Author: Karakhanian Suren

“MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE” FUND SESSION
A1+
[06:03 pm] 11 May, 2006
The trustees’ council session of the “Millennium Challenge” fund
Armenian program was convened today which was presided over by the
chairman of the council and RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan. The
representatives of the NGOs were also invited to the session;
among them Nazeli Vardanyan, chairman of the NGO “Armenian Forests,”
Jemma Hasratyan, head of the NGO “Women with university education,”
and Levon Barseghyan, chairman of the NGO “Asparez” journalists’ club.”
The key issue of the session was the information presented by head
of working group of the “Millennium Challenge” fund Armenian program,
chairman of the council and RA Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy
David Avetisyan.
The council also discussed and supported the results of technical
suggestions evaluation got as a result of a contest which was aimed
at choosing financial agent of the program. It was announced that
the prequalifying committee held an assessment in accordance with the
qualification criteria of the “Millennium Challenge” cooperation and
as a result of it three organizations were involved in the contest
list. One of them was disqualified because of its low points. The
prequalifying results of the other two organizations were approved
by the council. Later they will be presented to the “Millennium
Challenge” cooperation for approval. The winner will be made public
after revealing the financial suggestions of the above mentioned
organizations and their evaluation.
The participants of the session also referred to other organizational
issues.

ANOTHER 8 BODIES OF AIR CARSH VICTIMS DELIVERED TO YEREVAN
Yerevan, May 6. ArmInfo. Il-76 with 8 bodies of the killed in Airbus
A320 crash near Sochi and Yak42 with their relatives on board arrived
in Yerevan at 23:10 PM AND 23:20 PM Friday, Armenian Rescue Service
told ArmInfo. The last data say 51 bodies have been pulled out so far,
including 42 have been identified. Earlier 26 bodies were delivered
to Yerevan. 113 people were killed in total.

UK READY TO ASSIST SEARCH AT AIR CRASH LOCATION
PanARMENIAN.Net
05.05.2006 20:39 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The UK is ready to assist Russia in searching for
fragments of A-320 Armenian plane in the Black Sea, if asked for it,
a British MFA representative said. “We are always ready to assist
our Russian colleagues in situations like this.
However, no requests for assistance were received from the Russian
party yet,” the source said, reports RIA Novosti.

BODIES OF PLANE CRASH VICTIMS TRANSPORTED TO ARMENIA
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
5 May 06
The bodies of 26 passengers from the Armenian airliner that crashed
in the Black Sea have been transported to Yerevan on a special flight
from Sochi, Armenian Public TV reported on 5 May.
The bodies were taken from the airport to a forensic medical
examination morgue, the report said.
One more flight from Sochi is expected in Yerevan in the evening of
5 May, the report said.

KNOW GENOCIDE PARTICIPATES IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
RALLY TO END DARFUR GENOCIDE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Harout H. Semerdjian
May 4, 2006 617-489-1597
Web: E-mail: [email protected]
BOSTON, MA – On April 30, 2006 members and supporters of the newly
formed KNOW GENOCIDE coalition joined thousands of activists in our
nation’s capital in condemning the ongoing genocide in Darfur and
bringing the tragedy to the attention of the White House. The event
was sponsored by the Save Darfur coalition.
Since 2003, the western Sudanese region of Darfur has been subject
to a systematic campaign of massacres, starvation and dislocation
initiated by the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militia, in
total defiance of international law. This ongoing catastrophe has
claimed the lives of 400,000 people while displacing another 2.5
million. Over 3 million people are currently suffering from hunger
while atrocities and starvation continues to claim countless lives.
“I hope that this weekend will have a strong impact on our politicians,
to act and act now,” said Mr. Jean Nganji of Rwanda Outlook, a member
group of KNOW GENOCIDE. Mr. Nganji, who lost much of his family and
friends in the Rwandan Genocide, has devoted much of his recent years
in raising public awareness about genocide. The issue of genocide
denial is very personal to Rwanda, as there is a current movement of
denial, negation and revision of what happened during the 1994 Rwandan
Genocide. “There are also sympathizers and professors who advised
the genocide regime and now continue to be part of this movement,”
continued Mr. Nganji. “We owe it to ourselves and humanity, in making
sure that history is not distorted to the benefit of those who want
to justify their crimes.”
Speakers at the Darfur rally included renowned Harvard scholar
Dr. Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the
Age of Genocide, and Mr. John Prendergast, Senior Adviser at the
International Crisis Group and author of seven books on Africa. Both
scholars were briefed on the efforts of KNOW GENOCIDE, who, in turn,
voiced their support of the coalition’s efforts.
Other coalition groups represented at the Darfur rally include members
of the Armenian Assembly of America, Jewish Community Relations
Council, Armenian National Committees of Massachusetts as well as
students from Georgetown and George Washington universities.
KNOW GENOCIDE urges its members and supporters to send an electronic
postcard to President Bush urging him to stop the genocide in Darfur
by visiting
KNOW GENOCIDE is a multi-ethnic, non-partisan coalition founded
to counter the ongoing denial of known cases of genocide, such
as the Darfur, Bosnian, Cambodian, Jewish, Rwandan, and Armenian
genocides. For more information please visit our website at
#####

