Author: Vardanian Garo

FRENCH ARMENIANS URGE SENATE TO PASS LAW PENALIZING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.10.2008 14:58 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian community of France gathered yesterday
in front of the French Senate to require that the socialist bill,
providing for one-year imprisonment and 45,000 euros fine for the
denial of Armenian genocide adopted by National Assembly on October
12, 2006, be approved by senators as soon as possible, independent
French journalist Jean Eckian told PanARMENIAN.Net.

The action participants claimed that civil security and public order
is jeopardized because the law on France’s official recognition of
the Armenian Genocide (adopted in January 2001) is not observed.

The Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF)
also called on the Senate to put the issue on the agenda.

Some 10,000 people are supposed to gather for another action due on
November 22.

Hovsepyan still hungry with ArmeniaTuesday 30 September 2008
by Khachik Chakhoyan from Yerevan

Armenia’s 35-year-old captain Sargis Hovsepyan is hoping that he still
has time to achieve something significant with the national team,
saying: "My dreams haven’t come true yet, but I have not lost hope for
the future."

Living legend
Depending on who is counting, Hovsepyan has played 99 or 100 senior
games for Armenia, starting his international career at the age of 22
in his nation’s first game following independence – a 0-0 friendly
draw against Moldova on 14 October 1992. The right-sided defender has
become an iconic figure in the national team, but is not ready to give
up playing just yet.

‘Not lost hope’
Armenia lost their first two 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against
Spain and Turkey, but Hovsepyan is yet to feel the strain. "After the
USSR collapsed, it was hard to build a strong national team or a good
Armenian club," he reflected. "I really want to achieve more with the
national team, as well as at club level. My dreams haven’t come true
yet, but I have not lost hope for the future."

Zenit peaks
Hovsepyan returned to Armenia to rejoin FC Pyunik in 2004, having left
the club in 1997 to embark upon what he acknowledges was the most
exciting phase of his career, a spell in Russia with FC Zenit
St. Petersburg and then FC Torpedo-ZIL Moskva. In 1999 he won the
Russian Cup with Zenit and two years later won the bronze medal as his
side finished third in the Premier-Liga.

Glory days
"I’m glad I played for Zenit for a few years," remembered Hovsepyan,
who was at the Petrovsky Stadium from 1997 to 2003. "People love
football in St Petersburg. I have brilliant memories of returning to
the city after winning the cup. Thousands of fans came to welcome us
at the airport. The same happened after winning the bronze in 2001. I
spent the best time of my career in Russia."

Ongoing passion
However, leaving the bright lights of Russia behind has not sapped
Hovsepyan’s enthusiasm. "The Armenian championship isn’t the strongest
league I played in," said Hovsepyan, who turns 36 at the start of
November. "You can’t compare it with Russian league where I spent five
years, but I’m preparing for the matches in the same way as I used
to. It’s all about professionalism in football.

Best to come
"Fortunately I only had a few injuries in my career," he added,
explaining the secret of his success. "As long as the team and coach
need me I’ll give 100 per cent of myself on the field. Even after 17
years, I remember each and every one of my national-team games. Of
course, the successful ones I remember better, but even despite the
bad start in qualifying, I believe that best is yet to come."

uefa.com 1998-2008. All rights reserved.

BALLOT QUESTION
K. Eldridge Abington

Boston Globe
September 29, 2008
United States

RE "CHARACTER flaws on the ballot" (Editorial, Sept. 23): Here we go
again. Transliteration of candidates’ names for Chinese voters? How
about ballots in Cyrillic, Greek, or Armenian? In order to have a
cohesive government and community, it has to be in one language.

I was born here, and while my relatives kept their language and their
culture, they realized the value of learning English in order to be
part of this new country. How do you think people of Italian descent,
living next door to Lebanese or Russian immigrants, learned to speak
with each other? English was their common bond.

This transliteration measure is ridiculous, and opens the door to
all communities to insist on ballots in their language.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO ELECT NEW SPEAKER

armradio.am
29.09.2008 13:07

During today’s recurrent four-day sitting the parliamentarians
undertook the election of the President of the National Assembly.

