Author: Kanayan Tamar

DE FACTO GOVERNMENT OF TSKHINVALI CELEBRATES "INDEPENDENCE DAY"

Prime News Agency
September 20, 2007, 11:38 am
Georgia

Tbilisi. September 20 (Prime-News) – De facto government of Tskhinvali
celebrates "Independence Day" of self-proclaimed Republic of South
Ossetia on September 20.

According to the statement of de facto government, guests from the
breakaway regions of Abkhazia, Transdnestria, and Nagorno-Karabakh,
also representatives form the Kazak communities and the republics
of the northern Caucasus will attend celebrations dedicated to
"Independence Day".

According to their information, law enforcement bodies have increased
security measures in order to prevent provocations.

De facto militia imposed restrictions on transportation of local
residents throughout the territory of Georgia one month ago.

EUROPEAN THOUGHT AND ARMENIAN CAUSE
Nikos Lygeros

KarabakhOpen
19-09-2007 10:13:35

The Turkish diplomacy must finally understand that any European
thinker, any defender of the human rights is foremost Armenian. We
do not find references to Armenia in the manuscripts of Leonardo da
Vinci merely by chance. This country always attracted Europe. Only
from now on its people are even more important because the genocide
of the Armenians of 1915 represents a paradigm in the field of the
human rights. Its victims of an all-out war without name are evidences
shouting in our memory because the men themselves keep silent. For
now, we do not have any more excuses because we are not ourselves
in direct danger. So we must show that the Armenian cause is one of
the fundamental components of the European thought. We were certainly
able to conceive the Declaration of the Human Rights. But other people
had to endure the consequences of its transgression. These innocents
gave a lesson to the righteous. They gave their life so that men
sacrifice theirs to this cause. We cannot be satisfied to say that
we are the children of the Declaration of the Human Rights, we are
also the parents of the children victims of the genocide. Because the
genocide of the Armenians, the first of the XXth century, modified
our way of seeing the human rights. It enabled us to understand what
the reality of a crime against humanity constitutes. The Turkish
diplomacy tries by any means to exclude the Armenian claims, as it
disputes the existence of Cyprus, in order to appear in a neutral
way. But the European thought did not forget the past because it is
imprescriptible and also because it is our past. We do not want to
accept the genocide of the memory, this other genocide of the Turkish
system. If we are Europeans it is also because we are Armenians
too, because our own history was wounded by the genocide of these
people. The Turkish diplomacy may well play the card of the new image,
we keep in memory those of the "Petit Illustre" of our ancestors that
illustrated the "massacre a la Turque". As the grown up children still
remember images of their school, our memory cannot forget the victims
of the genocide, because it is the continuation of their deaths. The
memory can transcend death but only the recognition of the genocide
transcends barbarousness. If Turkey does not recognize the genocide,
it will recognize that we are Armenians!

MEDICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, PEDAGOGIC CENTRE TO OPEN IN YEREVAN

ARKA
September 17 2007

A new medical, psychological and pedagogic centre will open on
September 18 in Yerevan, the RA Ministry of Education and Science
reports.

RA Minister for Education Levon Mkrtchian, Yerevan’s Deputy Mayor
Kamo Areyan, Director of a benevolent organization Mark Kellyn,
Chairman of the Armenian Office of the Mission East Humanitarian Aid
Organization (Denmark) Kim Hartzner and Chairwoman of the Bridge of
Hope NGO Susanna Tadevosian will participate in the opening ceremony.

BLOG: ARMENIA – WINE, BRANDY AND GROWING MOUNTAINS
By Jill Worrall

New Zealand Herald
September 18, 2007
New Zealand

Travel Story

The city of Yerevan nestled beneath Mt Ararat, which lies on the
other side of the Turkish border.

Travelling often means riding the waves of the unexpected and when
you are responsible for 14 other people as well, keeping the good
ship Itinerary afloat can sometimes feel like one is lashed to the
mast in a heavy sea.

But thankfully, travel can also mean serendipitous happenings. So for
example when we arrived in the Armenian capital of Yerevan to find
our hotel rooms were not ready, it was time to roll out Plan B. So,
we drove to the spiritual heart of Armenia, Echmiadzin.

We were several hours ahead of schedule so it was by happy coincidence
that the head of the Armenian church, the Catholicus, was just
leaving his palace to process to his third century cathedral. I’m
sure he didn’t realise he was making a tour leader very happy but I
was grateful nonetheless.