SAFAROV SHOULD ACCOUNT FOR SECOND CRIME
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.05.2006 20:14 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Trial on claim, raised by jailers against Azerbaijani
Army Officer Ramil Safarov, who is accused of murder of Armenian
officer Gurgen Markaryan in Hungary, has commenced at Pest Central
Regional Court on May 3. Representatives of the Azerbaijani Embassy in
Hungary and Azeri students in Hungary gave testimony on in the trial
presided by Judge Tot Dyendver. Ramil Safarov’s lawyer is Hungarian
Klara Fiser.

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
05/03/2006
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP://WWW.ASBAREZ. COM 1) Armenian Jet Crashes off Russia, 113 Killed 2) Kocharian Orders Plane Crash Inquiry, Declares National Mourning 3) ARF Western Region Offers Condolences to Plane Crash Victims~R Families 4) Turkey Experiences Setbacks in Human Rights Reforms 1) Armenian Jet Crashes off Russia, 113 Killed (Reuters/AP)All 113 passengers and crew on board an Armenian airliner were killed on Wednesday when the plane crashed into the Black Sea off the Russian coast as it tried to land in torrential rain. Investigators blamed bad weather for bringing down the Airbus A-320, which was trying to land at Sochi, a popular holiday spot in southern Russia. Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said weather was considered the likeliest cause. He said that the clouds were as low as 100 meters (330 feet) at the time of the crash. Divers searched storm-churned waters off Russia's coast for the remains of the 113 passengers. A spokesman for the Russian emergencies ministry said rescue workers had found baggage, life jackets, body parts, pieces of the shattered plane, and a patch of oil floating on the surface of the sea at the crash site. "According to preliminary information, all people on board are dead," a ministry spokeswoman said. Wreckage from the plane was found not far from the shoreline. Sergei Kudinov, the head of the emergency ministry's southern office, said the fuselage was found at a depth of 400 meters (1,300 feet). Search and rescue teams had pulled 47 bodies from the water so far, emergency officials said; none was wearing a life jacket, indicating they did not have time to prepare for an emergency landing. Twenty-five boats, many carrying divers, were involved in the search, and a deep-sea robot was to be used to try to recover the plane's recorders, the emergency ministry said. But Rudolf Teymurazov of Russia's Intergovernmental Aviation Committee, expressed doubt the recorders could be found because water at the crash site is as deep as 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). The plane broke up on impact and passengers' personal belongings and plane fragments were found scattered over an area spreading 1.5 kilometers (a mile) from the crash site. Rough seas, driving rain, and low visibility were hampering the search, Russian news agencies reported. The plane, operated by Armavia, had been making a short flight of about an hour from the Armenian capital Yerevan. Most of the passengers were Armenian nationals. The airline organized a special flight to take relatives from Yerevan to the site of the tragedy. About 100 tearful relatives kept an anguished vigil in a waiting hall of the Adler airport just outside Sochi, a resort town that became popular with Russians in the Soviet era. One man became hysterical and had to be taken away by ambulance. Sobbing women held handkerchiefs to their mouths, while men sat silently, their heads in their hands. Relatives also gathered at the airport in Yerevan. A list of passengers showed 26 had Russian passports and almost all the rest were Armenians. "I was waiting for a call from my mother that she had arrived okay. But she did not phone, so I phoned myself and heard that this accident had happened," Hapet Tadevosyan, 32, said as he stood in the Yerevan airport building. "She flew to Sochi to see her sisters, whom she hadn't seen for 15 years," he said. Gurgen Serobian, whose 23-year-old fiancee Lusine Gevorkian was an attendant on the flight, wept as he waited at Yerevan airport for a charter flight that was to take relatives of the crash victims to Adler. Samvel Oganesian said his 23-year-old son Vram and his friend Hamlet Abgarian had been heading to Sochi for vacation. "Why did he go?" Oganesian asked in anguish, over and over again. Beltsov said the plane vanished from radar screens at 2:15 AM Wednesday (10:15 PM GMT Tuesday) near Sochi, which lies close to the Georgian border. The emergencies ministry said the torrential rain had probably caused the crash after the plane failed to land on its first attempt. He said it went down while trying to make a second attempt at an emergency landing. However, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian air control agency as saying that the plane's crew had not declared any emergency. "At the moment, we have absolutely no evidence pointing to the