EU allocates funds to facilitate Georgian-Ossetian dialogue
Kavkas-Press
17 Aug 06
Tbilisi, 17 August: The European Union has allocated 140,000 euros
to facilitate meetings of the Joint Control Commission [JCC] for the
settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, the head of the European
Commission Delegation to Georgia and Armenia, Torben Holtze, has said.
“The European Union has allocated 140,000 euros to facilitate meetings
of the Joint Control Commission. We hope that these funds will allow
the meetings to become regular and effective,” Holtze said at a JCC
meeting in Moscow [on 17 August].
Holtze described JCC as an important body fostering the exchange of
views between the parties to the conflict.
“We highly evaluate the fact that peace is the top priority at these
meetings,” Holtze said.

Aznavour, Chucho Valdes in New Record
Prensa Latina, Cuba
Aug. 18, 2006
Paris, Aug 18 (Prensa Latina) The famous French singer of Armenian
origin Charles Aznavour is expected to travel to Cuba to record a
new album with the outstanding Cuban director, pianist and composer
Jesus Chucho Valdes, announced Le Figaro newspaper on Friday.
During the presentation of a biographical volume he authorized,
the French star, who will soon count on a museum paying homage to
his brilliant career in Armenia, described himself as a “writer”
and not as a “songwriter”.
The new book entitled “Charles Aznavour or the Restrained Destiny”
was written by journalist Daniel Pantchenko and published two years
after the presentation of the Aznavour´s memories (Le temps des avants)
written by the artist himself.
–Boundary_(ID_ezH2nMk4zvJvkNH8qIlhBA)–

Rocky Mountain News, CO
Aug. 18, 2006
Walks planned for genocide awareness
By STORY TOOLS
August 18, 2006
Journey for Life and Journey for Humanity plan walks through five
Front Range cities to honor the memory of genocide victims and raise
awareness and action to prevent future genocides.
The walk will be lead by Essie Garrett, 1996 Olympic Torchbearer for
the State of Colorado.
Journey for Humanity, sponsored by the United Armenian Students, a
non-profit organization based in Los Angeles, began the journey on
June 27 and will terminate in Washington, D.C. in November.
The Dead Weight of Complacency, a photographic exhibit created by the
Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action, shows a series
of genocides. It will be displayed outside the Denver City and County
Building.
The exhibit will advance to Boulder, Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins
and Greeley where the group will speak on how Americans can help end
genocide in the future.
Times and locations for the walks and exhibits are:
~U 10 a.m. Monday, steps of Denver City and County Building
~U 3 p.m. Tuesday, band shell, southwest corner of Broadway and
Canyon, Boulder
~U 11 a.m. Wednesday, Longmont Free University, 505 Main St.
~U 3 p.m. Thursday, Peters Park at Loveland Museum, corner of 5th and
Lincoln in Loveland
~U 1 p.m. Friday, Old Town Square Plaza, Fort Collins
~U 11 a.m. Aug. 28, Greeley History Museum, 714 Eighth Street, Greeley

NEW RADIATION SAFETY STANDARDS TO BE INTRODUCED IN ARMENIA ON JULY 1, 2007
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Aug. 18, 2006
YEREVAN, August 18. /ARKA/. New radiation safety standards are to
be introduced in Armenia on July 1, 2007, Head of the Nuclear and
Radiation Safety Inspection Ashot Martirosyan told reporters. He said
that at its sitting today the Armenian Government is to approve the
new standards.
“The period left until July 1, 2007, will be used for necessary
preparations,” he said. Martirosyan stated that the standards have
been elaborated in conformity with the requirements of IAEA and WHO.
Stricter radiation safety requirements will be set to nuclear-power
facilities and to the population. Specially, the radiation level for
employees of enterprises and organizations using sources of nuclear
energy has been reduced from 5 Rem to 2 Rem, and for the population
from 0.5 Rem to 0.2 Rem.
“The document also separates the responsibility and competence of
relevant bodies,” Martirosyan said.
He reported that advanced experience of Russia, the USA and European
countries was used in the elaboration of the standards.
He pointed out that 2 Rem is not at all a reduction of the radiation
level because it is extremely low in Armenia’s enterprises and doe
not even reach the standards set. P.T. -0–

