Author: Toganian Liana

‘POEMS GALORE’: NEW BOOK OF POETRY COVERS TOPICS FROM POLITICS TO HISTORY TO SPIRITUALITY

PR Newswire
March 12, 2008 Wednesday 12:50 PM GMT

SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah, March 12 /PRNewswire/ — "Poems Galore:
Poetry in Modern Era Politics, History and Spirituality" (published
by AuthorHouse — ), the new book by
George Peltekian, covers over 120 topics and themes sure to arouse
the curiosity of readers from all walks of life.

Reaching into the past, present and future, and including stories
from his own life and from the world around him, Peltekian hopes
that his varied poetry will serve to stimulate the hearts and minds
of people everywhere.

In "The Suffering of a Being," Peltekian shares the story of Jesus’s
suffering for humanity, recalling the day of his crucifixion. In
"The Old Adage ‘Why Me O’God,’" he looks at the occurrence of humans
blaming God for their failings and sufferings, forgetting that
"yesterday they disdained God."

For those interested in politics, "Poems Galore" provides a variety of
poems which analyze and explore the political situation in our country,
such as the self-explanatorily titled "Liberals Hate Our God But Wait,
Don’t You Realize That God Could Hate Them Too!"

Other pieces look inward, such as this excerpt from the poem "To
Rectify Perplexities":

Brevity of life keeps me aware so I don’t waste my dream If I couldn’t
find that dream and set the stage to redeem Then I don’t have to go
back and forth to search in vain I will live my life in shadows there
will be nothing to claim.

I am surrounded with iniquities my life became phantom like I keep
on searching for my dream but I can’t find its track Although I know
that the bleeding won’t stop But I am willing to wear the crown made
of thorns so tight It will open my eyes and see the truth when I
enter the light.

"I was very perplexed at the time," writes Peltekian, "therefore I
wrote this poetry to find comfort and hope. God’s way gave me the
boost that I needed in life."

AuthorHouse is the premier book publisher (
) for emerging, self-published (
) authors. For more
information, please visit .

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Services Department Tel: 888-728-8467 Fax: 812-961-3133 Email:
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ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER URGED NOT TO POLITICIZE ISSUES OF DETENTION OF PEOPLE, WHO WERE BROUGHT TO CHARGE FOR CRIMINAL OFFENCES

Mediamax
March 13, 2008

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian urged
today not to politicize issues of detention of people, who were
brought to charge for criminal offences.

Mediamax reports that Vartan Oskanian said this today, commenting on
the urges of international organizations requesting to relieve the
people arrested as a result of unrest in Yerevan on March 1-2.

Armenian Foreign Minister informed that on March 14-15 he will hold a
number of meetings with the leaders of the European Union within the
framework of the annual Brussels Forum in the capital city of Belgium,
and will discuss during those meetings the situation in Armenia.

According to Oskanian, in general, the concern of European structures
is clear to him, "since the state of emergency, announced in Armenia,
is difficult to consider a normal development".

Commenting on the urges on the necessity of a dialogue between the
authorities and the opposition of Armenia, the Minister expressed
opinion that "we have missed the appropriate moment for a dialogue"
and stressed that "much depends today on Levon Ter-Petrosian".

PRO-ARMENIAN CONGRESSMEN LEAD CAMPAIGN TO REDUCE MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO AZERBAIJAN

Azeri Press Agency
March 13 2008
Azerbaijan

Washington. Husniyya Hasanova -APA. Co-Chairs of US Congressional
Caucus on Armenian issues Frank Pallone and Joe Knollenberg have
started bag subscriptions demanding to reduce US military assistance
to Azerbaijan.

According to APA, they intend to address House of Representatives
foreign relations committee demanding fair approach of military
assistance to Armenia within 2009 budget. Pro-Armenian congressmen
demanded to reduce military aid to Azerbaijan, to allocate 5 million
USD of military and 70 million USD of economic assistances to Armenia,
as well as 10 million dollars for so-called "Nagorno Karabakh Republic"
operating in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and to establish
diplomatic relations with this non-recognized separatist regime. The
White House is planning to cut 59 per cent of financial assistance
to Armenia in 2009 and decided to provide equal amounts of military
assistance to both Azerbaijan and Armenia. This week US Azerbaijanis
Network (USAN) has addressed all US executive and legislative
bodies, stressing that more than 2 billion dollars allocated for the
democratization process in Armenia during its independence have not
contributed to any progress in this country. USAN stated that despite
US efforts, Kocharian regime was keeping its authoritarian essence and
cracking down on civilians, killing 8 people and arresting hundreds
of citizens, who protested the falsified election results.

