and
now that A People’s History has sold over a million copies and been
incorporated into more and more classroom curricula, he’s no longer
easily dismissed as an agitator from the fringe. He still speaks
tirelessly, works for social change as an unapologetic activist, and
writes in a straightforward style that retains its ability to provoke
thought and challenge assumptions ("Can We Handle the Truth?" p. 51).

Even history teachers who disagree with Zinn on some matters have found
a reliable recipe for vigorous classroom debate: Read a conventional
history book. Read Zinn. Discuss. Fireworks are sure to follow.

It’s not just the United States, of course, that’s wrestling with how
its national story is told and taught. In Australia, a disagreement
over interpretations of the country’s European colonization has
morphed into a long-running public battle known as the history wars.

Turkey has yet to collectively comprehend its involvement in the
genocide of Armenian Christians, while Germany, which has in many ways
forthrightly confronted the horrors of the Holocaust, is encountering
resistance to Holocaust studies from young members of its Arab and
Muslim minorities ("Forgetting Hitler," p. 54). Clearly, even a nation
that has gone out of its way to face the past must struggle to keep its
"revised" storyline credible and to ensure that it is widely shared.

While many of us are reflexively bored when we hear the word history
and downright repulsed by the idea of a history book, we flock to
period movies and biopics about historical figures, watch the History
Channel, and consume shelf-loads of historical fiction and biography.

We get interested, it seems, when we explore the human lives behind the
cavalcade of events. Astute educators like English professor Patrick
Hicks ("In the Trenches," p. 58) take advantage of this phenomenon to
draw connections between literature and history, World War I and the
Iraq War, today’s college students and yesteryear’s foot soldiers. We
can only hope that more nonhistorians like him continue to mine the
power of art to bring the past alive.

In the meantime, the field of history is branching out in exciting new
directions. The Internet has opened up a rich forum for all manner
of historical material and debate, from massive photo and document
archives such as those at the Library of Congress ()
to captivating blogs such as Cliopatria (hnn.us/blogs/2.html) and
Steamboats Are Ruining Everything (). Institutions
like the Holocaust Museum are bringing history alive in powerful
ways that don’t sacrifice accuracy for impact. And the historical
sciences-geology, biology, paleoanthropology-are continually adding
new information to the ancient story of humans on earth, thanks in
part to new technology and methods.

Harvard history professor Daniel Lord Smail argues in his forthcoming
book On Deep History and the Brain (University of California Press,
2007) that history should trace its subjects–humans–right back to
their beginnings in the Stone Age, rather than focusing, as most
historians do, on the period since the rise of civilization and
dismissing what preceded it as "prehistory." This "deep history,"
he says, would be "a seamless narrative that acknowledges the full
chronology of the human past."

It ought to be one hell of a story, and a blockbuster of a movie.

KASIAN STREET CLOSED DUE TO CONSTRUCTION OF NEW MAJOR TRAFFIC CENTER

ARKA News Agency
Aug 21 2007
Armenia

YEREVAN, August 21. /ARKA/. Kasian street located at the center of
Yerevan will be closed from now on for the purpose of the construction
of a new major traffic center on the Friendship Square.

The Press Service of Yerevan Municipality reported that a new temporary
traffic mode is set providing for the transport moving through Kalents,
Giulbenkian and Kochar streets.

According to the press release, construction of another traffic
center – at the intersection of Baghramian and Orbeli Brothers’
streets – is to be started shortly. Changes in the traffic regime
will be reported additionally.

"The Municipality takes the required steps to regulate the traffic and
ensure the security in the construction process. The Municipality
apologizes to the residents for the inconvenience caused," the
release says.

Yerevan Municipality appropriated USD 15 mln for the construction of
the new multitier traffic center in the center of Yerevan. The new
traffic center is to ensure uninterrupted and safe traffic on the
Friendship Square. Due to the construction, the square will be closed
by the end of this year. During the next four month transport means
will move through the alternative streets – Giulbenkian, Avetisian,
Kochar and Kalents streets and Komitas Avenue.

CHILDREN FROM ARTSAKH WILL REST IN ATHENS

KarabakhOpen
21-08-2007 17:03:01

21 children from Karabakh aged 10 to 16 leave for Athens on August 23
for a fortnight. The head of the department of youth of the ministry
of education Marianna Hakobyan told Karabakh-Open.com children of
killed soldiers, including 12 from Stepanakert, will spend their
holiday in Athens.

