Author: Madatian Greg

ACCORDING TO SPECIALIST, SALT-CELLAR FOUND IN 2005 DURING EXCAVATIONS OF HAYKADZOR NEEDS DETAILED STUDY

Noyan Tapan
May 18 2006

GYUMRI, MAY 18, NOYAN TAPAN. During the 2005 excavations of Haykadzor,
one of suburbs of one-time Armenian capital Ani, a clay salt-cellar
made in the 14-15 the centuries was found under a huge ruined
rock. According to the specialist, the founded contains a secret
of a whole ritual and needs detailed study. This salt-cellar made
in the way of an expectant mother was kept from the joint corrosive
influence of salt and water. This salt-cellar had a small bowl in its
upper part. According to ethnographic evidences, salt-cellars were put
in tonratoons (the shed which houses a tonir used for baking bread),
at the fire. People acted in this way in the period of pre-Christian
times. Those were kept in the Christian times as well but were
hiden. As Larisa Yeganian, the head of the Shirak and Aragatsotn
Territorial Department of the Agency on Protecting Monuments, mentioned
there are pictures of people’s body on salt-cellars founded earlier
as well, but this salt-cellar is the first on which they are pictured
during a round dance. One of the figures is smaller compared with the
others, and “it is difficult to say if the figure was made smaller not
to cut the circle of the round dance, or they really ment a child,
as if it is on the upper part of bearing organ, it may be accepted
as a new-born.”

The dancers are pictured naked and have ring-shaped signs from their
back and overhead. According to Larisa Yeganian, those are not crowns
as the latters are characteristical only for icons. Larisa Yeganian
supposes that those rings may be horns. According to her, during the
bronze era there were hearths which were horseshoe-shaped by their
form, like a horn, and besides that, were ram-headed as well. Figures
pictured on the salt-cellar dance Armenian Gorani that is dedicated
to ancestors’ memory.

THERE WERE NO SHOTS PRIOR TO A320 CRASH
Mikhael Baghdasarov Says

AZG Armenian Daily
18/05/2006

The owner of Armavia carrier whose plane had plunged into the Black
Sea on May 3 morning killing all 113 people aboard, told journalists
yesterday that the flight recorders of the A-320 airliner would be
given, if recovered, to French Airbus company’s experts who are also
involved in the crash investigation.

Mikhael Baghdasarov, a Russia-based Armenian businessman, who owns
the biggest air company, said flight recorders have to be decoded
which only Airbus’ experts can do, since only the company has the
special clue. He said the company has no information about exactly
when the flight recorders could be retrieved from the depth of about
495 meters. Baghdasarov then described rumors that the wrecked A320
carried huge sums of money, that there were shots before it fell into
the sea and that the pilot might have died of a heart stroke or a
shot as ‘nonsense.”

He said if part of these rumors were true the captain would have
reported it to ground controllers, while the recording of their
conversation has no indication of it. He likewise dismissed lack of
fuel or unprofessional crew as a likely cause of the accident.

Meantime Russian emergency officials said they continued efforts to
recover the flight recorders of the Armenian airliner throughout the
night and early morning today. The Armenian aircraft had fallen into
the Black sea near Russian resort town of Sochi on May 3 killing all
105 passengers and eight crew members.

Russian officials said rescuers worked in three shifts each eight
hour-long. The strong side wind that impeded the operation subsided
at about midnight to Wednesday, they said. The deep-water robotic
device sank to the seabed between 01:00 till 06:00 am on Wednesday to
search for the airliner recorders. Silt on the bottom complicates the
work. The video camera and the searchlights get dirty, and the team
has to raise the robotic device to clean them. Its sinking takes 40
minutes, and it takes the same time to raise it.

The search groups had a break in the work for some time on Wednesday
morning. If the weather does not worsen, the search will continue,
they said. The device is capable of lifting fragments of the plane
weighing up to 12 kilograms, while the two flight recorders each weighs
seven kilograms. According to reports, the flight recorders are at the
depth of 496 meters. The distance between them is about five meters.

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : JACK LANG OPPOSE A LA PROPOSITION DE LOI PS

Agence France Presse
18 mai 2006 jeudi

Jack Lang a affirme jeudi son opposition a la proposition de loi PS
destinee a sanctionner la negation du genocide armenien, estimant
que ce texte porterait “atteinte aux efforts de ceux qui, en Turquie,
cherchent a faire en sorte qu’Ankara reconnaisse son histoire”.

Soulignant qu’il avait ete a l’origine de la loi de reconnaissance
par la France du genocide armenien et etait un “ami des Armeniens”,
l’ancien ministre socialiste a explique a l’AFP que “par principe”,
il etait “hostile a la multiplication des lois de criminalisation
des expressions publiques”.