Spokesman of Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry Khazar Ibrahim told APA,
US congressmen, collecting signatures against military assistance to
Azerbaijan, had been acting within interests of Armenian voters and
Armenian groups. "Unfortunately, these congressmen’s stance on regional
issues serves not for the national interests of the United States,
but their tight political ambitions. It shows that Azerbaijan carries
on a right policy and develops its strategic partnership with the USA".

U.S. THREATENS TO FREEZE AID TO ARMENIA

Radio Liberty
March 13 2008
Czech Rep.

The United States has expressed concern about the Armenian government’s
continuing post-election crackdown on the opposition and threatened
to suspend its multimillion-dollar economic assistance to Armenia.

"We continue to follow with concern the current situation in Armenia,"
a spokesman for the White House, Tony Fratto, told reporters on
Thursday. He pointed to the imposition of a state of emergency
in Yerevan and mass arrests of opposition activists following the
March 1 clashes between security forces and opposition supporters
protesting against the official results of last month’s disputed
presidential election.

"The government of Armenia needs to uphold the rule of law, lift the
state of emergency and restore press freedoms. We urge a political
dialogue between the government and opposition to resolve the situation
quickly," Fratto said, according to AFP news agency.

Reuters quoted the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as telling
a congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday that the emergency
rule made it necessary to freeze some of the U.S. aid programs in
Armenia. She did not elaborate.

Rice apparently referred to $235.6 million in aid which Washington has
promised allocate to Armenia under its Millennium Challenge Account
(MCA) program designed to promote political and economic reforms
around the world. U.S. officials have repeatedly said that the
sum’s disbursement is conditional on democratic reform and improved
governance in Armenia.

In a Tuesday letter to President Robert Kocharian, the head of the
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), John Danilovich, warned that
the U.S. government agency managing the scheme could "suspend or
terminate" the five-year aid package due to the dramatic post-election
developments in Armenia.

"MCC is reviewing operational aspects of its ongoing work in Armenia
in light of these events, including the suspension of media freedoms
and the imposition of a state of emergency, and is closely monitoring
the situation with U.S. Government and donor colleagues," Danilovich
wrote. He said MCC needs to be certain that "our programs operate in
a democratic environment."

Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian acknowledged on Thursday that
continued U.S. assistance to Armenia is now at serious risk. "It all
depends on how the United States evaluates things, on how quickly we
can get out of this situation," he said.

"Right now we are facing a dilemma: the country’s stability and the
people’s security versus democratic values, liberties, civil rights,"
Oskanian told a news conference. "The president of the republic is
facing this dilemma."

"The situation is not clear-cut. He has to balance things, and that’s
not an easy task. The longer this balancing act lasts, the more the
public will suffer," he said.

Prime Minister and President-elect Serzh Sarkisian appears to be
more sanguine in that regard, though. He chaired on Wednesday,
the day after Danilovich’s letter to Kocharian, a meeting of the
governing board of an Armenian government agency overseeing the use
of MCA funds, which are due to be spent on upgrading the country’s
battered irrigation networks and rural roads.

A statement by Sarkisian’s press office said the government received
about $11.3 million in MCA funding as of last December and expects
to get the next installment of the promised aid, also worth $11.3
million, in the second quarter of this year.

The aid package is essential for the success of the Sarkisian
government’s efforts to reduce widespread rural poverty. According to
Armenian and U.S. officials, the resulting infrastructure projects,
if implemented, will benefit 75 percent of the country’s million-strong
rural population.

IN ESTIMATION OF HEAD OF MEDIA RELATIONS DIVISION OF MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "VOICING SUCH UNILATERAL CHARGE" BY MATTHEW BRYZA "IS GROUNDLESS AND USELESS"

Noyan Tapan
March 12, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 12, NOYAN TAPAN. "We are astonished that even after
the visit paid to Yerevan and receiving information from different
official and unofficial sources, the assistant of the U.S. Deputy
Secretary of State can make such wilful statements," Tigran Balayan,
the Head of the Media Relations Division of the RA Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, declared.

