Author: Khondkarian Raffi

AAA TO ARMENIA IN DEMINING WORK

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
May 10 2006

YEREVAN, May 10. /ARKA/. Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) intends
to render assistance in mine-clearance in Armenia. With this end
in view, the AAA initiates an action to raise $100,000 to purchase
sniffer dogs to be involved in US Department of State’s mine-clearance
program in Armenia.

At the organization’s annual meeting in Washington, Annie Totah,
a member of the Board of Directors, “Marshall Legacy Institute”
(MLI) said that everything possible will be done to clear Armenia’s
soil of explosives that kill people and animals every year.

MLI is a non-profit organization training mine-detector dogs and
providing information on mines. The MLI implements programs in two
directions: Children Against Mines Programand 9 Demining Corps.

MINUTE OF SILENCE TO BE PROCLAIMED AT 6 P.M.

ArmRadio.am
06.05.2006 10:33

The state flags in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh will stay lowered
today. At 18.00 sharp a minute of silence will be proclaimed in the
Republic, following which a memorial service, leaded by the Catholicos
of All Armenians Garegin II, will be held in the Mother Church of
St. Grigor Lusavorich.

MATERIALS ON CRASHED AIRLINER TO BE EXAMINED FIRST BEFORE THINKING ON FURTHER ACTIONS PM SAYS

Panorama.am
14:27 05/05/06

Armenian Prosecutor’s Office is in charge of 95 % of information
possessed by Georgian ground controllers.

However, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan refused to make
early judgments. “Let’s wait a few days to come to right conclusions,”
he said. According to him the technical examination will unveil
everything.

Earlier reports say that the Defense Minister, Armenian-Russian
intergovernmental committee co-chairman, rescue service head
and several other officials are still in Sochi. Present are also
representatives of our prosecutor’s office who are there to investigate
the case.

According to Andranik Margaryan, Georgian side is willing to provide
the necessary information and have done so for about 95%. At this
moment, the prosecutor’s office needs to examine the materials before
taking any other steps, he said.

Both Russian and Georgian sides are effectively responding to our
needs, Andranik Margaryan said.

Interested is also the French side willing to prove that its airliner
was technically equipped.

THE FIRST BODIES WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO ARMENIA TONIGHT

A1+
[03:47 pm] 04 May, 2006

20 – 30 bodies will be transported from Sochi to Armenia at 22:00
tonight. According to the latest data, 20 bodies have already been
recognized by the relatives.

Today the RA Government decided to allocate 1.5 million AMD to the
families of each victim. Foreigners will not receive any help,
as the RF Government decided to show assistance to the families
of their citizens. After the governmental session Minister of
Regional Government Hovik Abrahamyan announced they are ready to give
transportation and material support to those Armenia citizens who would
like to transport their relatives’ bodies and bury them in Armenia,
regardless of the Russian humanity.

There are already good coffins at the airport, and people can take them
out of charge. Soon the Government will open a bank account to help the
families of innocent victims. Hovik Abrahamyan who is also the head
of the committee engaged in eliminating the air crash consequences,
informed the journalists that many businessmen already expressed their
readiness to shoulder the victims’ families. According to their data,
there are 300 Armenian citizens in Sochi who arrived from Armenia,
10 rescuers are involved in searching and so far they have countered
no technical problems. The Minister didn’t comment on the possible
causes of the air crash.

GEORGIA TO GIVE ARMENIA RECORDING OF CONVERSATIONS WITH CREW OF CRASHED PLANE

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 04 2006

TBILISI, MAY 4, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. On May 4, the
Georgaeronavigation company will give the Armenian side the recording
of the conversation between the crew of the Armenian plane crashed in
the Black Sea and Georgian flying control officers. Company Director
Georgi Karbelashvili reported this to radio Liberty. “In essence,
the Georgian flying control officers have the whole recording of
the plane’s flight with the exception of the last 5-10 minutes when
the plane disappeared from the radars’ screens. But until 4:00 pm
by Yerevan’s time no one had applied to the Georgian side with the
request to get this recording,” the company director said. “We did
not publicize any information. But when the Russian media started to
give some information, we got in touch with the Armenian Ambassador
to Georgia, Armenian Deputy of Georgian Parliament Van Bayburd,
convened a press conference. We are guided by international laws
and rules. According to them, all countries that take part in the
implementation of the flight give the information they have. The
Russian side cannot carry on an investigation without Georgia and
Armenia,” Karbelashvili emphasized. The company director was especially
surprised at the circumstance that Russia has formed an investigation
group but has not taken any step in the direction of receiving this
important imformation from the Georgian side. “We do not say who is to
blame. It is not our business. We only say that we have an important
information: the recording of 90% of the flight that can be useful
for finding out the reasons of the crash,” Karbelashvili declared.

“If you listen to the recording, the flying control officers of Rostov
make very unpleasant expressions there, but now I do not want to speak
about it, let your ambassador decide whether it is worth publishing
them,” Georgi Karbelashvili said without going into the details of
what he meant.

