ROAD MAP OR THE BEST PROPOSALS
AZG Armenian Daily
31/08/2006
“We have to mark a breakthrough, but it depends on the proposals
of Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents. I think the sides will go
for mutual concessions as it is the only way of regulation,” ANS
TV of Azerbaijan quoted US co-chair to OSCE Minsk Group, Matthew
Bryza as saying. He again ruled out any military solution to the
conflict. “Principles proposed by the co-chairs are still on the
negotiation table, and they can be called a road map. These are our
best proposals,” said the US co-chair noting that both the Armenian
and the Azerbaijani sides display constructive approach in continuing
the peaceful regulation, he made sure during his Baku and Yerevan
visits. In his words, Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers will
meet soon in Europe.

INDIAN JEWELRY PRODUCTION TO BE PRESENTED AT ARMENIA-MARRIOTT HOTEL
By Gohar Gevorgian
AZG Armenian Daily
31/08/2006
Today, an Indian delegation of the board of jewelry export promotion
will present jewelry production of India at the Armenia-Marriott
Hotel. The board uniting 7.000 jewelers was founded in 1966 and aims at
encouraging the export of diamond, precious stones, synthetic stones,
jewelry and pearls from India.
During the stay the Indian delegation will meet businessmen and
customers as well as will discuss creation of joint companies in
this sphere.

ITALY SUPPORTS ARMENIA IN RECOVERY OF HISTORICAL MONUMENTS
Panorama.am
17:12 30/08/06
An international seminar on recovery of historical monuments kicked
off at the Union of Architectures organized by the Union, Yerevan
State University History Department and supported by the Italian
Embassy. Top officials of the ministry of culture and youth affairs
assured that monuments are massively recovered in the country. In
the words of Gagik Giurjyan, deputy minister, 24,000 monuments are
registered in Armenia and part of them is private property.
Marco Clemente, Italian ambassador to Armenia, said his country is
watching archeological research in Armenia with great interest and
that his government provides Euro 30,000 annually to the center for
the revival of historical monuments.
Culture Minister Hasmik Poghosyan said Armenia has an agreement with
Italy for cooperation in the field. She complained that the Armenia
government spends not enough money and does not take commitments in
this area.
The seminar will run till September 16 and will have practical
visits to sites in addition to discussions and reports. Yerevan
Architecture University and Yerevan State University students attend
the seminar.