According to him, "the voicing of such a unilateral charge is
groundless and useless. The number of the injured policemen: 108, 43
out of whom have received fire-arms or splinter injuries, distinctly
shows that the demonstrators were armed with fire-arms and explosive
materials. This coincides with the operative information of the law
enforcement bodies, which made society aware of all this even days
before March 1. Under this circumstance, the labelling of the response
of the government as "dispersion of opposition demonstrations of
protest" or qualifying as "rude and severe" is not exact. That was
not an attack upon citizens by the police at all."

According to Tigran Balayan, "the acts of violence, which took place
on March 1, are a serious preoccupation for all of us in Armenia,
including and first of all for the government, which is responsible for
the preservation of rules and security in the country. The government,
manifesting restraint, was trying to maintain the rules, however,
as the law enforcement bodies warned beforehand, it turned into a
clash between the police and demonstrators. Under the circumstance,
when there are 8 victims (one of whom is a policeman) and tens of
injured people (many of whom are from law enforcement bodies), there
can be no doubt that this was a serious and, in justice, punishable
act of violence, as Mr. Bryza mentions."

Today, 10 days after that terrible day, the main problem standing in
front of Armenia is to examine and understand what happened and look
for ways forward together. The international community should encourage
all the envolved sides to assume responsibility for the damage caused
to the bases of our society and look for inclusive ways for moving
forward. The statements made on the basis of false awareness can and
already contribute to the aggravation of the political tension."

Armenian National Committee of America
1711 N Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel. (202) 775-1918
Fax. (202) 775-5648
Email [email protected]
Internet

PRESS RELEASE
March 11, 2008
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918

ARMENIAN CAUCUS RALLIES SUPPORT FOR ARMENIAN AID PRIORITIES

— Seeks Development of U.S.-Nagorno Karabagh Diplomatic Relations

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairmen Frank
Pallone (D-NJ) and Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) are currently collecting
signatures among their House colleagues on a letter urging the
leaders of the U.S. State-Foreign Operations Appropriations
Subcommittee to support provisions in the FY09 foreign aid bill
that advance U.S. interests and American values in Armenia and the
surrounding region, reported the Armenian National Committee of
America (ANCA).

The letter, addressed to Subcommittee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY)
and Ranking Member Frank Wolf (R-VA), outlines six key policy
priorities:

1) Cutting all military aid to Azerbaijan due to its threats of
renewed war
2) Allocating $5 million in military aid to Armenia
3) Continuing Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act
4) Allocating $70 million in economic aid to Armenia
5) Allocating $10 million in development aid to Nagorno Karabagh
6) Restoring diplomatic relations with Nagorno Karabagh

The budget proposed by the White House last month sought to
dramatically slash aid to Armenia by 59%, and, once again, proposed
tipping the military aid balance in favor of Azerbaijan, despite
Baku’s threats to use it growing military arsenal to restart its
war against Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh. Last week’s renewed
attacks by the Azerbaijani army in the area of Levonarkh in
Mardakert, led to as many as eight deaths. The Nagorno Karabagh
Foreign Ministry has asked that the "OSCE launch a comprehensive
investigation of the incident, give an official political
evaluation of the Azeri authorities’ actions, as well as conduct an
immediate crisis-monitoring in the incident zone, in order to
prevent similar violations in future."

Members of Congress, led by the Armenian Caucus, are seeking to
reverse the proposed cut in aid to Armenia and to enact a
constructive set of foreign policies toward Armenia and the region.

Citizens seeking to reverse the President’s proposed cut in aid to
Armenia and support the other aid priorities in the Armenian Caucus
letter, can send a free ANCA WebFax to their elected officials in
Washington today:
d=11011351&type=CO

For a seven-page ANCA briefing memo on Armenian American foreign
aid priorities, visit:
reignaid.pdf

#####

Peter Semneby: Events in Armenia were and remain in focus of EU’s
attention

2008-03-07 19:02:00

ArmInfo. Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Tigran Torosyan
discussed the post-electoral processes in Armenia with EU Special
Representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby, Friday, the
Armenian presidential press-service told ArmInfo.

