Author: Nalchajian Markos

The Messenger, Georgia
Jan 19 2008

Russian company wins Armenian Railway tender

By M. Alkhazashvili
(Translated by Diana Dundua)
Friday, January 18

Armenian officials announced on January 16 that Russian Railways JSC
won the recent tender for management rights of Armenian Railways JSC.
The Russian company was the only participant in the tender after
Indian company RITES withdrew their bid. They will hold management
rights for 30 years.

The Russian bid offered an investment of USD 570 million, with USD
230 million to be invested over the next five years, according to the
news agency ITAR-TASS. Russian Railway JSC is also required to pay
the Armenian government two percent of its profit.

Armenian Minister of Transport and Communication Andranik Manukyan
said Russian investments would be greater if the border with Turkey
is opened, and rail service to Armenia from Azerbaijan resumes.

Russia ready to use nuclear weapons if threatened – army chief

14:01 | 19/ 01/ 2008

MOSCOW, January 19 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s top military commander said
on Saturday that the country is prepared to use its nuclear weapons to
defend itself and allies in the event of a severe external threat.

The Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, told a
science conference in Moscow: "We do not intend to attack anyone, but
consider it necessary that all our partners clearly understand, and
that no one has any doubts, that the Armed Forces will be used to
protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its
allies, including preventative action, and including the use of nuclear
weapons."

Baluyevsky’s comments come amid growing tensions between Russia and
NATO over the alliance’s expansion into the former Eastern Bloc, the
United States’ plans to deploy missile defense elements in Poland and
the Czech Republic, and Moscow’s increasingly assertive military
stance.

Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific,
Atlantic, and Arctic oceans last August, and on December 12, 2007
imposed a unilateral moratorium on the Conventional Forces in Europe
Treaty, a key arms reduction pact.

Baluyevsky said that in order to protect Russia’s interests, military
force "can and must be used" when "all other means prove ineffective."

Programs to develop Russia’s military must be closely linked to
national fiscal planning, "taking into account the state’s economic
resources," he said.

Stockton Record, CA
Jan 20 2008

A business fixture of 52 years

By Michael Fitzgerald
Record Columnist
January 20, 2008 6:00 AM

Gluskin’s camera shop is closing after 60 years, Bookland’s closing
after 30 years, and big corporations are taking over. But we still
have Mrs. Tekerlek.

Mrs. Tekerlek – Alyce Tekerlek, 78 – is the founder, proprietor, sole
staff member and Cal Ripken Award winner of La Maison dress shop on
Main Street in Stockton.

This will be her 50th year.

So if you want to talk about old-fashioned shopkeepers with
multigenerational customers, one of those stitches who hold together
a community, Mrs. Tekerlek is your type.

"I can’t stay at home," confessed Mrs. Tekerlek, who speaks with a
Greek accent. "I get up in the morning, I’m used to come here. It
must be sickness."

Mrs. Tekerlek is not part of downtown’s comeback. She is part of its
never-left. She opened La Maison on April 6, 1958. Before that, she
worked for two years on the Miracle Mile.

Her 52 years behind the "open" sign puts her second in Stockton
business longevity, as far as I know, only to Dorothy Clare. Clare is
entering her 53rd year as the friendly face behind the lunch counter
at The Ranch coffee shop.

If there’s somebody who has been in business longer than these two,
call Fitzgerald the columnist. You’ll be warmly received.

"I like my work," Mrs. Tekerlek said credibly. "Even though the
business is not as it used to be."

Business is not as is used to be because Mrs. Tekerlek’s customers
are getting up there. Take customer Kathe Underwood. Underwood is 99
years old.

"I buy everything I own there," Underwood said. "Because she has
exactly what I want, and she does the alterations very well. And
she’s just a pleasant person."

Also, downtown is not the hive of commerce it was in, say 1964. Some
days, Mrs. Tekerlek goes without a single customer.

Six days a week, though, she still unlocks the little storefront
tucked beneath the marquee of the Bob Hope Theatre and opens her
tidy, narrow, dress-lined shop.

"She refuses to retire," said her nephew, Assemblyman Greg
Aghazarian.

Mrs. Tekerlek inherited her dreadnought work ethic from her father.
An Armenian refugee, he fled the Turkish genocide, starting over in
Athens with nothing but a family to feed.

"Even when I had babies, I did not like to stay home," Mrs. Tekerlek
proclaimed. "I had C-sections and was home one month." Then she was
back behind the sewing machine.

Dorothy Clare plans to work two more years, then retire from The
Ranch coffee shop. But Mrs. Tekerlek has no plans to retire – ever.
"I’m still going to be here, I don’t know how long."

So she put in a plug for her shop. She’s earned it.

