“ZHAMANAK YEREVAN” NEWSPAPER’S EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SENTENCED TO 4 YEARS’ IMPRISONMENT
Noyan Tapan
Sept 08 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. The first instance court of
Kentron and Nork-Marash Yerevan communities presided over by judge
Mnatsakan Martirosian, by the September 8 verdict sentenced “Zhamanak
Yerevan” newspaper’s editor-in-chief Arman Babajanian to 4 years’
imprisonment. The court considered completely proved the accusation
brought to him, evasion of military service through forging documents
and considered him innocent on the accusation of misappropriation
of documents. To recap, the defendant pleaded guilty only on the
first accusation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SOLOISTS OF DEKHTSANIK TRIO TO CONTINUE THEIR CAREER IN MOSCOW
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Sept 08 2006
SOCHI, SEPTEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. 6th Moscow
International Youth Competition-Festival “The Sun is Shining to
Eeverybody” is being held in Sochi. The festival participants
compete for the title of the best ones in choreography, singing,
instrumental performance and in the genre of circus art. Young actors
and dancers from 67 cities of Russia have come to take part in the
festival. According to the Yerkramas (Krai) newspaper of Armenians
of Russia, evident pretender to victory is the Dekhtsanik (Canary)
vocal trio from Adler performing songs in Armenian. If even the young
soloists of the ensemble do not receive Grand Prix at the festival,
it is already known that they will continue their career in Moscow,
from where they have already received the respective invitation.

ARAM SARGSIAN CLAIMS THAT BRANDY SOLD BY YEREVAN BRANDY COMPANY EXCEEDS AMOUNT OF GRAPES PURCHASED
Noyan Tapan
Sept 08 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. In his open letter published
recently in a number of Armenian newspapers, Herve Caroff, director
of the Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC), neither denied nor confirmed the
facts which indicate an illegal and unsparing use of reserve spirits
by the company. Aram Sargsian, chairman of the Democratic Party of
Armenia, deputy of the RA National Assembly, said that during a talk
with NT correspondent on September 8. According to him, the fact of
spirit embezzlement at the YBC was confirmed by the RA Prosecutor
General during a meeting with him. Commenting on this letter addressed
to him, A. Sargsian noted that only his allegation about the company’s
sale is refuted without any arguments. He said that the examination
of the data presented by the YBC management on how much grapes was
purchased in these years, how much brandy spirit can be obtained from
this amount of grapes, and how much brandy was sold allows to conclude
that the YBC has produced at least twice as much brandy as it would
be possible in case of the given amount of grape purchase. “According
to the agreement they signed at the time of the company’s purchase, the
initial amount of the basic spirit must have been kept,” A. Sargsian
noted. At the same time, he said that his questions were addressed
not to the YBC’s director but to the management of Pernod Ricard. “I
applied to our authorities, which conducted a transaction with the
company’s management and are obliged to protect state interests,”
he stated.

PARLIAMENT OF ARGENTINIAN PROVINCE OF CORBODA RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Sept 08 2006
BUENOS AIRES, SEPTEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The
legislative body of the Argentinian province of Corboda on September 6
unanimously adopted the bill No. 9315, in accordance with which April
24 will be commemorated each year as remembrance day of the genocide
committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian people. According
to the RA MFA Press and Information Department, the bill prepared
by Alejandra Vigo, member of the faction Unification for Corboda,
also intends to run courses on the Armenian Genocide at schools of the
province. In particular, it is noted in the bill that “the atrocities
committed against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire and the
Turkish government prior to, during and after World War I are called
the Armenian Genocide.” The law will take effect within 10 days after
being approved by the governor of the Corboda province. A similar
law was adopted by the parliament of the province of Buenos Aires
on May 17, 2006, and took effect on June 2 after being ratified by
the governor. It is expected that the bill on commemoration of the
Armenian Genocide, which was unanimously adopted by the legislative
body of the Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires on August 17, 2006,
will also come into force in the near future.