On September 26 President of the National Assembly Tigran Torosyan
reconfirmed his resignation, and it was considered accepted in
compliance with eth Bay-Law of eth national Assembly.

Two candidates were nominated for the post of the National Assembly
Chairman: head of the Republican Party faction Karen Karapetyan
suggested newly elected MP Hovik Abrahamyan’s candidacy, noting
that he is the united candidate of the coalition. The "Heritage"
Party nominated Larisa Alaverdyan.

The candidates came forth with speeches, presenting their views of
the organization of the National assembly’s activity, emphasizing
the importance of raising the NA rating and its political role.

Following the speeches of the Deputies and factions, the MPs will
elect the Speaker through a secret ballot.

BENEFACTOR JULIAN HOVSEPIAN AWARDED

A1+
[01:11 pm] 29 September, 2008

Under a September 19 decree of Armenia’s Prime Minister Tigran
Sarkissian benefactor Julian Hovsepian was awarded RoA Prime Minister’s
Memorial Medal for his outstanding pro-Armenian activity and his
contribution to the sphere of charity. The Prime Minister handed him
the award during today’s meeting.

Tigran Sarkissian expressed gratitude for Julian Hovsepian’s efforts
to continue the best traditions of Armenian benefactors to foster the
development of culture, especially for his valuable donation to the
Armenian National Art Gallery. The Prime Minister underlined that his
attitude towards culture speaks about the features of the Armenian
nation, as well.

Benefactor Julian Hovsepian expressed gratitude for the award and
the words of appreciations, noting that he is going to gift more
valuable paintings from his rich collection to the Armenian National
Art Gallery in the future.

RISING HOPES OF BETTER RELATIONS BETWEEN TWO HISTORIC ENEMIES

The Economist
Sep 25th 2008
Ankara And Yerevan

Friends and neighbours

KEMAL ATATURK , father of modern Turkey, rescued hundreds of Armenian
women and children from mass slaughter by Ottoman forces during
and after the first world war. This untold story, which is sure
to surprise many of today’s Turks, is one of many collected by the
Armenian genocide museum in Yerevan that "will soon be brought to
light on our website," promises Hayk Demoyan, its director.

His project is one more example of shifting relations between Turkey
and Armenia. On September 6th President Abdullah Gul became the first
Turkish leader to visit Armenia when he attended a football match. Mr
Gul’s decision to accept an invitation from Armenia’s president,
Serzh Sarkisian, has raised expectations that Turkey may establish
diplomatic ties and open the border it closed during the 1990s fighting
between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. The two foreign
ministers were planning to meet in New York this week. Armenia promises
to recognise Turkey’s borders and to allow a commission of historians
to investigate the fate of the Ottoman Armenians.

Reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia could tilt the balance of
power in the Caucasus. Russia is Armenia’s closest regional ally. It
has two bases and around 2,000 troops there. The war in Georgia has
forced Armenia to rethink its position. Some 70% of its supplies flow
through Georgia, and these were disrupted by Russian bombing. Peace
with Turkey would give Armenia a new outside link. Some think Russia
would be happy too. "It would allow Russia to marginalise and lean
harder on Georgia," argues Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the
Caucasus Media Institute.

Mending fences with Armenia would bolster Turkey’s regional
clout. And it might also help to kill a resolution proposed by the
American Congress to call the slaughter of the Armenians in 1915
genocide. That makes the Armenian diaspora, which is campaigning for
genocide recognition, unhappy.

Some speak of a "Turkish trap" aimed at rewriting history to absolve
Turkey of wrongdoing. Indeed, hawks in Turkey are pressing Armenia
to drop all talk of genocide.

Even more ambitiously, the hawks want better ties with Armenia to
be tied anew to progress over Nagorno-Karabakh. But at least Mr Gul
seems determined to press ahead. "If we allow the dynamics that were
set in motion by the Yerevan match to slip away, we may have to wait
another 15-20 years for a similar chance to arise," he has said.