"Unfortunately, the March 1 night tragic events that caused human
victims have nothing to do with election processes", Torosyan said. He
stressed that he advocates unbiased and adequate attitude to these
events, however, he disagrees with the statements that the authorities
applied force against the peaceful demonstrators. Peaceful
demonstrators don’t build barricades or use arms and metal rods, he
noted. According to him, during the illegal rallies the police tried to
search the place of the rally and the demonstrators used force against
the police. "If the authorities calmly waited for nine days without
interfering with the illegal rallies, they could have waited another
week until the Constitutional Court took its decision", the Speaker
said.

Torosyan also noted that these events couldn’t reflect the social
unrest, as such unrest could have been expressed after the
parliamentary election, eight months ago. "The situation in the country
has not got worse over this period. On the contrary, the budget has
increased, wages and pensions have grown", he said. The Speaker also
pointed out the steps that should be taken to settle the situation,
particularly, radical reforms should be held in the socio-political
life, measures aimed at establishment of political organizations and
civil society should be held, as they will contribute to establishment
of full-fledged social justice which should be based on cooperation of
political forces.

Torosyan recalled that during both the pre-electoral and post-electoral
periods, Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, which gained victory
at the Feb 19 presidential election, came pout with proposals on
cooperation. These proposals have already given results. Torosyan noted
that after the court delivers a verdict, the criminal offenders should
be punished, and there can be no dialogue with them. "One shouldn’t
create a precedent showing that political and legal problems can be
solved by such methods", Torosyan said.

In his turn, Semneby pointed out that the EU was attentively following
the developments in Armenia as Armenia was a significant partner for
that organization. Semneby assured Torosyan that the EU was eager to
help Armenia to overcome the situation. He said that the restrictions
imposed in Armenia were not desirable and the political forces of the
country had to be involved in the settlement process. The state of
emergency must be lifted as soon as possible.

Semneby welcomed the initiative of the newly elected president of
Armenia Serzh Sargsyan to ooperate with the opposition and pointed out
the importance of such cooperation. Torosyan said that an investigation
group had been set up for inquiring into the causes of the March 1
disorders. He said that he had always respected the political views of
the opposition but burning cars was not the right way to express
political view. "Any crime, whoever commits it, must be punished,"
Torosyan said.

Semneby asked Torosyan to tell him about the decision of the parliament
to deprive four opposition deputies of their immunity. He said that it
was quite a serious step. Torosyan said that he had worked in the
parliament for nine years and it was the first time that it was forced
to pass such a decision. Only once a deputy was deprived of his
immunity: Mushegh Movsisyan, who was charged with complicity in the Oct
27 1999 terrorist act. But later he was released and his immunity was
restored.

Torosyan pointed out that the parliament was not a judge and could not
decide whether a person had committed a crime or not. However, it had
to support the investigation. "Today, two of the four suspected
deputies are hiding from the police and we cannot guarantee that the
other two would not have followed suit," Torosyan said. He expressed
hope that the investigation would show if the deputies were guilty or
not. "And if they are not they will be set free," Torosyan said.

PanARMENIAN.Net

RA FM and EU ambassadors discussed domestic situation
07.03.2008 18:22 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian met Friday with EU member states’ ambassador
accredited to Armenia and head of the European
Commission Delegation to Armenia, RA MFA press office
reported.

The officials discussed the domestic situation in the
republic and the incident at the NKR-Azeri armed
forces contact line. They also referred to the draft
resolution on Karabakh introduced in the UN General
Assembly by Azerbaijan.

BAKO SAHAKIAN: DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY ONE OF MOST IMPORTANT DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH’S ECONOMY

DeFacto Agency
March 6 2008
Armenia

YEREVAN, 06.03.08. DE FACTO. The development of industry is one of
the most important directions of development of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic’s economy, and it is planned to carry out proper measures
in this sphere, the NKR President Bako Sahakian stated March 5,
in the course of the visit to the Stepanakert Condenser Factory.

The state’s head familiarized himself with working conditions of the
workers and the activity of the factory on the spot, the Central
Department of Information under the NKR President reports. In the
course of the visit the NKR President was accompanied by the NKR
PM Ara Harutyunian, the ministers of urban development and economic
development and the Stepanakert Mayor.

