Author: Toneyan Mark

AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF FACTS
SUBASH JEYAN

The Hindu
18895.ece
May 6 2010
India

Man Booker Prize winner Yann Martel’s second novel, Beatrice and
Virgil, is in many ways a book of memory and remembrance. The artful
metaphor is our only ally against forgetfulness, he says. Excerpts
from an exclusive interview…

Yann Martel’s second novel has been a long time coming. Recently
released in Canada and the US, Beatrice and Virgil has received
polarised reviews. That it has been trashed as well as praised,
he says, is a sign that it has elicited active engagement, not
indifference, from the readers. The controversial reception is
a sign that it is getting people to think and act, he says from
San Francisco where he is on a promotional tour. Excerpts from a
telephonic conversation…

Are you planning on coming to India to promote the book here?

I have a nine-month-old son. Before I can promote it — I am not
going to Australia, New Zealand — I want to get back and be with my
son. So, as much as I would love to return to India, for any reason,
not just to promote my books, just to be in India — I haven’t been
there for about nine years now — I don’t know when that’ll be. India
has changed a lot, I would love to go back and see that.

Is this novel about the primacy of the imagination? You think we live
in a world where the profusion of facts is working against making
sensible meaning out of it?

Reality is a 100 million details. Right now where you are, if you think
about it, you are surrounded by 100 million details on which you could
focus your attention. Everything, from chemical, scientific details
to cultural details to personal emotional details… now some of that
has to be lost. Time, you know, is an eraser. It all goes. [We need]
something we can hold on to. It’s called history. But even history
has hundreds of thousands of details and sometimes it’s overwhelming
and it’s hard to get to. The forte of the arts, the forte of the
imagination is that it can take some of those details and give them
immortality. A painting, a story, a song can float across the ocean
of time like a lifeboat. So you can get to the essence of an event
and convey it in the form of art. It can be like a suitcase, taking
the essential and preparing you for a trip to elsewhere…

Does ‘getting to the essence’ necessarily bring a moral perspective
that is lacking in mere facts?

It can be but art isn’t necessarily moral. Art could be immoral too.

Art is witness. But in some stories, yes, it can also have a
moral edge. It can also, in telling a story, convey certain moral
situations. Which is what my novel does at the very end — In "Games
for Gustav" are these 12 situations that are morally, existentially
difficult. So, yes, it can make a moral situation fresh again…

You dwell at length in the initial stages of the novel about the
concrete, everyday circumstances around writing /publishing that are
usually glossed over. Is it autobiographical and are you saying that
though there is a market built around imagination, it is essential
to our being and identity?

I didn’t do it because I wanted it to be autobiographical, it was more
because of the idea of a writer who stops writing, whose message has
stopped, suited me because I was discussing the Holocaust. And any
great horrific event, the Holocaust, war, has a tendency to erase
language, to make us at a loss for words. You know, famously, when
people encountered the Accounts, their language was full of clichés
to do with "there are no words to describe", "I couldn’t believe what
my eyes were seeing." So, to have a writer who is at a loss for words
and then to meet the taxidermist who is also in some ways at a loss
for words suited my purpose when discussing the Holocaust…so that’s
why I have that theme.

I did indeed have a meeting with my publishers, I did want to do a
flip book with them but their argument was different. They were saying,
"listen, an essay is a specialised product. A novel is not."

They were afraid the essay would drag down the novel.

You keep coming back to the notion that is art is about joy. The
taxidermist is shown as someone who is joyless, cheerless, who plods
through his play. "My story has no story. It is based on the fact
of murder," he says at one point. You think the character of the
taxidermist is too steretypical, he and the novelist falling easily
into opposite sides of a too-easy divide?

Art is joy in a general way. Any art, music, dance, painting, to
create at that level is deeply joyful, it involves your whole being.

Art and religion are the two ways in which we fully engage with life.

In this particular case, I enjoyed wrestling with that subject. I
wanted to make the taxidermist ambiguous. He clearly has some sort of
a creative impulse, he is working on a play, he is quite rude with
the writer. I wanted someone whom we wouldn’t understand why he was
doing the things he was doing until the very end and even then we
are not sure what his intent was.

And that to me was the parallel of the encounter of the Jews of Europe
with the Nazis who did not see it coming. By the time they realised
fully what the Nazis’ intents were, it was too late, they couldn’t
escape and that’s why so many died.

