EDUCATION MINISTER RULES OUT UNPROFESSIONAL APPROACH IN ADMISSION COMMISSION’S WORK
By Irina Hovannisian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Aug. 22, 2006
With higher school entrance examinations in Armenia over, the education
minister has praised the work of the admission commission, putting
down some complaints and dissatisfaction from applicants to its
‘strict criteria rather than unprofessional approach.’
“Perhaps they were a bit strict in their criteria, but these criteria
were universal for all applicants,” Levon Mkrtchian told reporters
on Tuesday.
Entrance examinations to higher schools ended in Armenia this week,
with many teenage applicants and their parents feeling unhappy with
the way they were handled.
In particular, people complain that at certain examinations officials
helped handpicked entrants with prompts, in other cases they put
psychological pressure and subjectively graded applicants, especially
during oral exams.
Ruzanna Hovannisian is convinced that her daughter, Mariam Ohanian,
was treated unfairly at the oral English language examination.
“She had high marks from the two previous examinations and was
subjected to psychological pressure from the admission commission at
her oral examination. Perhaps her high marks annoyed some people,”
Hovannisian told RFE/RL, adding that she had addressed a letter of
complaint to the minister.
Minister Mkrtchian admits that it is difficult to find a means of
effective struggle against subjectivity in oral examinations. “I feel
that the parent is perhaps right, but we have no solution. The degree
of subjectivity in oral examinations is very high,” he said.
As was expected, the threshold for entering an institute or university
faculty has lowered a little this year as compared to the previous
years, with the exception of competitions for the law departments at
the Yerevan State University, Armenia’s biggest and most prestigious
higher school.
To gather 57.5 points (out of 60) is likely to be enough for an
applicant to become a student at the University’s law department
studying free of charge. To be admitted to the paid section of the
department one is likely to score at least 55 points. The sufficient
points for the free sections of the University’s English language,
economics and history departments are likely to be 58, 57.5, and 55,
respectively. The highest score for the world economics department of
the University of Economics is expected to be 55. And for the Medical
University’s therapy department it is likely to be 36.5.
The minister expressed his concern over the dropping competition
for some departments of the Engineering University. Competition is
particularly low for natural sciences departments, where satisfactory
marks from two examinations are enough for admission. “Sending
their children to train as economists, lawyers or diplomats parents
in fact condemn them to future unemployment, as, for example, our
small country hardly needs more than a hundred diplomats every year,”
Mkrtchian stressed.
The final results of the entrance examinations will become available
on August 24.

ARRESTED EDITOR’S BROTHER BROUGHT TO POLICE
By Karine Kalantarian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Aug. 22, 2006
The brother of a controversially arrested newspaper editor was taken
to a police precinct on Tuesday morning following a tip-off alleging
that a person wanted by police was hiding in his apartment.
Vice-Director of the Skizb Media Ltd. Artak Babajanian, who is the
brother of “Yerevan Zhamanak” editor Arman Babajanian, later told
RFE/RL that police officers came to his apartment in Komitas Avenue at
8:30 am and began knocking at his door and demanding that he open it.
Babajanian, who had not been notified of the visit by the police or
invited to the police precinct in advance, had to get in touch with
his relatives on the phone and make sure that those knocking on the
door were indeed representatives of the law. He said he opened the
door only after his relatives confirmed that.
According to Babajanian, the police workers did not give him any
explanations, saying that he ‘would know everything at the police
precinct’.
At 11:00 am, Yerevan Police Department Head Nerses Nazarian explained
to RFE/RL that police needed to check some information with Babajanian
and that he would be released soon after.
Before his release about half an hour later, Babajanian was told that
he had been brought to the police precinct following an alarm that
a person wanted by the police lived in his apartment.
Babajanian signed a paper that he had never been wanted by the police
before and was released after what appeared to be three hours of
stress and civil rights violation at the police precinct.