LEVY TO SPEAK ON ISLAMISM, GENOCIDE

The New York Sun
March 4, 2008 Tuesday

In a speech tomorrow evening at the 92nd Street Y, the French celebrity
philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy will argue that Islamic extremism is
a direct descendent of 20th-century forms of fascism and constitutes
the greatest threat to Jews today.

"When you look at the program of Hamas" or Hezbollah, Mr. Levy said
in an interview last week, "the conception of blood, of race, of the
relationship between them and Jews, [and] how seriously they take
‘The Protocol of the Elders of Zion’ – you see that their inspiration
and the content of their ideology is very similar to the content of
the ideology of the Nazis." In his speech, the annual Francine and
Abdallah Simon State of World Jewry Lecture, Mr. Levy will also argue
that Jews have a special responsibility to recognize as genocide the
killing of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire between 1915
and 1923. The debate about whether the actions of the Turks against
the Armenians constituted genocide is a deeply contentious one.

Turkey does not recognize the killings as genocide, and referring to
them as such is a prosecutable crime there. In 2007, a Turkish-Armenian
journalist, Hrant Dink, who had been prosecuted several times for
speaking out on the genocide question, was murdered by a Turkish
nationalist.

Jewish Americans are divided about the issue, in part because Turkey
is Israel’s closest ally in the Middle East. One of the sponsors of a
Congressional resolution proposed last year that would have condemned
the massacre of Armenians as genocide, Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat
from California, is Jewish – as are several others of the bill’s
supporters. But several Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation
League and the American Jewish Committee, opposed the bill, which was
ultimately dropped because of opposition by the Bush administration
and fierce lobbying from Turkey. In the interview, Mr. Levy compared
denial of the Armenian genocide to denial of the Holocaust.

"There is a second crime which consists in denying the crime – it is
always like this," he said. "As Jews we are too much ourselves victims
of the denial to accept the denial when it applies to others." Some
historians, including Bernard Lewis, argue that there is insufficient
evidence that the killings represented a premeditated plan on the part
of the Turkish government to exterminate the Armenians, comparable
to Hitler’s "Final Solution." Many Turks see the killings as the
unpremeditated consequence of the government’s relocation of the
Armenians, due to concerns that they sympathized with the enemy.

Mr. Levy emphatically dismissed both arguments. "The Nazis said the
same about the Jews," he said. "They said that the Jews weakened them
in the war against the English and the Russians – that the Jews were
a sort of internal fifth column, which weakened them from inside.

This is the same sort of argument."

Mr. Levy has argued that genocide denial should be a prosecutable
crime. In a speech last year to a gathering in Paris organized by the
Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France, his case
reached a classically Gallic level of abstraction. The distinguishing
feature of genocide, he argued, is that the crime includes within
itself its own simultaneous denial and revisionism. While he backed
this up concretely, invoking the Nazis’ practice of using euphemisms
to disguise their plan of extermination, and the existence of a
commando unit assigned to dig up bodies of Jews and burn them, his
premise allowed him to conclude that Turkey’s denial today is itself
the final coda of the crime:

"Denying it 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, or 90 years after the
fact," he said, "is a cynical, sordid, horrible way to continue the
crime, to reproduce it, and to finish it so that the crime becomes
perfect." Asked by The Sun whether Turkey should be allowed to join the
European Union, Mr. Levy said that its entrance should be predicated
on three conditions: that it stop denying the Armenian genocide,
put an end to anti-Semitism in Turkey, and oppose Islamism, even,
he said, "the soft kind," including students wearing the veil in
Turkish schools and universities.

Mr. Levy said that Western governments’ response to Islamic extremism
should be, in the first place, "no appeasement, no acceptance,"
and, in the second, aid to individuals who are fighting Islamic
extremism in their own countries. He has urged France, for instance,
to naturalize and offer protection to the Dutch writer and former
member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is considered at risk for
assassination because of her criticism of Islam.

Asked about the American election, Mr. Levy said that he favors
Senator Obama. Senator Obama has pledged that, if elected president,
he would recognize the Armenian genocide, although Mr. Levy did not
mention this as a reason for his support. He did say: "I think that
about Israel and about the Jewry [Obama] is quite okay, as okay as
[senators] Clinton and McCain."