While bells pealed, the black hooded Catholicus, followed by a
procession of clerics, some dressed in purple robes, swept past us,
under a porch adorned with watching angels and into the church.

By the time we stepped inside he was now clad in red and cream robes
richly embroidered in gold thread and two acolytes were wafting
incense around the altar.

The choir was singing – magnificent unaccompanied hymns spiralled
upwards into the high dome, intertwined in the ethereal blue smoke
of the burning incense.

Advertisement AdvertisementThe cathedral was packed with worshippers
and onlookers. While the service continued people lit tapers,
planted candles in long troughs of sand, crossed themselves, prayed
and took photographs.

The next day the guardian angel of tour guides was at work again, this
time at the 800 year-old Geghard monastery that is perched on the side
of a mountain in a narrow gorge about an hour’s drive from Yerevan.

There was no grand service here but a single priest in a white gown,
who was also swinging an incense burner – but his was complete with
small bells which jangled sleigh-like as he moved from church to
rock-hewn chapel.

We ate lunch in the garden of an enterprising local who had turned
his property into a restaurant for tourists. Our long table was set
under a weeping elm and was crammed with plates of paper-thin bread,
tomato and cucumber salads, eggplant coated with walnut paste, fresh
goat’s cheese and mounds of fresh herbs. Two sweating men toiled over
an oven into which they were feeding beef kebabs at high speed. Somehow
or another 150 people had turned up for lunch at the same time and
the staff were working overtime.

A barrel of brandy presented to former Polish president Lech
Walesa. Photo / Jill Worrall "Why has everyone come at once?" the owner
cried in despair, looking around his orchard and its feasting Kiwis,
Italians and Germans. But he wasn’t too busy to bring our table a
large earthenware jug of his homemade wine.

AZERBAIJAN: JAILED JOURNALIST SEEKS PARDON
Mina Muradova, a freelance reporter based in Baku.

EurasiaNet, NY
rticles/eav100505ru.shtml
Saturday, September 15, 2007

Facing a fresh charge of tax evasion, jailed Azerbaijani newspaper
editor Eynulla Fatullayev has petitioned Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev for a pardon and appealed to the European Court of Human Rights
for a ruling on his case.

Fatullayev, editor of the now-closed Realny Azerbaijan and
Azeri-language Gùndalik Azarbaycan newspapers, was arrested in April
2007 on charges of slander, and accused of "insulting" the Azerbaijani
people. The case began after Realniy Azerbaijan published a statement
by an Armenian army officer who said that Armenian forces had kept
open an exit corridor for civilians during the 1992 Khojali massacre
in Nagorno-Karabakh. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The most recent charge against the journalist, tax evasion, came on
September 4, after questioning of Realny Azerbaijan and Gùndalik
Azarbaycan staff by the Ministry of National Security agents. The
ministry claims that Fatullayev concealed 242,522 manats (roughly
$279,000) from Realny Azerbaijan’s income.

The charge is the third against the newspaper editor.

In July, the ministry accused Fatullayev of inciting ethnic and
religious hatred, and charged him with terrorism.

Fatullayev defense attorney Isakhan Ashurov told EurasiaNet that
preliminary investigations into the terrorism and tax evasion
charges have now ended, and that the cases are being transferred
to the Court on Serious Crimes for consideration. If found guilty,
the journalist would face a potential five to eight years in prison
on the terrorism charges and six months in prison on the tax evasion
charges, Fatullayev’s attorneys say.

Fatullayev was sentenced to 30 months in prison in April on the
original slander charges. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight
archive].

In late August, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan rejected an appeal.

Within the Azerbaijani legal system, a presidential pardon has now
become Fatullayev’s last option for release from jail.

In a September 9 appeal, the journalist asked for a pardon from
President Aliyev "because the criminal proceedings which were
instituted against him were unfair and ungrounded," Ashurov told
EurasiaNet. The likelihood of Fatullayev receiving that pardon,
however, is unknown.

In a September 7 press conference in Baku, the Council of Europe’s
visiting commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, said that
he had discussed the imprisonment of seven Azerbaijani journalists
with government officials, but did not receive a clear response about
future intended actions. Hammarberg said that he had also asked
President Aliyev to issue a pardon for the journalists. President
Aliyev’s office could not be reached for comment.