"I have very unique things here," boasted Mrs. Tekerlek. "Just go to
a department store. They have racks and racks of the same thing. You
go to a party, five of them have the same dress. But here, three of
them is the most I buy."

/article?AID=/20080120/A_NEWS0803/801200318

RA MFA: ILHAM ALIYEV DESPERATE

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.01.2008 14:12 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Judging from the volume and tone of comments
from Azerbaijan’s President, there is a clear sense of desperation
in Azerbaijan. After all, on all fronts, without any exception,
Azerbaijan is either behind the international standard or going
against prevailing international trends," Armenian Foreign Ministry’s
Spokesman Vladimir Karapetian said when commenting on Azeri President
ilham Aliyev’s statement that positions of Armenia and Azerbaijan at
the international arena are incomparable.

"First, there is panic with regard to the international community’s
increasing understanding with regard to issues of self-determination,"
Mr Karapetian said.

"Second, on economic and social issues, Azerbaijan’s rankings are
problematic. In an unfortunate coincidence for him, the President’s
comments about their economic strength and their statebuilding
achievements came on the heels of three different reputable indices
which demonstrate that there is reason for the panic, and that the
President’s comments are simply aimed at misleading his public,"
he said adding that The Heritage Foundation Wall Street Journal’s
Economic Freedom Index has Armenia at 28th, near the top, while
Azerbaijan is 107 out of 162 countries rated.

"In the Freedom House rankings of the democratic standings of states,
Armenia is considered Partly Free, while Azerbaijan remains Not Free,
as in years past. The Foreign Policy Index of Failed States, in a
study of 177 countries, Armenia places 50 places above Azerbaijan.

"There is hardly an international index, including those of Human
rights and Freedom of Speech, where Azerbaijan’s ranking even
approaches Armenia’s.

Furthermore, according to World Bank data, despite Azerbaijan’s
enormous resources, they have barely caught up with Armenia’s per
capita income.

"Finally, with all their rhetoric on military strength, experts predict
that, at this rate of growth and military buildup, Azerbaijan will
require 10-15 years to begin to challenge Armenia’s armed forces.

Given all this, these baseless Azerbaijani statements simply offer
their own population false information thus diverting them from the
real challenges that they face," Mr Karapetian said.

Co-chairs want to make sure the border is calm

15-01-2008 15:01:52 – KarabakhOpen

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will participate in the monitoring of
the line of contact between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and
Karabakh, the Azerbaijani ministry of defense reported.
Yesterday the co-chairs were to arrive in Karabakh. They changed the
time and place of the news conference in Yerevan and finally cancelled
it.

Apparently, the co-chairs want to have a talk with the government of
Karabakh. Ostensibly, the Armenian government has agreed to certain
proposals offered by the co-chairs, and left responsibility for other
issues up to Karabakh. Something like we agree while Karabakh disagrees.

Such a turn is possible at least because last year the government of
Karabakh changed, which has adopted a more rigid stance regarding both
the basic issues of settlement and the participation of NKR in the
talks. By the way, when in 2006 the president of NKR Arkady Ghukasyan
urged Armenia to leave the talks and let Karabakh participate in the
negotiations, Robert Kocharyan reacted rather harshly, noting that
`there is no need to fish in troubled water’. Now the Armenian
government though weakly but insists on the participation of Karabakh
in the talks.

The second reason why the co-chairs want to visit Karabakh might be to
make sure the information the Azerbaijani media daily post on the
Internet is true. It is first of all the information on skirmishes at
the border. For some time now the Azerbaijani ministry releases daily
reports on the situation at the line of contact, reporting every
gunshot. In addition, according to Azerbaijan, all the skirmishes are
the fault of the Armenian force.

The purpose of this information policy is to produce the impression
that the situation at the border is unstable and may escalate into a
war at any moment. In addition, the Armenians will be to blame because
the Azerbaijanis are defending themselves.

This behavior is also caused by Baku’s wish to have peacekeepers
deployed along the line of contact, who the Azerbaijani government
thinks will be easier to persuade than the Armenians. Otherwise, they
would not spend so much money and effort to present the border routine
as preparations for military actions. Even despite the fact that the
Azerbaijani military experts state that the situation at the line of
contact has not changed since the truce was signed in 1994.

The OSCE will conduct monitoring of the line of contact near Aghdam on
January 16. The field assistants of the personal representatives of the
OSCE CiO Imre Palatinus and Antal Gerdich will conduct the monitoring
on the side of Azerbaijan.

On the side of Karabakh the personal representative of the OSCE CiO
Andrzej Kasprzyk and his field assistants Jaslan Nurtazin, Peter Kee
and Miroslav Vymetal will monitor the line of contact.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will participate in the monitoring on
the Armenian side of the line of contact.

