Author: Tigranian Ani

SENOR ASRATYAN: NKR DEFENSE ARMY CAN ENSURE SECURITY ON ITS OWN

armradio.am
05.09.2007 15:18

The Defense Army of Nagorno Karabakh is capable to ensure the security
of its people itself, Head of the Press Service of the NKR Minstry
of Defense Senor Asratyan told ArmInfo correspondent.

Azeri media have dissemninated a statement, asserting that Azerbaijani
Ambassador to Iran Nasir Hamidi Zareh declared he possesses no
information about the service of Iranian citizens in the Armed Forces
of Nagorno Karabakh. Commenting on the possible enrollment of foreign
citizens in the Armed Forces of NKR, Senor Asratyan refuted these
suggestions.

"Exceptionally Armenian citizens serve in the Armed Forces of
the NKR Defense Army. The enrollment of foreign mercenaries
is out of question," Senor Asratyan underlined. "We do not need
mercenaries. There have been no mercenaries in the NKR Defense Army
either during the war, or today, unlike the enemy’s army, where
many mercenary mojahedins serve. The NKR Defense Army can ensure the
security of its own people on its own," Senor Asratyan declared.

HEAD OF AZERBAIJANI FM’S PRESS-SERVICE: RECOGNITION OF NKR INDEPENDENCE WOULD BE SUICIDE FOR ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT

arminfo
2007-09-04 14:05:00

ArmInfo. Recognition of NKR independence would be a suicide for
the Armenian government, Head of Azerbaijani FM’s press-service
Hazar Ibrahim said at yesterday’s briefing in AR FM, "Zerkalo" Baku
newspaper reports.

Asked if a new visit of representatives of Azerbaijani intellectuals
to Nagorno Karabakh is scheduled, H. Ibrahim replied that he has no
information about it. As for Armenia’s statement saying that the moment
of recognition of NKR independence has not yet come, H. Ibrahim said:
"I want to hope that the Armenian party will make corrections some
time and will claim that this moment will never come, otherwise it
would be a suicide for the Armenian government".

RUSSIA TAKES UP CASINO BUSINESS

Lragir
Sept 4 2007
Armenia

Apparently the Russian capital is not satisfied with having bought
the entire energy sector and industries of Armenia. Regnum reported
that the Russian Storm International game holding is likely to build a
compound in Armenia after Las Vegas. Perhaps they think our officials
had better not go far and spend their money here, at the Armenian
and Russian Las Vegas. Regnum reported that Storm International is
likely to invest over 300 million dollars. It is naturally going to
be the largest in the region. The compound will include a casino,
a five-star hotel, halls, a school of croupiers, a trade center,
restaurants, night clubs. 150 specialists will be invited from
Russia. The name of the compound will be Shangri-La Yerevan.

ENSOY WARNS ISRAEL COULD BE HURT BY GENOCIDE DEBATE

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 31 2007

Though the Turkish government is strongly opposed to any congressional
action by the United States, the Turkish Jewish community has nothing
to fear — but Turkey’s relations with Israel and the US would probably
not survive such a resolution unscathed, said Turkish Ambassador to
the US Nabi ªensoy in remarks to the New York-based Jewish Telegraphic
Agency (JTA).

"I cannot really dismiss that if this resolution does pass, there
will be certain impacts on certain relationships. There is no doubt
about it," ªensoy was quoted as saying in an interview with the JTA
this week.

Last week, the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reversed its
long-time policy concerning the killings of Anatolian Armenians in the
early 20th century and said the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
"were indeed tantamount to genocide."

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in a systematic
genocide campaign by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I,
but Ankara categorically rejects the label, saying that both Armenians
and Turks died in civil strife during World War I, when the Armenians
took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with
Russian troops that were invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

ªensoy also voiced uneasiness over certain emphasis by the ADL on
concerns over safety of the Jewish community in Turkey. "I’m very
disturbed to hear this kind of remark coming from anywhere. They
seem to be forgetting the history of Turks and Jews, which goes back
at least 500 years. We’ve always had the best of relations between
Turks and Jews and the Turkish Jewish community is part-and-parcel —
and an integral part — of the Turkish community," he said.