How has the novel been received?

It’s been very interesting and very polarised. Some critics
absolutely hated it. I got absolutely trashed by The New York Times,
The Washington Post, and there’s some blogger on the Internet named
Edward Champion who absolutely hated it. And then you have reviewers
who absolutely loved it. The USA Today thought it was positively a
masterpiece. There were very positive reviews in Newsweek and the LA
Times. So it’s been very polarised, which is good. The one thing you
don’t want with art is indifference. You don’t want people to shrug.

Even when people hate it, they are engaging with it.

Is there some sort of thematic continuity or evolution between Life
of Pi and Beatrice and Virgil? If the former was about God, faith
and religion, the latter is about imagination and art, isn’t it?

In some ways they are very different books. Yes, they both feature
animals but that’s just on the surface. In Life of Pi hopefully the
reader loses himself looking at those animals. Forget may be his
humanity. In Beatrice and Virgil those animals are anthropomorphised
and are meant to bring us back to our humanity.

And as for the role of the imagination, to me it’s something more
immediate like life itself is an interpretation. We cannot choose
the reality we live in, but we can choose how we interpret it. In
that sense, imagination is not something whimsical, fairy-tale like,
I am simply saying that reality is a co-creation, reality is something
which is out there but it is also how you take it. To that extent,
I suppose there is a similarity between the two novels in the sense
that how you represent reality will speak of how you see it, of what
that reality is. A person of faith reads transcendendance into the
world, sees a divine plan; I suppose it is the same with reading
history. You are representing an event that is past, and in that
representation there is an element of interpretation, of imaginative
reading. In that way there is a thematic link between the two novels.

To me this novel seems to come behind a line of books from the West
dealing with the Holocaust. Why this obsession in the West about the
Holocaust? There are historical continuities to the Holocaust in the
contemporary world like what is happening in Palestine, Gaza today,
injustices, perhaps of equal magnitude. Nobody seems to talk about
them much…

Well, aside of the politics of West Asia, which poisons everything,
just looking in terms of history, the Holocaust still remains unique:
every other genocide before and after has to some extent been
politically expedient. The Armenians in Turkey were killed because
they were in the way of the Turks who were trying to start their
nation. Excesses in Gaza were committed because of political enmity
between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In both cases you killed
people who were in the way, who bothered you but the ones beyond a
certain border were irrelevant to you. But the Nazis were obsessed
with killing the Jews everywhere, as if they were a disease. That
does remain unique. And the reason I think it is still relevant, not
a piece of historical arcana from several years ago in the backwaters
of Poland, is because what led to the Holocaust is still absolutely
contemporary.

The act of hate, the thinking of hatred, the disrespect in the mind
of an individual that eventually in Germany led to the Holocaust,
that little beginning, that seed of hatred is found everywhere. The
Holocaust is not rooted in Auschwitz, in Poland. It is rooted in
the human heart. And that applies to India too. There are people in
India with holocaustal thinking, for example the BJP, the Shiv Sena,
you know, that kind of hatred of the other whom you don’t even know,
who is just a construction in your mind to relieve tension, to relieve
whatever… that is holocaustal. Now because India is democracy,
there is a free press, it is unlikely that there will ever be a
genocide but the roots are there…

The thing about this novel is that it is not an orthodox Holocaust
novel. There is no history in there, there are no Germans, there is
minimal reference to the Holocaust yet it is soaked in it.

So I do choose the Holocaust but not just as a historical artefact,
I am looking at what is to me relevant. At the very end, there are
12 more situations where there is no historical colour or detail that
put you at the heart of it. And those 12 situations could take place
in India. You could be in a line of people about to be executed and
you could be holding your grand daughter’s hand and she asks you
a question. And what might that question be? What would a child be
thinking when it sees people being massacred? That completely fits
in with realities in India today. That’s why I think it’s still
relevant…

Exclusive excerpts from Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil…

(Virgil and Beatrice are sitting at the foot of the tree. They are
looking out blankly. Silence.)

Virgil: What I’d give for a pear.

Beatrice: A pear?

Virgil: Yes. A ripe and juicy one.

(Pause.)

Beatrice: I’ve never had a pear.

Virgil: What?

Beatrice: In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever set eyes on one.

Virgil: How is that possible? It’s a common fruit.