International Scientific-Technical Center financed 9 projects from
Armenia during 2007 to total sum of $4.2 mln

2008-01-15 19:14:00

ArmInfo. The International Scientific-Technical Center financed 9
projects from Armenia during 2007 to the total sum of $4.2 mln, Head of
the ISTC Yerevan Office Hamlet Navasardyan told ArmInfo.

To recall, the ISTC financed 10 projects from Armenia during 2006 to
the total sum of $2.8 mln. As H. Navasardyan said, 22% of the whole
volume of financing falls on the area of physics, 20% – biology and 15%
– new materials, followed by the sphere of information and nuclear
technologies. By the number of the submitted and financed projects,
from the viewpoint of activity, the leaders are the Yerevan Physical
Institute (72 projects were submitted over the years of ISTC activity
in RA, 31 of which have been financed), the Yerevan State University
(29 projects submitted, 16 financed) and the Institute of Physical
Researches (14 projects submitted, 7 financed). H. Navasardyan said
that the main financing of the projects is carried out by EU (42%) and
the USA (36%).

Talking of the year results, H. Navasardyan said that a modern
equipment (spectrometers, laser diods, laboratory furnaces, etc.) was
acquired in 2007 to the sum of about $300,000 to carry out the project
work. This allowed to renew the technical park of RA Institutes and
gave an additional stimulus for the research work. He also said that 9
scientists from Armenia received grants in 2007 under assistance of
ISTC for business trips to the foreign scientific centers for meetings
and consultations with collaborators, as well as for participation in
conferences and seminars abroad. Moreover, an international conference
"New Polymers and Radioprotectors for Biology and Medicine" was held in
Armenia in 2007, organized by the Center of Radiation Medicine and
Burns and the Yerevan Institute "Plastomer", within the frames of ISTC
programme on assistance in holding scientific seminars and conferences.

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Jan 15 2008

PACE to Receive Documents on Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
15.01.08 11:49

Azerbaijan, Baku, 15 January / Òrend corr I. Alizade / The documents
on Nagorno-Karabakh which were developed by the Azerbaijani
delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) will be submitted to the organization at the winter session.
`The documents include information on the occupation of a region of
Azerbaijan by Armenia, arson which has been committed all over the
occupied territories and the destruction of cultural and historical
monuments,’ a member of the delegation Ganira Pashayeva said to Trend
on 15 January.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began in
1988, due to the Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
Since 1992, the Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of
Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven
neighbouring districts. In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a
ceasefire agreement which ended the active hostilities. The Co-Chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently
holding the peaceful negotiations.

In January 2005, PACE passed Resolution 1416 associated with the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem. The Resolution states that Armenia had
occupied Azerbaijani territories. It also contains proposals to
settle the conflict. PACE had established a sub-committee to control
the conflict.

According to Pashayeva, the documents urge CE to increase its
pressure on Armenia to implement the resolution passed by PACE. The
documents are planned to be distributed both in PACE and other
committees of the organization, Pashayeva said.

`Once the subject on `Ecological Globalization and Ecological
Activities’ will be discussed at the winter session, we will inform
the organization of how the Armenians are burning the forests in the
occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Within the framework of this
subject we will also touch upon the preservation of water resources,’
she said.

The PACE winter session will take place in Strasburg on 21-25
December.

Azerbaijan joined the CE in 2001.

PanARMENIAN.Net

OSCE mediators briefed RA FM on outcomes of Baku talks

15.01.2008 17:21 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian met Tuesday with OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs,
the RA MFA press office reported.

The mediators briefed the Minister on the outcomes of
Baku talks. For his part, Mr Oskanian presented
Armenia’s position on the package of proposals
submitted by the Co-chairs on the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict settlement.

Anatol Lieven: For the west to say Kosovo is a unique case is empty,
given the obvious parallels.

2008-01-15 18:49:00

ArmInfo. For the west to say Kosovo is a unique case is empty, given
the obvious parallels, writes Anatol Lieven, professor at King’s
College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in
Washington in his article ‘Balkan unrest remains a recipe for disaster’
in The Financial Times.

Further in the article, the professors writes:’In their dealings over
Kosovo’s independence, the European Union and Russia need to take their
points of departure from reality and common responsibility for the
stability of the European continent, not from legalism or
self-righteousness.

The Russians must recognise that, whether they and the Serbs like it or
not, Kosovo will soon become independent and will be recognised as such
by the US, the EU and many Muslim states. If this is not granted soon,
the Kosovo Albanians will revolt.