OPPOSITION NEVER SHOULDERS ANY RESPONSIBILITY
Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
25 Sep 2008
Armenia

Leader of the People’s Party of Armenia, newly made "congressman"
Stepan Demirchyan was the guest of "Urbat" club yesterday and the
"selection" of the internal political entangled string was the topic
of the press conference.

Leader of the People’s Party of Armenia doesn’t have great expectations
regarding the results of the activity of NA temporary committee
investigating March 1-2 developments but "…it is really important
to find the guilty and to call them to liability.’

"Is the conversation also about those who led the participants of the
"spontaneous" demonstration to Myasnikyan’s Statue, moreover they
strictly recommended not to leave the "scene of action", ordering them
"to stand up to the end" and wait for LTP’s order?"

The leader didn’t like the question of "Hayots Ashkharh" daily.

"I have touched upon this question many times. But I have to repeat,
what happened on March 1 was the aftermath of the falsifications and
violence which took place during the Presidential elections." The
speaker over again repeated the radical’s version regarding March 1.

Secondly: "What happened near the French Embassy was the aftermath
of the use of20force against the peaceful demonstrators in
the morning. This was the reason. And by the way it was really a
"spontaneous" demonstration. There were proposals to take the people to
Matenadaran, but some people were against it. Was there any guarantee
that the situation wouldn’t have been worse in that case?"

And after all: "Certain emotional expressions don’t give grounds to say
that it was an attempt of a coup d’état." To be short the opposition
doesn’t take responsibility for anything, the authorities are to
blame for everything. Because they didn’t resign immediately after the
first demand of the pro-oppositional activists, didn’t serve on the
tray all the levers of governing to all those who wanted to take them.

"On March 2 Ter-Petrosyan called his friends and told them he
was peacefully sleeping for 8-9 hours. It has been stated on the
presidential level and no one has refuted it.

The data of the interceptions have also been published, which
evidently show that during his conversation with Alik Arzumanyan,
at 04.30 p.m., on March 2 when it was clear that there have been
victims, the "pan-national" leader evidently approved the results:
"Everything is really ok."

Does this say anything to S. Demirchyan?"

No! Instead of answering our question Demirchyan simply changed the
subject of the conversation. "Firstly toda y I read in your newspaper
that during the conversation with me Ter-Petrosyan said that he doesn’t
have any problem. Frankly I don’t remember such conversation. But
that means his conscience is quiet.

Then all of a sudden he started the following wise idea in a very
angry tone: "As regards the interception it would have been better to
intercept the telephone conversation between Robert Kocharyan and the
other murderer I don’t want to give his name. And if they didn’t do
it, who must shoulder responsibility for that. When you hear those
interceptions it becomes clear that there has been no attempt of a
coup d’état. There have been certain emotional announcements. But
there is no proof regarding a coup d’état."

"Ok. So what is the attitude of the speaker regarding the separation
of the people between friends and lees, "nomads and settled?"

"Very negative," he said in response to the question of "Hayots
Ashkharh" daily. "But let’s be fair. For many years these authorities
used to separate our people between friends and strangers. We are
struggling against it. Of course it is a negative phenomenon but it
is the policy pursued by the ruling authorities that led to similar
intolerable situation."

So in this case as well they lay blame on the ruling power, not
the radical opposition that has made "hayas tantsy-kharabaghtsy"
their flag, and especially Ter-Petrosyan for whom Diaspora is
"orange-eaters", Karabakh is the 5th echelon. A person who hinders
the regular development of Armenia, because of his personal interests.

–Boundary_(ID_HNOpJgt0zHmxsV/H8hDcDA) —

TO-BE CANDIDATE SLAVA SARGSYAN

A1+
[09:12 pm] 25 September, 2008

The Justice Council has nominated Judge of the Civil and Administrative
Chamber of the Cassation Court’s synonymous chamber Slava Sargsyan
to be appointed as president of the chamber and the nomination will
be proposed for the confirmation of the RA president, according
to the information provided by RA Cassation Court press secretary
Alina Yengoyan.

