KOCHARIAN, TOP BRASS DISCUSS PREPARATION WORKS FOR RUBEZH 2008
PanARMENIAN.Net
01.02.2008 18:17 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian President Robert Kocharian attended the
General Staff to hold a working conference with the Ministers of
Defense and Foreign Affairs and the head of the National Security
Service, the RA leader’s press office reported.
The participants discussed preparation works for Rubezh 2008 command
and staff exercise due in Armenia within a CSTO program
ARMENIAN TV SHOWS CAMPAIGN ADVERTS FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
Public TV
Jan 23 2008
Armenia
Armenian Public TV showed campaign adverts for several presidential
candidates on 26 January. The television showed Armenia’s first
president and presidential candidate, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, criticizing
the current Armenian authorities. Ter-Petrosyan accused the authorities
of fraud while importing petrol and gas, blamed them for the October
1999 attack on the parliament and other assassinations.
Ter-Petrosyan said that if he is elected, he will restore
constitutional order in the country. He added that he will create
equal conditions for businessmen and secure free competition.
He said that he will improve the social welfare of the population,
treble salaries and quadruple pensions.
Speaking about the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, Ter-Petrosyan said that
he will do everything possible not to resume hostilities in Karabakh.
The television also showed Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign advert saying that
he will hold a campaign meeting in the town of Talin on 27 January.
After that, Public TV showed presidential candidate Aram Harutyunyan,
the leader of the National Solidarity Party, calling on members of
the National Self-Determination Association (led by Paruyr Hayrikyan)
to support his candidacy in the presidential elections.
Also, a campaign advert was shown for the presidential candidate and
leader of the National Unity Party, Artashes Geghamyan.
Public TV then showed the presidential candidate and Armenian
deputy parliament speaker, Vahan Hovhannisyan, holding a meeting
with voters in Tavush Region on 25 January. Hovhannisyan said at
the meeting that the current authorities consider themselves to be
rulers and ordinary citizens to be servants. But in reality, it is the
authorities that should serve the people, he said. Hovhannisyan called
on voters to support the candidate from the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation-Dashnaktsutyun.
In turn, the presidential candidate and a former aide to the leader
of Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagornyy Karabakh, Arman Melikyan,
was shown speaking about problems in the cultural sphere.
At the end, the television showed a meeting with voters held by the
presidential candidate and prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan, in Yerevan’s
Nor Nork community on 25 January. Sargsyan called on voters to take
an active part in the 19 February presidential election and vote for
people they trust. Addressing his supporters, Sargsyan said that he
needs their support in the presidential elections.
"ARMENIA WILL NEVER BECOME SWITZERLAND"
A1+
28 January, 2008
"Despite all interior conflicts and discords, we all rely on the army
to defend the country from outer influence. We cannot underestimate
the role of the army," presidential candidate and former Defense
Minister Vazgen Manukian said today.
Vazgen Manukian told the history of the formation of the Armenian army,
and how the Armenian army formed from squads of volunteers.
Manukian says the Sumgait events served as an impetus for the army
formation. "At that time we relied on the Soviet Union to protect
our country. But we saw that they cared only for themselves."
Vazgen Manukian Armenia will never become Switzerland which needs
no army because Armenia is located in such a region as the Caucasus
which has a different mentality and different relations between the
countries. He says regional integration might come true in several
decades but before that Armenia’s security requires a powerful and
effective force.
Certainly, Manukian disagrees with the other extremity that the only
guarantee for the country’s security is a strong and effective army.
Vazgen Manukian says security will be guaranteed by the solution of
not only military but also civilian issues.
Among the necessary components of the army Vazgen Manukian enumerates
not only the number of the personnel, the amount and types of weapon,
but also the psychological climate and morale of the society as well
as a competitive economy. In this sense, Vazgen Manukian says we were
stronger than Georgia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s, when Georgia
had no armed force at all, and we defeated the Azerbaijani army. "We
remain strong, but the outlining tendencies are worrying," he says.
The tendencies are important. After all, an army is the continuation
of the state to some degree. Without a satisfactory economy, without
a big budget, without a healthy psychological climate you are sure
to suffer losses, Vazgen Manukian says. He says in this sense the
tendencies are really worrying.