“On ne va pas, sur tous les sujets historiques, introduire une
criminalisation generalisee”, a-t-il poursuivi.

M. Lang a fait valoir en outre que des intellectuels et historiens
turcs avaient “ouvert un debat sur le genocide”, ce qui constitue,
a ses yeux “un progrès immense”.

Affirmant que sa position n’etait “pas tactique” mais correspondait a
“une conviction profonde”, Jack Lang a estime qu’il ne fallait “pas
humilier, offenser, ni marginaliser les militants des droits de l’Homme
qui en Turquie militent pour qu’Ankara regarde son histoire en face”.

Les deputes ont entame en fin de matinee jeudi l’examen de la
proposition de loi socialiste sanctionnant la negation du genocide
armenien.

–Boundary_(ID_5fvZ1BJRDUhltNy aLAv2Bw)–

RUSSIA’S EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS HAVE OVER 6,000 UNDERAGE MEMBERS

MosNews, Russia
May 17 2006

More than 6,000 under-eighteens are registered by police as members of
extremist organizations, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev
said, addressing the State Duma during “government hour” in the
parliament on Wednesday, ITAR-TASS news agency reports. He stressed
that the involvement of underage persons in extremist activities
threatens the security of society.

Most of the teenagers are registered in Moscow, St. Petersburg,
Rostov and the Samara, Voronezh and Murmansk regions, Nurgaliyev said.

The minister noted that some electronic media were spreading extremist
propaganda. Reports and motion pictures demonstrating various methods
of committing a murder are being obtrusively repeated on various
channels and influence teenagers’ unstable psyche, Nurgaliev said. In
his words it was unfortunately difficult for a journalist not to cross
the fine line between a topical story and unintentional propaganda
of violence and cruelty.

Nurgaliyev cited the case of the murder of an Armenian man committed
by teenagers on March 12. A group of teenagers killed the Armenian
man in a Moscow-Monino suburban train. The man’s wife fortunately
survived in the incident. The attackers were detained and confessed
to their crime. Asked to explain their actions, they said they had
seen such acts reported in the media.

The minister also stressed the necessity of stopping the dissemination
of video tapes and other materials containing Nazi propaganda.

The minister also believes the Public Chamber, a consultative body
recently set up by President Putin, should address the problem and
give its recommendations.

ONE-WEEK ACTION OF MEN’S FREE EXAMINATION TO BE HELD AT A NUMBER OF MEDICAL CENTERS OF YEREVAN

Noyan Tapan
May 16 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 16, NOYAN TAPAN. Free medical examination of men above
45 years will be held on May 16-22 at the Urology Clinic of the
Republican Hospital.

As Armen Muradian, Head of the clinic, Adviser to RA Minister of
Health, informed the journalists on May 16, the men to be examined
during the one-week action will be registered in the clinic’s data
bank. It was mentioned that it is the third year the clinic is
coming up with such an initiative. According to him, a number of
Yerevan medical centers, Erebuni, Surb Nerses, Oncological Center,
have also joined the action this year. According to the head of the
clinic, about 2000 men were examined during the actions organized in
the previous two years. According to A.Muradian, the Armenian men do
not care for their health so much and they have not formed the habit
of applying to doctor even if once a year yet.

AZERBAIJAN DENIES REPORT OF DESTRUCTION OF ETHNIC ARMENIAN CEMETERY

AP Worldstream
May 16, 2006

An aide to Azerbaijan’s president on Tuesday denied a report that a
centuries-old ethnic Armenia cemetery had been destroyed.

The report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting said the
medieval-period Djulfa cemetery in the exclave of Nakhichevan, which
once had thousands of intricately carved crosses, had vanished. The
report said its journalist was not allowed by accompanying security
forces to go to the cemetery site, but that the journalist was near
enough to see the cemetery was gone.

“This is an absolutely lying publication and statement,” said Ali
Hasanov, an aide to President Ilham Aliev. “Not one cultural-historical
monument, not one Armenian cemetery in the Nakhichevan autonomous
republic has been destroyed.”

Accusations that Azerbaijan had destroyed the cemetery have raised
tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are at odds over
Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been under control
of Armenian and local Karabakh forces since a separatist war ended
with a shaky cease-fire in 1994.

The Djulfa cemetery site is generally off-limits because it lies in
a security zone along the Iranian border.

Hasanov said the government was ready to work with international
commissions to clarify the status of cultural and historical sites,
including within Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan accuses Armenians in
the enclave and surrounding occupied territories of destroying mosques
and Muslim cemeteries.

