Author: Nalchajian Markos

PanARMENIAN.Net

Public Council formed in Armenia
14.06.2008 14:43 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan
signed a decree on formation of Public Council, the RA
leader’s press office reported.

The Council has the status of a constitutional body
called to encourage public and political dialogue in
Armenia. It will consider the issues of national
importance, analyze the laws and presidential decrees.

A special commission will form working groups that
will bring together representatives of
pro-governmental forces and opposition. The commission
will also submit proposals on composition and
regulations of the Public Council.

The commission includes Robert Amirkhanyan, chairman
of the Union of Composers of Armenia, Father Mesrop
Aramyan, chairman of Gadzasar theological center, Emil
Gabrielyan, academician at the RA Academy of Sciences,
Viktor Dallakyan, a parliament member, Hovhannes
Zanazanyan, vice president of Banants football club,
Perch Zeytuntsyan, member of the board of the Union of
Writers of Armenia, Sergey Hambartsumyan, academician
at the RA Academy of Sciences, Khosrov Harutyunyan,
chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, Tovmas
Pohosyan, chairman of Sayat-Nova cultural union,
Arshak Sadoyan, chairman of National Democrats’ Bloc,
Sos Sargsyan, head of Hamazgayin theater and Shavarsh
Kocharyan, chairman of the National Democratic Party
of Armenia.

BERNARD FASSIER: "OUR MAIN DUTY NOW IS TO COMPLETE WORK ON THE BASIC PRINCIPLES CONSIDERING PROPOSALS OF BOTH SIDES"

Azeri Press Agency
June 12 2008
Azerbaijan

Baku. Tamara Grigorieva-APA. "Every meeting of the presidents gives a
result and progress is made after the every meeting. It was possible
at the St. Petersburg meeting to create positive atmosphere for the
negotiations", Bernard Fassier, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair (France)
told APA.

He said co-chairs would pay the next visit to region just with this
aim. "We will specify the date of the visit in the next few days. We
intend to visit both Baku and Yerevan, but we are not sure to achieve
it. Everything depends on the schedules of the foreign ministers and
the presidents".

Fassier said they needed to visit Yerevan to learn the position of the
new leadership of Armenia. "The main duty of the co-chairs now is to
complete work on the basic principles considering proposals of both
sides". Fassier said there were some new points in the negotiations,
but didn’t make it public. He said co-chairs didn’t need in much
time to complete their work. "Our aim is clear in this situation –
we will organize the meetings of the foreign ministers and presidents
of Azerbaijan and Armenia".

RUSSIA BEEFS UP MILITARY PRESENCE IN KYRGYZSTAN

RIA Novosti
15:37 | 11/ 06/ 2008

MOSCOW, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will deploy more personnel and
equipment at its air base in Kyrgyzstan, the Air Force commander told
a Russian daily on Wednesday.

In an interview with the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper,
Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin also said that flight training programs
would be intensified to prepare more pilots.

He earlier said the base was set to receive four combat trainers from
the Krasnodar military pilot school, plus an An-26 transport plane
and several new Su-27 aircraft.

The Russian base in Kant, about 20 miles west of the Kyrgyz capital,
Bishkek, was established in October 2003, and currently deploys about
400 troops, including 250 officers and NCOs and 150 conscripts, as well
as several Su-25 Frogfoot attack aircraft and Su-27 Flanker fighters,
two Mi-8

The 2003 bilateral agreement between Russia and Kyrgyzstan stipulates
the presence of the Kant air base in the Central Asian republic
for 15 years with an automatic extension every five years after the
expiration of the original term.

The agreement is in the framework of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization – a regional security bloc in Central Asia, which also
includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyz Defense Minister Ismail Isakov said in March that Russia
annually pays some $4.5 million to Kyrgyzstan for military bases and
also provides Bishkek with military and technical equipment as part
of the lease agreements.