KARABAKH LEADER APPOINTS NEW ADVISOR

Mediamax news agency
4 May 06

Yerevan, 4 May: The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR],
Arkadiy Gukasyan, today signed a decree appointing Mavrik Gukasyan
his advisor.

Mavrik Gukasyan was relieved of his post of NKR prosecutor-general
on 6 February 2006 over retirement.

Armen Zalinyan was appointed NKR prosecutor-general. He previously
worked as head of the NKR presidential staff.

POSSIBLE VISIT OF OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS TO NK CONFLICT REGION TO BE DEFINED AFTER MOSCOW CONSULTATIONS
Author: E.Huseynov

TREND Info, Azerbaijan
May 3 2006

An issue on the forthcoming tour of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs
to the region will be defined after the completion of the Moscow
consultations, a group on Nagorno-Karabakh at the Russian Foreign
Ministry told Trend.

The consultations by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, US Ambassador
Steven Mann, Russian Ambassador Yuriy Merzlyakov, and Bernard Fassier
and special envoy of the OSCE chairman-in-office, Andjey Casprzyk
started at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow on Tuesday morning
(2 May).

Next steps by the co-chairs will be known as a result of consultations
due on 3 May, a group on Nagorno-Karabakh added.

ARMENIAN NATIONAL TEAM TAKES SECOND PLACE IN CHAMPIONSHIP OF DIVISION “B” OF EUROPEAN RUGBY ASSOCIATION

Noyan Tapan
May 03 2006

BUDAPEST, MAY 3, NOYAN TAPAN. On April 29, the Armenian national team
had a match with the Hungarian national team within the framework of
the championship of division “B” of the European Rugby Association
and in a hard struggle gained a victory with a score of 24 to 13
(10 to 6). After this victory the Armenian national team took second
place on the tournament table with 6 points (two victories in two
matches). The Hungarian national team that held 3 games took first
place with 7 points. The national teams of Lithuania, Bulgaria and
Slovenia are also among the rivals of the Armenian rugby-players in
the division. The national team of Armenia will hold its next match
it its field on May 13 with the national team of Slovenia.

VETERAN TEST PILOT SUSPECTS HUMAN ERROR CAUSED A320 PLANE’S CRASH

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 3, 2006 Wednesday

Russia’s veteran test pilot, Magomed Tolboyev, has said he tends to
suspect the role of a human error as the chief factor that led to
last night’s crash of an Armenian airliner near the Russian Black
Sea resort city of Sochi.

Tolboyev, currently the president of the Aviatsia aviation corporation,
has said, the planes of this type have what he described as the “curved
image problem,” and the crew might have lost their bearings. At the
same time Tolboyev did not rule out mistakes by both crew and air
traffic controllers.

Interviewed live on the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Tolboyev said
that the plane’s equipment allowed for making a landing in extremely
bad weather.

Air engineer, expert in civil aviation and flight safety Alexei
Komarov, who edits the Aviatransportnoye Obozreniye review, said that
according to statistics, A320 was a very reliable plane. Of the more
than 2,500 liners of this type in operation around the world a mere
twelve have suffered crashes.

The governor of the Krasnodar Region, Alexander Tkachev, tends to
share the human factor version, although in his opinion it is a
preliminary one and requires further confirmation.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry has blamed the Armenian
plane’s crash on bad weather. The Transport Ministry says this version
is most likely.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has ruled out a terrorist
attack. Public Relations Officer Nataliya Vishnyakova has said with
reliance to the investigators’ early findings “a terrorist attack
should be ruled out, because there is no objective evidence pointing
to this.”

There where 113 passengers and crew on board the crashed plane.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry 26 of them had Russian
citizenship. There were some Georgian citizens on board, too. Also
on that plane was Armenia’s former interior minister, chief of the
KGB security service Major-General Usik Arutyunian.

According to the latest reports, the bodies of 46 victims have been
recovered and brought to Sochi. Two have been identified.

TO BE ON THE OPEN ATTACK OF “UNFREE”
Tigran Avetisian

Aravot.am
02 May 06

There is no international organization, which mark the degree of the
freedom of the press, which said some positive words to the address
of Armenia in last two years. The establishments round the CIC,
aren’t counted, of course.

”Unfree”. Here the true stamp which sounds like a decree which
is put down our foreheads from time to time. But it seems that the
people who are responsible for that don’t worry about. Perhaps with
the help of having political immunity. The most pitiful thing is
that the society can’t understand why they need in the freedom of
the press in this so called transitional period. And the days like
“April 12” come to terror people and assure them that free speech in
our country is dangerous for the health and life.

As a result, the following intention becomes dominant; “We hardly get
on with, what do we do that freedom of the speech”. While the freedom
of the speech has very useful meaning for which we must “fight”. Let’s
imagine that true reports are broadcasted and published about corrupted
officials, narrow-minded deputies and oligarchs all day long. Be sure
that the society will be self cleaned and the life will become fairer
and more bearable.

–Boundary_(ID_sjzbaYgM0y8rdg/JYKXWrw)- –