VIOLATIONS REVEALED IN 165 OUT OF 217 TRADE AND SERVICE ENTITIES IN YEREVAN

Noyan Tapan
May 15 2006

YEREVAN, MAY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. From February 1 to May 13, checkings
were carried out by Yerevan Mayor’s Office, prefectures and city
department of Police in 217 trade and service entities of Yerevan. As
Deputy Yerevan Mayor Arman Sahakian informed at the May 15 press
conference, different kinds of violations were revealed in 165 of
trade and service entities, on the basis of which protocols were
made up and 4 mln 501 thousand drams (about 10 thousand USD) was
collected. According to A.Sahakian, program of modernization of trade
boths and pavilions will be also organized by the Mayor’s Office and
prefectures in 2006-2008. According to A.Sahakian, a number of studies
were conducted for the purpose of regulating trade in underground
passages and observing the sanitary norms, on the basis of which
repairs of underground passages will be carried out.

OSKANYAN DOES NOT RULE OUT A POSSIBILITY OF ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENTS MEETING

Regnum, Russia
May 16 2006

During a meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in
Strasbourg on May 18-19, “new proposals” of the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs on settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as a REGNUM
correspondent quotes Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan as
saying, while talking to the press.

If the meeting of foreign ministers is a success, according to the
minister, a possibility of a Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents
meeting is not ruled out. Vardan Oskanyan found it difficult to answer
when and where such meeting can take place.

The minister expressed his confidence that recent internal political
developments in Armenia would affect settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. “We should continue working and working in achieving their
goal. We have been in this process for many years, and it is difficult
to say, when it ends,” the Armenian foreign minister announced.

ARMENIAN OFFICIALS TO GET MEDALS OF RUSSIA

Lragir.am
15 May 06

On May 16 at the Russian Embassy to Armenia a group of citizens of
Armenia and Russia will receive the medals of the Russian Academy of
Lawfulness, Defense and Security, reports ARKA News Agency.

Peter the Great Degree 1 will be conferred on Nikolay Pavlov,
Russian Ambassador to Armenia, Defense Minister of Armenia Serge
Sargsyan and Attorney-General of Armenia Aghvan Hovsepyan. Michael
Harutiunyan, Chief of the Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Armenia,
and Mher Shahgeldyan, the chair of the Standing Committee of Defense,
National Security and Internal Affairs, will receive Alexander Nevsky
Degree 1. The Medal of the Great Victory will be conferred on Gurgen
Dalibaltayan, the chief military inspector of Armenia. Mikhail
Baghdasarov, the president of Mika Company will receive Peter the
Great Degree 2.

ARS AWARDED THE BEST STUDENTS
By Lilit Galstian

Yerkir.am
May 12, 2006

Ninety best students received awards in the framework of the
Armenian Relief Society’s annual Best Student program. This
program was initiated in 1993 and aims at encouraging students from
socially vulnerable families studying as tuition-paying students
at universities.

ARS’s Central Board provides six thousand dollars annually to award
100 dollar prizes to 60 students every year. However, as a rule,
the number of students receiving awards increases due to funding
provided by ARS’s regional organizations. This year ARS’s office in
Greece provided additional funding for the program.

The award ceremony was held on May 10. Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF) Bureau member and Deputy Speaker of the National
Assembly Vahan Hovhannissian, member of ARF’s Supreme Board of Armenia
and head of the Diaspora Department at the Ministry of Science and
Education Hrach Tadevossian, member of ARS ‘s Central Board Karine
Hovhannissian and other guests attended the ceremony.

“ARS is an organization registered as a charity organization under
the UNO.

The culture of charity is not adequately developed in Armenia.

What we usually see as charity – for instance a businessman renovating
the roof of a school, or repairing the roads in a village – this is
not charity in the classical meaning of the word. This is done to
gain political profit during elections. Meanwhile, ARS, and a couple
of other organizations, do charity proper, in the classical meaning
of the word. This is not the only program our organization implements.

Not many people know about ARS’s orphan-care program. ARS has been
paying 120 dollars to 7000 children who lost their parents during the
war for the past 13 years. This is much more than our government can
do,” Vahan Hovhannissian stated.

Hovhannissian stressed the importance of the Best Student Program
since it fosters the education level of the young generation. “The
money the students receive does not cover all of their needs. However,
this is an encouragement.

Tomorrow, many of them will become leaders of the country. We have
to motivate them to understand that fair competition should prevail
in education,” Hovhannissian said.

Over 200 students from public and private universities of Armenia
apply to participate in the program. Even though applications from
private universities are also considered public universities have a
priority. Students in their second year and higher can participate
in the competition.

“We think that the tuition fees at public universities are higher this
is why we are trying to help the students at public universities. Of
course there are some exceptions because we really have many good
students,” Karine Hovhannissian said.

ARS is implementing a similar program in Artsakh. This year the
program will be launched in Javakhq. Several students from Javakhq have
received awards every year in the framework of the program implemented
in Armenia. This year it was decided that 5 out of 60 awards will
be allocated for students from Javakhq studying in Armenia. Separate
awards are envisaged for students from Artsakh.