JOINT PRESS RELEASE

Union of Armenian Associations in
Box 237, 17724 Järfälla, Sweden
Contact: Vahagn Avedian
+46 707 73 33 83
[email protected]

Union of Assyrian Associations in
Box 6019, 151 06 Södertälje, Sweden
Contact: Rachel Hadodo
+46 707 16 98 26
[email protected]

Armenica
Box 1716, 751 47 Uppsala, Sweden
Contact: Vahagn Avedian
+46 707 73 33 83
[email protected]

Petition Site:

Recognize the 1915 Genocide for what it is

Why does genocide continue to occur in the 21st century? Because
those committed in the 20th century got away with it. Hitler said -Who
remembers the Armenians?- More or less as if the Sudanese Government is
standing up and saying -Who remembers the Armenians? – Salih Booker,
former Executive Director of Africa Action, on the ongoing genocide in
Darfur . Excerpt from the documentary Screamers, 2007

The Swedish Foreign Affairs Committee, on May 29, 2008, published
its decision to suggest that the Parliament should reject the motions
calling upon the Swedish Parliament and Government to recognize the 1915
genocide. The decision is mainly based upon the following arguments:

* -…no particular consideration regarding the Armenian
situation has ever been in form of an UN Resolution, either in 1985 or
any other occasion.-
* -The Committee understands that what engulfed the Armenians,
Assyrian/Syrians and Chaldeans during the reign of the Ottoman Empire
would, according to the 1948 Convention, probably be regarded as
genocide, if it had been in power at the time.-
* -There is still a disagreement among the experts regarding
the different course of events of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
. The same applies to the underlying causes and how the assaults shall
be classified.-

The petition, signed by leading experts on Holocaust and
Genocide Studies, is a call upon, not only Swedish leaders, but an
appeal to all leaders around the world to stop abusing the name of
science in their political agenda, abetting the denial of genocide.

The text and complete list of signatories is available in several
different languages at

ACHATZ WINS BEARD HONOR AS MOST OUTSTANDING CHEF
By Lisa Donovan

Chicago Sun-Times
995445,CST-NWS-beard09.article
June 9 2008
IL

Chicago’s own Grant Achatz, of the cutting-edge restaurant Alinea
in Lincoln Park, won the national James Beard Foundation award for
outstanding chef.

Taking home one of the food industry’s top prizes comes within the last
12 months when the 30-plus year-old chef announced he had late-stage
oral cancer. Now in remission, he has gained back all the weight he
lost, he said recently.

Carrie Nahabedian, chef and co-owner of River North eatery Naha,
was also among the winners at Sunday’s night’s award ceremony in New
York City.

Nahabedian, nominated three times now, won in the category "Best
Chef Great Lakes," which included finalists from Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan and Ohio, according to the Web sites for the James Beard
Awards as well as Naha, 500 N. Clark St. Nahabedian beat fellow Chicago
nominees Graham Elliot Bowls of Avenues In The Peninsula Chicago,
108 E. Superior, and Bruce Sherman of North Pond, 2610 N. Cannon Drive.

The restaurant’s Web site describes Nahabedian’s cooking style as
one that draws from her "Armenian roots" and her time as a chef
in California.

SITUATION IN KARABAKH CONFLICT ZONE COULD GET OUT OF CONTROL – AZERI DEFENSE MINISTER

Interfax News Agency
June 3 2008
Russia

The continuing occupation of Azeri territory by Armenia could push
the situation in the conflict zone out of control, Azeri Defense
Minister Safar Abiyev said.

Abiyev made this statement while receiving the U.S. co-chairman of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group,
Matthew Bryza, the Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"Minister Abiyev said that if Armenia does not pull out from occupied
territory unconditionally, the situation may get out of control,"
the defense ministry said.

Abiyev and Bryza discussed the military-political situation in the
region in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

RA PRESIDENT: AZNAVOUR’S SERVICE INVALUABLE

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.06.2008 16:59 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan met Tuesday with
renowned singer Charles Aznavour and his impresario Levon Saiyan,
the RA leader’s press office reported.

"With your art, you represent Armenia throughout the globe. Your
service is invaluable. Each Armenian is proud to have such a
compatriot," the President said.

For his part, Charles Aznavour said he was agreeably surprised at
the changes he noticed in Yerevan.

Discussing living conditions in Armenia, the singer stressed the
necessity of rural area development.

"Even development of the regions is a priority task for the Armenian
government. We work for the purpose," Mr Sargsyan remarked.