Two months ago prosecutors arrested his brother Arman Babajanian
on forgery and draft evasion charges. Despite his representing no
threat to society, Babajanian, who later partially admitted to the
charges during the trial, was denied a release on bail pending trial,
which was denounced by the editors of Armenia’s leading newspapers
as politically motivated.
Lawyer Zaruhi Postanjian explains that the police did not have
sufficient grounds for bringing Artak Babajanian to the precinct.
“Had he been notified in advance that police wanted to question him and
failed to respond to the subpoena as a witness, accused or suspect,
the police then would have reasons for taking him to the precinct,”
she said.

U.S. TO PROVIDE EQUAL ASSISTANCE TO REFUGEES IN AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Aug. 22, 2006
In the 2006 fiscal year the amount of the U.S. State Department’s
financial assistance for the implementation of humanitarian programs
in Azerbaijan will remain the same as it was in 2005.
The U.S. Embassy oversees the distribution of money for humanitarian
aid to Umcor, Counterpart and IRD, who implement humanitarian projects,
the U.S. State Department’s Director of Humanitarian Programs in Europe
and Asia Jerry Oberndorfer said, but did not mention concrete figures.
The United States’ assistance to refugees in Armenia and Azerbaijan is
nearly equal. Being asked why this is so, when there are more refugees
in Azerbaijan, Oberndorfer, said it is necessary to maintain balance.

GERMAN WW2 ‘VICTIMS’ EXHIBITION ANGERS POLES
Expatica, Netherlands
Aug. 22, 2006
The issue of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after WW2 is
controversial, and a new exhibition in Berlin has received heated
criticism from Poland. Clive Freeman visits ‘Forced Paths.’
The exhibition documents the fates of German expellees from
Eastern Europe Wilfried Rogasch stands in the foyer of Berlin’s
Kronprinzenpalais shaking his head in disbelief at the hostile
reactions in Poland to the exhibition he has organised.
Entitled “Erzwungene Wege – Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des 20.
Jahrhunderts” (“Forced Paths – Flight and Expulsion in Europe During
the 20th Century”), the exhibition fills three rooms of the newly
revamped Palais building on Berlin’s landmark street Unten den Linden,
and depicts the plight of millions of European refugees, among them
many Germans, who either fled or were expelled from their homes at
the end of World War II.
In the biggest hall, nine mass expulsion episodes get pin-pointed,
ranging from the Armenian massacres in 1915 to the German persecution
of the Jews between 1933-45, and the ethnic cleansing terror in
Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s.
Under fire
When it opened on 11 August, the Polish government and a large section
of the Polish media were quick to criticise it.
I am disappointed. I saw myself as a bridge-builder between Germany and
Poland, not as a trouble-maker. – exhibition organiser Wilfried Rogasch
“All expulsions and flights linked to the Second World War and post-war
resettlements are a painful and dramatic consequence of Hitler’s
attack on Poland and Europe. This must be remembered,” Archbishop
Jozef Michalik, chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference, said.
He added that it must be kept in mind that German expellees’ leader
Erika Steinbach herself was born in a town near Gdansk in Nazi-occupied
Poland as the daughter of a soldier who willingly served in Adolf
Hitler’s Nazi army.
Daniel Pawlowicz, an MP for the nationalist League of Polish Families
(LPR), urged Poland’s foreign ministry to “react strongly” to the
exhibition, saying its treatment of ethnic German expellees falsified
history. The LPR is the junior partner in Poland’s governing coalition.
Pawlowicz added that the Polish government must always react in
similar cases and “show the lines” that Germans may not cross.
Warsaw’s mayor Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz even cancelled plans to visit
Berlin, telling Poland’s TVN 24 news channel that his visit to Berlin
could be misinterpreted in Poland and exploited.
Judged too soon
However Rogasch told Deutsche Presse-Agentur he was surprised by the
“hysterical reaction” in Poland. “Even without seeing the contents
of the show the Polish premier, foreign minister and culture minister
had decided it was, anti-Polish,” he said.