Beatrice: My parents were always eating apples and carrots. I guess
they didn’t like pears.

Virgil: But pears are so good! I bet you there’s a pear tree right
around here. (He looks about.)

Beatrice: Describe a pear for me. What is a pear like?

Virgil: (settling back) I can try. Let’s see . . . To start with,
a pear has an unusual shape. It’s round and fat on the bottom, but
tapered on top.

Beatrice: Like a gourd.

Virgil: A gourd? You know gourds but you don’t know pears? How odd
the things we know and don’t. At any rate, no, a pear is smaller than
an average gourd, and its shape is more pleasing to the eye. A pear
becomes tapered in a symmetrical way, its upper half sitting straight
and centred atop its lower half. Can you see what I mean?

Beatrice: I think so.

Virgil: Let’s start with the bottom half. Can you imagine a fruit
that is round and fat?

Beatrice: Like an apple?

Virgil: Not quite. If you look at an apple with your mind’s eye,
you will notice that the girth of the apple is at its widest either
in the middle of the fruit or in the top third, isn’t that so?

Beatrice: You’re right. A pear is not like this?

Virgil: No. You must imagine an apple that is at its widest in the
bottom third.

Beatrice: I can see it.

Virgil: But we must not push the comparison too far. The bottom of
a pear is not like an apple’s.

Beatrice: No?

Virgil: No. Most apples sit on their buttocks, so to speak, on a
circular ridge or on four or five points that keep them from falling
over. Past the buttocks, a little ways up, there’s what would be the
anus of the fruit if the fruit were a beast.

Beatrice: I see precisely what you mean.

Virgil: Well, a pear is not like that. A pear has no buttocks. Its
bottom is round.

Beatrice: So how does it stay up?

Virgil: It doesn’t. A pear either dangles from a tree or lies on
its side.

Beatrice: As clumsy as an egg.

Virgil: There’s something else about the bottom of a pear: most pears
do not have those vertical grooves that some apples have. Most pears
have smooth, round, even bottoms.

Beatrice: How enchanting.

Virgil: It certainly is. Now let us move north past our fruity equator.

Beatrice: I’m following you.

Virgil: There comes this tapering I was telling you about.

Beatrice: I can’t quite see it. Does the fruit come to a point? Is
it shaped like a cone?

Virgil: No. Imagine the tip of a banana.

Beatrice: Which tip?

Virgil: The end tip, the one you hold in your hand when you’re
eating one.

Beatrice: What kind of banana? There are hundreds of varieties.

Virgil: Are there?

Beatrice: Yes. Some are as small as fat fingers, others are real
clubs. And their shapes vary too, as do their taste.

Virgil: I mean the regular, yellow ones that taste really good.

Beatrice: The common banana, M. sapientum. You probably have the Gros
Michel variety in mind.

Virgil: I’m impressed.

Beatrice: I know bananas.

Virgil: Better than a monkey. Take the end tip of a common banana,
then, and place it on top of an apple, taking into account the
differences between apples and pears that I’ve just described.

Beatrice: An interesting graft.

Virgil: Now make the lines smoother, gentler. Let the banana flare
out in a friendly way as it merges into the apple. Can you see it?

Beatrice: I believe I can.

Virgil: One last detail. At the very top of this apple-banana
composite, add a surprisingly tough stalk, a real tree trunk of a
stalk. There, you have an approximation of a pear.

Beatrice: A pear sounds like a beautiful fruit.

Virgil: It is. In colour, commonly, a pear is yellow with black spots.

Beatrice: Like a banana again.

…

Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel, Penguin India, 2010, p.216, hardback,
Rs. 450.

ARMENIA: FLOUTING CONVENTION, CHILDLESS COUPLES OPT FOR SURROGACY
Marianna Grigoryan

EurasiaNet
May 5 2010
NY

Surrogacy is reportedly becoming a popular option for well-to-do,
childless Armenian couples who desire children. But reconciling
the practice with Armenia’s relatively conservative social mores is
proving a challenge.

As in all South Caucasus countries, Armenian culture places a heavy
emphasis on the need for women to marry and to bear children. In the
past, couples who could not have children sometimes asked relatives
to bear a child whom they would then adopt. But the practice, though
generally accepted, meant that the babies did not carry the DNA of
either adoptive parent.