possibility of a terrorist act on the plane," Deputy General Prosecutor Nikolai Shepel told Interfax news agency. An Armavia official said the aircraft had initially been refused permission to land because of the storm, but the airport officials changed their minds. He ruled out a technical failure. "The plane was in ideal technical condition, the crew was well qualified," said Andrei Aghajanov, deputy commercial director of the airline. Aghajanov said that weather conditions were "certainly" the cause. The plane was manufactured in 1995 and underwent full-scale servicing a year ago, he said. Armavia is the largest airline in ex-Soviet Armenia and has three Airbus 320s of the kind that crashed. The plane was carrying at least five children and eight crew members. 2) Kocharian Orders Plane Crash Inquiry, Declares National Mourning YEREVAN (RFE/RL)--President Robert Kocharian rushed his influential Defense Minister Serge Sargsian to southern Russia early Wednesday to investigate the worst plane crash in Armenia's history and declared a two-day period of national mourning for its 113 victims. Kocharian held an emergency meeting with Sargsian, Prime Minister Andranik Markarian and senior Armenian officials immediately after news of the deadly accident reached Yerevan. A statement by his press service said Sargsian was instructed to clarify its "causes and circumstances on the spot." The Armenian Prosecutor-General's Office has opened a criminal case in connection with the crash, it added. The Defense Minister was already in Sochi by early afternoon. He was due to be joined there by Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin. The two men co-chair the Russian-Armenian inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation. Kocharian was also contacted by Russian President Vladimir Putin early in the morning. A statement released by the Kremlin said Putin briefed him on the "large-scale search and rescue operation conducted by the Russian side in the disaster area and planned further actions." "Robert Kocharian expressed gratitude for the telephone call and the detailed information," the statement said. "Armenian specialists will join in the operation very soon." Putin and Kocharian were also cited as describing the plane crash as a "common tragedy of the Armenian and Russian peoples." Armenia will officially mourn its victims on Friday and Saturday. Friday will also be a day of national mourning in Russia. At least twenty-six of the 113 passengers and crew on board the Airbus A-320 of the Armenian national airline Armavia were Russian citizens. Most of them were of Armenian descent. Virtually all of the other victims are believed to be Armenian nationals. Among them were Vyacheslav Yaralov, deputy director of Armavia and the former head of Armenia's civil aviation authority, Husik Harutiunian, a business executive who used to head the Armenian branch of the Soviet KGB in the late 1980s, as well as the son of Karlos Petrosian, former head of the National Security Service, the Armenian successor to KGB. Kocharian formed a separate government commission tasked with repatriating the bodies of the Armenian victims and organizing their funerals in Armenia. The commission will be headed by Minister for Local Government Hovik Abrahamian. The Armenian parliament, meanwhile, observed a minute of silence in honor of the dead before adjourning its regular session on Wednesday. Deputies also decided to form a multi-party ad-hoc group that will take part in the Russian-Armenian investigation of the crash. 3) ARF Western Region Offers Condolences to Plane Crash Victims~R Families The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Western Region Central Committee Wednesday learned with deep sorrow about the Armavia Armenian airline crash in Sochi. The ARF Central Committee offered its condolences and extended its sympathies to all those who lost loved ones or were affected by this tragic accident. 4) Turkey Experiences Setbacks in Human Rights Reforms In an interview with Aztag Daily, Professor Noam Chomsky said that although Turkey has made slow progress in improving its Human Rights record since 2002, lately the country has regressed in reforms. According to Chomsky, the Turkish Armed Forces do not want to lose their hold on Turkish society. He also said that the EU's reluctance to admitting Turkey into the Union has become apparent in Turkey. All these are reasons for the setbacks in reforms, said Chomsky. The entire interview, in which Chomsky also discusses US foreign policy, issues relating to the Middle East, and the present geo-political situation using historical examples, will appear in Aztag and the international press in coming days. All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and subscription requests. (c) 2006 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved. ASBAREZ provides this news service to ARMENIAN NEWS NETWORK members for academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through mass media outlets.

