NUMBER OF ADOPTED CHILDREN DOWN FROM A YEAR AGO
Armenpress
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS: Twenty-seven children were adopted
in Armenia in the first half of the year. Eighteen children were
adopted by Armenian parents and nine by foreigners.
Nelly Baghdasarian from the national statistical committee, said the
number of adopted children was significantly down from 43 adopted
children in the first six months of 2005. Last year 26 children were
adopted by Armenian parents and 17 by foreigners.
Hasmik Khachatrian from labor and social affairs ministry said Armenian
parents are not observed while foreigners are observed by Armenian
embassies and consulates whose officials visit adopting families to
see how the adopted children are doing.

CAFESJIAN CENTER TO SCREEN DIGITIZED VERSION OF POPULAR FILM
Armenpress
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS: As part of festive events marking
the 15-th anniversary of Armenia’s independence from the former Soviet
Union, residents of Yerevan can watch today evening the digitized
version of a popular film shot in late 1970-s called ‘Men”
The screening will be performed by Cafesjian Art Center that will
install a big screen in a downtown site known as Cascade. The film
will be shown at 9. pm local time.
Cafesjian Foundation said the film was restored and digitized by CS
Films, the new owner of ArmenFilm Studio.

DIASPORA ARMENIANS INVEST LESS THAN EXPECTED
Armenpress
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS: Manuk Hergnyan, an expert from
an economic think-tank, called Economy and Values, told the third
Armenia-Diaspora Conference in Yerevan yesterday that the share of
Armenian Diaspora investments in Armenia’s economy between 1994-2004
made only 25 percent or only $260 million in terms of money.
Hergnyan said Armenian authorities managed to attract the bulk of
investments, about 40 percent, through infrastructure development
programs. He said these investments were made by non-Armenians.
But along with this Diaspora Armenians make 70 percent of all direct
foreign investors. So, in terms of numbers, Diaspora Armenians exceed
all other investors. Hergnyan said an average investment made here
by a Diaspora Armenian businessmen is between $150,000-$200,000. This
means, the expert said, that Diaspora Armenians do not invest heavily
in the ancestors’ land.

AZG Armenian Daily #180, 21/09/2006
Culture
“GEGHARD” REPRESENTS ARMENIAN DANCE IN FESTIVAL IN
GREECE
On August 21-28, the Ninth International Dance
Festival took place in Agrinion, Greece. Various folk
dance groups from dozens of countries arrive in Greece
every summer to participate in the festival. Agrinion
becomes a capital of culture where representatives of
different cultures have the chance to cooperate.
This year, dance groups from Armenia, Greece, Moldova,
Poland, Russia, Georgia, Italy, Czech Republic and
from other countries perform their folk dances at the
festival. Armenia is represented by “Geghard” folk
dance group at the festival. The dance group is well
known in Syria, Jordan, France, Egypt, Bulgaria, Iraq
and elsewhere. The dance group was established 25
years ago and managed to win many prizes and diplomas.
The Armenian dancers were perfectly prepared for the
festival and won the hearts of the foreign art lovers.
They performed “kochari,” “shalakho,” “shatakhin and
other Armenian dances at the festival.
Albert Kizirian, the founder and the leader of
“Geghard,” emphasized the importance of participating
in such festivals from the viewpoints of cultural
cooperation and the international recognition of the
Armenian culture.
By Gayane Khachatrian