ARMENTEL AND MICROSOFT LAUNCHING A NEW EDUCATION PROGRAM

AZG Armenian Daily
04/06/2008

Information Technologies

ArmenTel CJSC company and Microsoft Corporation are starting a
new education program in Armenia, which supposes introduction of a
distance training and fast Internet at schools, director general of
CJSC ArmenTel Neicho Velichkov said. He said that the pilot program
is to be started in 60 Armenian schools.

The new system will be introduced in 10 schools till 1 September of the
current year, all the rest schools will use the new system till the end
of 2009 gradually. Velichkov also said that within the frames of the
program ArmenTel will give 2 computers to each of the 10 schools and
fast Internet communication ADSL Hi-Line, and Microsoft – technologies
of distance training and communication. He also added that Hi-Line
Internet will function by 100 times faster than Dial-up communication,
giving the unlimited access to Internet. Director general of ArmenTel
also said that Armenia occupies the 124th place in the world by the
level of students’ accessibility to Internet at school, and fulfillment
of this program will make it possible to improve this indicator.

For his part, director of Armenian office of Microsoft, Grigor
Barsegyan, said that the company fulfilled similar programme in 6
schools of Syunik region of Armenia and in physics and mathematics
school of Yerevan and added that Microsoft is going to fulfill similar
programmes over the next 5 years. He also said that Internet service
will be given to schools free of charge over a year, than they will
pay for such a service.

Economy Minister Nerses Yeritsyan added that the initiative of these
two biggest world companies is a sample of cooperation between the
state and private sectors. He also said that starting of this programme
of ArmenTel and Microsoft is in line with the development programme
of the government according to which all the schools of Armenia will
be provided with interactive communication over two years.

STANDING UP TO BE COUNTED
Kevin Cavanagh

Hamilton Spectator
378779
June 2 2008
Canada

For all the oratory that erupts when politicians gather, a nation’s
legislators are ultimately measured more by what they do than what they
say. So it was no small statement of principle last week when Canada’s
House of Commons passed a bill recognizing the 1930s Ukrainian famine
as an act of genocide.

The bill refers to a devastating famine of 1932-33 in which shocking
numbers of people — up to 10 million — were starved to death in a
fertile agricultural region known as Europe’s breadbasket.

Whether such atrocities should be recorded for history’s sake as
state-sanctioned homicide is a politically explosive debate, which
— even generations after the fact — can trigger backlashes from
present-day regimes of countries that are implicated in, embarrassed
by and/or in denial of said outrage.

As you’d expect in a debate fired with nationalism and pride, there’s
hot contention over whether such incidents constitute mass murder,
or the slightly more benign consequence of politics of the day. In
this case, some historians and a lot of Russians reject the notion
that the famine was a calculated extermination by the Soviet Union’s
monstrous dictator Josef Stalin.

But a growing number of countries around the world have come to
accept that the denial of food to an entire population was nothing
less than a strategy by Stalin to exterminate millions of Ukrainians
and silence their clamour for independence.

This was the second time in recent years a Canadian government had
the gumption to take a stand on a controversial issue in the global
community. Four years ago, our Parliament became one of a very few
to stand up and recognize the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915
as a genocide, a label that elicits fierce anger from Turkey.

Does it even matter that a country such as Canada takes a stand
on something that happened so long ago? Yes. It’s a statement of
principle seen and heard around the world, and helps shape global
consensus about what is tolerable and acceptable in civilized society.

Sensitivity and fear of controversy lead many governments to take
the easy way out and simply not have an opinion, one way or the
other. Cynics suspect Ottawa’s decision last week was done to win
favour with a million Canadian voters of Ukrainian descent, considering
the feds just last fall said they had no plans to recognize the famine
as a genocide. But the fact is this private member’s bill received
all-party support, as did the 2004 vote on Armenia.

In the end, side-stepping difficult decisions because of fear or
intimidation is simply an abdication of responsibility by people who
should lead. It’s a dangerous step down a path toward submissively
swallowing censorship, propaganda and freedom.

The world will never learn from its history if we don’t face up to it.

Editorials are written by members of the editorial board. They
represent the position of the newspaper, not necessarily the individual
author.

