Author: Talalian Arpi

CAFESJIAN FOUNDATION CONTEMPORARY MUSEUM CONSTRUCTION TO BE OVER IN 2010

ARMENPRESS
Oct 8, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, ARMENPRESS: Madlene Minassian, head of the
Cafesjian Museum Foundation press office, told Armenpress that
construction of the Gerard L.

Cafesjian Museum of Contemporary Art in central Yerevan will be over
in 2010.

She said some 100 workers and 4 engineers have finished earthwork
and are engaged currently in concreting, which is likely to take 18
months. She said workers use local materials except steel parts.

The museum will house Mr. Cafesjian’s pre-eminent collection of glass
artwork, including the definitive collection of works by renowned
artists Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. The permanent
displays will also include a broad range of prominent 20th century
pieces including both paintings and sculpture. Additionally, the
museum will host a program of world-class traveling exhibitions.

The design treats the principal Museum building as an extension of
the Cascade completing an animated pathway linking Tamanyan Park to
the Monument by exterior stairway and interior escalators. The Museum
building will provide a public plaza, ornamental pool, sculpture
courts, a cafe and an exterior cinema all accessible to passers-by
as well as visitors to the Museum itself.

The Foundation has repaired the halls, the fountains and water
removing system, has put into the action the moving stairway and
installed public toilets in the area. Thousands of people make use
of the moving stairway daily that provides a shortest travel from
downtown Yerevan to northern quarters of the capital city.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 5 2007

Azerbaijani parliamentarian from Karabakh against meetings and
contacts with Armenian separatists

[ 05 Oct 2007 17:39 ]

`I will not visit Karabakh, if offered, as we are defeated party,
though temporarily, and Armenia is a winning party. How could we face
the winning party? How could we ground our visit?’ Elman Mammadov,
parliamentarian of Shusha-Fuzuli-Khojaly-Khojavand election
constituency #124, one of the representatives of `Nagorno Karabakh’s
Azerbaijani Community’ public union said, in response to the question
whether he will join the second visit of Azerbaijani intellectuals to
Nagorno Karabakh, APA reports.

The parliamentarian said he does not understand the aim of this
visit, he is against these meetings and contacts and underlined that
he will never visit the occupied territories as a defeated party.
`I will visit these lands, when Azerbaijani Army liberates them. I
will only visit Nagorno Karabakh as a winner,’ he said. /APA/

A MEETING WITH CHAIRMAN OF EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS TAKES PLACE AT CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
Author: Mashurian Sona
Editor: Khachatrian Haroutiun

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 4 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. A meeting with Jean-Paul Costa, the
Chairman of the European Court of Human Rights, who is in Armenia on
an official visit, took place on October 4 at the RA Constitutional
Court. He will make an opening speech at the 12th Yerevan International
Conference on the subject of international experience of constitutional
courts and human rights defenders’ cooperation in the sphere of
ensuring and protection of human rights to start on October 5. P. Costa
was received by RA President Robert Kocharian.

Gagik Haroutiunian, the Chairman of the RA Costitutional Court, said
that the Constitutional Court has a "long-lasting and traditional"
cooperation with the European Court. This is the first visit to Armenia
paid by J.-P. Costa having assumed his authorities since January. As an
important problem faced by the European Court G. Haroutiunian mentioned
accumulation of nearly 100 thousand non-examined cases, which can be
solved through raising the efficiency of national courts’ activities.

Jean-Paul Costa said that the European Court, which pronounced its
first judgement 50 years ago, has 47 judges at present, one judge from
each Council of Europe member country. He said that only last year the
European Court pronounced 1600 judgements, which exceeds the number of
all judgements pronounced in 1960-1998 two-fold. The European Court
Chairman attached importance to holding of reforms aimed at raising
the efficiency of the Court’s activity. They were included in the
14th protocol attached to the European Convention on Human Rights,
which, however, does not act, as the protocol has not been ratified
by Russia. The activity of the Council of Wise Men consisting of 11
persons within the framework of the Council of Europe also depends
on that document’s coming in force.

"EUROPEAN COURT WILL MAKE DECISION ON "A1+" CASE SOON"

A1+
[06:33 pm] 04 October, 2007

"The European Court on Human Rights is currently discussing the appeal
of "A1+". Thus, the dialogue between the European Court and the RA
Government is going on and very soon the Court will make a final
decision on the claim", informed Alvina Gyulumyan, who represents
Armenia at the European Court.