At the heart of the current dispute is a campaign spearheaded by German
expellee groups aimed at creating a centre in Berlin remembering the
mass expulsions of 12-14 million ethnic Germans from several countries
of Eastern Europe after World War 11.
Rogasch frankly concedes that the Berlin exhibition, which lasts for
three months, is the “first step towards a permanent documentation
centre here in Berlin.”
There has been a fiery debate over such plans, with German Nobel
Literature Prize winner Guenter Grass – himself now in the news over
his admission he was a teenage member of the wartime Waffen SS –
warning three years ago that the creation of a centre in Berlin would
open old wounds with Germany’s eastern neighbours.
Returned loans
All expulsions and flights linked to the Second World War and post-war
resettlements are a painful and dramatic consequence of Hitler’s attack
on Poland and Europe. This must be remembered. – Polish archbishop
Jozef Michalik As a result of the controversy caused by the current
exhibition, Rogasch said he had returned several exhibition art loans
back to Poland in order, as he put it, to “avoid curators there any
possible embarrassment.”
He added: “It was my decision. They did not ask that l should do so.
So, yes, I am disappointed. I saw myself as a bridge-builder between
Germany and Poland, not as a trouble-maker.”
The curator also praised several Polish museums for “standing firm”
during a trying period.
“Pressure has been put on these institutions by the (Polish)
government, and by a large proportion of the Polish press,” he claimed.
“I find this quite outrageous in a country which belongs to the
European Union, and in which scientific and cultural institutions
should be independent of the prevailing government.
“We are all members of the International Council of Museums, which
is a part of UNESCO. As such, museums should be able to decide freely
with whom they co-operate and to whom they send loans.
Traumatic experiences
What is your opinion of ‘Forced Paths’? Write to [email protected].
Rogasch says while the Berlin exhibition involves the fate of 12-
14 million German refugees who either fled or were ousted from their
homes in Poland, Czechoslovakia and several other countries in eastern
Europe after World War II, it also clearly defines the traumatic
experiences of millions of other expellees from other countries.
Supporters of the centre, like German Expellees’ leader Erika
Steinbach, who is a CDU deputy, argue that it would serve as a warning
against future expulsions.
To its advocates, the centre is deemed a natural development, an effort
to remember and understand an often forgotten fact: that, in the two
years after Germany’s World War II defeat in 1945, millions of ethnic
Germans were forced to leave countries where they and their ancestors
had lived, in some cases for centuries, and resettle in Germany itself.
Unease
But in Poland, such talk provokes considerable uneasiness. Most
critics in Poland worry the planned Berlin centre could be misused by
historical revisionists to marginalize or cast aside Nazi Germany’s
responsibility for the colossal civilian suffering which occurred
during the Second World War.
Wladslaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and former Polish foreign
minister argues that if a centre is created then it should be located
in Wroclaw, which prior to World War II was for hundreds of years
the German city of Breslau.
Wroclaw was almost entirely destroyed during the war, when it was
bombarded and eventually over-run by Soviet troops after a desperate
14 week German defence that lasted until four days after the fall of
Berlin in the spring of 1945.
Subsequently it became a classic “refugee city.” Those who settled in
Wroclaw after the war were Polish refugees from the eastern city of
Lvov, which at the end of World War II became Soviet Ukraine’s Lviv,
where mainly ethnic Ukrainians resettled.
Documenting history
Warsaw mayor cancels Berlin trip over refugee exhibition
Polish archbishop criticises Berlin exhibition
Poland demands return of bell from exhibition
Rogasch, who has made numerous visits to museums in Poland in recent
years for talks with fellow curators, insists that Germany has
since the 1939-45 conflict worked painstakingly at documenting the
“outrageous criminal aspects of Germany’s history.”
“Now,” he says, “this country has every right to focus on groups
whose German members were also victims 60 years ago. Now they are
in their 70s or 80s. Then, they were children. So they would neither
have voted for Hitler or known anything about the concentration camps.”
