Author: Zaminian Bedik

Armenian PM raps rivals ahead of election

Sun Feb 17, 2008 10:00am EST
By Margarita Antidze

YEREVAN, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan
appeared confident of victory in a Feb. 19 presidential election,
telling tens of thousands of his supporters on Sunday his rivals were
unable to deliver on their campaign pledges.

The 53-year-old premier is supported by President Robert Kocharyan.
Both are credited with ensuring fast economic growth and raising living
standards in the tiny Caucasus nation, which has tense relations with
neighbouring Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Opinion polls give Sarksyan more than 50 percent of voter support, and
he has said he hopes to win outright in Tuesday’s first round of the
election.

"We are the only force able to make good on the promises given during
the election campaign," Sarksyan told a rally of around 40,000 of his
supporters in Freedom Square in the centre of Armenia’s capital Yerevan.

"The opposition cannot do the same. You can’t rely upon these people,"
he said to the enthusiastic crowd of supporters, many waving Armenia’s
blue-orange-red tricolor flags.

Chanting "Victory!", the rally later marched to a cathedral along a
central avenue.

Sarksyan’s two rivals — former speaker of parliament Artur
Baghdasaryan and previous President Levon Ter-Petrosyan who was forced
to resign in 1998 — have failed to forge a last-minute alliance,
boosting the premier’s chances to win.

Earlier this month Ter-Petrosyan complained to Armenia’s Constitutional
Court that officials were causing "insurmountable obstacles" for his
campaign. He said he was being denied equal access to the television
airwaves.

Baghdasaryan’s Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) party was trounced by
Sarksyan’s Republican party in parliamentary elections last May, seen
as a rehearsal for Tuesday’s vote.

If he is elected president, Sarksyan will have to deal with the
unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of oil-producing
Azerbaijan whose ethnic Armenian population broke away in a 1990s war.

The independence of Serbia’s province of Kosovo could strengthen a bid
by Armenian-backed Nagorno-Karabakh to be recognised as a state,
Sarksyan told Reuters in an interview.

Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey are fraught, in part
because it refuses to recognise as genocide the killings of ethnic
Armenians by Ottoman Turkey.

Sarksyan has promised to reduce the proportion of the population living
in poverty to 10 percent from today’s 25 percent during his five-year
term, to bolster economic reforms and to create new jobs. (Writing by
Dmitry Solovyov; editing by Andrew Roche)

AZG Armenian Daily #030, 16/02/2008

Culture

ART EXHIBITION IN GREECE

On February 11, the opening of five artists’ works
exhibition took place in the Armenian Embassy of
Greece.

The exhibition, organized by RA Embassy, involved the
works of five artists that represent different
cultures – Gagik Altunian (Armenia), Yanis Adamakis
(Greece), Aleksey Kirilov (Russia), Valeri Bregen
(France) and Draklis Parkharidis (Pontus, Greece).

In his welcome speech RA Ambassador to Greece Varsham
Kadzoyan highly appreciated the art of the artists
attaching great importance to the joint exhibition of
five artists of different styles and different
cultures. Representatives of Greek authorities and
Armenian priesthood, accredited Ambassadors to Greece
participated in the event.

Translated by L.H.

Russia issues warning over breakaway states

The Times/UK
February 16, 2008

Michael Evans, Defence Editor, and Tony Halpin in Moscow

Kosovo’s imminent unilateral declaration of independence is set to
drive deep divisions in the international community, with Russia and
the European Union at loggerheads over the planned breakaway from
Belgrade

Even within the EU, which will help the former Yugoslav province to
implement its plans to become a separate sovereign state, three members
are expected to reject formal recognition of the new-look Kosovo, and
others will bide their time before coming to a decision.

Russia warned the West today that recognition of Kosovo’s independence
would affect its attitude towards two breakaway regions of neighbouring
Georgia.

The Foreign Ministry in Moscow stopped short of saying that Russia
would recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which declared independence
from Georgia in the early 1990s in wars that followed the collapse of
the Soviet Union.