THE MAIN AIM OF AZERBAIJAN IS THE COMPLETE ISOLATION OF ARMENIA FROM THE REGIONAL PROJECTS

PanARMENIAN.Net
31.05.2008 GMT+04:00

USA’s urge to force out Russia from the Caucasus as soon as possible
and to gain the complete control over the Caspian and Central Asian
energy resources first of all strikes Armenia.

Azerbaijan does its best to isolate Armenia from all the regional
transport projects. The GUAM Summit held in Baku, during which once
again the issue of new transport corridor constructions was raised,
is the evidence of the above mentioned. This time the topic of the
discussion mostly was the rail road bridging the Black Sea with
South Korea.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The initiator of this project is the Ukraine,
which does not exclude the possibility of Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Georgia joining the project.

According to the words of the Ukraine Ambassador to Azerbaijan Boris
Klimchuk, in the future the route may be connected to the Great Silk
Road and reach South Korea.

It must be said, that Baku’s efforts for now are blessed with
some success, which is explained by the domination of political
importance of all these projects. In all these projects the economics
is definitely on secondary importance. And since Armenia in the
political aspect is of no interest to the other parties, naturally
the preference is given to Georgia and Azerbaijan. There is another no
less important factor of Turkey, which in its striving to become the
regional power-holder starts dictating its rules, which comply with
the rules of the USA. In this context particularly the visit of the
Turkish Prime-Minister Recep Erdoghan to the autonomous Republic of
Nakhichevan scheduled in the beginning of June should be viewed. The
Turkish Daily News informs that during his visit the Turkish Prime
will meet the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. During the meeting
the projects of socio-economic development of the region, such as the
construction of the railroad Kars-Nakhichevan and the gas pipeline
Erzrum-Nakhichevan, are going to be discussed,

With its participation in the railroad construction
Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku, which is already referred to as the
Baku-Ankara road, Georgia also has a rather significant asset in
Armenia’s isolation. Voluntarily or not Armenia becomes the hostage
of its own policy, which is basically oriented towards Russia, as a
guarantor of security in case of the renewal of military actions in the
Nagorno-Karabakh or, God forbid, the tension on the Armenian-Turkish
border.

However, the latter is not very likely to happen, yet, excluding such
a possibility would also be wrong.

USA’s urge to force out Russia from the Caucasus as soon as possible
and to gain the complete control over the Caspian and Central Asian
energy resources first of all strikes Armenia. The truth is though,
that even if Yerevan changes its priorities in the foreign policy of
the country, there are no guarantees that the USA will change the
routes of the pipelines or the railroads. The only thing that can
change the route of the pipelines is the stirring up of the militants
of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on the way of oil transportation.

It should be reminded that even in the Russian projects "South Stream"
and "North-South" Armenia has no expectations either. By the way,
the refusal of the US government to support financial assistance to
Kars-Baku railroad is caused not by the sympathy towards Armenia,
but simple pragmatism. One thing is to put big money in oil pipeline,
another thing is to put big money in a rather problematic railroad,
whose payback, regardless Baku’s assertions, is rather dubious.

Not everything is all right with the widely publicized project of
Nabucco. Nabucco gas pipeline International announced about the
extension of more than 1.5 times construction costs of the gas
pipeline reaching 7.9 milliard Euros. In the information on the
official web site of the project, it was mentioned that the costs
of the project of Nabucco have grown on the background of the growth
of the prices of oil and the demand on steel. The consortium of the
project reassessed the major expenses on the bases of the assessments
of the supply and the delivery service for the construction of the
gas pipeline. According to the new evaluation, the project needs 2
million tones of steel pipes and more than 30 compressor units. The
Nabucco gas pipeline will provide gas from Azerbaijan and Central Asia
to the countries of the European Union. From Central Asia to Nabucco
the gas may be delivered by planned Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, which
will go under the Caspian. The pipeline, with an initial capacity
of about 8 milliard cubic meter per year, is planned to be ready by
2012. The first gas supplies must start in 2013, if it finished by
then. The growth of the oil prices will continue, dollar still drops,
and in the present conditions of the world economics, the project may
simply be postponed for an uncertain period. The construction of the
oil pipeline Baku-Ceyhan forewent 10-year negotiations, and without
Heydar Aliyev it would not be build at all. The current President
of Azerbaijan, unfortunately, or fortunately, has not inherited the
connections and the foresight of his father.