ARMENIAN FOODSTUFFS TO BE PRESENTED FOR FIRST TIME AT TORONTO’S ETHNIC FOOD EXHIBITION
Noyan Tapan
Sept 08 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. Some Armenian foodstuffs will be
presented for the first time at the Ethnic Food 2006 Exhibition to be
held in the Canadian city of Toronto at the Armenia pavilion organized
by the Artisan Food Inc. and the Center for Agribusiness and Rural
Development (CARD). More than 50 products manufactured in Armenia –
tinned goods, juices, teas from Armenian plants and wines will be on
display at the exhibition. NT was informed about it from the Armenian
company Artisan Food Inc. According to the company, the number of
wholesale enterprises-purchasers on the Canadian food market exceeds
22 thousand, with their annual turnover amounting to 19 bln USD.

SECOND ITALIAN CLIMBER DIES ON MOUNT ARARAT
Anatolian Times, Turkey
Sept 8 2006
ANKARA – Rescue workers on Friday found the body of a second Italian
mountainer at the summit of Mount Ararat, eastern Turkey, his travel
agent said.
The second climber to die was named as Franco Pacifico, 65, a member of
an 11-member Italian team that reached the 5,136-metre (16,850-foot)
summit on Tuesday but got caught in a heavy blizzard, Mustafa Kaya
told AFP.
Officials said on Thursday that another member of the group, Caterina
Fruttero, had also lost her life.
Both are believed to have died of hypothermia.
Kaya said the remaining nine mountaineers had descended safely.
Mount Ararat (Agri in Turkish) is located in easternmost Turkey, where
the borders of Iran, Armenia and the Azeri enclave of Nakhchivan meet.
Most of it is a closed military zone and mountaineers need special
permission from the Turkish authorities for expeditions on the
mountain.
From: Baghdasarian

RADIO STATION ABRUPTLY PULLS THE PLUG
By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Religion Writer
Providence Journal, RI
Sept 8 2006
The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson
After providing generations of listeners with a strong mix of religious
and ethnic programming, radio station WRIB AM 1220 did something
quite unexpected two months ago by suddenly going off the air.
The decision to “pull the plug” on a station that had been home to
such shows as the Rev. John Randall’s Sprit and Word, the Armenian
Radio Hour and the Voice of Italy was made by its new owner, the
Faith Christian Center.
The Rev. David Marquard, whose church draws 900 people a week to
its Pentecostalist services on Sagamore Road in Seekonk, says that
when the church bought the station with offices and transmitters on
the East Providence waterfront in July for $1.9 million, it was for
the purpose of bringing the light of the Gospel to as many people as
possible and to “enhance life from a godly perspective.”
That’s still the goal, but church leaders acknowledge that getting
the new programming on line has taken longer than expected. They say
it is more likely the station won’t be on the air again at least for
several more weeks.
Critics, including some of former program hosts, say by shutting down
the signal without notice the new owners broke a promise given to the
former station manager, John Pearce, that everyone was going to have
at least 30 days to bid farewell.
Instead, they say, the end came without warning and those with
belongings at the site were given only a few hours to remove their
possessions.
FATHER RANDALL said he only found out about the move when someone
asked him why his show wasn’t on the air.
“There were a lot of angry people,” says the retired priest, whose
ministry at St. Patrick Church in Providence and then at St. Charles
Borromeo Church in Providence helped to fuel the Catholic charismatic
renewal movement in the 1970s and 1980s.
But the 77-year-old priest refused to join other critics, who in
e-mails and blogs, have been quick to denounce the Faith Christian
Center for doing a “dirty thing.”
He says that, as a large church, Faith Christian was probably looking
for a way to get out its message and owning a radio station appeared to
be one way of doing that. He said it’s unlikely that the new owners
would want to continue a Catholic program on what will be a basic
evangelical station, and he has no problem with that.
“I’m sure if the shoe were on the other foot and Mother Angelica (the
Catholic nun who runs the Eternal Word Televsion Network) bought the
station, she would only want Catholic programs,” he said.