But it said: `The declaration and recognition of the independence of
Kosovo will doubtless have to be taken into account as far as the
situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is concerned.’

Kosovo will make its declaration on Sunday and the following day, David
Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, will announce Britain’s immediate
recognition of the new state by exchanging letters with his counterpart
in the former Yugoslav province. The United States will also
immediately recognise Kosovo.

Mr Miliband will make Britain’s position clear after a meeting of the
EU General Affairs Council on Monday. The three EU states expected to
reject recognition of Kosovo are: Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania. France,
Germany, Italy and possibly Poland are expected to join Britain with
instant recognition, but others, including Spain, Greece and The
Netherlands, are likely to delay a decision. The Dutch say they have to
get approval from their parliament.

Inside Kosovo itself, the momentous decision is not expected to lead to
violence and bloodshed between the majority ethnic Albanians and
minority Serbs. Diplomatic sources said that the Serbs who lived in
communities in the north, close to the border with Serbia, were the
most likely to voice their anger at Sunday’s announcement in Pristina,
the Kosovan capital.

However, Belgrade has pledged that it is not planning any form of
military action – nor will it end diplomatic relations with Britain or
any other countries which recognise the breakaway republic – and any
public opposition by the Serbs in the north will be tempered by the
presence of 15,000 Nato troops which are still on duty in Kosovo.

The Russians are expected to demand an emergency meeting of the United
Nations Security Council after Kosovo’s declaration. President Putin
has already warned the West that Moscow had plans ready for when Kosovo
declared independence.

The Russian foreign ministry said that Western recognition of Kosovo
`presupposes a revision of commonly accepted norms and principles of
international law’.

Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia would almost
certainly trigger a war with Georgia, which insists that they are part
of its territory. Formally, Russia supports Georgia’s territorial
integrity. But it has granted Russian citizenship to most of the people
living in the two provinces and maintains peacekeeping troops there.

Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili has repeatedly accused Moscow
of trying to destabilise his country by aggravating divisions with
Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He came to power on a pledge to recover the
two provinces and reunify Georgia.

Russia rejects the argument of the US and some EU countries that Kosovo
is a unique case that sets no precedent for other separatist movements.

The leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia made clear that they regard
Kosovo as a model for their own claims. Abkhazia’s President Sergei
Bagapsh said: "We have been watching the Kosovo situation very closely
and we will announce our further steps if Kosovo declares its
independence.’

Events are also being studied in neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan
which are locked in another `frozen conflict’ over the future of
Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian-dominated enclave has had de facto
independence from Azerbaijan since a bitter war ended in a ceasefire in
1994.

`Dashnaktsutiun’ believes that `the authorities of Armenia took up all
the efforts for the pre-election struggle to proceed in an atmosphere
of instability’

February 15, 2008

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenian authorities have taken up all the efforts
for the pre-election struggle to proceed in an atmosphere of
instability, representative of `Dashnaktsutiun’ party Bureau Hrant
Margarian stated in Yerevan today.

Mediamax reports that, according to Hrant Margarian, despite the
efforts of `Dashnaktsutiun’ to establish atmosphere of `ideology
struggle’ in the country, both the authorities and separate candidates,
destabilize the situation in Armenia by reciprocal accusations and
improper agitation methods.

`The political field of Armenia is like our society, which has
deep-rooted notions of the criminal world’, Hrant Margarian stated.

At that, he strictly criticized the presidential candidate Levon
Ter-Petrosian. `Having united around himself three-four thousand
people, he is already using blackmail against people, who are not with
him’, Hrant Margarian stated. According to him, the very means of the
pre-election struggle should be worth the goal, which is not the case
here.

Hrant Margarian expressed opinion that the presidential elections will
consist of two rounds. He did not rule out the possibility that the
events may develop by another scenario, which may lead to collisions
and destabilization in future.