“We cannot deny such groups their personal right to remember that
they were victims – victims of Nazi dictatorship and also of Stalinist
expansionism.”

US AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA JOHN EVANS TO COMPLETE HIS MISSION IN SEPTEMBER 2006
Author: À. Mammadov
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 22, 2006
(REGNUM) – US Ambassador to Armenia John Evans will finish his
mission in September of the current year, a REGNUM correspondent
informs. Responding to question of journalists, how he evaluates US
Congress’ activity, which recalled him ahead of scheduler, as well
as new ambassador Richard Hoagland, John Evans said: “I do not have
any evaluation of US Congress activity; I will finish my mission in
the first part of September.”
It is worth stressing, most likely, recall of US Ambassador to Armenia
John Evans was caused by his statement on the Armenian Genocide in
1915 in Ottoman Turkey.
On February 19, 2006, John Evans said about “importance of Armenian
Genocide’s recognition” during his meeting with representatives of
San Francisco Armenian community. “I will call it Armenian Genocide
today,” Mr. Evans stated. Representatives of US administration and
officials avoided to use ‘genocide’ word concerning events, which
took place early in last century in Turkey, preferring to use various
euphemisms. “No US official has ever denied the fact. Things should
be called by their names,” he stressed. “The Armenian Genocide was
the first one of 20th century,” Mr. Evans said, stressing, at that,
that world was not being prepared for appropriate reaction at that
time. He assured that he was going to work on the problem strongly,
reports Trend.
It should be reminded that possible new US Ambassador to Armenia
Richard Hoagland is now US Ambassador to Tajikistan. A scandal is
about to happen in Armenia because of his nomination.
–Boundary_(ID_YN82m1uVwsmi4PC7tQS80Q )–

SIGNATURE COLLECTING CAMPAIGN HELD FOR GIVING AUTONOMY TO DEPORTED AZERBAIJANIS IN ARMENIA
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug. 22, 2006
The Initiative Group for giving political-administrative autonomy
to Azerbaijanis deported from Western Azerbaijan in Armenia has
finished the first stage of signature collecting campaign to present
to international organizations.
The Initiative Group told the APA signatures have been collected from
Azerbaijanis, who were deported from their native lands and made to
settle in different regions of Azerbaijan in 1930-50, 1960-70 and
1988. Besides, historic facts proving armenizing policy in Western
Azerbaijan since 1828 have been got.
The Initiative Group also said it will meet in September to raise
the issue at international organizations.

NIZAMI BAHMANOV: KASPSHIK IS ACTIVE NOT TO LOSE HIS HIGH POST AND SALARY
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug. 22, 2006
“Personal representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzei Kaspshik
preferred observing during his activity. Between nearly 150 and 200
servicemen and civilians were killed on the front before but Kaspshik
has never reported anything about that.
We do not know what he report to OSCE,” said Nizami Bahmanov, head
of Azerbaijani community of Garabagh while commenting on Kaspshik’s
report on the arsons committed in the occupied Azerbaijani lands.
“According to Kaspshik, there is neither any aggressor nor sufferer.
He has always taken this stance. The Azerbaijani government has voiced
its position regarding his report and raised this issue at the UN,”
Bahmanov said.
He also said after seeing Azerbaijan’s sharp reaction, Kaspshik made
some corrections to his position saying he is not an expert on fires,
“He says he is not an ecologist but engineer. Let him be an engineer
then.” Bahmanov also said following Azerbaijan’s severe reaction,
Kaspshik has become more active.
“He knows well that his future activity, his remaining in the current
post depends on Azerbaijan. Kaspshik is active not to lose his high
post and salary. He advocates setting up expert group to monitor the
region,” the Azerbaijani community head underlined.
Bahmanov said Kaspshik’s stance coincides with that of OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairs.