TURKISH MFA: PROCESS OF NORMALIZING TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS MOVES AHEAD

PanARMENIAN.Net
24.09.2008 16:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In order to become a genuine honest broker in
the region, Turkey has taken the initiative to create a favorable
environment for the normalization of its bilateral relations with
Armenia. Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said in "Calming the
Caucasus" piece of opinion published in The International Herald
Tribune.

"President Abdullah Gul visited Yerevan on Sept. 6 to watch the
World Cup qualifier match between the Turkish and Armenian soccer
teams. This was an historic first step to break the barriers that
have prevented our two nations from getting closer to each other.

During the visit to Yerevan, the Armenian and Turkish presidents
extensively discussed the security situation in the Caucasus, the
prospects for the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and
the ways and means to achieve such normalization in the nearest future.

I also accompanied Gul and had an opportunity to review the same
topics in a more expanded fashion with Armenian Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian. No doubt, as long as we talk, none of the problems
of the region could impose themselves on us as unsolvable.

Third, as the process of normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations
moves ahead, we must not spare our efforts to find a resolution of
the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. These two processes have a mutually
reinforcing character – any positive development on one would
significantly have a stimulating effect on the other.

Gul, after his visit to Yerevan, traveled to Baku on Sept. 10
to inquire whether Turkey could facilitate the resolution of
Nagorno-Karabakh problem. We observe the commitment in Baku, as well
as in Yerevan, to bring a lasting solution to the conflict between
Azerbaijan and Armenia. In this context, it is necessary once more to
underline the importance of a constructive and comprehensive approach
to resolving the problems in the Caucasus region.

Turkey is a staunch advocate of the basic principles of international
law such as independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of
states as well as peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue.

With the initiatives that it has taken recently, Turkey seeks to
bring stability and prosperity to the Caucasus region. CSCP can play
a leading role in facilitating this outcome. A favorable environment
for cooperation, harmony, confidence and mutual understanding will
be achievable in the region only after the disputes and conflicts in
the Caucasus are resolved peacefully and irrevocably," Babacan said.

‘THIS WAS OUR DREAM,’ WOMAN LAMENTS AFTER FIRE DESTROYS HOME
Kate Hammer

Globe and Mail
September 24, 2008
Canada

As firefighters sifted through the charred remains of 146 Bedford Rd.,
two figures stood in the three-storey home’s backyard. Neither spoke
as they stared at the spoils of a three-alarm fire that brought 17
fire trucks and 90 firefighters to the East Annex yesterday afternoon.

The smaller of the two figures was Narine Termkrtchyan, an Armenian
florist who had bought the house in December.

She tugged at the red and green flowers embroidered above the button
holes of her cardigan as she stared through an ivy-covered archway at
blackened and soggy wood beams and teetering portions of brick walls.

"For 10 years, I work so hard, I never take vacation, all for this
house, this was our dream," she said, the only other sound the dripping
of fire-hose water into puddles.

The larger figure stood a few feet away on a pile of discarded
shingles, his soot-stained hands draped over the far end of the same
ivy-covered archway.

He did not give his name, but said he was a construction worker who
had been helping to install plumbing when sparks from a torch used
on copper piping ignited the second floor.

"We tried to pat it down with towels, but it just went up like,
whoosh!" he said.

The construction workers fled the home, and no one was seriously
injured.

The home at 146 Bedford Rd. was built in 1915 and falls within the
East Annex Heritage Conservation District. It was split into units
and housed several businesses, including a men’s costume store and
a catering company. It sold in December for $1,067,500.

Ms. Termkrtchyan said that she and her family had remortgaged their
previous home and used their life savings to convert the individual
units into a four-bedroom single-family home, and that she had picked
out the fixtures for the kitchen only that morning. She said she was
unsure how much of the partly finished home would be covered by her
insurance. "We rented an apartment down the road so we could be near
and we would come over at the end of every day to see what was new,
how it was coming along," she said. "Now it’s all gone."