Surrogacy, by contrast, lets that bloodline continue, supporters
affirm. "I think this is a chance for people who have a big wish
to have their own baby," commented 48-year-old Yerevan homemaker
Siranuysh Mamikonian.

The Ministry of Healthcare’s chief specialist on maternal and pediatric
health, Gayane Avagian, affirms that surrogate births are increasing
in Armenia. Diaspora couples in particular take interest in such
procedures, she added. Representatives of Yerevan hospitals note a
similar trend. No accurate statistics have yet been compiled on how
many children are born to surrogate mothers, however.

Thirty-five-year-old Lilianna Manukian (not her real name) is one
of those mothers. To avoid what she terms "traditional Armenian
criticism," Manukian, who will deliver a boy in May, said that she
decided to move into another apartment two months ago and stay clear
of relatives and neighbors.

Being pregnant without a husband – Manukian is a widow with two
children – can invite widespread condemnation. For that reason,
surrogate mothers selected by Healthy Mind, the only organization in
Yerevan that matches Armenian and Diaspora couples with prospective
birth mothers, often opt to live in relative isolation during their
pregnancies. Alternative accommodation is offered as part of a package
deal with the parents.

"Of course, it’s difficult, but this is my deliberate choice," Manukian
said. "Since I have my own children already, I look on my body as an
incubator that can help develop a baby who has nothing to do with me."

A surrogate mother’s services cost, on average, $25,000 to $30,000;
a fee that includes medical exams and services, a monthly "salary" for
the surrogate mother, lodging and transportation fees, food, clothing
and an "honorarium" once the baby is born, plus legal services.

Healthy Mind’s publicity statements describe surrogacy as "a bit odd,
but a purely legal and praiseworthy way of earning money." Manukian
acknowledged the desire to raise money for her children’s education
as motivation for her to take on what she termed the "laudable"
job of surrogacy.

Candidate surrogate mothers must be between 18 to 35 years old and
undergo two months of psychiatric and medical tests. Women who already
have children are preferred; women deemed "hysterical" are rejected.

Aside from advertisements, candidates are "found via our friends and
acquaintances," said Healthy Mind’s founder, Dr. Davit Mkhitarian.

To reduce the risk of accidents, surrogate mothers must pledge not
to use public transportation during their pregnancy; taxis only are
permitted. Sexual activity during the pregnancy is similarly barred.

"This is a very delicate and responsible area where every detail
should be taken into account," commented Alexander Sirunian, an
associate professor of law at Yerevan State University and one of
the few Armenian lawyers handling surrogacy issues.

A 2002 reproductive rights law regulates surrogacy, but detailed
contracts between parties are required to avoid future problems,
he noted.

Unlike in the West, surrogate mothers do not have the option to meet
the client parents; contracts with surrogate mothers provide for the
child to be transferred immediately to the client parents upon birth,
Sirunian said.

While the practice remains relatively new for Armenia, it has already
attracted critics. One such opponent is 35-year-old librarian Narine
Manasian who says that seeing how nature takes its course is better
than opting for surrogacy. "I think there is no need to do something
against God," Manasian said.

Representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church did not express an
official viewpoint on surrogacy to EurasiaNet.org, but Father Vahram
Melikian, a spokesperson for the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin,
suggested that the practice was immoral.

"Irrespective of the child’s origin, a strong spiritual and emotional
bond is established between a mother and her fetus," he said. With
surrogacy, "the woman is just playing the role of a vessel or an
incubator. This violates the rights of both the woman and the child."

The Ministry of Healthcare’s maternal and pediatric health chief
specialist, Avagian, sees only benefits to the practice. "If the
Diaspora supported the creation of a foundation financing in-vitro
fertilization and surrogacy, that would not only encourage the birth
rate, but also increase the number of happy families," Avagian said.

"Having a child still remains an unattainable dream for many families,
both for physiological and, particularly, financial reasons."

At 12.65 births per 1,000 people, Armenia’s birth rate ranks second
for the South Caucasus after Azerbaijan.

Editor’s note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based
in Yerevan.

ARMENIAN LAWS VS. CONFUCIUS

Today
s/67175.html
May 4 2010
Azerbaijan

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan took a serious risk. Upon the
invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao, he traveled to the homeland
of the great Confucius. Why was this a risk? Because he is not
qualified to understand the doctrines China’s most revered philosopher.