AZERI PRESIDENT ISSUED ORDER REGARDING 125 ANNIVERSARY OF IRAVAN STATE DRAMATIC THEATRE
Author: S.Aliyev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 31, 2006
The President of Azerbaijan issued an order on 125th jubilee of Iravan
State Dramatic Theatre of Azerbaijan. As it was stated in the order,
Irevan Theatre that takes an important role in the development of the
national theatre is one of the oldest cultural centers in the Caucasus.
Starting its activity at the beginning of 1882, this cultural center
has written shiny pages in the theatre history if Azerbaijan.
Besides, it was stated in the order that by receiving the state status
in 1928, that takes the name of popular dramatist Jafar Jabarli is
closely related to several masters.
It is stared in the order that Iravan Theatre did its best to
introduce cultural heritage of Azerbaijan to tens of thousand of
Azerbaijani people who leaved in historical Azerbaijani territories
that were included in the territory of Armenia SSR in result of false
determination of borders during the Soviet Union.
Iravan Theatre was forced to fully stop its activity in result of
Armenian-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in result of which
Azerbaijani people were drown out from their native lands. Iravan
Theatre that has been locating in Baku since 1988 differs with its
own performances and attracts the people loving theatre with its
creative successes.
Taking into consideration the role of the theatre in the cultural
and political life of Azerbaijan, the president ordered that the
Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Education Ministry,
Azerbaijan National academy of Sciences and Azerbaijan Union of Theatre
Workers should prepare and carry out a plan of measures dedicated to
125 anniversary of Iravan Theatre, and the Cabinet of Ministers of
Azerbaijan should fulfill all issues arising from the order.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SOMA: IRAQ’S NEW PAPER TIGER
Adnan R. Khan
Macleans, Canada
Aug. 30, 2006
Launching a newspaper is hard enough — even without an insurgency.
But a Canadian editor and founder is toughing it out.
A new voice has entered the media fray in Iraq, one with a Canadian
twist. Soma, meaning “perspective” in Kurdish, is a biweekly
English-language digest published out of Iraqi Kurdistan. It’s headed
by a Canadian whose vision is to transform journalism in Iraq. And,
says editor and founder Tanya Goudsouzian, “It’s been a challenge.”
Indeed. Goudsouzian is a 29-year-old Montreal native of Armenian
descent who speaks no Kurdish and only very basic Arabic. She launched
the paper in February 2006 with the help of Hiro Ibrahim Ahmad,
the wife of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. And the road to her
cramped office in Sulaymaniyah, a city 275 km north of Baghdad and
the regional headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
the political party headed by Talabani, has been anything but smooth.
After graduating from McGill in 1998, Goudsouzian moved to Washington
to work at a magazine focusing on Middle Eastern issues. She left in
2000, moving to Cairo, then landing a staff position at Gulf News
in Dubai. She covered Afghanistan and Iraq, where she met Ahmad,
who worked in journalism before her husband became the Iraqi leader.
Since its launch, Soma has been pumping out 4,000 issues every two
weeks, with website traffic surpassing 100,000 hits. Also remarkable
is the fact that it is distributed nationally. “We print out of
Baghdad,” says Goudsouzian. “Every issue has to be sent south for
printing and distribution and then issues have to be flown back to
Kurdistan. The main reason we send the paper south is I want it to
have a national appeal. It’s geared for the English-speaking community
and English-speaking Iraqis throughout Iraq, not just Kurdistan.”
Soma must contend with a journalistic mindset still firmly rooted
in the Baathist era. For the most part, the Iraqi media remains a
mouthpiece for those in power, only now there are more mouths. In
Kurdistan, Iraq’s most democratized region, only one of dozens of
publications is fully independent: the weekly Hawlati. And, says its
editor, Twana Osman, 31, “There are certain subjects you just can’t
touch. We’ve had journalists arrested for criticizing the government,
for example. I’ve been formally charged for criticizing the Kurdish
regional prime minister.”
Soma has been pigeonholed as a PUK organ, Goudsouzian complains. “I
know it sounds like a contradiction, the wife of the president funding
a newspaper,” she says, “but Hiro is genuinely interested in a free
press.” There are, after all, very few people with money in Iraq who
are not associated with a party. “So if you receive funding at all,”
Goudsouzian says, “it’s likely you’re receiving it from someone with
party affiliations.”
Soma does not consider itself a political watchdog. Goudsouzian
admits she tries to avoid taboo subjects, such as censuring certain
powerful individuals. “I don’t want it to be filled with yellow
news-style personal attacks,” she says, noting that tendency in other
publications. “I want to change things. I take young journalists to
interviews so they see how it should be done. I’m training these guys
on how to report, how to construct a story.” Injecting professionalism
into an underdeveloped journalistic community is idealistic, and
difficult. But, Goudsouzian says, “You’re taking part in the rebuilding
of a civilization. You have to be an idealist or you’d go nuts. I
don’t plan on being here forever. But I plan on leaving my mark.”

