Author: Zakarian Garnik

Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
Jan 18 2007

`Sevan indictment a smokescreen for US failure in Iraq’
By Jean Christou

LAWYERS for Benon Sevan, the Cypriot former UN head of the Iraq
oil-for-food-programme, indicted on Tuesday for bribery and
corruption, have accused the US of digging up dirt to hide its own
culpability in the scandal.
`More than a year and a half after Benon Sevan left the United States
to return to his home country, the United States Attorney’s office
has decided to use Mr Sevan as a scapegoat and a distraction from the
United States’ own massive failures and mismanagement in Iraq,’ said
a statement issued late on Tuesday from Sevan’s US lawyer Eric Lewis.

US attorney for New York Michael Garcia announced early on Tuesday
that the United States had lodged a warrant for the arrest Sevan and
Ephraim Nadler, the brother-in-law of former Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and would seek their arrest and extradition.

However, Sevan, 69, is a Cypriot of Armenian descent born and raised
on the island, and Cyprus does not extradite its own citizens.

A spokesman at the US embassy in Nicosia yesterday said: `To the best
of our knowledge no extradition request has been made to the Cypriot
authorities.’

If the US goes ahead with the arrest warrant through Interpol, it
will mean that Sevan will be unable to travel outside Cyprus for fear
of extradition to the US, where he could face up to 50 years in
prison.

An investigation in 2005, the Volcker Report, concluded that Sevan
solicited oil allocations from Saddam Hussein’s regime on behalf of a
trading company between 1998 and 2001, and it raised concerns he may
have received kickbacks for the help.
Sevan, 69, who served a distinguished 40 year-year career working for
the UN, is accused of receiving $160,000 between 1998 and 2000 in a
scandal that involved in total billions of dollars and 2,300
companies.
The inquiry accused Sevan of steering an oil contract to a small
Panama-registered trading firm, netting the firm some $1.5 million.
Sevan has always maintained the $160,000 came from his deceased aunt
in Nicosia, and that he had declared it at the time.
Lewis said Sevan had run a $64 billion programme that delivered food,
medicine and essential infrastructure to the Iraqi people under
nearly impossible conditions.

`In the nearly four years since Mr Sevan turned over the programme’s
assets to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the United States has
done none of these things,’ he said.

`Now the United States government has repackaged the same discredited
allegations made by the Volcker Committee – that Mr Sevan took some
$144,000 in cash, funds that he fully reported as family gifts on his
UN disclosure form beginning more than seven years ago. These
allegations are not only trivial; they are without basis.’

He said Sevan had served the UN for 40 years in some of the most
difficult assignments in the world – including Afghanistan and Iraq.

`Mr Sevan confronted both the Iraqis and members of the Security
Council without fear or favour. He turned over more than $10 billion
to the United States in 2003, money that has effectively vanished and
has not been accounted for since then. Mr Sevan accounted for every
penny of the $64 billion under his control,’ said Lewis.

The lawyer said it was important to note that the indictment did not
charge `because it cannot’ that Sevan ever took any action or failed
to take any action other than in the best interests of the
Oil-For-Food Programme and the United Nations.

`Apparently, however, the US Attorney has simply adopted the Volcker
Committee’s unfounded conclusions,’ Lewis added.
He said the indictment was based only on two cash deposits, one of
$5,000 in August 2001 and $1,200 in January 2002.

`It is ludicrous to contend that in 1999 Mr Sevan disclosed
fictitious gifts from his aunt on his forms in anticipation of
misleading investigators eight years later,’ said Lewis.

`These same baseless allegations were made nearly two years ago,
while Mr Sevan still was working for the UN. No action was taken.
Instead the US government has waited nearly two years to issue a
ceremonial charge long after Mr Sevan’s retirement and return to his
home country. There is no doubt that there has been financial fraud
and ineptitude by the United States in Iraq on an unprecedented
scale, which has significantly contributed to the crisis in Iraq.’

Lewis said that instead of focusing on the `devastating wrongdoing’
in Iraq, the US government has chosen to focus instead on fully
disclosed family gifts from a deceased relative.

`Mr Sevan is being used to distract attention from the political and
humanitarian disaster in Iraq from which the world will not soon
recover,’ he added.