By the way, the presidential candidate thinks the duration of the
military service should be cut from two years to 18 months first
then 12 months, and a professional army should be set up in parallel
because the war in Karabakh showed that a professional soldier can
replace ten conscripts.
"People must serve in the army with pride and respect and not out of
fear. Corresponding atmosphere should be secured for it," he added.
Vazgen Manukian considers unrealistic that the Armenian Prime Minister
or any of the oppositional candidates will win in the first round of
elections
January 28, 2008
Yerevan /Mediamax/. Among the oppositional candidates, who entered the
struggle for the position of the Armenian President, there are no
obvious favorites, candidate for the position of the President, Leader
of the National-Democratic Union (NDU) Vazgen Manukian stated in
Yerevan today.
Mediamax reports that Vazgen Manukian described as `unrealistic’ the
victory of the Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian or any of the
oppositional candidates in the first round of the elections.
NDU Leader expressed readiness to participate in the public debates
with Levon Ter-Petrosian and Serzh Sarkisian. He also welcomed the
balanced coverage of the pre-election campaign by the Armenian TV
Channels, `even if it takes place by the order of the West’.
Burbank Leader, CA
Jan 26 2008
Showing appreciation
Hundreds gather together at Burbank Armenian church honoring
journalist killed a year ago in Turkey.
By Chris Wiebe
Several hundred people filled the Nazareth and Sima Kalaydjian Hall
on Friday at the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church to
commemorate the first anniversary of the assassination of journalist
and editor Hrant Dink.
Dink, 53, was fatally shot in Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007, outside the
bilingual Armenian and Turkish newspaper Agos, where he served as
editor. Agos is considered one of the foremost voices for Turkey’s
Armenian population.
The program Friday opened with a slide presentation showing snapshots
of Dink’s life, including several trips to the United States and a
shot of him cradling the Henri Nannen Prize for the Freedom of the
Press.
In some of the photos, Dink was posing in the same room where
mourners celebrated his memory Friday.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe reporter Stephen Kurkjian, who
traveled to Turkey for Dink’s funeral in January 2007, painted a
picture of the scene in Istanbul after the editor’s death, where
Armenians and non-Armenians alike `came out of nowhere’ to celebrate
his memory. advertisement
`The blood was still evident on the ground outside his office,’
Kurkjian said.
`And they were crying out in their tears and their grief, `We’re all
Hrant; we’re all Armenian.”
Nancy Kolligian, president of the National Assn. for Armenian Studies
and Research, called Dink a man who understood the power of the
written word, harnessing `brilliant jewels of thought’ continue to
affect Turkey.
`His courage to express his words for Turkey to advance true
democracy ultimately cost him his life,’ she said.
`However, his accomplishments outweigh his defeats.’
During his life, Dink faced constant threats and intimidation in his
home in Turkey.
He advocated protecting human rights and fostering dialogue and
reconciliation between Turks and Armenians.
Dink’s assassination came two and a half 2 1/2 months after visiting
Glendale in November 2006, during a nationwide speaking tour.
Glendale city officials – including Police Chief Randy Adams, Officer
John Balian, Mayor Ara Najarian and former Councilman Rafi Manoukian
– met with Dink during his visit, discussing crime and politics as
Senior Assistant City Atty. Lucy Varpetian served as a translator.
Dink said he was interested in the life of Armenians in America and
that Armenians in Glendale, which has the largest population of
Armenians in the United States, is an often-discussed topic abroad.
Dink first rose to the international stage in October 2005, when the
Turkish government convicted him on charges of inciting racial hatred
and insulting Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, in an
article about the Armenian genocide.
A court sentenced him to six months in jail but postponed the
sentence, ordering him to serve the time only if he was found guilty
on the charge a second time.
Dink was awaiting a second trial at the time of his death.
Turkish police say nationalist militant Yasin Hayal confessed to
helping coordinate Dink’s murder and recruited the alleged gunman,
Ogun Samast, 17, according to reports.