"I just convey and do not invent," Confucius used to say.

"I betray and invent everything." This is the Sargsyan’s credo.

I think Kocharian’s supporters understand what the word "betray"
means in this context. If Sargsyan had not betrayed the former
president, then the two would still be friends, he would not have
changed the composition of Kocharian’s team, and he would not have
started pressuring pro-Kocharian oligarchs.

But this word is not new for Kocharian. He also betrayed Sargsyan
and decided to fight him for the presidency. And the word "betrayal"
is nothing new for Armenian politicians. They betray everyone –
even those who brought them to power.

The word "invent" is also nothing new for Sargsyan. It’s a folk
tradition. The Armenians on the whole invented a myth 95 years ago
and they are still receiving dividends. No other myths in history
have brought such profits.

They have invented quite a "great" history.

"Armenian stones are the oldest ones in the world," I heard a
television reporter say in Armenia. This was probably mentioned in
response to Chavchavadze’s article "Armenian scientists and flagrant
stones." But the imagination of Armenian historians has no boundaries.

According to their "studies," Armenians christened Russia and taught
the world agriculture.

Confucius’s disciples united his teachings in the book "Analects,"
which consists of transcripts of Confucius’ interviews with his
followers and also concise aphorisms and descriptions of important
episodes in his life.

Sargsyan’s followers have not yet written their "Analects," simply
because he has no followers. But he has taken part in interviews, which
were recorded down by the author Thomas de Waal. It is embarrassing
for Armenia to admit Sargsyan’s statement that the Khojaly massacre
was arranged to intimidate Azerbaijanis. Armenians now say de Waal
is lying.

Confucius taught the quest for perfect social order achieved through
ethics and human development. The Chinese scholar could not imagine
how such "public order" has been achieved in Armenia. Confucius could
not even imagine the revolution that brought the Kocharyan-Sargsyan
tandem to power. He had no idea of firearms, which took the lives of
demonstrators in downtown Yerevan in March 2008.

Confucius said that during the learning process a person should ask
questions. However, these questions have led to the death of many
Armenians during the interrogation process, including 24-year-old Vahan
Halafyan, who was killed recently in a Charentsavan police station. The
deceased’s mother said a cross had been carved on her son’s chest with
a knife, and his whole body, face and legs were covered with bruises.

The Chinese philosopher said you must go deep down inside yourself,
asking questions, in order to to know Heaven and Laws and create a
society reflecting spiritual values.

What is the law in Armenia? It is the law of the Karabakh junta,
which usurped power through murder. It is a government of blood,
not peace and spirituality.

Armenians have to accept Confucius’ dictum: "It is terrible not that
you are cheated or robbed, but rather that you always remember this."

POSSIBILITIES OF COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA WITHIN THE FRAMES NORWEGIAN GSP TO BE DISCUSSED

ARMENPRESS
MAY 4, 2010
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, MAY 3, ARMENPRESS: Cesilie Alnes and Anne Merete Moe Dahlen,
representatives of the Norwegian Customs and Excise Administration,
will pay a four-day working visit to Armenia May 3-6 for introducing
stakeholders of Armenia to Norway’s Generalized System of Preferences
(GSP).

An official from RA Economy Ministry told Armenpress that Norway’s
Generalized System of Preferences provides duty and quota free market
access (DQF-MA) for all goods from 50 least developed countries, as
well as gives an opportunity to states, which are under development,
to export goods to Norway with 0% or low interests.

Within the frames the visit the guests will visit RA Economy Ministry
May 3 for discussing issues on applying the GSP in Armenia, for
providing details on the opportunities of the system.

Representatives from the Armenian Development Agency, Chamber of
Commerce and Industry of RA, Republican Union of Employers of Armenia
and other establishments will be present at the meeting as well.

The Norwegian delegation and RA Economy Ministry will take the
initiative to organize seminar May 4 for Armenian businessmen, during
which the Norwegian specialists will represent Norway’s Generalized
System of Preferences and the mechanisms of taking advantage of
the system.

NEW MOVEMENT LAUNCHED IN ARMENIA: WHAT’S THE OBJECTIVE?

Tert.am
04.05.10

Tekeyan Cultural Association of Armenia hosted on May 4 several
well or less known Armenian personalities who announced about a new
movement in Armenia – Movement of Peoples and Patriotic Powers –
launched only two months ago.