FILM ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SHOWN IN US CONGRESS

Yerevan, January 18. ArmInfo. A documentary film "Screamers", telling
about the Genocide of Armenians and other nations, as well as about
the activity of people who fight with such crimes against humanity,
about the activity of the "System of a Down" rock-group, in particular,
was demonstrated in the US Congress January 17.

As the deputy Director of "Linsi" Fund, the editor of
"California-courier " newspaper, Harut Sasounyan, told the Public TV
of Armenia, it has already been a month the picture is demonstrated
in different cinemas. The film has been demonstrated on the threshold
of submission of a draft resolution on the Armenian Genocide to the
Congress by a congressmen Adam Schiff.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DRAFT CIRCULATING THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON

Hurriyet, Turkey
Jan 17 2007

In the US this week, a new bill proposing official recognition of
the Armenian claims of genocide will begin to circulate in the House
of Representatives for approval. Democratic Congressmen Adam Schiff
and Frank Pallone, joined by Republican Congressmen George Radanovich
and Joe Knollenberg have prepared the drafted bill, and are expecting
that more than 150 members of the House of Representative will sign it.

In coming weeks, the House Committee of Foreign Relations is expected
to debate the proposed bill.

If accepted on the committee level, the draft will then be submitted
to the floor of the House of Representatives for general approval.

The powerful Armenian lobby is pushing to have a vote occur prior to
April 24, which they recognize as "Armenian Genocide Day."

Nancy Pelosi, the new Democratic Speaker of the House, has in the past
voiced her support for such a bill. Speaking in Ankara, US Ambassador
to Turkey, Ross Wilson, said "I cannot guess what the outcome will be,
but the President does not have the authority to block this bill."

ARMENIAN CULTURE MINISTER MAY VISIT TURKEY

Panorama.am
20:26 15/01/2007

"I am sure Hasmik Poghosyan will be invited to the opening of Aghtamar
Church," Kaan Soiak, Turkish businessman, told a press conference
today. Soiak is in Armenia to participate in a conference on the
economic and social effects of lifting the Turkish-Armenian border.

In his words, it is not easy to work in Turkey on lifting the border
although it is easier than a few years ago. "We do that for the sake
of our children," Soiak said saying he has two flags in his house –
Armenian and Turkish.

Despite of having an Armenian flag in his house, Soiak learned about
the Armenian genocide quite recently.

"Until recently, nothing was known about it in Turkey," he assured
also saying facts must be open for Turkish public without censorship.

ORDINARY BOY WHO CAME TO LIVE AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE

Sunday January 14th 2007

WHEN he was a teenage boy, David Beckham used to get his teenage kicks,
quite literally, from spraying 60-yard passes on the training ground.

But Eric Harrison, the youths coach at Old Trafford, was never
impressed. Harrison would come down on Beckham like a ton of bricks
for indulging in what he called "Hollywood passes".

When he moves to Los Angeles in August to avail of possibly the most
lucrative pension plan in sporting history, they will presumably be
happy to see him bend it like Beckham all day every day. Because if a
man can’t spray Hollywood passes in Hollywood, where can he do it? At
31 it seems that his journey has found its logical destination in
Los Angeles Galaxy, earning fantasy money in a phoney town with an
ersatz football club.

It is another amazing coup in a young life that has been packed with
these quantum leaps. And we all know enough about him by now to know
that, for him, it makes perfect sense. The move fits the man. Most
players, facing the twilight, accept the inevitability of the descent
to the small time after their turn at the top is done. But the one
player with a gift for reinvention like no other has pulled another
rabbit from the hat. Facing mid-table marginalisation in Spain or
England, he chose neither.

Long ago he chose to live a different life for himself than virtually
all of his peers in professional football. He took the flak for it,
the derision and the envy, and followed his own star. In so doing he
created the space for himself to be who he wanted to be – even if it
meant paying the price for not conforming.

In his autobiography My Side – a surprisingly good account of his
life – he explains that this attitude didn’t come with wealth or
fame; it was in his nature from the start. Even as a six-year-old
the vanity and narcissism was already evident. Invited to act as a
pageboy at a family wedding he chose an outfit that consisted of
"maroon knickerbockers, white stockings up to the knee, a frilly
white shirt, a white waistcoat and a pair of ballet shoes." His
parents warned him that people would laugh at him – he didn’t care.

