Author: Karabekian Emil

FIRST LADY OF AZERBAIJAN CALLS ON INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO TURN ATTENTION TO NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT

TREND News Agency, Azerbaijan
May 18 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku / corr. S.Agayeva / The international community should
focus its attention on the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Such a statement was made by the President
of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Goodwill Ambassador of both
UNESCO and ISESCO, the First Lady of Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyeva,
on 18 May in the opening ceremony of the Azerbaijani room in Nation
Palace, stated Elchin Amirbeyov, the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to
Switzerland and also Head of Azerbaijan’s Permanent Representation
to UN Geneva Department and international organizations, on 18 May.

The First Lady of Azerbaijan regretfully stressed that presently the
member of UNO, Azerbaijan, is under military conflict, but the UN’s
four resolutions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement have not
yet been implemented. She called on the international community to
turn its attention to the conflict. The opening ceremony was attended
by Director General of UN Geneva Department, Sergey Ordjankidze,
Ambassador of the foreign countries in Geneva, representatives of
the international organizations. According to Amirbeyov, before
the ceremony, Aliyeva met with the Director General of UN Geneva
Department, Sergey Ordjankidze. The meeting focused on the prospects
of the co-operation between Azerbaijan and the UN. Ordjankidze highly
assessed the efforts of Azerbaijan to expand the co-operation with
the UN and voiced confidence for future effective co-operation.

The First Lady of Azerbaijan spoke of the real development of
Azerbaijan and invited Director General of UN Geneva Department to
visit Azerbaijan. The Ambassador said that the date of the visit will
be confirmed through diplomatic channels. Mehriban Aliyeva’s visit
will conclude on 18 May. In Geneva, the World Health Organization
awarded Mehriban Aliyeva ‘For Exclusive Services in Protecting and
Strengthening the Health of Mothers, Children and Families’.

LES LYCEENS METTENT EN SCèNE LES GENOCIDES

La Nouvelle Republique du Centre Ouest
18 mai 2007 vendredi
Edition INDRE

Elèves de l’option et l’atelier theâtre du lycee Balzac ont travaille
cette annee avec les professionnels de la compagnie Le Lamparo. De
cette collaboration sont nes trois spectacles presentes au cours de
la semaine regionale " Aux arts lyceens ! ".

Après des extraits de " Platonov " de Tchekov, par les terminale, "
Autour du Quai Ouest " d’après Koltès des 1, la dizaine de lyceens de
l’atelier theâtrea fait du final, mardi soir, un rappel des genocides
du XX siècle.

Ils ont concentre leur travail sur trois genocides : au Rwanda
recemment, en Armenie en 1915, et la Shoah, pendant la Seconde Guerre
mondiale. Les temoignages de rescapes et de bourreaux rwandais,
presentes sous forme d’exposition, ont ete lus par les apprentis
comediens. Leurs textes sur l’Armenie meurtrie sont issus du travail
d’une ecrivaine, qui a recueilli le temoignage de ses grands-parents,
rescapes de ce premier genocide du XX siècle. Pour illustrer la Shoah,
les adolescents se sont reportes aux ouvrages de Charlotte Delbot
(1913-1985) sur la deportation. Secretaire de 1938 a 1941 du comedien
et metteur en scène Louis Jouvet avant de rejoindre la Resistance,
cette femme de lettres a vecu la deportation a Auschwitz dès janvier
1943.

GRAPHIQUE: Au hasard d’une exposition reconstituee, des temoignages
intenses de victimes et bourreaux rwandais interpretes par les lyceens.

–Boundary_(ID_kodCL7VzDQcBIaCy/5CEkA)–

OPPOSITION PROMISES TO BE CONSISTENT IN ITS FIGHT

Noyan Tapan
May 18 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 18, NOYAN TAPAN. Prior to starting an opposition rally
at Freedom Square on May 18, those present observed a one-minute
silence in memory of the Great Armenian opera singer Gohar Gasparian.

During the rally, parts from the 2003 interview of Gohar Gasparian were
quoted, particularly, her calls for the opposition not to retreat,
"To retreat means to commit a suicide, today my only advice to the
people is not to be afraid of provincialism that wants to bring the
nation with a thousand-year-long history and culture to its knees,"
Gohar Gasparian said in 2003.

Leader of "Impeachment" bloc Nicol Pashinian said that the opposition
is not going to tolerate the current situation in Armenia: "The
election results were rigged, and our demand is to recognize these
results as invalid and convene re-elections, we’ll be consistent in
our fight and demonstrate a political will," Pashinian stated.

He underlined that the opposition’s struggle is not the struggle to
be taken as one step: "We’ll not stop until we reach our goal. The
movement will be national, and rallies represent only one component
of this movement."