IRAN SENDS CONDOLENCES OVER ARMENIAN PLANE CRASH
IRNA website
3 May 06
Tehran, 3 May: Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi here
Wednesday [3 May] expressed condolences to the government, people
and families of victims of an Armenian plane crash in the Black Sea.
According to reports, an Armenian Airbus A-320 carrying 113 passengers
and crew crashed in the Black Sea near the south Russian seaside
resort of Sochi in heavy rain on Wednesday killing all on board.
The plane took off from the Armenian capital Yerevan and had been on
flying for about an hour when it crashed. Most of the casualties were
Armenian nationals.
A spokesman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry said rescue workers
had found baggages, life jackets, body parts, shattered plane parts
and patches of oil floating on the surface of the sea at the crash
site. At least 16 bodies had been found by 04:25 gmt.
Asefi expressed the Iranian government’s and nation’s deepest sympathy
with the Armenian people, government and bereaved relatives of victims.

ALLEGED WRITINGS ON MONUMENT OF SO-CALLED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN LYONS
Published: 30.04.2006
Anatolian Times, Turkey
May 1 2006
PARIS – Representatives from Armenian associations in France have
claimed that unidentified person or persons inscribed “there was no
genocide” on a monument that Armenians will erect in French city of
Lyons and the construction of which is actually underway.
Representatives alleged that some wrote “there was no genocide” and
“I’m Turkish and proud of it” (a motto by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
the Founder of the Republic of Turkey) on the monument and accused
Turks living in France of inscribing the motto.
On the other hand, Turkish citizens living in Lyons told A.A
correspondent that Armenian people in France might have written
these words on the monument to affect the court that will render its
verdict these days regarding a lawsuit filed to stop the construction
of the monument.
“There are tight security measures in the area where construction
efforts are under-way,” Turkish citizens said, noting that the area
was monitored by cameras for 24 hours a day.
Lyons court will render its verdict in the coming days on the fourth
suit filed by nongovernmental organizations in the city to stop the
erection of the monument.

From: Sebouh Z Tashjian
Subject: PACE: Karabakh Issue Should Be Solved for Sake of Young Generation
PanARMENIAN.Net
PACE: Karabakh Issue Should Be Solved for Sake of Young Generation

29.04.2006 19:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Nagorno Karabakh conflict `should be solved for
the sake of the young generation first of all,’ President of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) René van der
Linden said. `Solving conflict is always difficult, however after my
visit to the region it was obvious to me that both parties have the
desire to settle the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. There are many people
outside Armenia, who push Armenian government and opposition in a
certain direction. I am sure the future of the young residents of
Armenia is much more important than the feelings of Armenians
outside,’ the PACE President said.
Answering a question on the prospects of settlement of the Nagorno
Karabakh issue in 2006, René van der Linden said, `I hope for it. The
international community wishes to help, however, it is hard to solve
problems when there is lack of political will. It is utterly important
for political parties, the government and opposition form an
atmosphere favorable for taking decisions. If you exploit the
situation for electoral goals, you cannot solve the issue,’ he said,
reports Mediamax.