The holiday is financed by Khachik Khachatryan, benefactor, citizen
of Athens, who supported this project all through its ten years
of existence.

Every year a group of teenagers rests in Athens in the framework of
this project. By the way, some more groups of children from Karabakh
are taken to Cyprus every year. Last year four groups of schoolchildren
left for Cyprus, this year only one group was sent.

KARABAKH ARMY CAPABLE OF REPELLING AZERI ATTACK – NKR MINISTER

Arminfo
21 Aug 07

Yerevan, 21 August: Speaking at a news conference in Stepanakert today
[21 August], Nagornyy Karabakh republic [NKR] defence minister Lt-Gen
Movses Hakobyan said that "passive positional warfare is going on
at the contact line of the Nagornyy Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed
forces practically every day".

He said that Azerbaijan is continuing its attempts to advance
its positions closer to the vanguard positions of the NKR Defence
Army. However, the Karabakh units do not allow the adversary to
advance and take the initiative. In this context, Hakobyan confirmed
that the situation on the contact line escalated a few weeks ago
resulting in a firefight. "We will continue to strictly thwart the
adversary’s attempts to get closer to our positions," he said.

He said that though the Nagornyy Karabakh armed forces are called
Defence Army, "we will not only defend ourselves but counterattack
if necessary." He added that the Karabakh army is capable of carrying
out its main task: ensure the security of the NKR and maintain peace
on the contact line.

Commenting on the recent media reports about Azerbaijan obtaining
military hardware from Russia, Hakobyan said that this fact raises
concern in Karabakh. He said, however, that the republic’s leadership
does whatever it can to raise the army’s capability. He said, in
particular, that the entire territory of Nagornyy Karabakh is under
the effective defence of air defence forces and "Azerbaijan will not
be able to bomb Stepanakert as was the case during the war".

"If the Azerbaijani political leadership was sure of its success,
it would immediately unleash a war against Nagornyy Karabakh without
paying attention to international structures," he said.

FIXED TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION IS INTERRUPTED IN THE CENTER OF YEREVAN FOR THE SECOND TIME

arminfo
2007-08-20 20:57:00

The fixed telephone communication was interrupted in the center of
Yerevan for over 1 hour, Monday.

The press-service of the ArmenTel CJSC (branch of VimpelCom) told
ArmInfo correspondent that communication was interrupted at 3:15 pm
and restored at 4:20 pm. The interruption was caused by high voltage
fluctuation in the network of the 5th branch exchange that found
itself in the restart mode. As a result, telephones in the center of
Yerevan were disconnected.

To recall, this was the second time the telephone communication in the
center of Yerevan was interrupted in 2007. On August 18, telephones
were disconnected for almost 2 hours. ArmenTel CJSC said that it was
also caused by voltage fluctuation in the network. However, according
to the press-service of the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) CJSC,
the ENA dispatcher services received no complaints about the power
fluctuation in the network.

To note, the monopoly in fixed telephone communication in Armenia
belongs to the ArmenTel company.

The Boston Globe Editorial
Globe Editorial

No synonyms for genocide

August 18, 2007

ONE SHOULDN’T play geopolitics with genocide. The executive committee of the
Anti-Defamation League for New England showed sound moral judgment this week
when it acknowledged that, just like the destruction of the Jews in Europe
and the Tutsis in Rwanda, the slaughter of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
was a horrific crime against humanity.

All three genocides had particular historical characteristics, but they have
universal significance as a recurring evil that needs to be identified
properly so that humankind recognizes its early stages and takes action to
prevent mass slaughter.

But the national ADL apparently thinks that it can pick and choose among
genocides. Yesterday it fired Andrew Tarsy, the regional director, for
urging the national organization to acknowledge the reality of what happened
from 1915 to 1917 in what is now Turkey. The ADL plans to run an
advertisement in the Globe and other newspapers explaining its position.

In a telephone interview yesterday, James Rudolph, the regional ADL
chairman, called Tarsy an extraordinary leader. Indeed, Tarsy was acting in
the best ADL tradition of trying to unite people of different ethnic groups,
in this case Jews and Armenians, to promote human rights.

The national ADL, in its ad, does condemn the killing of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians but can’t quite describe this crime for what it was:
genocide. The ADL says it is worried about the fate of the Jewish community
in Turkey and Turkey’s strategic relationships with the United States and
Israel.

But Turkey’s treatment of its Jewish minority and its foreign policy
shouldn’t depend on a historical lie. If the national ADL doesn’t
acknowledge the genocide, it is complicit in a coverup.