Similar remarks reflecting Ankara’s uneasiness on the same point were
delivered by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Levent Bilman last week
when he reacted against the ADL statement. "The Jewish community in
our country is a part of our society and there isn’t any particularity
that they should fear concerning developments related to the Armenian
allegations," Bilman said.

"We are expecting the American Jewish organizations to be neutral
about this. Although we’re aware of the fact that this is a very
sensitive issue for the Israeli people and the Jewish community,
what we have to seek is the truth," ªensoy told JTA.

ADL complains about The Jewish Advocate

An article penned by ADL National Director Abraham Foxman and published
in a Boston newspaper, The Jewish Advocate, on Monday was widely
interpreted in Turkey as an apparent show of determination in the ADL’s
stance, vowing that they will "not hesitate to apply the term genocide
in the future." The fact that Foxman’s article was published after he
last week sent a letter addressing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, saying that the ADL has huge respect for the Turkish people
and has never desired to put the Turkish people and their leaders
into a difficult situation, led to that particular interpretation.

Yet, ADL directors told Turkish officials that the article by Foxman
was actually posted to The Jewish Advocate as of last week, not after
Foxman’s letter to Erdogan, a senior Turkish diplomat, speaking on
condition of anonymity, told Today’s Zaman on Thursday. The same ADL
directors expressed uneasiness over the choice of the newspaper to
publish the article as if it were a brand-new article and asked the
newspaper to remove the article from their Web site, the same Turkish
diplomat said.

The diplomat reiterated Ankara’s expectation of a "rectification" of
their statement by the ADL. Earlier this week, when asked by Today’s
Zaman to elaborate on how a "rectification" could be made by the ADL,
Bilman said the right address for consulting such controversial matters
was historians and that the ADL should refer to historians after
making such an assertive allegation and then review its statement. "The
issue is not closed for Ankara until such a review and rectification
is made. We expect the ADL to rectify its statement because it is
obvious that there is no consensus among historians on how to qualify
the 1915 incidents, contrary to what the ADL has claimed," he said.

–Boundary_(ID_RjOoa0ThWNqr2LitbAWPEg)–

PENSIONS TO INCREASE IN JANUARY

Panorama.am
18:52 30/08/2007

Today the government decided to raise pensions, the minimum of 4,250
rising to 6,800, and one-year insurance from 230 to 375. According
to government press services, pensions will rise some 60%, reaching
20,000 dram. This will become law on January 1, 2008.

Changes were also determined in the June 13 2003 governmental decision
concerning pensions, which also ensured the social needs of those
serving in the armed forces and their family members, a minimum
of 3,000 dram rising to 4,000, allowing the minimum amount allowed
various army staff members to also rise.

FORMS OF MASS MURDER
by Paul Gottfried

Lew Rockwell, CA
.html
Aug 28 2007

Although it was not the intention of my remarks against the perpetually
repugnant Abe Foxman (whose latest caper, by the way, has been to
warn Catholics against the Latin Mass as an anti-Semitic time bomb) to
belittle any group’s past sufferings, my implied objection was simply
about characterizing the Armenian massacre in 1915 as "genocide." The
fact that the crimes in question fit the tendentious UN definition,
which conveniently omits the largest number of murder victims in
the twentieth century, the victims of Communist "class war," is not
a particularly convincing reason for supporting the congressional
resolution.

If by genocide we mean the planned systematic extermination of an
entire ethnicity or race carried out by a particular state, it is
not clear that the killing of Armenians by Turkish-Kurdish military
units during World War One would fit that description. What we are
describing is a series of brutal killings inflicted on Armenian
communities by Turkish soldiers, in which the broken-down Turkish
state played only a very limited role. It is also a factor that
Armenians had in some cases already taken up arms, at the prompting
of the British and Russians, against the Turkish government, which by
then was fighting for the political survival of the Turkish nation on
several different fronts at the same time. Some Armenian communities,
furthermore, were not involved in the massacres, and indeed Armenians
continue to live within the Turkish republic down to the present time.

