Author: Vorskanian Yeghisabet

STUDENTS CLEAN YEREVAN
Panorama.am
15:52 18/09/06
Frunzeh Basentsyan, construction, improvement and utilities
department head at Yerevan municipality, said 10,000 students,
21,000 schoolchildren took party on a subbotnik, September 16, a
cleaning day in Yerevan. Some 380 cars of garbage was transported to
Nubarashen disposal tip. Basentsyan praised the participants, saying,
“The subbotnik passed at a desired level.”
The municipality employee called all residents of Yerevan to keep the
city clean. Ignoring the collected garbage on the streets of Yerevan,
Basentsyan said “certain progress is registered in keeping the city
clean determined by new garbage cars.” The official also informed the
reporters that a garbage collection project plans to establish one or
two organizations which will conduct cleaning in the city. However,
Basentsyan said it will not be soon.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 12, 2006 Tuesday
AZERBAIJAN DID NOT ALLOW TO INVITE OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVES OF
ARMENIA TO FESTIVAL IN KARS
Yerevan September 12
The Municipality of Kars (Turkey) has not invited official
representatives of Armenia to the Sept 13-15 folk festival in Kars
after the protest of the Azeri public and mass media, Azeri Consul to
Kars Gasan Zeynalov says in an exclusive interview to APA.
Zeynalov says that he met with the Kars authorities and they promised
him to hold no discussions concerning the opening of the border
between Turkey and Armenia. “I told them that the opening of the
border is out of question for as long as Armenia has territorial
claims against Turkey and is carrying out occupant policy against
Azerbaijan,” says Zeynalov.
He says that during the previous 2nd festival the sides discussed the
problem of border opening but the Azeri representatives expressed
protest and left the meeting.
To remind, recently the Kars Mayor appeared with a statement about
the necessity of opening the border with Armenia.

FRANCE:”ARMENIA MY FRIEND”
Sept 21, 2006 – July 14, 2007
by Jean Eckian
Paris september 13, 2006
Yesterday, September 12, Philippe Douste Blazy, french Foreign
Minister and Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, Minister to the Culture
and Communication, launched officially the “Year of Armenia” to
the course of press conference in the presence of their armenian
counterparts Hasmik Poghosyan, Minister to the Culture and the Youth
and Vartan Oskanian, Foreign Minister of Armenia. ” Armenia is close
and faraway, familiar and unknown. This is why this event constituted
a true challenge ” R. Donnedieu de Vabres said. Opportunity to recall
the intimate and old bonds linking France to Armenia and its people,
and also opportunity to make discover with French people the richness
of the Armenian culture and its 3000 years of History. Thus, more
than 500 artistic events and development of the Armenian heritage
will commemorate the friendship France – Armenia between September
21, 2006 (birthday of the Republic of Armenia) and July 14, 2007
(national day in France since the Revolution of 1789). Important
times of this exemplary testimony of friendship between the two
countries will be marked, september 29 by the visit of the french
President Jacques Chirac to Yerevan (1), with the inauguration of
the “Place of France” and the big Concert of Charles Aznavour, place
of the Republic, accompanied by its guests, of which the singer of
Quebec Linda Demay and the french singer star Patricia Kaas. Lastly,
to conclude this year to the festivities, the operation “Thousand
Ambassadors for Armenia”, 1000 children from Armenia will be invited
in France to learn the language of Moliere (french), thus giving to
its true direction to “Armenia my Friend”. France invested a budget
of 1,5 million Euros in this event to which are added the financial
participation of many Armenian associations of France.
–Boundary_(ID_ywd1U0R6PInGmpZ3Sz0APw)–

PATRIARCH KAREKIN CALLS TO COOPERATE WITH SYRIAN SCHOLAR
SANA – Syrian Arab News Agency, Syria
Sept 8 2006
YERIVAN, (SANA) – Patriarch of the Armenian Church Karekin II
underlined on Thursday importance of the current visit of the Republic
Mufti to Armenia.
“We have to seek cooperation and build ties among religions as well as
realize mutual understanding between representatives of religions,”
Patriarch Karekin said in a joint press conference with Mufti Sheikh
Ahmed Badre Eddin .
For his part, the Mufti underlined “peace is Syria’s strategic option”
saying we are in quest of realizing just and comprehensive peace in
the Middle East.
He emphasized the significance of bringing about a just solution for
the central cause of Palestine.
The Mufti denounced some forces linking of the terror phenomenon
with Islam saying, we must learn that practices perpetrated under
the religion’s name or under a nation’s name represent their doers
and not peoples; asserting that Syria was the first who suffered from
this rejected phenomenon.

EUROPEAN HERITAGE DAYS SET OFF IN ARMENIA
Yerevan, September 9. ArmInfo. One can deeply feel the heart of
Armenia and Europe only through familiarizing oneself with cultural
heritage. That’s why it is very much important to preserve own culture
and history for the generations to come, Special Representative of
CE Secretary General Bojana Urumova said, while opening the European
Heritage Day in the territory of Zvartnots Cathedral museum-reserve
(VII).
Urumova pointed out that such inter-state cooperation plays a big role
not only for preserving cultural-historical monuments but also for
involving youths from around the world in this work. Last year alone
over 20 mln people from 49 European states took part in this action
symbolizing the unity and deversity of common cultural heritage,
Urumova said.
During the days, on Sept 9-10 people will enjoy free access to all
Armenian museums. Besides, the Armenian Culture and Youth Ministry
will organize tours all over Armenia.

NKR GOVERNMENT TO REIMBURSE THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY NATURAL DISASTERS
ArmRadio.am
09.09.2006 14:03
NKR Government has taken the decision to provide assistance to
those who suffered in the result of natural disasters, particularly
fires, ArmInfo reports. This year the heavy spring rains in Karabakh
were followed by summer drought and fires. According NKR Minister
of Agriculture Vahram Baghdasaryan, the amount o the damage was
concerning, and after detailed investigation the Government decided to
provide necessary assistance to farmers. In his words, it is envisaged
to provide 29 711 500 drams from the reserve fund of the Government.

DAVID CRUMM: ICONS OPEN NEW RELIGIOUS WORLDS
Free Press Columnist
Detroit Free Press, MI
Sept 9 2006
Free lectures to be given on Tuesday
This Madonna and child icon belongs to Bishop Nicholas Samra, a Melkite
Catholic clergyman who visited St. John Armenian Church recently.
Related articles:
~U If you go
~U Tell us what you think In our culture where image is everything,
local Orthodox and Catholic leaders are planning to showcase some of
the most powerful images human hands can create.
They’re icons, and it’s no coincidence that this ancient term for
sacred images also describes the little pictures on our computer
screens. At first glance, icons are merely pictures, but both kinds
of icons really are doorways to the forces hovering behind them.
In computers, icons open software from e-mails to databases. In
churches, icons are “visible images that open up the invisible world,”
said the Rev. Garabed Kochakian, an iconographer and the pastor of
St. John Armenian Apostolic Church in Southfield.
“Icons are channels, like windows to God,” added the Rev. Dimitrie
Vincent, pastor of St. Thomas Albanian Orthodox Church in Farmington
Hills. Like Kochakian, he is an artist as well as a priest.
The two were among nine religious leaders who met recently at St.
John to plan a joint icon showcase Tuesday at an Orthodox church
in Livonia.
“Icons really are symbols of what unites us as Christians,” Vincent
said last week.
Catholics also are getting more interested in them, said Michael
Hovey, an ecumenical adviser to Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida. “In the
past year, I’ve visited at least 60 of our Catholic parishes and I’m
impressed at the growing number that have icons,” Hovey said.
Dan McAfee, the director of Maida’s office for Christian worship,
said, “There was a time after our Second Vatican Council when people
were eager to clear out everything in our churches that might seem
extraneous. People removed lots of statues and paintings. But I think
people are realizing that, in some cases, we may have gone too far.”
The growing fascination with these strangely flat-looking images of
saints and biblical scenes may seem puzzling. The rest of the world’s
media are racing in other directions, like sending clips of movies
to the tiny screens of cell phones.
Antiquity is part of the allure of icons. Traditional Christian
stories say that the gospel writer St. Luke also painted icons.
Centuries-old tales of miracles surround many of them. But icons are
much more than history lessons.
After the meeting, Kochakian took guests to see a large icon that
he designed for a wall of his church. It’s a mosaic made of colored
glass and gold leaf, showing St. Gregory the Illuminator, the first
head of the Armenian Church about 1,700 years ago.
As guests approached the mosaic, they saw a tall, bearded man in red
robes standing before a snow-capped mountain in Armenia, holding a
model of a church. Then, as guests moved closer, they could see a
drama unfolding in the background. A fist seemed to emerge from the
sky, wielding a flaming hammer.
“In Armenian tradition, that’s the hand of Christ emerging to strike
the ground with a golden hammer to mark the location of our first
cathedral,” Kochakian said.
There was more: The saint’s eyes seemed to fix on viewers wherever
they stood, silently asking what each one thought of these images.
Such all-seeing eyes are the trademark of this sacred art, McAfee
said. “As you approach an icon, you find that, as much as you look
at the icon, the icon looks back out at you.”
The icon of St. Gregory was merely an arrangement of colored glass
and yet the saint’s eyes seemed alive with the question: So, what do
you think of this spiritual world?
Then, suddenly it dawned on at least this visitor: Our contemporary
fascination with asking for each person’s viewpoint on the spiritual
world is really as ancient a practice as icons themselves.

Konstantin Gabashvili: I am ready to favor Azerbaijan if the arsons proved
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Sept 7 2006
[ 07 Sen. 2006 15:09 ]
The military helicopter with Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili and
deputy chief of Armed Forces Staff Zaza Gogava on board, which was
fired from the South Ossetia, remains caused quite a stir in Georgia.
Konstantin Gabashvili, head of parliament’s international relations
committee told APA’s Georgia bureau that the latest event and missile
launching to President Mikhail Saakashvili’s helicopter with also US
Senator John McCain on board on 28 August are not accidental.
“This is a terrorist act. I think Barankevich, defense minister
of the unrecognized South Ossetia Republic, who was appointed by
Russian intelligence, stands behind all these. I wonder why foolish
Barankevich targeted the helicopter with the Senator on board. Can
you imagine what would happen if something wrong had happened to
McCain, who is so respected in the US authorities?” There is a group
of communist-fascist in Russia, who aim to rule the world. Therefore,
we want all Russian peacekeepers and military bases to be withdrawn
from our country. I am sure Azerbaijan will support us in this issue,”
the parliamentarian said.
Touching on the presence of representatives from Abkhazia and South
Ossetia in recent events on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the
alleged “Nagorno Karabakh Republic”, which declared its independence in
occupied Azerbaijani territories, Mr.Gabashvili Russians are treating
the unrecognized bodies like puppets, which are doomed to similar fate.
“If Azerbaijan and Georgia turn out to refuse the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
oil pipeline and give the pipeline to a Russian company from the
British Petroleum, the situation will be quite different then. We
will have to refuse all that we gained during our independence. But
this way for achieving peace is not useful for us,” he said.
As coming to the Nagorno Garabagh conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, Gabashvili, “I have told my Armenian counterparts that they
should withdraw from the regions adjoining Nagorno Garabagh in order
to achieve any result. And Azerbaijan will take relevant steps if it
sees that Armenia does something. What we want is that Azerbaijanis,
Armenians, Georgians and other nations live in peaceful atmosphere,
make efforts for the development of their countries.”
Georgian parliamentarian also touched on the destruction of cultural,
architectural heritage and arsons in the Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani
lands. He said the Armenian side says the fires are caused by extreme
temperature. He said neutral and fair international experts should
visit the scene and find the causes of the fire.
“If it is proved that Armenians committed arsons in Azerbaijani
territories, as Georgian representative, I am ready to back
Azerbaijan,” Gabashvili said./APA/

AZERI MAN KILLED IN MINE BLAST IN WESTERN DISTRICT – TV
ANS TV, Baku
7 Sep 06
A villager has been killed in a mine blast in Azerbaijan’s Goranboy
District, private ANS TV reported on 7 September.
The 20-year-old man hit an antitank mine on the morning of 7 September
as he was riding a horse near the Azerbaijani-Armenian contact line. He
lost his leg in the blast and died on the spot, the TV said.
ANS said vehicles and domestic animals had hit mines several times
in the area.

RA DM: FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS ARMENIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS HAVE BEEN DEEPENED GREATLY
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Sept 6 2006
September 5 the Secretary of the Security Council under the RA
President, RA DM Serge Sargsyan received the U. S. Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to RA John Evans in connection with
the completion of his diplomatic mission in RA.
According to the information DE FACTO received at the RA MOD Press
Service, having expressed his gratitude for the mission fulfilled in
Armenia, Serge Sargsyan stated the Armenian – American relations had
been deepened greatly for the last two years.
While touching on the Karabakh conflict settlement, RA DM highly
estimated the OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs’ activity. Serge Sargsyan
is convinced the means for the conflict’s peaceful settlement has
not been exhausted yet.
In the course of the meeting the parties discussed the issues of
regional security, as well as a number of issues of mutual interest.