CONCEPT OF SCIENTIFIC REFORMS TO BE SUBMITTED IN NOV-DEC 2006
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Aug. 18, 2006
YEREVAN, August 18. /ARKA/. A concept of reforming Armenia’s scientific
sector is to be submitted for a public discussion in November-December
2006, RA Minister of Education and Science Levon Mkrtichyan told
reporters.
According to him, the Armenian Government has approved a list and
schedule of necessary measures. An interagency task group has been
formed as well.
“During one month the group is to elaborate a comprehensive program of
scientific reforms. The program is supposed to settle all disputable
issues by March-April 2007,” he said.
The formation of a single system of managing Armenia’s scientific
sector is to get under way in the second ten-day part of December 2007.
The Minister pointed out that in 2007-2008 funding of the program
will be received, particularly under the EU-implemented program.
Mkrtichyan said that the implementation of the program will resolve
the problem of forming a special scientific fund in Armenia.
“It should be noted the schedule of implementation is rather strict,
and the interagency group will supervise its fulfillment,” P.T. -0–

FITCH RATINGS’ RISE OF ARMENIAN’S COUNTRY THRESHOLD EVIDENCE OF CURRENCY CONVERSION RISK REDUCTION
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Aug. 18, 2006
YEREVAN, August 18. /ARKA/. The rise of Armenia’s country threshold
from “BB-” to “BB” by the Fitch Ratings agency is evidence of reduction
of currency conversion risks in Armenia, Chairman of the Central Bank
of Armenia (CBA) Tigran Sargsyan stated in his exclusive interview
to ARKA.
According to him, Armenia’s private companies must take advantage of
this positive impulse and work at getting their own ratings that may
be higher than Armenia’s country rating.
Sargsyan pointed out that Fitch Ratings agency also announced the
rise in the country thresholds of 40 countries, including Russia
and Kazakhstan.
“The rise reflects considerable liberalization on capital markets and
currency control, as well as the countries’ further integration into
global economy,” Sargsyan said.
On June 5, 2006, Fitch Ratings assigned Armenia Issuer Default Ratings
in foreign and national currencies “BB-” with “Stable” forecast. The
Agency also assigned the country a short-term rating “B” and “country
threshold” rating “BB-” On July 24, 2006, the international rating
agency Moody’s Investors Service assigned the Armenian Government
sovereign ratings in foreign and national currency “Ba2”. P.T. -0–

Thursday, August 17, 2006
****************************************
Armenians may be perennial losers, Saroyan says somewhere, but they are inextinguishable. After which he challenges the world to exterminate us, clearly implying that it can’t be done.
*
What is it that makes of us perennial losers and why would anyone want to exterminate us? If Saroyan had the answers to these questions he kept them to himself, probably because he didn’t want to risk his popularity among his fellow Armenians, who idolized him together with Mikoyan and Gulbenkian.
*
Since Saroyan could not read Armenian, he was probably unaware of the fact that our status as perennial losers has been a central theme of our literature from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe in the 5th Century to Zarian, Shahnour, and Massikian in the 20th.
*
Had Saroyan known that only 7% of Gulbenkian’s money is earmarked for Armenians and Mikoyan played a key role in the Stalinist purges in Armenia during which our ablest men were systematically and ruthlessly exterminated, he could have said to the world, “No need to go out of your way to exterminate Armenians. Left to their own devices they will be glad to do it themselves.”
#
Friday, August 18, 2006
***************************************
ZEN MOMENTS
******************************
D.T. Suzuki, the author of a best-selling INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM, was having lunch in a restaurant when he was approached by another patron who interrupted his own lunch to ask for an explanation in layman’s terms of what exactly was Zen. After a brief moment of reflection, Suzuki replied, “Eat.”
*
To the question by a journalist as to why he had devoted decades of his life writing his STUDY OF HISTORY in twelve thick volumes, Toynbee replied, “Curiosity.”
*
When a factory owner once said to Karl Marx, “If I understand your economic theories correctly, all you want is our money.” Marx replied, “That’s right.”
*
In addition to being one of the greatest composers of all time, J.S. Bach was also a celebrated virtuoso organist. Once when asked by an admirer what it takes to master such a demanding instrument, Bach replied, “You just press the keys.”
*
These laconic replies leave a great deal unsaid (reminiscent of “Shut up! he explained”) but to the perceptive mind they speak volumes. Consider Suzuki’s “Eat,” as a case in point. In reality we never just eat. We also think, reminisce, plan, worry, imagine… Zen consists in doing what you are doing at any given moment and nothing else. This may sound easy but it is not. It is, as a matter of fact, as difficult as understanding, let alone, loving the enemy. And understanding the enemy is difficult because by understanding him we may begin to perceive the evil within us.
#
Saturday, August 19, 2006
*****************************************
OF TRIBES, NATIONS, AND EMPIRES
***************************************************
Once upon a time there were 42 (or is it 56) tribes in the Caucasus. If most of them have not survived it’s because, unlike us, they didn’t have what it takes, or so I was told as a child. Which meant that we were, if not the master race of the Caucasus, then something in that neighborhood. Now that I am no longer a child I know that these 42 or 56 tribes did not perish. They survive in us.
*
Tribes, nations, and empires share this in common: they need constant foreign transfusions to survive because if left on their own they would end by moronizing themselves.
*
Armenians come in all sizes and shapes. In the ghetto where I was born and raised there were Armenians who looked like Mongols, Tartars, Negroes, Germans, and so on, but they all spoke Armenian and identified themselves as Armenian because in a tribal or ethnic environment most people tend to identify themselves with the dominant minority, the way we did in the Byzantine Empire, and after that in the Ottoman and Soviet Empires, and the way we do today in America.
*
In the Byzantine Empire, for example, some of the most powerful imperial dynasties and their military leaders were Armenian or part Armenian, but their foreign policy was consistently anti-Armenian.
Smart Armenians know that the only way to get ahead in the kind of world we live in is to serve the interests of those in power even if they happen to be our mortal enemies. Grub first, then ethics.
*
One of our elder statesmen once told me that some of the key players in our organizations are not Armenians but Turks. I didn’t believe him. All I can say today is that after six centuries of cohabitation it’s not easy to tell a Turk from an Armenian.
*
Race, color, creed – these are poorly defined terms that according to scientists and historians are nothing but figments of our imagination.
*
What could be more Russian than Russian literature? And yet, if you take a closer look, you may discover that some of the greatest and most influential Russian writers were not Russians. Pushkin was a Negro, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn Ukrainians, Pasternak and Brodsky (two Nobel Prize winners) Jews. Something similar could be said of all literatures. Most French writers are not French but Jews (Montaigne, Barthes), Italian (Zola), Irish (Beckett), Rumanian (Ionesco), Armenian (Adamov).
*
How many Armenian writers are Armenian? I don’t know and I don’t care to know because what I admire in a writer is not his race, color, or creed, but his work, his ideas, his worldview, his style, his humanity, none of which recognizes any man-made boundaries.
#