AZG Armenian Daily #180, 21/09/2006
Foreign Developments
TURKEY OBJECTS PUBLISHING LAND RECORD DOCUMENTS OF
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
The Internet version of “Huriet” touched upon the limitations
for the publications of the land record documents of the Ottoman
Empire. In particular, Turkey’s National Security council objects the
translation of the abovementioned documents from the Ottoman Turkish
into the modern Turkish language. They condition their position by
the concern that the documents may be used for political or ethnic
goals, including the claims concerning the Armenian genocide.
Turkey’s National Security Council sent a special letter to the
relevant land administration bodies of the country urging them to
keep them the documents in secret without letting anyone publish them.
By Aghavni Haroutiunian
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZG Armenian Daily #180, 21/09/2006
Foreign Developments
NATO TO CONTRIBUTE TO NEGOTIATIONS FOR GEORGIA’S
MEMBERSHIP TO THIS ORGANIZATION
The 26 NATO member states agreed to deepen the
dialogue for the issue of Georgia’s membership to this
organization. France Press agency informed about this,
referring to diplomatic sources. All the member states
are for negotiating with Georgia, but the decision
will officially be ratified On September 21, within
the framework of the UN Congress during the meeting of
the NATO Foreign Ministers.
Georgia has been stated for several times that the
issue of its membership to NATO is already settled and
the country will join NATO in 2007.
RF Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in June, that
“a huge geopolitical shift” might take place, if
Ukraine and Georgia join NATO. He said that Russia
will take into account the results of such a step from
the viewpoint of its own economic interests, as well
as from the viewpoint of the interests of its partner
countries.
By Petros Keshishian

AZG Armenian Daily #180, 21/09/2006
Article
THE POPE AND ISLAM
On a scale of one to ten, Pope Benedict XVI’s first
attempt at an apology was barely a 3. He said nothing
himself, but on Saturday Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
told the world that “The Holy Father is very sorry
that some passages of his speech may have sounded
offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers.”
That didn’t stop the protests that have been building
in the Muslim world since the Pope gave the speech on
12 September to an academic audience in Germany, so on
Sunday he tried again. Speaking from his summer
residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, he said:
“I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries
to a few passages of my address at the University of
Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the
sensibility of Muslims.”
That won’t stop the protests either, because he really
isn’t sorry for what he said. He’s sorry for “the
reactions in some countries” to his remarks, but he
implicitly stands by what he said in Regensburg. So is
the new pope really anti-Muslim? After the 9/11
attacks five years ago, the former Cardinal Ratzinger
told Vatican Radio that “it is important not to
attribute simplistically what happened to Islam” —
but then he added that “the history of Islam also
contains a tendency to violence.” True enough, but
Christianity has its own history of violence: the
Crusades, the Inquisition, the religious wars that
devastated Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, and
several other detours from the path of peace and
tolerance.
Just before he became pope last year, Benedict
declared that Turkey should not be allowed into the
European Union because its Islamic culture is
incompatible with the “Christian” culture of Europe.
But the real case for the prosecution rests on his
invitation to Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci to
visit him at Castel Gandolfo last September.
It certainly wasn’t a religious visit, since Fallaci
(who died last week) was an atheist, and her fame as a
war correspondent and interviewer was decades behind
her. But she carved out a second career as the most
extreme anti-Muslim writer in Europe, producing two
best-selling books since 2002 that vilified Muslims as
dirty sub-humans who multiply “like rats,” and
portraying Islam as an irrational religion that breeds
hatred. The title of her second-last book, the one
that presumably inspired the Pope’s invitation, was
“The Force of Reason,” whose core argument was that
the West is rational and reasonable, whereas Muslims
aren’t. And there was Benedict in Germany last week,
saying exactly the same thing. What a coincidence.
In his speech, Benedict quoted from the 14th century
Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who told a
Persian visitor that “spreading the faith through
violence is something unreasonable…God is not
pleased by blood.” So far, so good — but then Manuel
asked his Muslim visitor: “Show me just what Muhammad
brought that was new and there you will find things
only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread
by the sword the faith he preached.” Benedict quoted
that, too, without any further comment.
He ended his speech, four and a half pages later, by
quoting the emperor again: ” ‘not to act reasonably,
not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of
God,’ said Manuel II, according to his Christian
understanding of God….It is to this great logos, to
this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
the dialogue of cultures.” in other words, you Muslims
are unreasonable people, but if you do it our way,
then we’ll finally get somewhere.
So now we know that the new pope is a parochial and
intolerant man — but anybody who paid attention to
Cardinal Ratzinger’s previous career knew that
already. “God’s Rottweiler” was the late Pope John
Paul II’s favourite hit-man, reducing Karol Wojtyla’s
critics in the Catholic hierarchy to a sullen silence
or driving them out of the Church altogether. Now he
is in a position to do much more damage.
Pakistan’s parliament has unanimously passed a
resolution condemning the Pope’s speech. Seven
Christian churches in the occupied Palestinian
territories have been bombed, set ablaze or shot at. A
Catholic nun has been shot to death in Somalia. Most
Muslims are well aware that violence is an
inappropriate way to protest against accusations that
Islam is a violent faith, but why do they even care
what the Pope says?
Benedict need a few lessons in manners, but the real
reason for the uproar is that so many Muslims feel
under attack by the West. Two Muslim countries have
been invaded by the United States and its allies since
9/11, and another, Lebanon, has been bombed to ruins
by Israel with full support from the US and Britain.
At least twenty times as many Muslims have died in
these brutal wars as the number of Americans who died
in the 9/11 attacks, and almost none of them had
anything to do with that terrorist atrocity. So the
suspicion grows among Muslims that all this is not
really about 9/11 at all, and almost any minor insult
to Islam from the West — cartoons in a provincial
Danish newspaper, a foolish quote by an arrogant pope
— is enough to trigger outrage from Morocco to
Indonesia.
We haven’t achieved a full-scale “clash of
civilisations” yet, but we’re making progress.
By Gwynne Dyer

PEASANT FROM JAJOUR CONCLUDED THE SESSION
A1+
[06:30 pm] 20 September, 2006
The last forth session of the conference “Armenia-Diaspora” was
dedicated to national values, historical communities, language and
culture, future plans and policy, as well as the situation in the
Diaspora in 2020 and the changes in the relations of Armenia and
the Diaspora. The theme was very large; hence the discussions were
very hot.
Representatives of Armenia and the Diaspora asked questions to
state officials, the Prime Minister, the Presidents of the NA and
the Constitutional Court and those who made speech. The Armenians
of the Diaspora mainly made offers about enhancing the relations and
for economic development.
The majority of the question remained unanswered as not all the
officials were present in the hall. We decided to ask RA Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanyan what he thinks about the offer to create
a Ministry of Diaspora. “I think we do not need that structure in
order to regulate relations with the Diaspora. That structure can
even hinder the development of the relations, but that’s only my
subjective opinion”.
Representative of the USA Nubar Afeyan who presided over the meting
offered to finish the session immediately after the speech of Sahak
Shiroyan from Jajour. Shiroyan announced with his voice trembling with
excitement that the peasants are not protected in Armenia. He said
that the aid from Diaspora does not serve its aim. The residents of
the village live badly as water and seeds are very expensive, and they
do not have corresponding equipment in order to cultivate land. The
Armenian peasant announced that only those who bribe officials are
able to get humanitarian aid.
Holding a passport in his hand he said it belonged to a woman from
his village who participated in the Karabakh war who is now unable
to get humanitarian aid.
This is where Nubar Afeyan found that the session should be concluded.

Emomali Rahmonov Wished Armenian People Peace and Prosperity
PanARMENIAN.Net
21.09.2006 14:15 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmonov sent a
congratulatory address to his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian
on the occasion of the Independence Day. “Tajikistan values the kind
traditions of friendly relations between our states and peoples and
will exert every effort for their strengthening and development,”
the message says in part, reported RIA Novosti.

CHAIRMAN OF OPPOSITION PARTY SAYS FAREWELL TO POLITICS
Armenpress
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS: Hrant Khachatrian, chairman of
a small opposition party, called Constitutional Right Union (CRU),
has given up today the post of the party chairman after his deputy,
Hayk Babukhanian, refused to leave the party, at least for three
months, as demanded by Khachatrian, who said it is needed to improve
the atmosphere within the CRU.
Khachatrian issued his warning earlier this week saying if
Babukhanian ignores his demand he would say good by to politics for
ever. Hrant Khachatrian accuses Babukhanian, who is chief editor
of the well-selling weekly Iravunk, of pocketing around 3 million
drams. Khachatrian said he made the decision to abandon politics
today morning though his party fellows urged him strongly to think
better of it.
Khachatrian who was elected to current parliament on the slate of the
opposition Ardarutyun (Justice) party said he would not denounce his
lawmaker’s mandate.