15,000 attend Holy Saturday ceremony
By YAAKOV KATZ AND JPOST STAFF
Jerusalem Post
April 22 2006
Some 15,000 people attended Holy Saturday ceremonies Jerusalem on
Saturday. Thousands of police were positioned around the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher in east Jerusalem, hoping to prevent confrontations
between various groups of worshippers expected to make their way to
the church.
Police were also patrolling streets and alleys adjacent to the church,
and closed the Old City to cars, requesting that visitors park outside
the walls, Israel Radio reported.
Holy Saturday, which falls between Good Friday and Easter Day, marks
the day on which Christ’s body lay in his tomb.
Easter rites at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher have been marked by
violence in the past. Since the Crusades, three major denominations
have controlled the church – Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and
(Latin) Roman Catholic – with the rights and privileges of all of
the communities protected by the Status Quo of the Holy Places set
up in 1852.
According to Dep.-Cmdr. Asher Ben- Atrzi, head of the Israel Police
Interpol and Foreign Liaison Section, almost every year a dispute
erupts between the Armenians and the Greeks over who enters the cave
where Jesus is believed to be buried first. The different denominations
also argue over prayer times. ‘The police really need to be hands
on at the churches,’ he explained, ‘to prevent them from arguing
and fighting.’

Reilly Criticizes Patrick’s Ties to Armenian Genocide Deniers
Hub Politics, MA
April 22 2006
Just as I suspected. While the idiosyncrasies of Deval Patrick’s ties
to a group that lobbies on behalf of Republic of Turkey’s denial of
the Armenian Genocide, it has nonetheless provided Patrick rival Tom
“Cover Up” Reilly with a springboard for attacking Patrick.
While gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick stood by his association
with a D.C. lobbyist working to squash the legitimacy of the Armenian
genocide, opponent Tom Reilly said he wouldn’t want anything to do
with a person like that.
“Anyone who would try and undermine the history and the truth of what
happened to the Armenian population, I certainly would be disappointed
in that. I certainly would not want to have anything to do with that,”
Reilly said.
The Herald reported yesterday that a Deval Patrick fund-raiser in
Washington D.C. was co-hosted by Bernie Robinson, a consultant to the
Livingston Group, a high-powered lobbying firm that has taken millions
from the Turkish government to fight Congress from recognizing that
the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians beginning in 1915
was genocide.
Reilly, whose office is defending the state’s refusal to include the
point of view of those who deny there was an Armenian genocide in the
statewide Department of Education history curriculum, said Patrick
will “have to make his own decisions as to who he associates with
and the people that raise money for him.”
Patrick’s spokeswoman, Libby DeVecchi, is earning her salary defending
Patrick, as she has in this case. “It is unfortunate that one of our
opponents is trying to make a political issue out of the tragedy,”
she said.
With Reilly’s criticism, this story with Patrick and Livingston
Group has reached its peak. The reality of the situation is that
it certainly doesn’t look favorable, it is an undeniable truth in
Washington that you will be dealing with people and groups who have
some connection, weak or strong, to other groups and beliefs that
may or may not politically viable.
I will say though, Patrick’s defense is weak at best. I will also say
that if the Livingston Group or some other group tied to the Patrick
campaign was involved with a group that denies the occurance of the
Nazi Holocaust, this story would be a lot different.
0458.php

The Statesman (India)
April 22, 2006 Saturday
STUDENT DIES
SILIGURI, April 21: Prashant Anchalia, student of Yerevan State
Medical University in Armenia, died yesterday after apparently
falling from the sixth floor of his hostel. A resident of Siliguri,
Prashant was the son of a business-man. SNS

Belleville Intelligencer (Ontario)
April 21, 2006 Friday
Final Edition
Today in History
The Canadian Press
German air ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen was shot down and killed
over the Western Front 88 years ago today, in 1918, during a First
World War dogfight with Capt. Roy Brown of Carleton Place, Ont. Brown
was a flight leader in the 209th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps.
Also on this date in:
– 1816, English writer Charlotte Bronte was born in Thornton,
England. The author of Jane Eyre died in 1855.
– 1948, William Lyon Mackenzie King set a record of service as a
Commonwealth prime minister: 20 years, 10 months and 10 days. He
retired the following November.