Azeri media watchdog wants “urgent measures” to end violence against
reporters
Turan news agency
17 Aug 06
Baku, 17 August: The chairman of the Press Council, Aflatun Amasov,
had a meeting today with the head of the public-political department
of the presidential administration, Ali Hasanov.
The meeting discussed the situation surrounding the media in the recent
period, the press service of the Press Council reported. Specifically,
they discussed the abduction of the editor-in-chief of Bizim Yol
newspaper [and deputy chairman of the People’s Front of Azerbaijan
Party], Bahaddin Haziyev, as well as other cases of violence against
journalists and the increase in the number of lawsuits against the
mass media. Amasov said that it is necessary to take urgent measures
to prevent such incidents.
On the other hand, Hasanov said that every person has the right to
go to court. He sees the way out of the situation in journalists’
respect for people’s honour and dignity.
Amasov also had a meeting with the interior minister [Ramil Usubov]
today.
They agreed to hold a round table to discuss relations between the
police and the mass media on 19 August.
The round table will be attended by high-ranking officials of the
Interior Ministry, including the minister himself, members of the
Press Council and heads of several media outlets.

ARF Delegation Visits Southern Lebanon After Cease-Fire
18.08.2006 16:18
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – A delegation of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Lebanon Central Committee visited southern Lebanon Tuesday to assess the damage
following the 30-day old Israeli attack on the country, Beirut based Aztag
Armenian Daily reported.
Accompanying the delegation were members of parliament Hagop Pakradouni and
Sebouh Hovnanian, who was a former Lebanese minister, as well as members of
the local Armenian media.
The delegation was greeted by the local leadership who led a tour of the
devastated areas.
Also touring the region was Lebanese minister Mohamad Fenaysh, who joined
the delegation in assessing the devastating conditions. Local leaders expressed
their gratitude to the Lebanese-Armenian community–especially the ARF–for
its efforts in assisting the refugees displaced from the attacks. The
Armenian community also was praised by leaders.
Following a press conference with the Armenian, Lebanese and international
media representatives, the delegation continued to meet with the displaced who
were returning to their homes following the cease-fire.

INFORMATION OF AZERBAIJAN MASS MEDIA ABOUT CONDUCTING OF EXERCISES
BY ARMENIAN AF IN AGHDAM REGION IS FICTITIOUS
Yerevan, August 18. ArmInfo. Information of APA Azerbaijan Agency
about conducting of military exercises in Aghdam region does not
represent the facts, ArmInfo was told in NKR Defense Ministry,
commenting on the information of the above-mentioned Agency about
the beginning of the alleged large-scale exercises . Allegedly,
“the enemy uses heavy artillery and armored equipment”.
Since the matter in APA information concerned the exercises “of
Armenian Armed Forces’ subdivisions “, ArmInfo correspondent addressed
Seiran Shahsuvaryan , the RA DM press-secretary, for comments and
received a laconic answer: “It is lie”.