Mrs Gyulumyan doubted to mention the concrete term of the decision. The
European Court currently discusses the claims of the former owners of
the North Avenue and Buzand Street and "Jehovah’s Witnesses" together
with the Armenian Government. The Court also examines the case of
Ruben Tororsyan, Chairman of the "General Assembly of Deputy Club"
NGO, regarding the 2003 elections. Mrs Gyulumyan also informed that
the European Court discusses the case of Murad Bojoyan who was accused
of betraying the native land. Alvina Gyulumyan promised to talk about
each case in detail at the conference "International experience of
the cooperation between Constitutional Courts and Ombudsmen in the
field of ensuring and Protection of Human Rights".

The European court has receives 479 appeals from Armenia since
Armenia’s access to the Council of Europe. This is not the final
number since 617 appeals were received from Azerbaijani citizens
against Armenia regarding their refugee status. 214 appeals were not
included in the list of the cases against Armenia.

Recently the European Court has received 32 new appeals, which have
not been studied yet. 87 cases are waiting for the discussion of the
Committee, 22 – for the discussion of the Assembly, the RA Government
and the European Court are negotiating on 42 cases and the Court is
waiting for a respond, then it will decide to examine the cases or
not. Today the Court has made a final decision only on one case from
Armenia, released verdicts on 2 cases.

233 appeals from Armenia were recognized inadmissible by the Court,
7 were dismissed from the list and 52 applicants were not consistent
and did not fill in all necessary documents. The European Court
did not admit the claims of those who regarded the Court as a 4-th
instance. In Alvina Gyulumyan’s opinion, some RA citizens have wrong
imagination about the European Court and raise issues that are not
related to the European Convention on Human Rights.

OSKANIAN: GENOCIDE MUST BE PREVENTED, NOT COMMEMORATED

PanARMENIAN.Net
04.10.2007 15:14 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "When Darfur becomes shorthand for hopelessness,
we in the small corners of the world realize that power has become
a substitute for responsibility," Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian said in his address to the UN General Assembly.

"The ubiquitous language of human rights cannot compensate
for political will. Genocide must be prevented, not
commemorated. Generation after generation, we find new names for man’s
appalling tolerance for what we think are inhuman machinations, new
names for the places of horror, slaughter, massacre, indiscriminate
killing of all those who have belonged to a segment, a category, an
ethnic group, a race or a religion. Nearly 100 years ago, for Armenians
it was Deir-El-Zor. For the next generation, it was Auschwitz, then
the killing fields of the Cambodians. And most recently Rwanda. If
in each of those cases, together with genocide, these names evoked
ignorance, helplessness, wartime cover, today Darfur is synonymous
with expediency, evasion and simple inconvenience. Darfur is synonymous
with shame," he continued.

"My appeal, on behalf of small countries, is that the international
community tackle each of these problems in their own right, for
their own sake, and not as pieces in a global power puzzle. When
tensions among the world’s great powers grow, there is an increase in
polarization and a decrease in the effectiveness of the hard-earned
– and costly -policies of complementarity and balance of small
countries. Our own room to maneuver, to participate in global
solutions, diminishes," the Minister said.

H.RES.106 AUTHORS CONFIDENT HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE WILL PASS THE LEGISLATION

PanARMENIAN.Net
03.10.2007 17:31 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The authors of the Armenian Genocide Resolution
(H. Res. 106) expressed their confidence that the House Foreign
Affairs Committee will pass this important human rights legislation
during the Committee markup next Wednesday, October 10, the Armenian
Assembly of America reported.

In a press statement issued earlier today, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA),
George Radanovich (R-CA), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus on
Armenian Issues, Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Joe Knollenberg (R-MI)
along with Caucus Members Brad Sherman (D-CA), Ed Royce (R-CA) and
Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), said they would work to prevent the adoption
of weakening amendments.

"We will work to ensure that when the Resolution comes to the
House floor for a vote, it will receive the overwhelming support it
deserves," the lawmakers stated.

Their statement says,

"We are extremely pleased and very encouraged by the decision of the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs to move forward with a markup of
this critical legislation recognizing the Armenian Genocide as the
first genocide of the 20th century. We thank Chairman Lantos and
Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen for scheduling the hearing, as well as
Speaker Pelosi for her continued support.

This Congress’ support for the Armenian Genocide Resolution sends a
strong message that the U.S. government will not tolerate genocide. Our
recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a vital step in helping to
prevent other crimes against humanity.

We are confident that the House Foreign Affairs Committee will pass
this long-overdue legislation and will work to prevent the adoption
of weakening amendments. We will continue to work to ensure that when
the Resolution comes to the House floor for a vote, it will receive
the overwhelming support it deserves."

The lawmakers noted that the Resolution currently has 226 co-sponsors,
more than the 218 needed to have the support of a majority of the
435 Members of the House.

This amount of support makes it possible to pass the bill on the
House floor, which is the next step after passage in Committee. In
September 2005, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted by an
overwhelming margin of 40-7 to pass an Armenian Genocide Resolution
with the same language as the current Resolution, H. Res. 106.