By vetoing United Nations recognition and giving moral support to
Serbian intransigence, Russia can help keep Kosovo unstable and spread
in-stability across the region. In the worst case, it could help
produce a war that would destabilise not just the Balkans but Europe
and deal a terrible blow to Russia’s relations with the west; but
Moscow needs to ask itself how it can be in Russia’s interest to do
this and take actions that will drive western Europe closer to the
hardline antiRussian positions in the US.

EU governments also need to recognise two realities. First, that just
as trying to keep Kosovo in Serbia would lead to Albanian revolt, so
too trying to force Mitrovica, the remaining Serbian area of Kosovo,
into an independent Albanian state would lead to Serbian revolt. Given
the de facto "ethnic cleansing" by Albanians since the Kosovo war, to
ask the Serbs to accept either Albanian or western guarantees of their
future safety is absurd.

There have been veiled threats from the Albanian side that if Mitrovica
is separated and joins Serbia, this will lead to revolt by local
Albanian minorities not just in Serbia proper but also in Macedonia. To
this there should be a very firm western response. The EU and Nato have
rested their moral right to hegemony in the Balkans on the claim to
guarantee stability and prevent conflict. They have also given promises
to defend the stability and territorial integrity of Macedonia. The
other reality the west needs to recognise is that, just as it is
impossible to force Kosovo back into Serbia, so it is impossible to
force Abkhazia and South Ossetia into Georgia. Quite apart from the
backing of Moscow and coethnics in the Russian north Caucasus for these
republics, it should be obvious from recent history that their
indigenous peoples can no more trust the Georgian state than Kosovo
Albanians can trust the Serbian state.

Kosovo’s independence will inevitably have repercussions for the
Georgian separatist regions and Nagorno- Karabakh and Trans Dnestr. For
the west to say Kosovo is a unique case is empty, given the
obvious parallels.

To resolve these issues and restore elementary consistency to its own
position, the west does not need to recognise Abkhaz and South Ossetian
independence – something for which Moscow is in any case not asking,
given the obvious lessons for some of Russia’s own restive minorities.

Rather, the west should extend to these republics the same solution
that leading western countries have sought for nearby Nagorno-Karabakh
(though so far without success): namely a "common state", in which
Azerbaijan – or, in this case, Georgia – will retain de jure
sovereignty, and therefore the theoretical possibility of future
reunification by consent, while formally acceding to de facto
independence, including most notably, full control over local armed
forces and external borders. In all these cases, as in Kosovo, this
would have to be accompanied by limited partitions, in which certain
regions (such as Mitrovica, or the ethnically Georgian Gali and Svan
districts of Abkhazia) would remain with the former sovereign.

Before they go any further with their existing policies, the big powers
should remember this: the catastrophic first world war began with a
dispute over the status of Bosnia-Herzegovina, an area of no interest
to the vast majority of the Europeans who died.

The risk today from the Balkans and Caucasian conflicts is far less –
but none of the territories concerned is worth any serious risk to the
international system. What is more, the governments of 1914 could not
imagine the dreadful use to which Hitler and Stalin would put the
consequences of the first world war. Today, we do not have that excuse.
We know very well the uses to which Osama bin Laden and his Chechen
allies would put a serious clash between the west and Russia’.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version: nian.htm

PARTICIPATION IN THE BLESSING OF HOLY MURON IN ANTELIAS
7 June 2008

The Holy Muron (Holy Chrism) has a particular place in the spirituality of
the Armenian Church. With the anointment of the Holy Muron we become member
of the Armenian Church. Our people believe that through the touch of the
Holy Muron we are reborn, recreated, and restored in God’s image. Indeed,
the Holy Muron is a source of spiritual transformation and renewal.

According to the ancient tradition of the Armenian Church, the Holy Muron is
prepared with the perfume of forty flowers and herbs, olive oil and balsamum
being the essential ingredients. The preparation of the Holy Muron is a long
process and each stage is accompanied with special prayers. Before its
blessing, which takes place normally once every seven years, the Muron rests
forty days on the altar of the Cathedral.

The next blessing of the Holy Muron will take place this year, on Saturday 7
June, in Antelias, Lebanon. Our people all over the world are invited to
attend this unique spiritual event.

On this occasion usually our faithful make special donations. Therefore,
those who would like to make donation, as a tangible way of participation in
the preparation and blessing of Holy Muron, they can send their contribution
either through the local Prelacies or to the following account:

Bank: FRANSABANK SAL, Antelias branch,
Lebanon
Name of account: ARMENIAN CATHOLICOSATE OF CILICIA
Account Nº: 003 35 22 21 532027.87
SWIFT Code: FSAB LB BX

##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician
Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church is located in
Antelias, Lebanon.