In early August, one senior presidential administration official,
however, dismissed the contention that "bringing some individuals to
trial" constitutes media repression.

"There is no reason for concern," said Ali Hasanov, head of the
administration’s political policy department, APA news agency
reported. "The guarantors of the freedom of speech are the state and
the president. In the future, we will take actions to increase state
care for the media."

Parliamentarian Vagif Samedoglu, a member of the Council of Europe’s
Commission on Human Rights, told APA news agency on September 11 that
the next presidential pardon decree is not expected before the end
of September.

Meanwhile, Fatullayev’s attorney is appealing in the international
arena. After the Supreme Court bid failed, an appeal was submitted
to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on September
10, Ashurov said. The lawyer claims that an "exceptional measure of
punishment" was used against Fatullayev by ordering his arrests on
grounds of alleged terrorism, while he was already under arrest on
the original charges.

The seven journalists in jail currently in Azerbaijan have sparked
rising concern from international organizations. All of the reporters
are in prison on charges of "defamation" or "incitement." All work
for non-government-controlled or pro-opposition media outlets.

On September 6, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ) issued a statement that called on the government to stop the
"persecution" of Fatullayev. "Not content with having locked up
Eynulla Fatullayev, the Azerbaijani authorities are now attempting
to throw away the key by piling up politically motivated criminal
charges against him," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

In a June 2007 report to the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe Permanent Council, Representative on Freedom of the Media
Miklñs Haraszti urged that the seven journalists be released and that
"persecution of the remaining independent media" stop.

The OSCE has also pushed for changes that would make libel, defamation
and verbal insults civil rather than criminal code violations. A
draft law on the topic has been under consideration in parliament
since late 2006.

–Boundary_(ID_/CdovBUJWEElJskNB0qPoQ)–

DASHNAKTSUTYUN MAY MAKE NO DECISION

Lragir.am
14-09-2007 13:18:20

It is probable that the ARF Dashnaktsutyun will not make the decision
it has been announcing after the parliamentary election regarding
naming president. The General Meeting of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun will
make a decision, which kicked off September 14 in Karabakh. On the
same day the speaker of the Armenian president Victor Soghomonyan
held a news conference and the reporters asked him about the opinion
of the president of Armenia on the ARF Dashnaktsutyun’s decision to
name a president. The reporters noticed a hint in Soghomonyan’s answer
that the ARF may make no decision on putting up a candidate at all.

"I would not like to comment because there is no decision as such.

Dashnaktsutyun has not decided yet. Let us wait until the decision is
made to speak about the attitude of the president," Victor Soghomonyan
said.

CHAIRMEN OF CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS OF SOUTH CAUCASUS TO VISIT GERMANY

Prime News Agency
September 12, 2007, 2:18 pm
Georgia

Tbilisi. September 12 (Prime-News) – Chairmen of the Constitutional
Courts of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia will visit Germany on
September 16-22.

Prime-News was told at the Technical Cooperation Community of Germany
(GTZ) that the visit would be held within the frameworks of the
regional project "reforms of court and justice in south Caucasus",
implemented by the GTZ.

Goal of the visit is to familiarize with the constitutional court
system of Germany on the federal level. The main issue of discussions
will be the reforms held in the court system in the South Caucasus
countries, as well as exchange experience in the justice system
of Germany.

Giorgi Papuashvili, Chairman of the Georgian Constitutional Court,
Farhad Abdullayev, Chairman of Azerbaijani Constitutional Court, and
Gagik Arutunan, Chairman of Armenian Constitutional Court, will hold
working meetings in Bundestag and the Federal Ministry for Economic
Development and Cooperation.

AZERBAIJANI FOREIGN MINISTER: NEW PEACE TREATY WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM, WE SHOULD TRY TO SOLVE THE CONFLICT

Azeri Press Agency
[ 10 Sep 2007 14:32 ]

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are scheduled to visit the region in
mid-September, APA reports quoting Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov. The Minister said that the route of the visit is being
specified at present.

"I met the co-chairs during my visit to Brussels. The co-chairs
initiated on visiting the region. We accepted this proposal. Azerbaijan
is interested in the continuation of the Prague process," he said.

Commenting on the statements on the necessity of concluding a new
agreement on ceasefire Elmar Mammadyarov noted that the co-chairs
are also concerned about regular violation of the ceasefire.

"I think that a new ceasefire agreement will not solve the problem. We
should try to solve the conflict," he said.