WHY SHOULD EUROPEANS PROTECT ISRAEL?
PEJ News, Canada
Peace, Earth and Justice News
Aug. 30, 2006
ICH ~ Robert Fisk ~ The enlarged Nato/Unifil force is not going to
preserve ‘peace’
First, it was to be a 15,000-strong foreign army to reinforce the
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Unifil. Now it is to be
about 7,500. And it will not disarm Hizbollah. And anyway, Hizbollah
refuses to be disarmed.
Why Should Europeans Protect Israel?
Robert Fisk
Information Clearing House
The French would send 200 men; then they sent 400. Then the
Italians would send 3,000. Then the French would send another 2,000,
making their total contribution 2,600, including the company that
has remained in Unifil since the French were hurled out of the
peacekeeping organisation back in 1986 after fighting Shia militias
in the Lebanese village of Marrake (of which no mention will be made,
any more than it is on the BBC). And now the Belgians might send 700.
And the Turks? Well, the Lebanese Armenians are objecting to their
contribution on the grounds – perfectly accurate, though the BBC will
not tell you this – that the Turkish army perpetrated the genocide
of one and a half million Christian Armenians in 1915.
Oh, what a wondrous plot we weave when first we practise to deceive.
This, of course, applies to everyone in the Lebanese swamp.
Self-deception – or self-delusion – has become a cancer throughout
both the Middle East and the west; and amid the EU countries that
are now bidding to send their young men to sacrifice their lives
in Lebanon. They are going to preserve peace, we are told; they are
going to maintain a ceasefire; they are going to save lives.
So a big Ho-Ho-Ho from the world of reality. The enlarged Nato/Unifil
force is not going to preserve “peace”. It is going to maintain a ”
buffer” zone to protect Israel after the latter’s dismal failure to
destroy, disarm and liquidate the Iranian-armed Hizbollah guerrilla
army over the past seven weeks. The UN may deny that it is a buffer
zone for the Israelis – but if it was a buffer zone to protect Lebanese
(the numerically higher victims of this latest war), it would be
based, surely, inside the Israeli frontier. But no, it is there to
protect Israel.
Note how the Arabs have accepted this. Note how we have accepted this –
how we have sublimely gone along with the idea that Israel’s security
and happiness are more important than the security and happiness of
the millions of Muslims also living in this region. Our soldiers are
to be deployed to protect Israel. Do we really think that the Arabs
don’t realise this? And do we think that our western governments don’t
realise this when they huff and puff over whether to send soldiers
to the Middle East?
Needless to say, the Americans and the British want no part of this
mess. After Iraq and Afghanistan, they have no stomach to defend
Israel, let alone Lebanon. Their job is to push the European masses
into the bog they have created by their injustice and cowardice in
the Middle East. President Bush promises “intelligence” assistance
to the Unifil force – which means Israeli “intelligence”, and we all
know how good that is – while Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara offers not
a single hero to give his life, which is as well after his outrageous
sacrifice of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But while Europe’s other political masters dithered this week, BBC
World Service laid down a familiar narrative for its listeners. “It
seems,” said their man on The World Today, that the Europeans – how
I hate these cheap cliches – “are prepared to talk the talk but not
walk the walk.” In other words, those bloody Wops and Frogs and Boche,
not to mention the Dagos and the ungrateful Finns and Norwegians,
were gutless little chicken shit when it came to standing by their
European principles.
Those principles, it is now clear, are supposed to be the sacrifice of
their soldiers’ lives for the latest UN Security Council Resolution
cooked up by America and France (and, a bit, by Lord Blair) in New
York. But the BBC got it completely wrong. The Europeans are not
nervous about military losses or unclear mandates.
They had plenty of both in Bosnia.
What is happening in Europe is that a growing number of states that
had nothing to do with the Balfour Declaration or the Sykes-Picot
agreement or the 1948 Middle East war or the 1967 Middle East war or
the 1973 Middle East war or the 1982 Middle East war in Lebanon or the
1993 Israeli bombardment of Lebanon or the 1996 Israeli bombardment
of Lebanon or the latest 2006 bombardment and “petit” invasion of
Lebanon (after Hizbollah’s outrageous provocation by crossing the
international frontier) are simply sick and tired of clearing up the
dirt after these filthy Arab-Israeli wars.
Most of Europe had no part in the Balfour Declaration. Much of Europe
had an unforgivable role in the Jewish Holocaust. But the decades pass
by, and the generations now being asked to sail to the Middle East
do not even have parental guilt to absolve for the genocide of the
Jews of Europe, any more than modern Turks can be proclaimed guilty
for their grandparents’ rape and murder of one and a half million
Armenians. The Europeans, to put it mildly, are tired of being asked
to atone for the sins of their grandparents. Maybe it is time, they
are asking, for the Israelis and Arabs to pay for their own sick wars.
There is nothing immoral in this. President Bush claims that
the Israelis won their war against the Hizbollah and humbled the
organisation’s supporters in Iran and Syria. Yet not even the Israelis
claim this.
Now the Europeans – and perhaps the Turks, and certainly the poor
old Lebanese army – are supposed to achieve all Israel’s failed
objectives. And when they fail – as they assuredly will, because
Nato is not going to go to war with Islam – Israel will accuse them
of abandoning poor little Israel.
The French will be reminded – as they were under the first Unifil
mandate – that Vichy France handed its Jews to the Nazis, and
the Belgians will be reminded (no doubt) that half their country
was pro-Nazi and the Italians will be reminded that they elected
fascism into power, and the Spaniards will be reminded that Franco
was a fascist.
And the Arabs will sit silently by and watch the Europeans betray
them all over again. And the winners? Syria. Iran. And all those
enraged by the injustice and hypocrisy of our “democracies”.
modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=arti cle&sid=5447&mode=thread&order=0&t hold=0

5 BEST SONGS TO BE ASSESSED BY PEOPLE
AZG Armenian Daily
31/08/2006
Discussion over options for the new national anthem keep going,
and the lyrics of 5 best songs that have entered the second stage
will be presented to the public via mass media. A press release
from the Ministry of Culture and Sport informs that the majority
of 85 applications for the anthem were written to accompany Aram
Khachaturian’s music. Daily Azg’s Armenian section will also post
the best five songs.