This piece of corrective history is not intended to diminish the
horror of what really happened. Over a million hapless Armenians
were slaughtered or driven out into the desert to die of hunger and
thirst. If Armenians were not the victims of "genocide, they were
certainly the victims of what R.J. Rummel has called "democide," the
indiscriminate slaughter of large numbers of people by a bloodthirsty
enemy. Moreover, the leading Western Ottoman historian Donald Quatert
is correct when he criticized the Turkish government for not being
sufficiently willing to investigate an especially seamy side of their
national history. Stonewalling actually increases the perils of having
exaggerated charges hurled against the Turkish people.

But let me make one point about mass-killing that is frequently
left out of discussion. There is no intrinsic moral reason to treat
genocide as being worse than other forms of mass murder, and although
my cousins died in Nazi labor camps, I suspect that the bestial leaders
of Communist "workers’ states," whose enablers and apologists today go
by the name "antifascist," may be the worst murderers in the history
of the human race. I am challenging the abuse of the term "genocide"
to describe all kinds of nastiness, including, as my colleagues tell
me, the failure to fund sufficiently Native American legends. There
are crimes committed against entire populations that approach or equal
Hitler’s war against the Jews or the Poles but which are nonetheless
not "genocide" but something equally horrendous.

Allow me to give a second reason that I am not hot to trot for the
congressional resolution to acknowledge the "Armenian genocide." I
find no justification for the US government giving further aid and
comfort to the victim-industry, particularly if it embarrasses the
military leaders of the present Turkish state, who are our friends
against fundamentalist Muslims. It is the friends and heirs of
the great Westernizer Kemal Mustafa, the man who saved Turkey from
extinction after World War One, who will take the hit. The Muslim
fundamentalists have no reason to dislike the charge of genocide that
our Congress is ready to throw at the Turks: that charge will redound
to the discredit of the now increasingly endangered secular Turkish
state that came out of World War One, an entity that Muslim fanatics
and European multiculturalists probably hate equally. The Turks should
not be confused with masochistic Germans who can’t blame themselves
sufficiently for their entire national past. To their credit, the
Turks are patriots – rather than Teutonic doormats

It may also be high time throughout the Western world to say no to
new Holocaust industries and to stop the ones that already exist. The
French state in its antifascist enthusiasm last year made it a criminal
offense to question publicly the "Armenian genocide," an act which
like the criminalization of any attempt to question the Nuremberg
Trial’s judgments about Nazi "crimes against humanity," enjoyed the
overwhelming support of the usual suspects. Communist deputies and
their PC allies in the French National Assembly ran to vote for both
prohibitions against "diminishing [official] genocidal acts," two
gestures that serve exactly the same functions. They divert attention
from the staggering crimes committed by Communist regimes, and they
destroy what remains of liberal freedoms in what the neoconservatives
misleadingly call "Western democracies." If groups wish to grieve over
inhumanities committed against their ancestors, let them do so without
restrictions on the liberties of those who fail to show appropriate,
state-required grief.

Every year the Jewish people lament collectively the destruction of
their second temple carried out by (imperialistic) Romans. The Jews
have every right and perhaps an ethnic duty to do so. As far as I know,
they have not incited any government to cast blame on the inhabitants
of central Italy for the outrages committed against ancient Jewish
by Roman political globalists. Nor have they asked that the Arch of
Titus, which depicts in relief the triumphant Romans carrying away
temple candelabra, be razed, as an act of ethnic sensitivity. Would
that Jews and other ethnic groups behaved as discreetly in other
matters! And, even more importantly would that Western Christians
showed less interest in abetting those who wish to make state-supported
displays of their victim status. The fact that certain groups but
not others are allowed to play this victim card makes it seem all
the more questionable.

August 28, 2007 Paul Gottfried [send him mail] is Horace Raffensperger
Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College and author of
Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt, The Strange Death of
Marxism, and Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American
Right.

TURKISH-ARMENIAN FORMAL DIALOGUE MAY EASE PRESSURE ON TURKEY

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 28 2007

Some 18 of the world’s countries, from Argentina to Canada and across
the Atlantic to Europe recognize the World War I-era incidents in
Ottoman Turkey, which culminated in the deaths of many Armenians as
well as Turks, as genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks against
the Anatolian Armenians. The threat of the US Congress recognizing
the events as genocide also remains.