"I’ve always had a streak in me," he said, "which might seem flash if
you don’t know me, of being particular about the things I want and of
valuing individuality, even if I get stick because of it . . . I’ve
got my own tastes and if I can indulge them I will, whatever other
people might say. I’ve always been the same: knowing what I like is
just part of who I am."

Not just knowing what he liked either, but what he wanted too. The
remarkable thing is that he got what he wanted – and he wasn’t aiming
low. His father was his first coach, a Manchester United fanatic and
the classic pushy parent who lived his dreams through his son. But
David was willing to be pushed. They would practise for hours together
every evening when his father came home from work. At the age of five
he was telling people he would one day play for United.

At the age of seven he was practising his free-kicks. Evenings,
weekends, holidays were all the same: father and son utterly dedicated
to coaching, training, improvement.

The boy was good, a natural talent, but the work ethic came naturally
to him too: "I was lucky that I had that drive from a really young
age. Knowing what I wanted in the future, what would have been the
point in messing about along the way?"

His first boys team was Ridgeway Rovers; he was picked for the district
team, then he was picked for Essex County team. It was a vertical
ascent. At 16 he joined United as a trainee. In 1993 he signed his
first professional contract. In ’94/’95 he broke into the first team.

Playing for United was the dream, not playing for England, but once he
became an international he wanted to captain his country – and he did.

He’s sitting in his hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia (or was it in
Yerevan, Armenia?), the night before a World Cup qualifier when
he sees the Spice Girls on television. He tells his roommate Gary
Neville that he’s smitten by Posh. "Gaz, I’ve got to meet her." He was
"absolutely certain that meeting Posh Spice was something that simply
had to happen."

Playing for Manchester United? Check. Captaining England? Check.

Hooking up with that singer from the biggest girl group on the
planet? Check.

Winning the World Cup? The European championships? A bridge too far.

He was never a great player; he played in three World Cups and two
European championships and every time his performance lagged well
behind his profile. Nor ultimately was he much of a team player
either. The one thing at which he was genuinely great, striking the
ball, was an outlet for his own glory as much as for the rest of
the team.

Beckham grew up convinced he was the special one

Perhaps it was because of the attention devoted to him by his parents
in childhood, growing up with the conviction that he was the special
one, despite having an older and younger sister, that prevented him
from ever fully submitting his ego to the service of the team. He
never understood the primacy of the team the way his contemporaries,
the likes of Neville, Scholes and Giggs did. And no matter how often
his limitations were exposed at the highest level, did he ever seem
to question the gulf between his ability and his celebrity.

The likes of Pele, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan became bigger than
their sports because of pure stratospheric talent. Beckham became
bigger than his for a host of reasons, only one of which was his
talent with a ball.

Still, he changed his sport and, along the way, became some sort of
symbol for the zeitgeist of his day.

The first time he visited America was with the Essex schoolboys team.

He stayed with a Mexican family, in a house that was "just a couple
of steps up from being a shack." They would get in the family pickup
every morning and drive down to McDonald’s for breakfast.

He was an ordinary boy then. If he walked back into their house
now, they could be forgiven for thinking he had just come down from
another planet.

RUSSIA STILL ARMENIA’S MAJOR TRADE AND ECONOMIC PARTNER

Arka News Agency, Armenia
Jan 9 2007

YEREVAN, January 9. /ARKA – Novosti-Armenia/. Russia remains Armenia’s
major trade and economic partner of Armenia.

According to the 2006 annual report of Armenia’s Minister of Foreign
Affairs Vardan Oskanyan, Armenian-Russian commodity turnover totaled
$376.9mln in January-November 2006 ($300mln in 2005).

The modernization of the "ARMENAL" plant (completed in 2006) was one
of the major projects in the bilateral cooperation, says the report.

The ARMENAL CJSC joint venture was founded in 2000 on the basis of
the Kanaker Aluminum plant (KanAZ) with participation of the "Ruskiy
Aluminum" Company (RUSAL) and "KanAZ" OJSC.

Since January 2003, RUSAL has held 100% of ARMENAL shares.

The "RUSAL ARMENAL" foil-rolling plant was re-operated on October 26,
2006, after two-year-long and $70mln worth modernization. The factory
currently produces 25,000 tons of foil every year.