Typically, the programs pay the station to put their shows on the
air. The old WRIB charged roughly $151 per show per week. Pastor
Marquard said one can assume that the station will want programs
that fit its evengelical pentecostalist perspective, but shows will
be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Father Randall says he wrote the pastor a letter, saying he has asked
his supporters to pray for the station and the minister. “I wrote,
‘As long as you proclaim Christ, we’ll be happy with it.'”
BUT SOME of the other show hosts are not so happy, and don’t accept
the Pastor Marquard’s explanation that the move was on the advice of
the church’s lawyers who said the church might be opening itself to
possible “harm” if it let the shows continue.
“It was an unfortunate, difficult decision,” says the pastor. “Our goal
was not to shortchange people or deny them an opportunity to speak to
their listeners. The only reason we went dark was our attorney told us
that, because we owned the station, we could liable for anything said
over the air. We didn’t want anything to be said that intentionally
harmed us.”
“Frankly we diligently try to be a blessing to the community as much
as we can. Our goal is to be a blessing. If we hurt people it was
never our intention.”
The pastor said he appreciated the note from Father Randall. “I’m a
former Catholic and I used to listen to his Spirit and Word. He was
an influence on my life. He is a very gracious man.”
Russell Gasparian, who began airing the Armenian Hour nearly 60 years
ago, back in the days when WRIB was based in Providence’s Narragansett
Hotel, said he was very upset with the church for not giving him a
chance to tell his listeners goodbye.
“It’s a dirty trick that they used,” said the Gasparian, 87. “It’s
the worst thing they could have done.”
The Armenians, he said, a close knit community in Rhode Island,
relied on his show to tell them what was going on.
It was much the same with Radio Italia, Rhode Island’s Voice of Italy,
hosted by MariaGina Aiello.
But according to the hosts, the future is not totally bleak. The two
have found a new home on radio station WARL AM 1320, airing Sundays.
Gasparian observed that since the show began airing on the new station
he has gotten calls from people in New England states that apparently
hadn’t heard the program before. And his son, a webmaster, has for the
last couple years put the shows on the Internet, reaching listeners
as far away as Russia and Belgium.
Silvio Cuellar produces a fast-paced Hispanic program, Pueblo Que
Camina, sponsored by the Diocese of Providence’s Office of Hispanic
Ministry. It was, he says, the area’s first Hispanic Catholic program,
offering Bible reflection, interviews and local and national television
news.
HE SAID that when he found that Saturday in July that the show wasn’t
on the air, he was upset and disappointed. “I thought it was a very
unchristian and cruel thing to do.”
But after being off the air for three weeks, he says, he’s found a
new home on WELH 88.1 FM airing 8 a.m. Saturday mornings.
Of all the former host/producers, the biggest provider of religious
programming on WRIB was John Primeau, whose Johnston-based North
American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation provides
programming on 200 channels in 25 states. Primeau said he was paying
the station $15,000 annually to run 10 half-hour programs on WRIB each
week – a wide assortment featuring Catholic priests and lay women
on topics ranging from the role of women in the church today, the
theology and traditions of Roman Catholicism, and priestly vocations.
When he heard the station had been sold he sent letter both to the
church and the former owner, Carter Broadcasting in Boston, warning
that he would consider any interruption of service to be a breach of
his contract. Primeau, who has successfully sued other communications
giants such as Sprint, promptly followed up with a suit seeking
unspecified damages.
He says that even though the shows can no longer be heard over WRIB,
most were audio broadcasts of televised programs produced in his
studios and which air regularly on the state cable TV interconnect
as well as over the Internet. Even so, he contends that WRIB’s
interruption of service diminished his listening audience and he
wants to be “made whole” by having the programs returned to the air,
along with advertising from the church.
Primeau said that while most Catholic parishes would not be able to
afford buying a station, very successful Pentecostal churches can
pull it off because they garner more cash from members’ tithing and
many Pentecostal pastors started out as entrepreneurs.