Among those present were Vardan Khachatryan from Heritage Party,
member of the Karabakh Committee Ashot Manucharyan, commander of the
Arabo detachment Manvel Eghiazaryan and some others.

Vardan Khachatryan who was anchoring the meeting repeated for
several times that the participants of their movement were not being
represented by their positions as the movement is a civic one concerned
about the issues pertaining to the domestic situation in Armenia,
as well as Armenia’s foreign policy agenda.

"We are extremely concerned about the country’s domestic situation,
as well as about the challenges in the foreign front that are turning
into a threat," said Khachatryan.

The movements also released a statement saying its main objective
was to "fight against defective phenomena" in an effort to bring the
country back on track towards development.

Vardan Khachatryan also promised those present to provide details
about some organization issues as well as about the initiators of
the Movement at an up-coming press conferenc

PRO-KURDISH PEACE AND DEMOCRACY PARTY TO OPEN REPRESENTATION IN US

PanARMENIAN.Net
May 4, 2010 – 17:22 AMT 12:22 GMT

Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) will open a representation
in U.S. capital Washington, D.C.

Formal opening of the representation will be made with a reception
at Holiday Inn Hotel on Wednesday.

BDP Chairman Selahattin Demirtas, BDP deputy Emine Ayna and former
chairman of banned Democratic Society Party’s (DTP) Ahmet Turk will
attend the reception.

Turkish delegation will also hold several meetings in New York and
San Francisco, Anatolian News agency reported.

Deux partis turcs condamnent le génocide arménien

TURQUIE

samedi1er mai 2010, par Stéphane/armenews

Le Parti du travail et du mérite (Emek Partisi) et l’Özgürlük ve
Dayanýþma Partisi (ODP, en français : parti de la liberté et de la
solidarité))) ont publié chacun une déclaration dénonçant les
massacres des arméniens en 1915 et présentant des condoléances au
peuple arménien.

La déclaration publiée par le Parti du travail et du mérite dit en
particulier que le 24 avril la communauté internationale a concentré
son attention sur la grande tragédie de 1915. Le massacre et la
déportation des Arméniens par les forces impérialistes pour le but de
fonder une République Turque ont été postérieurement minimisés ou
ignorés. Le fait est qu’il n’a pas jusqu’ici été admis et qu’on a
présenter aucune excuse au peuple. Le parti Justice et Développement
n’a pas inclus la question dans son paquet d’amendements
constitutionnels non plus.

Le parti dirigeant (AKP) aussi bien que le parti du Peuple Républicain
(RPP) (Turc : Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP)) se concurrencent dans le
nationalisme au lieu d’affronter les faits historiques. Aussi, la
déclaration de Recep Erdogan quant à la déportation de 100 000
arméniens a prouvé la réelle valeur du parti Justice et Développement.
La Turquie doit supporter sa propre histoire et rouvrir les
communications sans la moindre condition préalable. Les relations
arméno-turques doivent être améliorées dit la déclaration.

Dans une seconde déclaration Alper Tas, le chef du parti Liberté et
Solidarité a dit que le 24 avril est un anniversaire de grande douleur
de « nos frères arméniens. » La grande tragédie qui est arrivée en
Turquie il y a 95 ans « reste dans nos coeurs. » Alper Tas a pointé la
nécessité d’un dialogue entre les deux nations. La frontière
arméno-turque doit être rouverte et nommée Hrant Dink selon la
déclaration.

Emek Partisi (Pari du travail et du mérite) est un parti politique de
gauche en Turquie.

Emeðin Partisi (EMEP) a été fondé le 26 novembre 1996 suite a la
fermeture d’Emek Partisi la même année. La Cour européenne des droits
de l’homme a en effet jugé la Turquie en tord de fermer le parti. En
novembre 2005, lors du congrès du parti, ils décidèrent de rétablir
l’ancien nom du parti Emek Partisi. C’est la fin du Emeðin partisi qui
aurait servi qu’un petit temps.

Il a pour président Abdullah Levent Tüzel et comme co-président
Abdullah Varli. Emek Partisi s’est présenter au élection législative
en 2002, sous la formes d’un bloc nommer « Demokratik Güçbirliði »
(Forte Union Democratique) avec SHP, DEHAP, ÖDP, SDP et ÖTP mais n’a
pas pu dépasser les 10% synonymes de représentation au parlement.