The Armenian Genocide Recognition Resolution, which was introduced in
Congress last January, calls on the President and the U.S. Government
to properly recognize the atrocities that occurred in Armenia beginning
in 1915, which resulted in 1.5 million deaths and countless victims
of torture, as genocide.

TEACHER PREPARATION COMPETITION

Panorama.am
13:00 03/10/2007

The IREX organization announced a teacher preparation competition,
which is part of the Eurasia/South Asia teaching program. According
to organizers, around 60 teachers will be able to improve their
professional skills and learn about methods used in the USA during
the competition.

As we learned from the IREX office in Armenia, participating teachers
are required to have five years experience, and must be a full-time
teacher of English as a foreign language or the social sciences. Six
Armenian teachers will take part in the program.

Applications to take part will be accepted until November 19. The
program is funded by the USA education department, which will take
care of all of the participants’ expenses will in the USA. Last year,
seven Armenian teachers took part in the program.

AZERI VS ARMENIA

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 1 2007

Azerbaijan national team U-19 is participating in the European
championship qualifying round. In the second match Azeri team lost to
the Scots 0:3. The first defeat of U-19 came from Ukraine team. The
Ukraine also defeated Armenian team 2:0.

After two unsuccessful matches Azerbaijan team is holding 3rd place
and will meet Armenian team for the first time in history. The match
is scheduled to take place in Lvov at 18:00 Baku time. The referee
for the match is Emillia Vnuka.

Azerbaijan football and futsal teams did not lost to Armenia until.

Azerbaijan national football teams, Neftchi club and Turan Air futsal
club defeated Armenia teams five times.

ARF LEADERS WELCOME EX- PRESIDENT LEVON TER-PETROSIAN

ARMENPRESS
Oct 1, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, ARMENPRESS: Two top members of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (ARF) welcomed Saturday Armenia’s ex-president
Levon Ter-Petrosian at the ARF Simon Vratsian Center in Yerevan. The
Supreme Body of the ARF said the initiative was Ter-Petrosian’s. It
said Ter-Petrosian’s was welcomed by Hrant Margarian, representative
of the ARF Bureau in Armenia and Armen Rustamian, representative of
the ARF Supreme Body.

Levon Ter-Petrosian was accompanied by former foreign affairs minister
Alexander Arzumanian.

The ARF Supreme Body said the meeting’s agenda was topped by
issues on the political situation of the country and forthcoming
presidential election. It said both sides emphasized the need of
ideological-political debate at this stage of developments.

On December 28, 1994, Levon Ter-Petrosian accused the leaders of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation of plotting a coup, ordered to jail
its leadership, and shut down Yerkir newspaper, run by the party. The
ban was lifted by president Robert Kocharian in 1998.

During a reception organized by his Armenian National Movement (ANM)
to mark the 16-th anniversary of Armenia’s independence on September
21 Levon Ter-Petrosian broke his nearly decade-long silence by
lashing out at the current authorities in Yerevan branding them as
"criminal and corrupt." He further accused them of turning Armenia
into a "third world country."

Ter-Petrosian, who was forced into resignation in 1998 by opponents
of state-by-stage resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said
Armenia’s sustainable development was impossible without a resolution
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the opening of its borders with
Azerbaijan and Turkey.

He also said he has not yet decided whether or not to participate in
the upcoming presidential election, adding that he was still examining,
weighing up, considering things.

"I can’t be guided by emotions. Adventurism is alien to my character,"
he said, adding that until he knew the effectiveness of his would-be
steps, he would not take steps.

PETER SEMNEBY: EU BACKS THE RESOLUTION OF THE KARABAKH CONFLICT WITHIN MINSK GROUP FORMAT

ArmRadio – Public Radio, Armenia
Sept 28 2007

"The opportunity to continue the negotiations is very important in
the process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict," EU Special
representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby told ArmInfo
correspondent.

The diplomat expressed the opinion that possibly the negotiation
process will get complicated for a certain period of time, but it is
necessary to guarantee progress and not to lose the accentuations
achieved during the ongoing activity of the OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chairs. "The process must continue only on condition that the
achieved results will be maintained, and I’m sure it will continue,"
Peter Semneby noted.

Speaking about the opportunity to reach progress before the
presidential campaign starts, Semneby refrained from concrete comments
and noted that it’s obvious that progress will be achieved sooner or
later. "However, as a minimal condition, it is necessary to guarantee
that the agreements reached during the negotiation process will be
preserved. It will enable the parties to proceed to the next stage
of negotiations," the diplomat underlined.

Turning to the consideration of the Karabakh issue in the framework
of the UN General Assembly session, Peter Semneby said the EU fully
supports the process of the Karabakh conflict resolution within the
framework of the mediating mission of the OSCE Minsk Group."