CHAIRMAN OF RAPA HAROUTYUN ARAQELYAN ATTACKED
A1+
[07:40 pm] 07 December, 2006
According to the statement made by the Ramkavar-Azatakan party of
Armenia, on December 7 at 05:20 p.m. two unknown people attacked
chairman of RAPA Haroutyun Araqelyan on Yervand Kochar street.
According to eyewitnesses, the criminals walked in the area around
the RAPA main office for several hours and ran away in a black BMW.
No details are reported.
LES DEUX AUTEURS DU VOL D’UN MONUMENT SUR LE GENOCIDE ARMENIEN INTERPELLES
Agence France Presse
5 decembre 2006 mardi 10:54 AM GMT
Les deux auteurs presumes du vol d’un monument de bronze dedie aux
rescapes du genocide armenien a Chaville (Hauts-de-Seine), dans la
nuit de 13 au 14 octobre dernier, ont ete interpelles ce week-end,
a indique la police mardi.
Selon elle, il s’agit de "classiques voleurs de metaux" et la "piste
politique" a ete ecartee par les enqueteurs de la police judiciaire
des hauts-de-Seine (SDPJ).
Les deux suspects, âges de 26 et 29 ans, ont ete arretes samedi a
Issy-les-Moulineaux, dans le meme departement, après un vol de tuyaux
de cuivre.
Le SDPJ a alors fait un rapprochement avec le vol du monument, selon
la source.
La sculpture de Chaville, representant l’alphabet armenien, coulee
dans 300 kilos de bronze, avait ete dessoudee et subtilisee deux
jours après le vote a l’Assemblee nationale d’une proposition de loi
penalisant la negation du genocide armenien.
Le monument, d’une valeur de 50.000 euros selon la municipalite,
avait ete offert en 2002 a la ville par la communaute armenienne en
memoire des rescapes du genocide armenien.
Depuis le mois de juin, plusieurs vols de metaux ont ete enregistres
sur le departement, selon la police. Les vols de metaux en France
sont en forte hausse depuis l’explosion du coût des matières premières.
Les deux suspects ont ete deferes devant la justice a l’issue de leur
garde a vue au SDPJ, a precise la source.
–Boundary_(ID_2zTsHEGGuvCCDZ+r/WBd7w)–
PRICES FOR ELECTRIC POWER FOR END USERS NOT TO RISE IN ARMENIA IN NEAR FUTURE
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Dec 4 2006
YEREVAN, December 4. /ARKA/. Prices for electric power for end
users will not change in Armenia in the near future, Chairman of the
Commission for Regulation of Public Services (CRPS) Robert Kocharyan
told reporters Wednesday.
He pointed out that seven large companies work on the electric power
market of Armenia today. Their prices will be subject to certain
changes due to the AMD-USD exchange rate fluctuations.
At the same time, Nazaryan said that the price for electric power
for end users will not change (AMD 25 during the daylight and AMD 15
at nighttime).
The CRPS examined the prices for services in the sector of electric
power at the sitting on December 1, 2006. According to the CRPS’s
draft decision, it is planned to raise the price for the output power
and the monthly rate for generating capacity for a number of Armenian
power plants.
DAVID BABAYAN: THE OPTIMISM OF THE AZERI PRESIDENT IS PREMATURE
ArmRadio.am
02.12.2006 13:49
The optimism of the Azeri President regarding the process of settlement
of the Karabakh issue can be considered premature, says political
scientist from Nagorno Karabakh David Babayan.
David Babayan told ArmInfo correspondent in Stepanakert that the
subjects involved in the Karabakh process can be divided into several
categories. These are policy implementers, policy makers and those
who form the public opinion.
The main emphasis is put on the people of the first and second
categories, while those forming the public opinion do not enjoy
proper attention.
Particularly the question refers to diverse public and non-governmental
organizations. "We anticipate that policy makers will manage to
form public opinion without immediate work with the society. If
such logic is more or less acceptable for Azerbaijan, considering
its authoritarian system and the fact that only 10 percent of the
country’s population is somehow involved in the Karabakh conflict,
then unlike Azerbaijan the whole population of Nagorno Karabakh has
to do with the conflict. And this fact speaks for itself. Besides, the
settlement of this conflict is simply impossible, unless Stepanakert is
presented at the process," the political scientist noted, underlining
that without immediate work with the public an effective mechanism
of settlement cannot be elaborated.
TURKEY HAS NO PLACE IN EUROPEAN UNION
PanARMENIAN.Net
01.12.2006 17:06 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey has no place in the European Union, said
French presidential contender, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. He
offers to fully stop Turkey’s EU membership talks. "This is not a
topic for discussion. Turkey has no place in the EU. It’s impossible,"
Sarkozy said.
The Minister also proposed privileged partnership instead of full
membership and called on Segolene Royal to express opinion on the
issue. " I would like Ms Royal to express opinion. I am convinced
that she has her own standpoint on the issue," he said, reports RFE/RL.
Spero News
Dec 1 2006
Pope’s homily at Cathedral of the Holy Spirit
It impels us, as disciples of Christ advancing with our hesitations
and limitations along the path to unity, to act ceaselessly ‘for the
good of all’, putting ecumenism at the forefront of our ecclesial
concerns
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
At the conclusion of my pastoral visit to Turkey, I have the joy of
meeting the Catholic community of Istanbul and celebrating the
Eucharist in thanksgiving to the Lord for all his gifts. I wish first
to greet the Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew I,
and the Armenian Patriarch, His Beatitude Mesrob II, my venerable
brothers, who have graciously joined us for this celebration. I
express to them my deep gratitude for this fraternal gesture, which
honours the entire Catholic community.
Dear brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church, Bishops, priests
and deacons, religious and lay men and women belonging to the
different communities of the city and the various rites of the
Church: I greet all of you with joy in the words of Saint Paul to the
Galatians: `Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ!’ (Gal 1:3).
I thank the civil authorities present for their gracious welcome, and
particularly all who made it possible for my visit to take place.
Finally, I greet the representatives of the other ecclesial
communities and the other religions who are present.
How can we fail to think of the various events which took place here
and forged our common history? At the same time I feel obliged to
recall with particular gratitude the many witnesses of the Gospel of
Christ who urge us to work together for the unity of all his
disciples in truth and charity!
In this Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, I wish to thank God for all his
works in human history and to invoke upon everyone the gifts of the
Spirit of holiness. As Saint Paul has just reminded us, the Spirit is
the enduring source of our faith and unity. He awakens within us true
knowledge of Jesus and he puts on our lips the words of faith that
enable us to acknowledge the Lord. Jesus had already said to Peter
after his confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi: `Blessed are you,
Simon, Son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to
you, but my Father in heaven’ (Mt 16:17). We are indeed blessed when
the Holy Spirit opens us to the joy of believing and makes us enter
the great family of Christians, his Church. For all her rich
diversity, in the variety of gifts, ministries and works, the Church
is already one, since `it is the same God who inspires them all in
every one’. Paul adds that: `to each is given the manifestation of
the Spirit for the common good’. To manifest the Spirit, to live by
the Spirit, is not to live for oneself alone, but to let oneself be
conformed to Christ Jesus by becoming, like him, the servant of his
brothers and sisters. Here is a very concrete teaching for each of us
Bishops, called by the Lord to guide his people by becoming servants
like him; it is also true for all the Lord’s ministers and for all
the faithful: when we received the sacrament of Baptism, all of us
were immersed in the Lord’s death and resurrection, `we were given to
drink of the one Spirit’ and Christ’s life became our own, that we
might live like him, that we might love our brothers and sisters as
he has loved us (cf. Jn 13:34).
Twenty-six years ago, in this very Cathedral, my predecessor, the
Servant of God John Paul II, expressed his hope that the dawn of the
new millennium would `rise upon a Church that has found again her
full unity, in order to bear witness better, amid the exacerbated
tensions of this world, to God’s transcendent love, manifested in his
Son Jesus Christ’ (Homily in the Cathedral of Istanbul, 5). This hope
has not yet been realized, but the Pope still longs to see it
fulfilled, and it impels us, as disciples of Christ advancing with
our hesitations and limitations along the path to unity, to act
ceaselessly `for the good of all’, putting ecumenism at the forefront
of our ecclesial concerns, and not committing our respective Churches
and communities to decisions which could contradict or harm it. Thus
we will truly live by the Spirit of Jesus, at the service of the
common good. Gathered this morning in this house of prayer
consecrated to the Lord, how can we not evoke the other fine image
that Saint Paul uses in speaking of the Church, the image of the
building whose stones are closely fitted together to form a single
structure, and whose cornerstone, on which everything else rests, is
Christ? He is the source of the new life given us by the Father in
the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of Saint John has just proclaimed it:
`out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. This gushing
water, this living water which Jesus promised to the Samaritan woman,
was seen by the prophets Zechariah and Ezechiel issuing forth from
the side of the Temple, so that it could make fruitful the waters of
the Dead Sea: a marvellous image of the promise of life that God has
always made to his people and that Jesus came to fulfil.
In a world where men are so loath to share the earth’s goods and
there is a dramatic shortage of water, this good so precious for the
life of the body, the Church discovers that she possesses an even
greater treasure. As the Body of Christ, she has been charged to
proclaim his Gospel to the ends of the earth (cf. Mt 28:19),
transmitting to the men and women of our time the Good News which not
only illuminates but overturns their lives, even to the point of
conquering death itself.
This Good News is not just a word, but a person, Christ himself,
risen and alive! By the grace of the sacraments, the water flowing
from his open side on the Cross has become an overflowing spring,
`rivers of living water’, a flood that no one can halt, a gift that
restores life. How could Christians keep for themselves alone what
they have received? How could they hoard this treasure and bury this
spring? The Church’s mission is not to preserve power, or to gain
wealth; her mission is to offer Christ, to give a share in Christ’s
own life, man’s most precious good, which God himself gives us in his
Son. Brothers and Sisters, your communities walk the humble path of
daily companionship with those who do not share our faith, yet
`profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us adore the
one, merciful God’ (Lumen Gentium, 16). You know well that the Church
wishes to impose nothing on anyone, and that she merely asks to live
in freedom, in order to reveal the One whom she cannot hide, Christ
Jesus, who loved us to the end on the Cross and who has given us his
Spirit, the living presence of God among us and deep within us. Be
ever receptive to the Spirit of Christ and so become attentive to
those who thirst for justice, peace, dignity and respect for
themselves and for their brothers and sisters. Live in harmony, in
accordance with the words of the Lord: `By this everyone will know
that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’ (Jn
13:35).
Brothers and sisters, let us now hand over our desire to serve the
Lord to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Servant of the Lord. She
prayed in company with the Apostles in the Upper Room, in the days
leading up to Pentecost. Together with her, let us pray to Christ her
Son: Send forth, O Lord, your Holy Spirit upon the whole Church, that
he may dwell in each of her members and make them heralds of your
Gospel! Amen.
Pope Benedict XVI
Category=33&idsub=128&id=6857&t=Pope’s +homily+at+Cathedral+of+the+Holy+Spirit
LE CHANT DE RUBEN MELIK
Nicolas Devers-Dreyfus
L’Humanite, France
30 novembre 2006
Sous les ors des salons de l’Hôtel de Ville, Paris rendait recemment
hommage a Ruben Melik, poète et resistant. Ruben, dont Joë Bousquet
soulignait dès 1946 qu’il " reussit la grande strophe en alexandrins
sans epouser les rythmes qui nous ont lasses d’elle ", entoure de
ses deux filles, de sa famille et de nombre de ses amis en poesie,
en militance (*), recevait la medaille de vermeil de la Ville de
Paris des mains de Nicole Borvo, conseillère de Paris, senatrice, et
de Jean Vuillermoz, president du groupe communiste au Conseil de Paris.
La ceremonie fut emouvante, simple et fraternelle. Elle avait lieu,
heureuse coïncidence, le lendemain de son quatre-vingt-cinquième
anniversaire. Les orateurs, et notamment Michel Kachkachian, dirigeant
des Armeniens progressistes, celebrèrent le resistant parisien, elève
de Jacques Decour au lycee Rollin, entre dans la lutte patriotique,
baptise du pseudo de Musset par Louise Aslanian, du groupe Manouchian,
resistante intrepide morte en deportation.
Ruben Melik, aujourd’hui dernier survivant du Comite de liberation du
18e arrondissement de la capitale ; Ruben, qui joua un rôle eminent a
la direction de la Jeunesse armenienne unifiee ; Ruben, jeune dirigeant
communiste impregne de la dimension profondement humaniste de l’Eglise
armenienne, la plus ancienne Eglise chretienne du monde, comme il
se plut a le souligner dans son propos conclusif, Eglise dont les
dignitaires ont tenu a participer par leur presence a l’hommage rendu.
Retenons, parmi les paroles enoncees, le message de Pierre Gamarra,
vieil ami du temps des Editeurs francais reunis : " Ta poesie est
de celle qui parle et qui chante ", et le beau discours de Charles
Dobzynski, qui sut exprimer la dualite du poète, tout a la fois enfant
d’une ville et d’un peuple deracine : Ruben Melik, " patriarche et
enfant, parce que, l’âge venu, on regarde sa vie depuis le sommet
atteint " ; enfant enracine dans la ville où il est ne et dont il "
a participe aux rangs souterrains de la Resistance ", mais " enfant
inseparablement d’un peuple d’exiles ", " heritier d’une memoire
armenienne dont il n’a jamais cesse d’etre l’intercesseur ".
Ainsi dans le Veilleur de pierre : Rouben je viens, mon nom le dit,
des autres zones, Je viens de l’âge haut et clair, Dans la bouche le
goût des citrons et des chairs Que brûlèrent les amazones.
Qui, mieux que Charles Dobzynski, poète editeur de l’Anthologie
de la poesie yiddish, pouvait illustrer la complexite d’une
identite partagee, la passion et le tourment de Ruben, concepteur
de l’Anthologie armenienne, temoignant d une commune volonte
d’immortaliser le tresor poetique de deux peuples victimes du
genocide ?
Fort heureusement, le sentiment tragique qui habite l’oeuvre de
Ruben Melik ne resume pas son chant. Comme l’avait percu Hubert
Juin en 1976 dans le Magazine litteraire, " Les mots viennent, ici
dans les strophes douces-amères, mais ouvertes, prometteuses, d’un
avenir temoignant pour un passe qui est a hauteur d’hommes, et de
mains d’hommes, s’inscrire dans une justesse musicale parfaite… "
Celebrant le poète, Paris se souvient de ce qu’il doit dans les luttes
comme dans les lettres, a ses enfants venus d’Armenie.
(*) Parmi les participants, Guy Ducolone, Leo Figuères, Jean Magniadas,
les amis poètes Marie-Claire Bancquart et Jacques Gaucheron, Arsène
Tchakarian et Henri Karayan, anciens du groupe Manouchian, de nombreux
animateurs-trices des associations armeniennes.
–Boundary_(ID_g+m16TpDKLvW9cMslLkSO A)–
ERDOGAN DENOUNCES EUROCOMMISSION DECISION TO CEASE TALKS WITH TURKEY
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.11.2006 13:13 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that he
denounces the EU decision to temporarily cease talks with Turkey on
EU accession.
"The Eurocommission decision is unacceptable to us," the Turkish PM
said. Due to that decision Erdogan even canceled his news conference
at the NATO summit. The Eurocommission has recommended that EU member
states partially interrupt talks with Turkey in response to Ankara
refusal to open its ports for Cyprus ships. 8 items out of 35 are
the point. They refer to limitations Turkey has introduced against
the Republic of Cyprus, reports Vek.
ARMENIAN, AZERI PRESIDENTS REKINDLE HOPES FOR KARABAKH PEACE
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Nov 30 2006
President Robert Kocharian The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
have produced a new glimmer of hope for a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict following their third face-to-face meeting in less than
a year. Robert Kocharian and Ilham Aliyev have indicated that they
made further progress towards a mutually acceptable settlement during
their talks held on the sidelines of a Commonwealth of Independent
States summit in Minsk on November 28. It is not yet clear, however,
whether they are seeking to sign any peace accords before next spring’s
Armenian parliamentary elections, or the presidential elections due
in both South Caucasus states in 2008.
The latest Armenian-Azerbaijani summit was widely seen as the last
opportunity to achieve a breakthrough in the protracted search
for Karabakh peace before those polls. The fact that it started in
the presence of the foreign ministers of Russia and Belgium, which
currently holds the OSCE’s rotating presidency, only underlined its
importance for the international community. Aliyev and Kocharian
reportedly continued the discussion in a tete-a-tete format for
about two hours before flying home without making any statements
in the Belarusian capital. The U.S., French and Russian diplomats
co-chairing the OSCE’s Minsk Group on Karabakh, who arranged the
encounter, likewise declined comment.
Aliyev’s subsequent assessment of the talks was particularly
positive. "I can say that we are already approaching the final phase
of negotiations," he told state television in Baku, in remarks cited
by Azerbaijani newspapers on November 30. Significantly, Aliyev stated
that he and his Armenian counterpart reached agreement on a number of
unspecified sticking points that had prevented a breakthrough in their
two previous meetings held in February and June. He did not elaborate.
Kocharian also expressed, through his Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian, his satisfaction with the results of the negotiations. "I
cannot say concretely whether progress was made or not, but both
presidents assessed the meeting as positive in terms of atmosphere
and constructive approaches," Oskanian told journalists in Yerevan.
"I think that the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents will analyze
everything in detail within a few days and give precise instructions
to the foreign ministers about their future work," he added.
The Aliyev-Kocharian talks were preceded (and made possible) by a
flurry of diplomatic activity by the Minsk Group co-chairs, Oskanian,
and his Azerbaijani opposite number Elmar Mammadyarov. The two foreign
ministers met for three times in less than a month, most recently in
Brussels on November 14. The meetings focused on what the mediators
have described as "complementary elements" to their existing Karabakh
peace plan that were put forward following the failure of the previous
Armenian-Azerbaijani summits. Neither the co-chairs nor the conflicting
parties have disclosed those elements so far.
The parties, meanwhile, continue to make differing interpretations
of a key point of the Minsk Group plan: a referendum in Karabakh that
would determine the disputed region’s future status. Official Yerevan
insists that the territory’s predominantly ethnic Armenian population
would be able to decide whether it wants to be independent, become
a part of Armenia or return under Azerbaijani rule. The Karabakh
Armenians would almost certainly reject the latter option.
Azerbaijani leaders, for their part, say that the proposed referendum
should only determine the extent of Karabakh’s future autonomy within
Azerbaijan. In his latest televised remarks, Aliyev reiterated that
Baku would only agree to give Karabakh a "maximum degree of self-rule,"
something that is a non-starter for the Armenian side.