Jan/Feb 2007 issue #60 of Hope Dance: Radical Solutions Inspiring Hope
(hopedance.org)

Endgame Vol I: The Problem of Civilization
Endgame Vol II: Resistance

By Derrick Jensen (Seven Stories Press)
`The world will be saved, if it can be, only by the unsubmissive.’
-André Gide, as quoted in Endgame

In "Endgame," Derrick Jensen describes how the End Times may very well
occur on earth as a consequence of excessive appropriation,
extraction, misuse and damage upon life, land and the ecosystem. As
oil companies justify exhausting our natural resources by touting the
resilience of Mother Earth as `a tough old gal,’ the discerning, such
as Jensen, recognize that resource depletion is irreversible. In this
book, the environmental activist, teacher, farmer and author of the
acclaimed "A Language Older than Words" and "The Culture of Make
Believe" urgently calls upon people of conscience to dismantle
industrialized civilization-and eradicate an inequitable, toxic and
unsustainable society until now maintained by violence, hypocrisy,
occupation, and exploitation -if we are to avert what some say is the
inevitable Apocalypse.

Conjuring vivid imagery with passionate prose, Jensen gives us a
glimpse of what is at stake when governmental and corporate entities
behave no differently than sociopaths. Jensen (who himself survived
brutality and rape at the hands of his father) adroitly draws
connections between marauders, tyrannical regimes and domestic
abusers. We must hold abusers accountable-whether for ravaging the
environment or humanity. Since those who render assaults upon
civilization will likely not reform voluntarily, Jensen proposes that
we use any means at our disposal to confront those who are `destroying
the natural world, eliminating indigenous cultures, exploiting the
poor, and killing those who resist.’ In response to pacifists who
maintain that violence doesn’t accomplish anything, Jensen points to
interlopers who have profited handsomely to demonstrate the
indisputable gains that violence engenders. He advocates that the
concerned, powerless, outraged or ill-treated among us fight fire with
fire when confronting dubious logging companies, dam builders,
slaughterhouses, and arrogant appropriators and wage an armed
struggle, if necessary. As such, "Endgame" has the ability to both
empower and repel survivors of all stripes who have long struggled
with the knowledge that, like the disappearing salmon Jensen tells us
just might not regenerate, some of those who are violated develop the
resilience necessary to fight back, while others never recoverto
acquire a fighter’s attitude.

Endgame is predicated upon 20 distasteful but all-too-true-premises
that humanity lives by, all which give insight into the subjective
justification applied by ruling elites. Would-be Endgame readers
involved in corporate or colonial enterprises likely wouldn’t
recognize themselves in thesepages, but may more readily see
themselves as enlightened educators, pioneers, liberators,
missionaries, capitalists, asylum or fortune seekers, or even
Darwinians. Does the woman who commands that chainsaw-wielding
landscapers destroy trees as old as the hills (because the foliage
compromises the view from her kitchen window) merit having her way
because accepted standards of land ownership give her the authority to
do so? If consumption is regulated and eco-villages instituted before
necessity imposes it, will that erode our constitutional rights? Does
the Holocaust entitle Zionists to perpetrate genocide againstthe
Palestinian people and seize land bases in the name of self-defense
and self-actualization? If we defend the earth from toxic human
influences by eliminating those elements that imperil life and nature
when are we entitled to do so, and in which cases might we ourselves
be committing genocide? Using reasoning, allegory and analogy,
Jensen’s writings elicit moral dilemmas and in so doing, show how our
own truths can be uniquely personal.

Although the sort of resistance the author proposes may be shocking to
the average person, those who have wrestled with the same problems
Jensen has taken on in Endgame will understand the feelings of
desperation that provoke the tormented to rise up to injustice. While
we can surmise that there are security issues that prohibit too much
disclosure in "Endgame," and the author does cite what other activists
have done, Jensen does not spell out where and when violence would be
appropriate or indicated, leaving that up to the reader.

The author also acknowledges that he, justifiably, does not have the
stomach to inflict violence. The question remains whether Jensen can
convince countless wounded others who, with histories and reasons akin
to his own, are just as loath to commit atrocity or destruction.