Faith Christian’s Pastor Marquard said the church did have to borrow to
buy the station. Once it begins to air, perhaps with new call letters,
it will feature a “variety” of programming, with a drive-time format
that includes news, weather, traffic and music.
“Probably from 8 a.m. to noon we will have paid programming, Gospel
ministers and so on, almost all of whom would not be local; and a
host from Focus on the Family from 8 p.m. to midnight.
He said he expects to have his own 15-minute program each weekday,
airing sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.
“” But some of the other show hosts are not so happy, and don’t
accept Pastor Marquard’s explanation that the move was on the advice
of the church’s lawyers who said the church might be opening itself
to possible ‘harm’ if it let the shows continue.””

ARMENIANS IN LEBANON PROTEST TURKISH FORCE
Peninsula On-line, Qatar
Sept 8 2006
BURJ HAMMUD, Lebanon ~U Lebanon’s Armenians, who have not forgotten
the massacres their people suffered under Ottoman rule, demonstrated
yesterday against Turkish troops set to take part in a UN peacekeeping
mission.
Waving Lebanese flags and banners denouncing Turkey as a murderous
state, several hundred gathered in the Beirut suburb of Burj Hammud,
heavily populated by Armenians, and appealed to the United Nations to
reconsider Turkey’s participation in an expanded UN force in Lebanon.
“Genocide, massacre, deportation: Turkey’s definition of peace,”
read one banner. “No to the participation of Turkish forces among UN
troops coming to Lebanon,” read another.
“We had 1.5 million of our people slaughtered under the Turks and
you expect us to welcome them?” asked Arous Ghougassian, the owner
of a home furnishing business.
“I can assure you that I won’t sell them anything if they come into
my shop,” she said.
Hagop, an employee at the Basterma Mano food store, raised his fists
in anger when asked about the Turkish UN force.
“Look at my arms, I get goose bumps when you refer to them,” he said.
“If they dare come into our neighbourhoods we’ll deal with them.”
Garo Hovsipian, a shopkeeper, said he could not put to rest the
massacre of his uncle and grandparents by the Turks in 1915.
“I somehow become a fanatic when I hear the word Turkey,” he said,
drawing on a cigar. “It brings back memories of my ancestors, our
history, the massacres.
“Still if I encounter any soldiers I will treat them as guests because
we are more civilised than them.”
Lebanon’s minority Armenian community, which numbers about 140,000
people, has objected to Turkey taking part in the UN force because
of mass killings of Armenians by Turks in 1915.
“Turkey, which carried out horrible crimes against humanity, cannot
take part in any peace process until it recognizes the massacre of
the Armenian people,” Jacques Choukhadarian, a former MP and minister,
told yesterday’s gathering.
Representatives of the community have sent letters to UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan and to Western embassies in Beirut urging them
to reject Turkish participation in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon
(Unifil) set to number 15,000 troops from various countries.
Religious leaders has also issued a statement calling the Turkish
participation in Unifil “morally unacceptable”.
The Turkish parliament voted after fierce debate at an extraordinary
session Tuesday to authorize the government to send troops to take part
in the UN force to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has said the number of soldiers
is not likely to exceed 1,000.
Under the old Ottoman empire, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians are
said to have been killed or died after being forcibly driven from
their homes in Turkey between 1915 and 1917.
Ankara rejects all accusations of genocide, estimating the number of
Armenian deaths at 300,000 and arguing they were not a consequence
of deliberate extermination but a combination of war, disease, famine
and ethnic conflict.

ADVOCATES HAVE RIGHT TO DEFEND EVEN DEVILS
Story By Peter Mwaura | Fair Play
Daily Nation , Kenya
Sept 8 2006
One of the issues that arose during the Kiruki Commission of Inquiry
into the Armenian brothers’ saga was how far an advocate can go to
defend a person widely perceived to be a criminal. Lawyer Gibson Kamau
Kuria was particularly emphatic that it was his professional duty to
defend even “the devil” (when it appeared to some people like he was
defending the Armenians).