US-based Jewish organization the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL)
reversal last week of a long-term policy labeling the events genocide
caused serious uproar in Turkey, which rejects the label of genocide
for the World War I events.

Upon the Turkish reaction, ADL Director Abraham Foxman allegedly
distanced himself from his organization’s decision. But the ADL’s
policy reversal should be seen as a serious blow to Turkey, since
the ADL has in the past acted as an important lobbyer for Turkey,
countering efforts by Greek and Armenian lobbies to influence Congress.

In the meantime both the Turkish public and the Turkish state largely
perceive a close bond between Israel and Jewish communities all
over the world. As Turkish Ambassador to Israel Namýk Tan put it,
"In the eyes of the Turkish people, Turkey’s strategic relationship
with Israel was not with Israel alone, but with the whole Jewish world.

The Turkish people do not make that distinction."

Tan went on saying that the American Jewish organizations were just
that — American Jewish organizations. But "we all know how they
work in coordinating their efforts [with Israel]." (Jerusalem Post,
Aug. 27, 2007)

Tan hinted that Jewish organizations are strongly influenced by Israel
and that those strong bonds between the two also have a serious
effect on relations between Turkey and Israel. In the recent past,
two strains that have occurred in the Turkish-Israeli relations played
a significant role in the US Jewish lobby’s behavior.

For example Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan’s description of
Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in 2004 as "state terror"
played a factor in poisoning Turkey’s relations with the US Jewish
community, Israel — a strong ally of Washington in the Middle East —
and with the US.

Then came Turkey’s hosting exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal last
year in Ankara. He was the target of an unsuccessful assassination
plot by Israel during his attendance of an Islamic group’s meeting
in Turkey in 1997.

In return Turkey has been uneasy over Israel’s alleged training of
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq following the US invasion
of Iraq in March 2003.

Back in 1997 remarks by Ehud Toledano, Israel’s candidate for
ambassador to Turkey, over his recognition of Armenian genocide
allegations, resulted in a diplomatic row and ended with Toledano’s
rejection of the post in Ankara.

Nevertheless, feeling the heat, mainly from the Jewish lobby, over
his remarks on Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians Prime
Minister Erdoðan appeased the Israelis by awarding a $185 million
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) contract to Israel prior to his visit
there in 2005.

In fact the Turkish military has currently been using an Israeli-made
UAV leased from Israel in its efforts to trace Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) terrorists concentrated in Turkey’s southeast.

At the end of the day, neither of the two countries, characterized
by Turkish Ambassador Tan as democratic and secular states in the
Middle East (Azeri Press Agency, Israeli Bureau, Aug. 28, 2007)
can benefit from animosity toward each other.

But the crucial question is: For how long will Turkey spend the
majority of its energy and money countering Armenian genocide
allegations, which have been increasingly recognized by more and
more countries?

Almost 92 years have passed since the tragic events of World War I.

But during those years Turkey has preferred to keep quiet on the
allegations rather than launching a serious effort to prove its own
case backed by documents that show the events concerning the Anatolian
Armenians were tragic, but did not constitute genocide.

It was only in 2004 that Turkey made a breakthrough on the Armenian
genocide allegations, when Prime Minister Erdoðan announced the
creation of a "committee of historians" to be composed of both Turks
and Armenians and to be opened to third parties if necessary to
investigate the genocide allegations.

Since then we have not heard any positive response to this offer from
neighboring Armenia. Nor has there been any serious effort made by
the US to convince Yerevan to contribute to the committee.

On the other hand, as the unfortunate tendency to label the World War
I events as genocide continues, the usefulness of the activation of
such a committee alone is questionable.

But if Turkey opens its border with Armenia and starts diplomatic
relations with its neighbor, whose independence it recognized in 1991,
coupled with activating the committee of historians, it may create a
chance for less pressure to be exerted on it regarding the genocide
allegations.

Such a move may also encourage the Armenians to lessen the pressure
exerted upon Yerevan by the strong Armenian diaspora.