Leur slogan : « Du travail, du pain et de la liberté » « Ýþ, ekmek, özgürlük »

L’ Özgürlük ve Dayanýþma Partisi (ODP, en français : parti de la
liberté et de la solidarité) est un parti socialiste turc fondé en
1996. Il obtient 0,8 % des voix aux élections législatives de 1999 et
reste donc un parti mineur de la scène politique d’extrême-gauche
turque. Il fait partie de la Gauche anticapitaliste européenne.

YEREVAN TO HOST BARCAMP 2010

PanARMENIAN.Net
April 26, 2010 – 20:21 AMT 15:21 GMT

Yerevan will host BarCamp 2010 conference on information technologies
due May 21-23, organizer of the event Alexey Chalabyan said.

"BarCamp is a possibility of informal meeting of IT and related
fields specialists – designers, journalists, bloggers, etc. It is
an opportunity to exchange ideas and experience," Chalabyan told a
PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

Yerevan will host BarCamp conference for the second time. Last year,
it brought together 450 people from Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia,
Iran, USA and other countries. BarCamp is an international net of
conferences that are open to everyone and organized in the format of
reports, trainings, presentations and discussions. The entire material
is provided by participants. The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto,
California, in 2005. Since it, BarCamp conferences have taken place
in 350 cities worldwide.

PRESIDENT SERZH SARGSYAN ATTENDS OPENING CEREMONY OF THE ARMENIAN PAVILION AT SHANGHAI EXPO-2010

Panorama.am
30/04/2010

The Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan attended the opening ceremony
of the Armenian pavilion at Shanghai Expo-2010. Armenian delegation
members, diplomats accredited in China, guests, exhibition visitors
were present at the opening ceremony.

Following the opening of the Armenian pavilion, President Serzh
Sargsyan took a tour around the pavilions of the United States,
Russia and China.

Panorama.am recalls that upon the invitation of the President of
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Hu Jintao, the President of
Armenia Serzh Sargsyan is paying a visit to China to participate in
the opening of the Shanghai Expo-2010.

The delegation headed by the President comprises the Minister of
Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian, the Minister of Economy Nerses
Yeritsyan, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Armen
Movsisyan, and other officials.

Within the framework of the visit, President Sargsyan will meet with
the representatives of leading Chinese corporations.

The delegation headed by President Sargsyan will also visit Suzhou
town in Jiangsu province May 1. Serzh Sargsyan will pay a visit to
the Suzhou center of science, culture and arts, the innovation center
for science and education, and HIGER bus factory.

On May 2, the meeting of Armenian and PRC Presidents has been
scheduled.

On May 3, in Datun town of Shanxi province President Sargsyan will be
present at the ceremony of inauguration of a major Armenian-Chinese
project – opening of the chloroprene rubber producing Shanxi-Nairit
plant.

The same day President Sargsyan and his delegation will return
to Armenia.

ALTERNATIVE PROGRAM ON TEGHUT DEVELOPMENT DISCUSSED IN YEREVAN

Arminfo
2010-04-28 19:00:00

An alternative program on Teghut development was discussed in Yerevan
today.

The author of the program, Rouben Shaghkyan, said that the program
consists of 11 items, including beekeeping development, creation
of blackberry and rosehip plantations, introduction of wasteless
wood processing, opening of wine-and-vodka production, as well as
establishment of cooperation with local canneries. The launch of
the given program will allow opening new job positions. According
to Shaghkyan, the representatives of the state structures he had met
earlier positively assessed the draft program.

To note, by the copper reserves, Teghut is the second largest
deposit in Armenia, after the Kajaran one. According to preliminary
estimations, ore reserves in the deposit make up 450 mln tons, copper
reserves – 1,6 mln tons, with the average content being 0,355%, and
molybdenum reserves make up 99 thsd tons, with the average content
being 0,021%. The ACP program on development of the Teghut copper-
molybdenum deposit was approved by the Armenian Government in
November 2007.

In summer 2009 Ecodar NGO, Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor Office
and Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center applied to the
Administrative Court against the Armenian Government. The ground for
the claim was that when approving the project on development of the
Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit, the Armenian Government violated
the Armenian legislation, as well as international conventions and
articles of the Armenian Constitution. On March 24 the Administrative
Court rejected the claim on Teghut.