LISTENING TO GRASSHOPPERS: GENOCIDE, DENIAL AND CELEBRATION
Arundhati Roy
Outlook
0204&fname=Cover+Story+(F)&sid=1
Jan 25 2008
India
It’s an old human habit, genocide is. It’s a search for lebensraum,
project of Union and Progress.
I never met Hrant Dink, a misfortune that will be mine for time to
come. From what I know of him, of what he wrote, what he said and
did, how he lived his life, I know that had I been here in Istanbul a
year ago I would have been among the one hundred thousand people who
walked with his coffin in dead silence through the wintry streets of
this city, with banners saying, "We are all Armenians", "We are all
Hrant Dink". Perhaps I’d have carried the one that said, "One and
a half million plus one".* [*One-and-a-half million is the number
of Armenians who were systematically murdered by the Ottoman Empire
in the genocide in Anatolia in the spring of 1915. The Armenians,
the largest Christian minority living under Islamic Turkic rule in
the area, had lived in Anatolia for more than 2,500 years.]
*** In a way, my battle is like yours.
But while in Turkey there’s silence, in India, there is celebration.
***
I wonder what thoughts would have gone through my head as I walked
beside his coffin. Maybe I would have heard a reprise of the voice of
Araxie Barsamian, mother of my friend David Barsamian, telling the
story of what happened to her and her family. She was ten years old
in 1915. She remembered the swarms of grasshoppers that arrived in
her village, Dubne, which was north of the historic city Dikranagert,
now Diyarbakir. The village elders were alarmed, she said, because
they knew in their bones that the grasshoppers were a bad omen. They
were right; the end came in a few months, when the wheat in the fields
was ready for harvesting.
"When we left…(we were) 25 in the family," Araxie Barsamian says.
"They took all the men folks. They asked my father, ‘Where is your
ammunition?’ He says, ‘I sold it.’ So they says, ‘Go get it.’ So
he went to the Kurd town to get it, they beat him and took all his
clothes. When he came back there-this my mother tells me story-when
he came back there, naked body, he went in the jail, they cut his
arms…so he die in jail.
And they took all the mens in the field, they tied their hands,
and they shooted, killed every one of them."
Araxie and the other women in her family were deported. All of them
perished except Araxie. She was the lone survivor.
This is, of course, a single testimony that comes from a history that
is denied by the Turkish government, and many Turks as well.
I am not here to play the global intellectual, to lecture you, or to
fill the silence in this country that surrounds the memory (or the
forgetting) of the events that took place in Anatolia in 1915. That
is what Hrant Dink tried to do, and paid for with his life.
*** Most genocidal killing from the 15th century onwards has been
part of Europe’s search for lebensraum.
***
The day I arrived in Istanbul, I walked the streets for many hours,
and as I looked around, envying the people of Istanbul their beautiful,
mysterious, thrilling city, a friend pointed out to me young boys in
white caps who seemed to have suddenly appeared like a rash in the
city. He explained that they were expressing their solidarity with
the child-assassin who was wearing a white cap when he killed Hrant.
The battle with the cap-wearers of Istanbul, of Turkey, is not my
battle, it’s yours. I have my own battles to fight against other
kinds of cap-wearers and torchbearers in my country. In a way, the
battles are not all that different. There is one crucial difference,
though. While in Turkey there is silence, in India there’s celebration,
and I really don’t know which is worse.
In the state of Gujarat, there was a genocide against the Muslim
community in 2002.
CANNERY TO OPEN IN STEPANAKERT
KarabakhOpen
23-01-2008 11:35:10
It is foreseen to set up a food processing company in Stepanakert
and dedicate it on May 9, 2008, said the minister of agriculture,
vice premier Armo Tsatryan in an interview with Karabakh-Open.com.
According to the vice premier, the company will be set up by
our compatriot from Yerevan, who will open 150-200 jobs in the
factory. About 3 million dollars will be invested. According to Armo
Tsatryan, the government will reduce the interest rate on the loan.