The Minister said he approves the idea of arranging a meeting of
Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno Karabakh.

"The more meetings are held, the better it is.

Involving Azeri community of Nagorno Karabakh in the negotiations
will only have positive results.

Armenians are also Azerbaijani citizens. So, relations should be
established with them," the minister said.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD MIXES BITTER WITH THE SWEET
Gabrielle Glaser

The Oregonian
Sunday, September 09, 2007

L ucette Lagnado’s luminous memoir, "The Man in the White Sharkskin
Suit: My Family’s Exodus From Old Cairo to the New World," begins in
wartime Cairo, outside a sun-drenched cafe where a girl of 20 enjoys
a coffee — and the attentions of a much-older man-about-town who
favors dressing in a white sharkskin suit. The two, Edith and Leon,
would marry in the Sephardic Jewish community in which they grew up
and eventually become the author’s parents.

Lagnado, an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has a
national reputation for covering the struggles of the poor, the elderly
and the uninsured within the health care system. Her compassion for
the voiceless and the forgotten is little wonder: In this memoir,
Lagnado traces the lives and disintegrating world of her parents,
an urbane Cairo where roses perfumed the air and wealthy residents
conversed in French, Greek, Dutch, English, Italian and Armenian.

Among Leon’s consorts: King Farouk I and British Army officers,
who called him "The Captain."

Lagnado spares nothing in the retelling, portraying her father, 55 when
she was born, in all his complexities: his gambling, his womanizing,
his mysterious business practices, his deep love of his family and
his devotion to Judaism. Poor, shy Edith, young enough to be Leon’s
daughter, is bullied by his domineering family into staying in her
unhappy marriage. Tension was rife: Zarifa, the author’s grandmother,
found Edith, trained as a librarian, a poor housekeeper — a verdict
"like a death sentence" in a community where such skills were
paramount.

Zarifa’s love unfurled each day in magical, curative cooking —
aromatic chickens stuffed with apricots or olives; okra-and-lamb stews;
meatballs with sour cherries.

Meanwhile, a real death sentence looms for Egyptian Jews. Leon’s
sister, her husband and children, who lived in Italy, died
at Auschwitz. After the war, most of Cairo’s Jews emigrated to
Israel. King Farouk abdicated, and Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized
Egyptian industry. Leon hangs on, with his little princess Lucette,
known as Loulou, his constant companion. But finally doors close even
for Leon, and the family prepares to leave in 1963. "Ragaouna Masr,"
Leon cries as Alexandria’s harbor drifts out of sight.

The family lights in Paris and eventually sails to New York, at odds in
a cold new universe shared by so many immigrants from sunny climes. The
Lagnados shiver, their thin coats useless against the winter chill. The
Captain of Cairo limps along New York streets, selling ties to put
food on the table. His Egyptian princess is at his side.

When Lagnado is diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease — in Egypt,
doctors thought the symptoms were cat-scratch fever — she finds
care at Manhattan’s temple of science, Memorial Sloan-Kettering,
with a kindly patrician doctor educated at Yale. Leon and Edith hold
fast to faith, summoning an ancient rabbi said to possess special
powers. As his youngest child undergoes radiation, Leon feeds her
olives. Like the other round fruits Zarifa tucked into her meats,
the olives were life-giving: the only morsels Lagnado could keep down.

The family, though, is shattered. By the late 1980s, the four children
have scattered. Edith suffers multiple strokes, her knowledge of
literature all but erased. Leon, afflicted with Alzheimer’s and
Parkinson’s, eventually succumbs.

But for us, Leon’s youngest daughter keeps him, and his beloved Cairo,
alive, young and vital, in this tender and captivating memoir.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT MEETS REPRESENTATIVES OF POLITICAL PARTIES

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 7 2007

YEREVAN, September 7. /ARKA/. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan
met with representatives of political parties on Thursday.

The president met representatives of Republican Party of Armenia,
Armenian Revolutionary federation Dashnaktsutyun and Prosperous
Armenia.

Issues related to National Assembly’s coming session scheduled for
September 10 were discussed at the meeting.

Armenian parliamentary elections were held on May 12.

Five parties – Republican Party of Armenia, prosperous Armenia,
Dashnaktsutyun, Orinats Yerkir and Heritage won seats in National
Assembly.

Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia united into a ruling
coalition. The coalition signed an agreement with Dashnaktsutyun.