“The co-chairs do not make any remark to Armenia. But, culprits
should be held responsible. Since the co-chairs do not admit that
Armenians have occupied Azerbaijani lands, what can you expect them to
do? Azerbaijan is facing such a difficult problem today. Though the
co-chairs see the crimes committed by Armenians, they say exerting
pressure to any of the parties is not in their mission.
Kaspshik says the fires in Garabagh are just natural disaster. Is
the fire in Tovuz natural disaster too? Is it also hot in Kalbajar
and other mountain regions?” he underlined.
Accusing the co-chairs of passivity, Bahmanov said Azerbaijan has
not offered to reconsider their authorities and functions.
“The negotiating process for the settlement of the Nagorno Garabagh
continues in the frames of the Prague process, which satisfies us.
But Azerbaijan is dissatisfied with the co-chairs keeping silence,
avoiding to make any remark to the aggressor in the frames of this
step-by-step solution,” he said.
Commenting on the issue with regard to expected substitution of Russian
co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov, Bahmanov said he does not expect any change
in the new co-chair’s stance, “There is no point in substituting
co-chair. The main thing is the Russian government’s changing its
position.”

MG CO-CHAIRS DISAPPROVE GARABAGH’S AZERBAIJANI COMMUNITY APPEAL FOR VISITING OCCUPIED LANDS
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug. 22, 2006
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs gave a negative response to Garabagh’s
Azerbaijani community’s appeal for visiting occupied Azerbaijani
territories, Nizami Bahmanov, Azerbaijani community head told
journalists, APA reports.
“We offered co-chairs to go to our lands together to hold
negotiations. Our proposal is still in power, but co-chairs fear it.
The reason is unknown,” he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN ARSONS CONTINUE TO CATCH AZERBAIJANI LANDS
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug. 22, 2006
On 21 August, at night Armenian occupying forces set fire to no man’s
land in Noyemberyan village bordering with the Azerbaijani village
Kamarli in Gazakh region.
Deputy head of Gazakh executive power Farman Naghdeliyev told
journalists, APA’s Garabagh bureau reports.
Naghdeliyev said the fire was brought under control by local
firefighters with the help of soldiers and local residents after 6
hours. However, the fire caught 5000 hectares of pasture and farmlands.
Local residents said about 25-30 antitank and antipersonnel mines
exploded during the fire.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA TO BE HELD IN SITUATION “CLOSE TO MARTIAL”
Regnum, Russia
Aug. 22, 2006
“Elections to Armenia’s National Assembly in 2007 will be held
in a situation close to martial,” Chairman of the oppositional
Constitutional Law Union, Grant Khachatryan, has announced at a news
conference on August 22. According to him, during the fighting for
parliamentary seats the opposition should come forwards as a united
group in controlling the election process. “The opposition should be
a united group to let the elections come fairly and without fraud,”
Khachatryan is quoted as saying.
As for ideological positions, the party leader believes that from
this point of view it would be a mistake to step forth by a single
party ticket. “Several opposition blocs should be presented at the
elections united with a single idea,” he noted. However, as Grant
Khachatryan put it, contrary to the authorities that are “represented
in the country by two faces” the opposition has not made public its
message. “Preparation work is being held in the opposition now.
Numbers of party members are being confirmed, possible unions
are considered,” he notes adding that “the opposition nowadays is
sending its whole energy towards residents of Armenia’s provinces
and communities.” “We have been carrying out local congresses in the
provinces, electing party officials,” Khachatryan says.
“The two faces” of the Armenian power, according to Khachatryan, differ
completely fro one another. “The first face is a forceful one, it is
notorious in the press and public discussions for its criminal ties;
the other one is a nice and friendly face, as if it is presenting
a claim to improve the situation in the republic, but it is nothing
but a semblance,” the opposition leader believes.
It is worth mentioning, the ruling coalition in Armenia is presented
by two parties, Dashnaktsutiun Revolutionary Federation and Armenia’s
Republican Party. The prime minister’s position belongs to the
Republicans. In mid-September, the Constitutional Law Union intends
to hold a party congress.