ARMENIA’S MINING INDUSTRY, CONSTRUCTION, TRANSPORT, SERVICES AND TRADE SECTORS ARE SHADOW
Noyan Tapan
Jan 23, 2008
YEREVAN, JANUARY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. Tax bodies envisage to collect 365
bln 859.9 mln drams (at the current exchange rate – about 1,19 bln
USD) this year, which is more by 81 bln drams as compared with last
year. The head of the RA State Tax Service Vahram Barseghian said at
the January 23 press conference that this growth in tax collection will
be mainly ensured at the expense of big enterprises. Accoridng to him,
there are 120 thousand tax payers in Armenia, 270 of which ensure 70%,
while 2 thousand – 90% of tax collection.
V. Barseghian said that tax administration will be tightened this
year: tax bodies will not limit their activities to examination of
the submitted accounting documents but they they will also check
realization volumes. In his words, at present the country’s mining
industry, construction, transport, services and trade are the main
shadow sectors.
As for checkings conducted at Sil Concern last year, V. Barseghian
said that these checkings are continuing and until now facts of tax
evasion of 1.5 billion drams have been registered. As regards "Bjni"
factory of mineral waters, according to the STS head, the company
did not install a water meter at the source and failed to make the
respective environmental payment, for which a fine of 3 billion drams
was imposed on it. The same problem exists in Dilijan Frolova company,
which did not make an environmental payment of 300 million drams.
COURT OF APPEALS REVERSES LOCAL COURT RULING ON PAMUK CASE
Today’s Zaman
Jan 23 2008
Turkey
The Supreme Court of Appeals yesterday nullified a local court ruling
that dropped a civil suit against Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan
Pamuk for his controversial remarks about Armenian allegations of
genocide that were published in a Swiss magazine in 2005.
A civil suit had been filed by a group of five people, including
relatives of martyrs who claimed that Pamuk put the blame for
atrocities committed against Armenians during the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire on the entire Turkish nation with his remarks. During
an interview to Swiss Das magazine Pamuk had said: "We killed 30,000
Kurds and 1 million Armenians in these lands. Nobody but me dares to
say this in Turkey," in remarks that drew ire from the Turkish public
— particularly from nationalist circles.
Ýstanbul’s Þiþli Third Civil Court of First Instance dropped the case
in a 2006 ruling on the grounds that there had been no violation
of the individual rights of the plaintiffs in Pamuk’s remarks. The
plaintiffs appealed the court decision.
After reviewing the local court’s ruling, the Court of Appeals
nullified it on the grounds that there was no definition of individual
rights in the Turkish legal system and that the scope of individual
rights was not definite.
"It has been left to the judiciary to decide on what goes into the
definition of individual rights. Both in legal doctrine and judicial
rulings, it is acknowledged that individual rights include individuals’
physical, emotional and social values as well their profession, honor
and dignity, freedom, health, race, religion and bonds of citizenship,"
read the court ruling. The court noted that the plaintiffs had a
legal right to file a complaint over Pamuk’s remarks because they
were linked with citizenship bonds. The court asked for the review
of the case in consideration of the fact that the plaintiffs had a
legal right to file such a case.
The court ruling has opened the way for thousands of families of
martyrs to file cases against Pamuk. The lawyer of the plaintiffs,
Kemal Kerincsiz, who is a well-known ultranationalist, said earlier
that all the families of martyrs would file cases against Pamuk
and take away his Nobel Prize money if the Supreme Court of Appeals
nullified the local court ruling.
–Boundary_(ID_r2ltapALrwe7Ihj2F43Nvg)–
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BALLOON
Lragir
Jan 18 2008
Armenia
Although the government of Armenia states that IT is an economic
priority, and there is an intention and a goal to turn Armenia into
a leader in the region, the efforts that are made are mere formality.
The Armenian presidential candidate Arthur Baghdasaryan voiced this
opinion during the meeting with small and medium-sized businesses
on January 23. For instance, he says, the government has assigned
only 180 million drams, which is about 300 thousand dollars, for the
development of IT.
"It is clear that the speeches about turning Armenia into an IT leader
of the region are lies," Arthur Baghdasaryan says. According to him,
the economic policy of the Armenian government does not enable the
expression of human creativity in any sphere.