– 2004, the Canadian parliament voted 153-68 to pass a private
member’s resolution endorsing the controversial view that the 1915
massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman troops was a
genocide.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 21, 2006 Friday
DEFENSE MINISTER SERZH SARKISJAN: OUR RELATIONS ARE 1,000 YEARS OLD
by Aleksei Ventslovsky
An interview with Defense Minister of Armenia Serzh Sarkisjan.
Question: Successful development of military and military-technical
cooperation between our countries is common knowledge. Could you
please say a few words on the subject?
Serzh Sarkisjan: I’d like to emphasize that the level of relations
between us is fairly high. This cooperation encompasses a broad
spectrum of issues. My Russian colleague Sergei Ivanov visited us in
January. We discussed prospects of the Armenian-Russian relations
that are viewed in both countries as extremely promising.
The 102nd Russian Military Base established in Armenia on our
suggestion is playing a special part in the relations.
Question: Where development of contacts between the national armies
is concerned… Do you think trainees from Russian military colleges
may ever come to Armenia for field training at mountainous testing
sites and shooting ranges of the Armenian Defense Ministry?
Serzh Sarkisjan: Why not? Russia only has to ask, and we will be glad
to receive them here. Hundreds of Armenian servicemen including
officers and generals are trained in Russia and this sort of
cooperation is like a two-way street, you know.
Question: The Armenian national army is being reorganized. What are
these reforms about? What problems does the Defense Ministry
encounter?
Serzh Sarkisjan: The Armenian Armed Forces consist of motorized
infantry and Air Force now. We do not have branches or high commands
as such. There is only one headquarters running all of the Armed
Forces that comprise five corps formations, artillery unit, and
antiaircraft defense brigades. All in all, 45,000 men or so. All of
the population of Armenia amounts to 3 million only, and the army we
have is somewhat larger than we would prefer. In the meantime, we are
compelled to keep an army of this size because of the lack of
stability in the southern part of the Caucasus and because of
conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Generally speaking,
our Armed Forces have a lot of problems – just like armies of other
countries I presume.
We’ve set the task to have an army by 2015, that will meet world
standards. I’d like to emphasize that because Russian media outlets
report every now and then that Armenia is after an army by NATO
standards. Not NATO, world standards.
Question: What effect may escalation of conflicts in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia have on the situation in Armenia?
Serzh Sarkisjan: The southern part of the Caucasus is actually a
small region where every country depends on everyone else. The
hostilities will create extremely negative consequences, and Armenia
cannot hope to remain unaffected by them. Armenia does not need any
instability in Georgia because this country is our only connection to
the world. Besides, the hostilities may tempt other countries to
meddle in the conflict.
Question: Reports in the Russian media indicate that a peacekeeping
operation for Nagorno-Karabakh under the OSCE is being charted in
Brussels. Your Russian opposite number Ivanov also said once that
Russian peacekeepers could be deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh, in
theory…
Serzh Sarkisjan: I doubt that someone is really working on a
peacekeeping operation. The warring sides’ consent is needed for it
or at least some contours of the future accord. It will become a
possibility only when the sides in the conflict reached an agreement.
That’s when peacekeepers may come in handy. Unfortunately, we do not
have an agreement with Azerbaijan. Peacekeepers are not on the agenda
therefore.
Question: And what is the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh nowadays?
Serzh Sarkisjan: The matter is constantly brought up in Azerbaijan in
attempts to solve other domestic problems in this manner. You
probably know that the president of Azerbaijan and his defense
minister regularly say that a military solution will be forced on
Baku unless Armenia accepted their terms. Azerbaijan doubled its
military budget. The president of Azerbaijan said he had boosted it
to $1 billion not long ago. That smacks of blackmail, if you ask me.
We do not want a war but we are not frightened by its prospect. An
end was put to hostilities in 1994, with Russia’s help. Our troops
have an advantage nowadays. We’ve fortified the positions this last
12 years. Not even billions of dollars will help Azerbaijan.
Source: Krasnaya Zvezda, April 19, 2006, p. 1
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Times (London)
April 21, 2006, Friday
Two countries with the same name
Have two countries with the same name ever existed in entirely
different locations at the same, or different, points of history?
Further to your previous replies (March 24, April 7), there is at
least one other example -Armenia.