VARDAN KHACHATRYAN HOSTS BULGARIAN AMBASSADOR

Panorama.am
20:04 14/02/2008

Today Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan received the
newly appointed ambassador of Bulgaria Todor Staikov. The minister
congratulated the ambassador for his high mission in our country
voicing his hope that economic partnership will be boosted by joint
efforts.

During the meeting Khachatryan presented the major economic indicators
of Armenia in the course of recent few years. He mentioned that the
positive developments oblige to engage in more active relations with
partner-states.

Lragir, Armenia
Feb 14 2008

THE AIA NEWS RELEASE

The Public Relations Department of the Armenia International Airports
company issued a news release today: `On February 14, 2008 at 4.20 am
the aircraft SRG-100 of Belavia Airways performing flight number 1834
Yerevan-Minsk while running for take-off was damaged, turned over and
started to burn.

The three fire brigades of the Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting
Service immediately localized the fire and extinguished it. Due to
the taken immediate reaction measures and due to the high readiness
of the Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting Service all the 18 passengers
and the 3 crew members were evacuated, the injured were transported
to Erebuni and Malatia medical centers. No people suffered grave
injuries." The
AIA Public Relations Department reports that the fire fighting
service of the Armenian International Airports was set up over a year
ago.

Independent Online, South Africa
Feb 15 2008

Sarkozy’s holocaust plan slated

February 15 2008 at 03:03PM

Paris – A proposal from President Nicolas Sarkozy that French
10-year-olds should sponsor the memory of Jewish children who were
murdered by the Nazis set off an outcry on Friday among
psychologists, parents and the political left.

In an address to Jewish leaders, Sarkozy said that from the start of
the next academic year pupils in their last year of primary school
should be "entrusted with the memory of one of the 11 000 French
children who fell victim to the Holocaust."

"Nothing is more moving for a child than the story of a child his own
age, who had the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as
him," Sarkozy said.

Education Minister Xavier Darcos explained that every child will be
given the name of a Jewish deportee and "carry out a little
investigation on their family, surroundings and the circumstances in
which the child disappeared."

‘They are far too young at that age. They’re not ready’
"This personal, emotional link will be the basis for their studies,"
he said.

But an alliance of critics immediately poured scorn on the idea,
accusing Sarkozy of usurping history, failing to understand the
psychological impact on children, and stirring up resentment among
other sectors of society.

"I am totally against the idea that individual children should be
made to carry this kind of burden. They are far too young at that
age. They’re not ready," said child psychiatrist Frederic Kochman.

"Linking a child so intimately with a partner who is dead, and whose
short life they can never understand, can only have harmful effects
on his or her development," said the association Children of the
World.

Some 75 000 Jews were deported from German-occupied France in World
War II, in most cases with the active cooperation of the French
authorities. Nearly all died in the extermination camps at Auschwitz
and elswhere.

Even many who support greater awareness of the Jewish genocide said
the president’s idea was ill-thought out and could even provoke an
unwanted backlash.

"Some communities already think the Republic doesn’t take sufficient
account of their suffering: for example, black Caribbeans who want
greater recognition of the tragedy of slavery, or Armenians
concerning their own genocide," said Francosi Puppi, mayor of the
Paris suburb of Sarcelles.

For Pascal Bruckner, a left-wing philosopher who backed Sarkozy in
last year’s election, his idea smacks of "the tyranny of repentance"
and "adds nothing except pathos."

"Young people have been given their fill of the Holocaust for years
and years, and it hasn’t stopped the rise of anti-Semitism in the
suburbs…This is a dangerous intitiative which is only going to add
to the idea that there’s one rule for the Jews. Compassion can be
dangerous," he said.

However the president won support from Serge Klarsfeld, the Jewish
historian who has done more than anyone to keep the names of French
Holocaust victims in the collective memory.

"It’s not a question of some morbid identification with a dead child.
It’s an act of vigilance…It’s important that today’s children know
that there were children of their own age and background who were
deported, and it’s important that these be named," he said.

Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande also backed the initiative,
but his colleague former minister Pierre Moscovici said it was "a
false good idea which brings with it much that is psychologically and
educationally dangerous."

"It is typical Sarkozy – a man with plenty of impulse and sometimes
not much reflexion," he said.

AGREEMENT ON CONCESSIONAL MANAGEMENT OVER ARMENIAN RAILWAY TO BE SIGNED

SKRIN Market & Corporate News
February 12, 2008 Tuesday 12:27 PM GMT

On February 13, 2008, in Yerevan (Armenia) President of Russian
Railways Vladimir Yakunin and Transport Minister of Armenia Andranik
Manukyan will sign an agreement on concessional management over
Armenian Railway for 30 years.

As it was earlier reported, on January 16, 2008, RZD won a tender
for concessional management over Armenian Railway, RZD reported.

RUSSIAN EMBASSY INFORMED THAT IT DOES NOT HAVE INFORMATION ON TER-PETROSIAN’S STAY IN RUSSIA AND RECOMMENDED TO USE THE INFORMATION OF RIA "NOVOSTI"

Mediamax
February 13, 2008

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Embassy of the Russian Federation informed today
that it "does not have information concerning Levon Ter-Petrosian’s
stay in Russia".

Mediamax received the following press-release today from the Russian
Embassy:

"Ii connection with the media addresses received, we inform
that the Embassy does not have information concerning the stay of
L.Ter-Petrosian in Russia. As information, the Embassy recommends to
use the material of the Russian Information Agency "Novosti":

"The representatives of the Russian leadership did not meet with the
oppositional presidential candidate of Armenia, Ex-President Levon
Ter-Petrosian, who visited Moscow this week, RIA Novosti was informed
by a source, close to the Russian government. The Russian "Kommersant"
informed on Wednesday referring to the staff of Ter-Petrosian that the
Ex-President of Armenia was received in Moscow by the First Vice-Prime
Minister and a presidential candidate Dmitri Medvedev. "No one from
the Russian leadership held meeting with Ter-Petrosian. The highest
political level of his meetings in Moscow was Leonid Gozman (Deputy
Head of the Political Council of "Union of Right Forces" Party)",
the source stated".

AL GORE, ISRAELI AUTHOR AMOS OZ WIN DAN DAVID PRIZE
By Tamara Traubmann

Ha’aretz
Feb 12 2008
Israel

U.S. vice president turned green activist Al Gore and internationally
renowned Israeli author Amos Oz were named Tuesday as two of the
recipients of the annual Dan David Prize.

Gore was awarded the prize for Social Responsibility with Particular
Emphasis on the Environment over his international campaign to raise
awareness on the effects of global warming.

The prize’s Web site called Gore "probably the single individual who
has done most to create greater worldwide awareness of the detrimental
effects that man’s energy consumption has had on the environment,
and the imperative for individuals and governments to take drastic
action to avert climatic disaster."

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Oz was awarded the prize for Creative Rendering of the Past, along
with British Jewish playwright Tom Stoppard and Canadian-Armenian
film maker Atom Egoyan.

Gore was informed of the selection during a video conference with
businessman Dan David, and said he would donate his entire $1 million
prize to non-profit organizations that are seeking solutions to the
climate crisis.

The prize awards $1 million to recipients in three categories,
pertaining to the past, present and future. Professors Ellen
Moseley-Thompson, Lonnie G. Thompson, and Geoffrey Eglinton were
awarded the prize for Geosciences.

The Dan David Prize is an international enterprise run by the Dan
David Foundation, Tel Aviv University, and the French Culture Ministry.

"The prizes are granted to individuals or institutions with proven,
exceptional, distinct excellence in the sciences, arts, and humanities
that have made an outstanding contribution to humanity," according
to the prize Web site.

"Laureates donate 10 percent of their prize money to graduate students
in their respective fields, thereby contributing to the community
and fostering a new generation of scholars."

Gore said he would attend the awards ceremony, to be held at Tel Aviv
University in May with the participation of President Shimon Peres