GERALD PAPASIAN IS BACK FROM OPEN-AIR TOURS OF SHAKESPEARE/BROOK ‘MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM’
Translated from the French by Irma Tyler
AZG Armenian Daily
31/08/2006
What happens when you want to bring theatre to places where it
is least expected, such as the gardens of Hermitage in Lausanne,
the Château le Bailly in Montigny/Canne, the Neiderstinzel Castle
or the Gallo Roman ruins of Bliesbruck in Alsace? What happens when
you want to perform an entire Shakespeare play with only six [male]
actors? What happens when it is summer and France and Switzerland
are swinging with festival fever?
What happens is Irina Brook (daughter of the illustrious Peter Brook,
well known to all for her award-winning production of Beast on the
Moon) and six of her loyal company members, who bring Shakespeare’s
Midsummer Night’s Dream to your backyard.
Spurning big budget glamorous productions to which she had accustomed
us, Irina Brook draws upon the complicity and confidence of her
trustworthy actors, to create a joyful and sparkling show with a
minimum of costumes and props, where improvisation lurks at every
corner. The actors excel themselves in this free style where pure
pleasure replaces conceit and pretentiousness.
“Irina Brook explores a different way to summon a spirit of festivity
that accompanied theatrical productions of the past.” Official Festival
Journal – Lausanne
The talented actors (Vincent Berger, Jerry Di Giacomo, Cyril Guei,
Gerald Papasian, Christian Pelissier and Augustin Ruhabura) interpret
21 roles, involving quick changes of cross-gender dressing, miles of
crossing uneven ground, braving wind and rain, scorching temperatures,
poison ivy, mosquitoes and even a hornet’s nest!
The brilliant company, which includes a child actor played
enthusiastically by Irina’s own son Prosper, entertains and enchants
thousands of French and Swiss theatregoers over the summer months of
June and July 2006. Created in 2005 the production is scheduled for
a third season of tours in Europe and, if we are good boys and girls,
may even come to the States!
Gerald Papasian plays the demanding role of Bottom as well as the
‘young lover’ Demetrius in this third collaboration with Irina
Brook. His interpretation of the roles, a highly energetic Demetrius
and a wonderfully ‘ham’ but lovable Bottom, are acclaimed both by
critics and boisterous audiences from 7 to 77 years old. “It is the
best interpretation of Bottom I have seen,” says Bruce Meyers, long
time member of Peter Brook’s company.
Next month, Gerald Papasian embarks on his fourth collaboration with
Irina in her production of Haendel’s Julius Caesar at the Theatre
des Champs Elysees in Paris where he had rehearsed the first of their
collaborations, Brecht’s The Good Person of Schezuan playing opposite
French stage and film star Romane Bohringer.
“…All this is nothing but a Dream! If we [the actors] have
offended…we will make amends!” says Puck, one of the characters in
the play. Isabelle Viong of the Courrier (Switzerland) rightfully adds,
“No need to make amends, they are already excellent!”
–Boundary_(ID_dhzE44vwjduNk+6pg SO8NQ)–

ROAD POLICE OFFICIAL AND PRIME MINISTER CONTRADICT EACH OTHER
Panorama.am
16:29 30/08/06
Haik Sargsyan, analytical department head at the road police, said
drivers will be prohibited to smoke in cars in public transport and
that security belts will be required. Drivers will also be prohibited
to talk on phone while driving. However, he did not specify when these
requirements will be effective, saying he cannot say any deadlines
until the normative acts are approved.
Asked about the corruption in road police, Sargsyan said he does not
know any such case and “no road policeman has ever been dismissed
from work for such reason.” Interestingly enough, Andranik Margaryan,
Armenia prime minister, was interviewed by Haikakan Jamanak newspaper
in which he said, “You may apply to the Road Police and learn that
hundreds of policemen have been dismissed because of corruption
on roads.”
Obviously either road police official or the prime minister does not
tell the truth.

ARMENIAN WINES CAN WIN EUROPEAN MARKET
Armenpress
Aug 31 2006
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS: Armenian wine-makers will have to
drastically improve the quality of their produces in order to win a
place in European markets, Romano Tiogo, the secretary general of
the Venice Trade Chamber, said to a news conference in Yerevan on
August 30.
One of the ways to do so, he said, is to introduce in Armenian wineries
state-of-the-art technology. He said chief managers of 15 Armenian
wineries had visited Italy in July to see modern technology used by
wineries there.
Tiogo said installment of Italian technology in Armenia would not
cost much. He said the demand for wines in Europe grows 5-6 percent
annually and more young people prefer to pay 10-20 US Dollars for a
bottle of a good wine than to buy cheap beer.
He called for more efforts to develop trade between Armenia and Venice
which now stands at only $13.8 million.