Dr Kuria was grappling with an age-old question that seems to confuse
the public: Should lawyers defend bad people? The question has been
contagious, now and in the past. Recently six MPs in western Kenya
warned lawyers not to represent suspects charged with the brutal
murder of six people in Nyamira District.
The Kenyatta and Moi regimes went even further: they blacklisted
lawyers who defended “dissidents” or politically incorrect individuals
or causes and denied them parastatal work, which was a lucrative
source of income for most lawyers.
English peasant revolt
The idea that a lawyer who defends an unpopular person is himself bad
is widespread and historical. The 1997 movie, “The Devil’s Advocate”,
popularises this “dark side” of law and the notion that lawyers are
purveyors of evil rather than good. Shakespeare summed up this in his
famous line in King Henry VI, Part 2, when the leader of an English
peasant revolt suggested: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all
the lawyers.”
The reason people hate lawyers who defend unpopular individuals or
causes is that people tend to think that right is on their side and
wrong on the other side. They tend to think that when a person is
accused of a crime he is immediately guilty. They do not respect the
presumption of innocence.
Such attitudes show that the public does not understand the role of
lawyers. When lawyers defend bad people the public thinks of them as
“devil’s advocates.” Lawyers, truly, are devil’s advocates but they
do not work for the devil. Their job is to zealously guard the legal
rights and interests of their clients.
A devil’s advocate is, in fact, a defence lawyer who takes nothing
for granted and asks tough questions, even unpopular ones, like the
ones lawyers Gibson Kamau Kuria and Jane Ondieki were asking in the
Kiruki Commission. The term “devil’s advocate” is in fact borrowed
from the Catholic Church, which appoints an official as the “devil’s
advocate” to present arguments against the canonisation of a candidate
for sainthood.
Without lawyers playing the devil’s advocate the integrity of our
judicial system would collapse. Devil’s advocates are needed because
courts assume, and rightly so, that there are two sides to every
question. They also presuppose that all parties ought to receive a
fair hearing and it is the job of lawyers to articulate the relevant
legal principles. Then judges, who are supposed to be disinterested,
can fairly decide on the merits of the case.
A lawyer does not defend the crime committed by his client. He defends
his legal rights. A lawyer cannot, because of his professional code
of conduct and ethics, refuse to represent a client because he is
“bad” any more than a doctor can refuse to treat a patient because
he has syphilis. A lawyer should not be adjudged guilty or bad simply
because of his association with his client.
A lawyer’s professional obligation is to zealously protect and pursue
his client’s legitimate interests within the bounds of the law, even
at the expense of incurring public unpopularity or judicial disfavor.
Lawyers owe their clients complete devotion. A lawyer is supposed to
do everything that is legal to defend his client, and a good lawyer
does everything he knows to cast doubt on the prosecution case. He
does so not because he condones crime but because the law assumes a
person is innocent until proven guilty.
Principles of equality
This duty of lawyers is internationally recognised. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the principles of equality
before the law, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair
hearing. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers,
formulated in September 1990 and incumbent on all member states,
also requires lawyers to protect the interests of their clients “in
every appropriate way.” Rule 18 of the Basic Principles requires that
lawyers “shall not be identified with their clients or their clients’
causes as a result of discharging their functions.”
Dr Kuria was absolutely right when he said that he will defend the
devil – not that his client was one – at all costs. If that were not
the case, we can all forget about a fair judicial system.

DASHNAK: COMING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA UNPRECEDENTED
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 8 2006
YEREVAN, September 8. /ARKA/. Coming parliamentary elections in Armenia
are unprecedented, Armen Rustamyan, a member of Dashnak party board,
said Thursday at the party’s 10th summit meeting.
“The renewed Constitution gave National Assembly a serious role in
governing system and parliamentary and presidential elections have
never been as significant for the country’s future as now”, he said.
“It means fair election is the only way to overcome this crucial
period of time without shakes and losses”, he added.
Rustamyan thinks that any leadership will came across the necessity
of deepening democracy by implementing substantial reforms.