CORRECTION

The abbreviation PEJAK, used for the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan
in my column published in Today’s Zaman on Aug. 23, 2007, should read
PJAK. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

–Boundary_(ID_Rdc5YqTmKdzPELKY53AlGQ)–

ARMEDIA WEAVES CONTENT MANAGEMENT LOGIC INTO COMPLEX LANGUAGE
By Angela Natividad

CMSWire, CA
Aug 27 2007

Along with the pleasure of growth comes the familiar pain of
multilingual translation.

Translation, a process that seems simple enough, actually requires
great skill – not all subcultures or age groups communicate in the same
way. Then there’s the matter of localization, or better tailoring a
product to a certain market, which is also an oft-overlooked element
of interpretation.

The point: translation is complex. With that in mind, Language Weaver
and Armedia have jointly released Machine Language Translation for
the enterprise CMS community.

The tool translates your text into the language(s) of choice via
EMC Documentum, a strong and scalable CMS that Armedia has been
fortunate enough to work closely with. And the Armedia/Language Weaver
partnership has sought to make the process of exchanging one language
for another as fluid as human translation (without the anal-retentive
human translator).

Complete content conversions are completed within minutes, across
any of Documentum’s online interfaces.

But the two companies don’t expect to stop at Documentum’s door.

Armedia plans on tapping a string of other, and older, content
management relationships in order to push this technology. These
include SharePoint and FileNet, as well as mainstream open source
solutions like Joomla and Alfresco.

Possibilities of integration are available across these channels
(though it isn’t clear whether the company will be meeting users
halfway or whether users can work said possibilities out on their own),
and available languages include the 37 language pairs supported by
Language Weaver.

If you’re feeling iffy about it, it bears mentioning that Armenia won
a contract to implement the solution for the Defense Intelligence
Agency. Would Defense Intelligence utilize a sub-par tool for its
intercontinental needs? Actually, don’t answer that.

San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

In the Main Gallery:
July 17 – September 23, 2007
Woven Witness: Afghan War Rugs and Afghan Freedom Quilt

Further exploring the impact of war on traditional textile arts, this
exhibition takes a closer look at the influence of war on the
evolution of traditional Afghan rug design, from the Russian invasion
through the current U.S.- Taliban war.

Whether individual rugs were woven as political statements, personal
reflections, or as souvenirs for soldiers, only the weavers could
reveal for certain.

Regardless of intent, these examples are a powerful testament to the
relevancy of the rug form, its expressive capacity, and the ability of
a people to adapt to the ravages of war.

Accompanying this exhibition, the Museum will also display the Afghan
Freedom Quilt: Silenced Voices of the Afghan Diaspora, a collaborative
project sponsored by the Foundation for Self-Reliance. The quilt is a
collection ofblocks made by war widows in Afghanistan and assembled in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Pieces sewn for this quilt are symbolic
interpretations of what human rights, empowerment, equality, peace,
hardship, sisterhood and freedom meant to each individual
contributor. The Foundation for Self-Reliance conducts life-skills
training and economic empowerment programs for Afghan women
immigrants.

Co-presented by the San Francisco Bay Area Rug Society and the
Armenian Rugs Society, and the San Jose Peace Center.

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 23 2007

Armenian government approves draft state program of employment
management for 2008

YEREVAN, August 23. /ARKA/. At its sitting today, the RA Government
approved a draft program of employment management and a schedule of
measures for 2008.

The press and public relations department, RA Government, reports
that the program was elaborated in conformity with the RA Law on
Employment of Population and Social Protection of Unemployed and the
Strategic Program of Poverty Reduction.

The program envisages measures to create conditions for the
population’s full-scale and efficient activities.

The principal tasks under the program are the collection of data on
the employment market, enhancing labor force competitiveness,
larger-scale employment of young people, reduction of difference in
regional development, legislative reforms.

The RA Statistical Service reports that 7.2% unemployment had been
recorded in Armenia by the end of June 2007 – a 0.2% decrease
compared to June 2006. Armenia’s average economically active
population made 1,182.8ths in January-June 2007, with 1,097.4ths
(92.8%) of them employed in the economic sector and 85,400 being
unemployed.

By the end of June 2007, the RA State Employment Service had
registered 100,400 job-seekers, with 88,500 of them or 88.1% being
unemployed. A total of 84,700 people or 95.7% of them received an
unemployment status. P.T. -0–