Even assuming that the two sides have managed to find common ground
on their main bone of contention, they will not necessarily rush to
announce any agreements in the coming months. In particular, Armenia’s
government and its political allies have already started preparations
for the 2007 parliamentary elections and will hardly be willing to
let the domestic opposition exploit unpopular Armenian concessions
to Azerbaijan. Those include liberation of at least six of the seven
Azerbaijani districts surrounding Karabakh that were fully or partly
occupied by Armenian forces during their 1991-94 war.
(The scale and timetable of the Armenian troop withdrawal has been
another contentious issue.) Oskanian implied that the signing of
any Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements before the upcoming polls is
not in the offing. Still, he insisted that the election period "will
not interrupt" the peace process, disagreeing with the widely held
belief that failure to cut a framework peace deal now would keep the
conflict unresolved at least until 2009.
The Minsk Group’s U.S. co-chair, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Matthew Bryza, likewise claimed in July that the Armenian and
Azerbaijani elections are not an insurmountable obstacle to Karabakh
peace. "If they come up with an agreement that’s mutually acceptable,
that should be a plus in an election," he said, referring to Aliyev
and Kocharian. "That’s a huge achievement that should actually help
political leaders and their parties to win votes."
Some analysts interpreted the remarks as a sign that the West, and
the United States in particular, will let the ruling regimes in Baku
and Yerevan get away with fresh vote rigging and cling to power if
they embrace the proposed peace formula. Peter Semneby, the European
Union’s special representative to the South Caucasus who accused the
two governments of "playing for time," seriously questioned their
commitment to mutual compromise on October 5. According to Semneby,
Azerbaijan is trying to use its soaring oil revenues to change the
balance of forces in its favor, while Armenia hopes that the Karabakh
status quo will "cement itself" in the coming years.
(Zerkalo, November 30; Aravot, November 30; Armenian Public Television,
November 29; RFE/RL Armenia Report, October 5; Interview with Matthew
Bryza, July 29)
ARMENIA’S IT MONTH OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 29 2006
The USAID-funded Competitive Armenian Private Sector Project (CAPS)
co-sponsored Armenia’s first ever Armenian information technology
(IT) Month in September and October. The IT cluster, the Government
of Armenia and a group of sponsors united to organize a series of
events with thousands of participants from Armenia and more than 30
other countries. The purpose was to present the Armenian IT cluster’s
increasing international competitiveness, and to encourage continued
foreign investment into Armenia while also seeking opportunities for
local companies to enter the global marketplace.
Republic of Armenia Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan had proclaimed
IT Month as a logical "next step" toward continued development of
Armenia’s flag-bearing industry at home and abroad.
IT Month was a precedent-setting achievement both nationally and
regionally. The sheer scope of the huge undertaking was extremely
impressive. Thousands of people participated in events ranging from a
national microelectronics Olympiad, E-content contest, to international
conferences, exhibitions, and a global summit. The month of activities
clearly demonstrated the depth, breadth, dynamism and cooperation
of Armenia’s IT cluster. IT Month participants were comprised of
a wide spectrum of IT and IT-related companies and organizations,
universities, government, donors, NGOs and individuals representing
many countries. Participating Armenian companies were of all sizes,
and events were held in all regions of the country.
The Enterprise Incubation Foundation organized the Armenian Open
Programming Contest, which attracted 355 programmers from Yerevan
and the regions. More than 15,000 visitors attended the Digitec 2006
exhibition, which also included Internet search contests, DigiLife
seminars and the "Technologies of the Future Today" international
conference.
Eighty people from 30 countries, plus about 300 more from within
Armenia attended the Global E-Content Summit in Yerevan. Thanks to
impressive victories won last year by Armenian specialists at the
World Summit Award Contest, it became possible for Armenia to host
this large-scale 2006 gathering.
The quality and number of participants was exceptional for the second
All-Armenia E-Content Award Contest. Winners were given cash prizes,
along with the opportunity to participate in the World Summit
Award 2007 Contest and perhaps further enhance Armenia’s winning
IT tradition.