Although it is now an independent country sandwiched between Iran,
Azerbaijan, Turkey and Kazakhstan, it was once much larger, with a
seaboard on the Caspian Sea, and sat beneath the Caucasian versions
of Iberia and Albania (already mentioned). In AD301 it adopted
Christianity as its state religion, more than a decade before
Christians were tolerated by Rome.
Armenia was swallowed by the Byzantines and then the Turks, and in
1064, refugees fleeing the Seljuks, created a new Armenia by the
Mediterranean, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Against the odds,
this lasted about 300 years. It was propped up by Frankish crusaders
after the First Crusade and became a French crusader state, adjacent
to Antioch and Edessa. It grew to become the Kingdom of Armenia in
1198 under Leon II, a dominion on the underbelly of Turkey from the
Euphrates to what is today Gazipasa. It ended with the Marmeluk
invasion of 1375.
Randolph Simms, Exeter

Russian of Armenian origin murdered in metro
Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2006 Saturday 6:31 PM GMT
MOSCOW, April 22 2006 — A Russian teenager of Armenian origin was
stabbed to death in the Moscow metro on Saturday in what police said
could be a racist killing, local media reported.
“During an argument one of those involved drew a knife and stabbed a
17-year-old youth of Armenian origin,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted
a police spokesman as saying.
“The attack was fatal. He died on the spot.”
Interfax news agency quoted an anonymous police source as saying
the attacker looked like a skinhead, dressed in black and with a
shaved head.
The incident took place on a platform of the Pushkinshaya metro
station in the centre of Moscow. Those involved escaped, police said.
They said they were examining all possibilities, including that of
a racist crime.
But the head of the union of Armenians in Russia Ara Abramian told
a radio station he doubted the authorities were serious in tackling
racism.
“If extremism and nationalism exist here, we ought to call things by
their name, and it is only when that happens that they’ll stop.”
Racist attacks are often treated by Russian police and courts as
simple acts of hooliganism, punishable by light sentences, and there
is a reluctance to describe them as racist.
There has been a rise in the number of such attacks, often fatal,
on foreigners in recent years and the pace has quickened in recent
months. They are often carried out by gangs of skinheads and usually
target Asians, Africans and people from the Caucasus — such as
Armenians — or Central Asia.
Four Chinese students were beaten up on Friday in Kostroma, 370
kilometres (230 miles) northeast of Moscow, Interfax quoted local
police as saying. The attacks was described as racist and those
carrying it out arrested.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Orthodox Christians greet ‘new fire’ of Easter in Jerusalem
Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2006 Saturday 3:59 PM GMT
JERUSALEM, April 22 2006 — Thousands of Orthodox Christians converged
on Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher Saturday for the lighting
of the “new fire,” on the eve of Orthodox Easter.
Only minor incidents were reported in connection with the centuries-old
ceremony that is often the source of brawling and fisticuffs, and
which has even led to stampedes and deaths.
Jerusalem’s Old City, with its Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Armenian
quarters, was blocked off to vehicular traffic, and some pilgrims
fainted after being held up at Israeli security checkpoints leading
to the church.
Last year, a dozen Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergymen briefly
scuffled over who would be first to emerge from the tomb of Christ
with the ceremonial flames, said to be sent by Jesus from heaven.
“To take part in this ceremony is to see God in person and take a
spiritual bath,” said Elizabeth, an Australian in her 30s dressed
head-to-toe in black.
The church contains within its precincts what is believed to be
Calvary, the site where Jesus Christ was crucified and, only a few
meters (yards) away, the tomb where he was buried and from which he
rose again to life.
Custody of the church is shared by the Greeks and Armenians as well
as Roman Catholics, all of whom jealously guard their responsibilities
under a fragile network of agreements hammered out over the centuries.
Most of the people making their way to the church on Saturday, along
with local residents, were Russians, Greeks, Armenians and Romanians,
an AFP journalist said.
This year, the new Greek Orthodox of Jerusalem, Theophilos III,
exercised his prerogative to light the first candle from the holy
fire, inside the small marble-clad structure built over the site of
Christ’s tomb, or sepulcher, inside the church.
“This ceremony is a magical moment, a miracle, in the tomb, the fire
lights itself,” said Russian Orthodox Basil Yakimov, 52.