Jensen opens our minds to different ways of seeing, perceiving,
weighing and considering. His ideas are inspirational, and even
present paradoxes that can avert us from thinking in absolutes. The
author stops short of providing road maps on how to grapple with the
End Times, urging us to consult the myriad ways in which the earth
continuously flourished prior to the Industrial Revolution. Unlike
manuals such as IntheWake.org, "Endgame" is not the resource for those
seeking practical guidance on how the energy descent will occur, or
how to (hopefully) outlive the crash of modern civilization. But if
you are looking for provocative, sentient discussions about how and
why it is our responsibility to preserve planet earth and the marvels
it contains, then "Endgame" is for you.

– Lucine Kasbarian’s ancestors were forcibly driven from Eastern
Anatolia during the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians. She studies and
practices indigenous traditions that face obliteration, and is the
author of "Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People" (Dillon Press/
Simon & Schuster).

# # #

NEW GOLDEN COMMEMORATIVE COIN PUT IN CIRCULATION IN ARMENIA IN HONOR OF VICTORY OF ARMENIAN CHESS PLAYERS

Arka News Agency, Armenia
Dec 26 2006

YEREVAN, December 26. /ARKA/. On December 25, the Central Bank of
Armenia (CBA) put in circulation a commemorative golden coin, in
honor of the victory of Armenian chess players at the 37th World
Chess Olympiad.

The nominal price of the coin amounts to AMD 10000, Press-Service of
the Bank reports. The coin is made of 9000 standard gold, with 22 mm
diameter and 8,6 g weight.

Along the edges of the coin can be read names of the chess players
representing Armenian team at the Olympiad – A. Minasyan, L. Aronyan,
V. Akobyan, K. Asryan, G. Sharkisyan, S. Lputyan. Contour of the coin
was modeled by Eudard Kurginyan. The coins were made ion Czechia.

STATEMENT: POLICY PURSUED BY GEORGIA CONTRADICTS LOGIC OF POLITICAL PROCESS IN SOUTH CAUCASUS

Regnum, Russia
Dec 25 2006

On December 25, a round-table discussion was held in Yerevan, Armenia,
under the title "Georgia’s Policy and regional safety" organized by
Mitk Analytical Center. The panel adopted a statement on results of
the discussion. REGNUM publishes its full text.

"Participants of the round-table discussion, considering the situation
in South Caucasus as extremely unstable and explosive, taking into
account the long lasting ethnical political conflicts in the region,
realizing the responsibility of the countries of the region and their
leaders, and also participants of regional process in the person
of world powers, recognizing the inalienable right of a nation for
peaceful and creative development, and also for a free choice of their
historical fate, have to announce that the policy pursued by current
Georgian authorities contradicts logic of the international political
process in South Caucasus, historical trends in the region; creates
an atmosphere of confrontation and threat to the balance of forces
in region; contradicts interests of Armenia, creating insurmountable
difficulties in development of natural economical, communicational and
humanitarian relations with their strategic partner Russia; damages
the traditionally good neighborly relations between the nations of
Armenia and Georgia; undermines the rights and freedoms of Armenians
and other national minorities living in the territory of Georgia,
creating an atmosphere of intolerance inside Georgia itself and in
relations with neighboring countries.

The participants of the round table discussion are calling upon
exerting pressure upon President M. Saakashvili and other Georgian
leaders so that they could take a sober view of the situation in their
country and in the region in general; build relations with Armenia on
the basis of good neighborhood and mutual benefit; pursue a policy not
contradicting national interests of other peoples and the countries in
the region; demonstrate tolerance and respect to rights and freedoms of
all people living in Georgia, providing implementation of international
norms and requirements on protection of rights of national minorities."

AZERI SOLDIER YIELDED PRISONER TO ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES

PanARMENIAN.Net
25.12.2006 17:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ December 24 at about 2.10 p.m. local time 19-year-old
Azeri soldier Samid Mamedov yielded himself prisoner to the Armenian
armed forces in Ijevan. As RA Defense Minister’s Spokesman, Colonel
Seyran Shahsuvaryan told PanARMENIAN.Net, the Azeri soldier had
neither weapons nor ammunition about him.

Samid Mamedov said he was constantly humiliated and beaten by the
officers. Mamedov, who was drafted from Akstafa’s military registration
office, has served for a year. Investigation is carried out.