Particularly, representative of the "Orinats Yerkir" party Heghine
Bisharian, leaders of "New Times" and "Republic" parties Aram
Karapetian and Aram Sargsian, and chairman of the People’s Party of
Armenia Stepan Demirchian made speeches at the rally. It was announced
that the opposition envisages to carry out the respective work with
observers and various classes of the society.

Nagorno-Karabakh participates in tourism expo in Moscow

19-05-2007 12:06:11 – KarabakhOpen

Nagorno-Karabakh has a separate stand on the 7th international tourism
fair at the expo center of the Gostini Dvor in Moscow launched
Thursday, reported the correspondent of the Azerbaijani Trend news
agency.

With a week to go before the forum in Moscow the leaders of the
Azerbaijani Diasporan organizations (Federal National and Cultural
Autonomy of Azerbaijanis of Russia, Karabakh International Foundation
and Coordination Board of Azerbaijani Youth) sent letters to the
Tourism Committee of Moscow claiming that Nagorno-Karabakh is not
authorized to be presented not only as a republic but also a sovereign
region. They reminded in the message about the consequences of the
similar effort in the previous 6th expo in Moscow (May 13, 2006) where
the region was presented as `Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’. At that time
the `activists’ of the Azerbaijani Diasporan organizations hindered
the presentation of the stand of NKR, which almost led to a fight. The
message holds that the decision to have a separate stand of
Nagorno-Karabakh may have bad consequences, and the Tourism Committee
of Moscow will be responsible.

Trend reported that the representative of the Tourism Committee called
back and informed that this time Nagorno-Karabakh will be presented
not as a republic, and there will be no national symbols on the
stand. Nevertheless, the Azerbaijani side in the face of the Diasporan
organizations demanded closing down the stand of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In fact, Nagorno-Karabakh is presented as a geographic region, not as
a republic. `But on this stand the Azerbaijani objects, clothes, wines
are presented as Armenian. On May 18 and 19 besides the presentation
of the Azerbaijani stand the presentation of the separate stand of
Nagorno-Karabakh is planned. The activists of the Azerbaijani
Diasporan organizations are ready to prevent it,’ the message holds.

University shut in Holocaust row

Story from BBC NEWS:
europe/6670745.stm

Published: 2007/05/18 17:33:14 GMT

An Italian university has closed down one of its campuses to prevent a
planned lecture by a controversial French professor and Holocaust denier.
Robert Faurisson has been convicted five times in France for denying crimes
against humanity.
He was due to speak at the University of Teramo in central Italy as part of a
Masters course in Middle East studies.
But the university decided to close part of the campus to prevent him
addressing students.

It said the "climate of tension" might endanger the safety of its students.
‘Embarrassment’
Faurisson says that Nazi gas chambers are a fiction and that most of the Jews
who were killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp died of natural causes.
Last year, he was one of several prominent Holocaust deniers who gathered to
take part in a conference in Iran.
The University of Teramo’s Professor Moffa, who organised the lecture, was
formally warned to cancel the invitation but insisted he had a right to
academic independence.
"Are you so convinced of your truths?" Mr Moffa was quoted as telling the
Italian daily newspaper La Stampa. "Then why don’t you come and pull him to
pieces?"
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre issued a statement saying that the invitation to
Faurisson was "an embarrassment to Italian academia".
"To welcome Faurisson […] encourages a perverse propaganda to incite a new
generation to anti-Semitism," it read, according to AP.
European interior ministers agreed last month to make it an offence to
condone or grossly trivialise crimes of genocide – but only if the effect is
incitement to violence or hatred.

SPECIAL SESSION OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO BE CONVENED AT 12:00 ON MAY 16, 2007

National Assembly of RA, Armenia
May 16 2007

The President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia
Mr. Tigran Torosyan signed a decree, based on which, according to the
Article 70 of the RA Constitution, by the initiative of the President
of the Republic of Armenia, at 12:00 on May 16, 2007 a special session
of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia with the agenda
on the Approval of the Programme of the Government by the National
Assembly of the Republic of Armenia will be convened.

BASICALLY NATO SEC. GEN. IS SATISFIED WITH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.05.2007 13:37 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
expressed satisfaction with the fact that parliamentary elections in
Armenia were considered by international monitors to be largely in
accordance with Armenia’s OSCE and Council of Europe commitments.

"I encourage the Armenian authorities to investigate thoroughly all
complaints and to address the remaining problems identified by the
international observers," Scheffer stated. " NATO will continue to
support Armenia’s reform efforts and to continue our strong cooperation
in the Partnership for Peace program," Secretary General underscored.

Armenia chooses new parliament amid opposition worries about
potentially false results
AVET DEMOURIAN, AP Worldstream
Published: May 12, 2007

Armenia voted for a new parliament Saturday in elections dominated by
concerns about economic issues in the poor and landlocked ex-Soviet
republic and by opposition fears that officials will falsify the
results.

All 131 seats in the National Assembly are up for grabs _ 90 to be
chosen according to proportions that parties get nationwide and the
other 41 in single-mandate contests.

The last parliamentary election, in 2003, was assessed by Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers as falling short of
international democratic standards. But a preliminary report from the
OSCE’s elections-monitoring office on this year’s campaign did not
point to significant problems.

National media reports on the campaign have been "generally devoid of
negative reporting," the report said. The OSCE frequently criticizes
elections in post-Soviet countries for media reports that either ignore
opposition forces or portray them unfairly.

However, the report did raise concerns about one pre-election report,
when a newspaper obtained a secretly recorded tape of a conversation
between the leader of the Orinats Yerkir opposition party and a British
Embassy official. The party leader, Artur Bagdasarian, reportedly says
he is seeking to have the international community give a poor
assessment of the vote.

President Robert Kocharian subsequently said Bagdasarian’s comments
could be considered as treason.

Bagdasarian on Saturday said, "We already have signals of violations,"
including the disappearance of ballots.

But Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian said, "I hope this election will be
for the people and for the observers the best in Armenia’s history. …
I don’t think there will be falsifications."

Opinion polls indicate the top parties are likely to be Sarkisian’s
Republican Party and the Prosperous Armenia Party, each appearing
positioned to get about 30 percent of the vote.

Prosperous Armenia is a comparatively new player on the political
scene, having been formed in 2004, and its origins are unclear. Some
observers suggest it was formed at Kocharian’s initiative as a way to
have a counterbalance to the Republican Party.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, which has been the Republican
Party’s partner in forming a parliamentary majority, is seen as likely
getting third place.

National turnout at noon, four hours after the polls opened, was
reported at 10.5 percent, but lines were seen outside many polling
stations, indicating participation could accelerate.

All the main parties call for addressing economic and social problems,
including ways to increase the population of about 2.9 million. The
country’s population has dropped sharply in the post-Soviet period as
the birthrate declined and an estimated 900,000 people emigrated,
largely due to manifest economic problems.

The tiny South Caucasus nation has few natural resources and its
economic development is further restricted by the closing of its
borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey _ both of which were closed in
protest of ethnic Armenian troops taking control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a
territory in Azerbaijan, during a six-year conflict in the early 1990s.

Armenia refused to grant visas to eight Turkish observers who wanted to
come as part of the OSCE’s election mission.

After police clashed with opposition demonstrators at a gathering in
the capital, Yerevan, this week, opposition concerns that the
authorities will manipulate the election results have risen and
activists have promised to take to the streets if that happens.

"If they once again try to falsify the elections, we will call all our
fellow citizens to come into the center of Yerevan" on Sunday, Aram
Sarkisian, leader of the opposition Republic Party , was quoted by the
newspaper Kommersant as saying this week. Sarkisian is unrelated to the
leader of the Republican Party.

GAGIK TSARUKIAN: ARMENIA TODAY NEEDS BARGAVACH HAYASTAN PROGRAM

YEREVAN, MAY 12, NOYAN TAPAN. "I vote in the name of our country,
people, implementation of the party program," Gagik Tsarukian, the
Chairman of the Bargavach Hayastan (Prosperous Armenia) party informed
journalists after voting at polling station No28/26 of the village of
Arinj on May 12. In his words, there is need of his party program
today, the open corner which his team represents. "The time will show
the rest," G. Tsarukian mentioned, adding that he considers realistic
100% implementation of the program of his party if they today overcome
fifty and one per cent.

In words of Levon Sargsian, the Chairman of polling station No28/26,
550 from the 1991 electors voted as of 11:30. In his opinion, 70-80%
participation is expected.

To recap, 4 confidents, including 3 confidents of G.Tsarukian by the
majoritarian electoral system, 1 from Bargavach Hayastan, and 4
observers are presented at that polling station.

TAX REVENUES OF RA STATE BUDGET GROW BY 26.9% IN FIRST QUARTER OF 2007 ON SAME PERIOD OF LAST YEAR

Noyan Tapan
May 08 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. In the first quarter of 2007, tax revenues
made up 81.4% of the RA state budgetary revenues. State duties made
up 3.8%, non-tax revenues – 10.5%, revenues from capital operations –
4.1% and official transfers – 0.2%.

According to data of the RA Ministry of Finance and Economy, in the
indicated period tax revenues of the state budget amounted to over
90.1 bln drams (more than 250.6 mln USD), which ensured fulfilment
of the quarterly program by 99.9%. Tax revenues increased by 26.9%
or 19.1 bln drams on the same period of 2006. High growth rates were
registered with respect to all taxes (except excise tax).

In the period under review, 49.5% of tax revenues was received at the
expense of VAT which amounted to 44.6 bln drams. 25.93 bln drams of
this sum was received from taxation on the borders of the RA, about
18.63 bln drams – from domestic turnover of goods and services. VAT
revenues of the state budget grew by 40% or 12.7 bln drams on the
same period of last year.