“You can touch the flame when it comes out of the tomb, you will not
be burnt, it comes from heaven and you have to welcome it with faith,”
said 40-year-old Frenchman Pierre.
The holy fire allegedly appears each year. It is described as a blue,
shiny light emanating from the tomb after some prayers have been said
by the patriarch.
>>From there, the candle is brought out to be greeted with joy by
the assembled throng, and its fire passed from candle to candle among
the faithful.
“May God bless you Virgin Mary,” cried dozens of young Arab Christians
as they ran out of the church bearing lit candles.
“It’s like being in a football stadium, we’re used to more
contemplation in churches,” said Henri, a Roman Catholic Frenchman
living in Tel-Aviv.
Theophilos left the sepulcher to take the fire to the Patriarchate,
accompanied by a delegation of Greek officials, and then on to to
Bethlehem, the traditional site of Jesus’ birth, only a few kilometers
(miles) south of Jerusalem.
A specially arranged flight will then take the fire to Athens, from
where it is taken by road, air and sea to illuminated every church in
Greece and some further afield to cries of “He is risen” at midnight.
In Orthodox tradition, and also widely practiced in many Western rites,
the vigil held on the night before Easter begins with a darkened
church that is illuminated by the new fire, which symbolizes the
“light of Christ” manifest in the Resurrection.

Prosecutor’s office launches probe into Armenian’s murder
ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 22, 2006 Saturday 02:44 PM EST
The Moscow metro prosecutor’s office has launched a probe into the
murder of a young man in a mass fight at the central Pushkinskaya
metro station on Saturday.
“Today at about 16:47 Moscow time a group of 12 young men gathered
on the platform of the Pushkinskaya station. They knew each other
and were waiting for one more acquaintance of theirs. At this time a
group of about six to seven people disembarked from a southeast-bound
train and attacked those standing on the platform without any reason.
As a result of the attack, a student of Moscow University of Management
received a stab wound in the chest, from which he died at the scene,”
a spokesman for the Moscow prosecutor’s office told Itar-Tass.
“All possible leads are being investigated, including a murder
motivated by ethnic hatred and strife,” the official said.
Earlier, law enforcement agencies said the victim had been born in
1989 in Armenia. Police have begun a search for the attacker.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s Armenian community said it would not let this pass.
“We will certainly convene on Monday. We gathered each time an
ethnic-motivated murder occurred and thought about mechanisms
that could prevent such incidents,” the president of the Union of
Armenians of Russia and the president of the World Armenian Congress,
Ara Abramyan, told Ekho Moskvy radio.
In his view such crimes can be possible only because authorities and
society do not respond properly to the manifestations of nationalism
and because they are left unpunished.
“The ethnicity of the killed man does not matter because this concerns
everybody. This is a problem for the whole of Russia. If there is
extremism and nationalism, we must call things by their proper names
and then such incidents may not occur again,” he said.

Moscow’s Armenian community worried by Armenian’s murder
ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 22, 2006 Saturday 01:27 PM EST
Moscow’s Armenian community said it would not neglect the murder of
an Armenian man in the centre of the city on Saturday.
“We will certainly convene on Monday. We gathered each time an
ethnic-motivated murder occurred and thought about mechanisms
that could prevent such incidents,” the president of the Union of
Armenians of Russia and the president of the World Armenian Congress,
Ara Abramyan, told Ekho Moskvy radio.
In his view such crimes can be possible only because authorities and
society do not respond properly to the manifestations of nationalism
and because they are left unpunished.
“The ethnicity of the killed man does not matter because this concerns
everybody. This is a problem for the whole of Russia. If there is
extremism and nationalism, we must call things by their proper names
and then such incidents may not occur again,” he said.
Earlier in the day, a young Amernian-born man was killed by a group of
youngsters in a fight at Moscow’s central Pushkinskaya metro station.
Seven young people, including the Armenian, started fighting each other
on the station’s platform. “During the tussle one of its participants
drew up a knife and hit a 17-year-old young man from Armenia with it
once,” a police officer told Itar-Tass.
He said, “The injury was deadly and the young man died at the
scene.” All other young people involved in the fight escaped. No one
was detained.
Police have so far refrained from comments on the possible motives
of the incident. But they did not rule out ethnic motives.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress