ARMENIA PRAISED FOR CLOSER SECURITY TIES WITH U.S.

Baku Today,
March 8 2006

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza praised
Armenia’s efforts to forge closer defense links with the United States
and discussed ways of boosting its “energy security” during a visit
to Yerevan on Tuesday.

“The reason I am here is that I want to do everything I possibly can to
strengthen the already strong collaboration between the United States
and Armenia,” Bryza told reporters after holding “very constructive”
talks with President Robert Kocharian and other Armenian leaders.

“We are working hard together to help Armenia to realize its desire to
have stronger relations with the Euro-Atlantic family. We are pleased
with the considerable progress made in this regard over past year,”
he said, singling out the signing of Yerevan’s “individual partnership
action plan” with NATO.

Bryza added that it is up to the Armenian leadership, which continues
to regard the military alliance with Russia as the bedrock of its
national security doctrine, to decide how far it wants to go in
deepening military cooperation with the West. “I don’t think that the
government of Armenia can move at a pace that for us is too quick,”
he said. “But we are very happy with the level of cooperation. This
has been a significant year for U.S.-Armenian security cooperation.”

The issue was high on the agenda of his separate meetings with
Kocharian, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian. The U.S. official also had what he described as a
“very detailed and interesting discussion on energy security” with
Energy Minister Armen Movsisian and Armenian energy sector experts.

“The key to energy security for Armenia, as for any country, is
diversity. Armenia has a long and positive experience working with
Russian gas suppliers and that needs to continue,” he said.

Bryza went on to indicate that Washington is ready to help the
landlocked country reduce its heavy dependence on Russian energy
resources. But he stopped short of endorsing the Armenian government’s
decision to build a gas pipeline from Iran, the U.S.

arch-rival in the region. “The United States, like the entire
international community, is not in favor of any steps that will lead
to significant expansion of Iran’s ability to project economic or
any other type of power,” he said.

Bryza argued in that regard that diversification of Armenia’s energy
resource supplies relates to “not just natural gas but other types
of energy as well, which is hydro power …, geothermal power as well
as potentially a new generation of nuclear power.”

The remark suggests that the U.S. does not object to the Armenian
government’s extremely ambitious plans to build a new nuclear
power station in place of the Metsamor plant, which is due to be
decommissioned by 2016. Movsisian and other Armenian energy officials
admitted last week that they will need at least $1 billion in foreign
investments to put the project into practice.

Also, Bryza pointedly avoided any criticism of the Kocharian
administration’s democracy and human rights record, speaking instead
of the need for ordinary Armenians to develop a “culture of democracy”
and urging the Armenian opposition to operate “constructively.”

“We hope over the next few months and years to use all of our
assistance levers to build democracy not only from the top down but
most importantly from the bottom up,” Bryza said, adding that the
U.S. considers Armenia to be a “democratizing country.”

The Bush administration approved recently $235.6 million in additional
economic assistance to Armenian under its Millennium Challenge
Account (MCA) program, saying that the Armenian authorities have
addressed U.S. concerns about their commitment to democracy and good
governance. That commitment was most recently called into question by
their handling of last November’s disputed constitutional referendum.

Bryza further declined to confirm or refute reports that the U.S.

ambassador in Yerevan, John Evans, will be recalled soon over his
public recognition last year of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians
in Ottoman Turkey as a genocide. The Bush administration and the
State Department distanced themselves from Evans’s remarks at the
time, insisting that they did not signal any change in U.S. policy
on the issue.

“He, like all of us, serves at the pleasure of the president of the
United States,” Bryza said, sitting next to Evans. “It’s up to the
president to make his own decisions, including on personnel.”

“The fact of the matter is that I do not know when I will be leaving
Armenia and I have not submitted by retirement papers,” Evans said
for his part.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SERGEY LAVROV AND CONDOLEEZZA RICE DISCUSSED FROZEN CONFLICTS

Prime News Agency, Georgia
March 8 2006

Tbilisi, March 08 (Prime-News) – Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign
Minister, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, have
discussed frozen conflicts including Nagorno Karabakh and Abkhazia
during their meeting on March 07, Russian mass media informs.

Speaking about the USA’s and Russia’s position towards different local
conflicts, Russian Foreign Minister stated that their points of view
on methods that should be used are not congruous but the final aim
in cooperation on the international cases is identical.

RUSSIA, EX-SOVIET REPUBLICS CELEBRATE WOMEN’S DAY

RIA Novosti, Russia
March 8 2006

MOSCOW, March 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and other former Soviet
republics along with several other countries around the world are
currently celebrating March 8, International Women’s Day, on which
men show their appreciation to women by giving them flowers and gifts.

March 8 became an official celebration in Russia soon after the
Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and remains popular in former Soviet
republics and Eastern bloc countries.

After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the
USSR, several governments ceased to officially observe the holiday,
but Women’s Day retains wide popularity in many of these countries.

Estonia, a former Soviet republic which joined the European Union
in 2004, ceased to officially observe the holiday after gaining
its independence in 1991, due to its negative associations with
communism. However, many Estonian men continue to indulge women on
March 8.

Armenia cancelled International Women’s Day for similar reasons after
gaining independence, creating a new public holiday on April 7, Day of
Motherhood and Beauty. However, March 8 is still unofficially marked.

March 8 is still a public holiday in Azerbaijan. After the country
gained independence, the authorities had considered scrapping the
holiday, but President Heydar Aliyev, father of current President
Ilham Aliyev, opted to retain it when he came to power in 1993. There
has been recent pressure from clerics in the predominantly Muslim
state to celebrate women on a religious day instead, for example,
the birthday of Prophet Mohammed’s daughter Fatima. However, these
proposals have not met with wide popular support.

In the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, all women receive gifts
purportedly from their authoritarian President Saparmurat Niyazov,
known as Turkmenbashi, on March 8.

International Women’s Day, based on National Women’s Day in the U.S.,
was first proposed in 1910 by Clara Zetkin, an influential socialist
German politician and a fighter for women’s rights. Zetkin intended
it as a call to women around the world to battle for equal rights.

International Women’s Day in the USSR was initially intended to
celebrate the achievements of women workers, and would include state
ceremonies declaring the government’s achievements in improving the
status of women.

The celebrations have largely lost their feminist and political
overtones, and in present-day Russia and its neighbors, the focus is
on traditional chivalrous acts, including taking ladies out to dinner
or doing the housework.

On Moscow’s subway system, congratulatory messages to women will be
broadcast throughout the day on the Metro’s public address system. In
the Urals city of Perm, thousands of couples will gather in an attempt
to break the world kissing record.

ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT CONGRATULATED WOMEN WITH 8TH OF MARCH

Regnum, Russia
March 8 2006

President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan congratulated women of Armenia
with International Women Say of March 8. As a REGNUM correspondent has
been informed in press office of the Armenian president, statement of
Kocharyan says that women played serious part in Armenian prosperity,
because they understand importance of peaceful and stability. He
especially congratulated all mothers, because they keep all traditions,
and form new generations.

Speaker of the Parliament Artur Bagdasaryan and Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan also congratulated women with the holiday. They
wished health women, happiness, love and family warmth.

Head of Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos of All Armenian,
Garegin II blessed and congratulated all women.

AMBASSADOR OF AZERBAIJAN MEETS MEMBER OF BRITISH PARLIAMENT

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
March 8 2006

As is informed from the press center of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the ambassador of Azerbaijan in London Rafael Ibrahimov has
met the member of the House of Commons of Parliament of the Great
Britain Robert Walter.

Being the member of delegation of the Great Britain in Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe of R. Walter during the elections
conducted on November 6, 2005 in Milli Majlis was in Azerbaijan in
structure of the OSCE observation mission. R. Walter who has supported
the position of Azerbaijan concerning approval of the mandate of the
Azerbaijan delegation in PACE, again will arrive to the Republic as
a member of PACE observation mission for control of the course of
by-elections forthcoming on May 13 in Milli Majlis.

Ambassador R. Ibrahimov has expressed to R. Walter gratitude
for support of our the Azeri delegation in PACE, has informed on
the present political and economic situation in the country, the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and also about the
measures which are carried out in the Republic within transparency
initiative put forward by the Prime minister Toni Blair.

The Diplomat also has noted bias of the resolution of the
Euro-Parliament on allegedly destruction of the Armenian monuments
in Julfa district of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

WASHINGTON RECALLED ITS AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA

Prime News Agency, Georgia
March 8 2006

Tbilisi. March 08 (Prime-News) – John Evans, ambassador extraordinary
and plenipotentiary of the US to Armenia, was recalled to Washington

The recall was caused by Ambassador’s statement on Genocide of
Armenians in Osman Empire in 1915.

During the meeting with representatives of Armenian diaspora in San
Francisco on February 19, 2005 John Evans stated about importance of
acknowledgment of genocide of Armenians.

“I would call it genocide of Armenians,” Evans stated.

This evaluation caused dissatisfaction of the US because the
representatives of American administration and officials refrained
to mentioning ‘genocide’ regarding the tragedy in Turkey.

YOU CAN STOP THE GENOCIDE
Trudy Rubin
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Charlotte Observer, NC
March 8 2006

Individuals must pressure governments to stop the slaughter.

Can an individual do anything to stop a genocide?

Let’s hope so, because governments aren’t doing much. Two years after
Sudan began a genocidal slaughter in Darfur province, the killing of
black African Muslims by black Arab Muslims continues. No government
seems willing or able to force Sudan to stop.

The Bush administration calls this killing by its rightful name —
genocide — but has yet to use the kind of political muscle that
might stop it.

So it is left to ordinary individuals to act. Think you can’t do
anything? Then listen to the words of former Marine Capt. Brian
Steidle, who thinks you must. He photographed Darfur’s horrors, and the
images are driving him crazy. He wants a million Americans to write
to President Bush and urge him to ensure that a strong multinational
force is sent to Darfur.

Toothless observers Steidle, 29, was one of three U.S. military
observers assigned to the African Union (AU), which has a toothless
force of 7,000 monitors in Darfur. The monitors are permitted only
to observe a nonexistent cease-fire. Steidle went to this killing
field in September 2004 armed only with a pen, pad and camera; he
took more than 1,000 photos.”We saw villages leveled, burned bodies,
babies that had been shot, and all we could do was write reports and
take pictures,” he recalls.

The ex-Marine had no doubt who was to blame for the carnage, which
has killed about 180,000 in the last three years and driven 2 million
Darfurians from their homes. The Sudanese government, in an effort
to crush Darfur rebels, sent in its army along with an Arab militia
known as the janjaweed. Their goal: “cleanse” Darfur of its ethnic
African population.

Steidle’s reports to the AU disappeared down a black hole. So he quit
in February 2005, went home, met the media, and found sympathetic
legislators who displayed his photos. He even met senior Bush
officials. “But I couldn’t get the administration to listen,” he says.

Screaming in a dream Bush officials talk tough and give lots of aid,
but their words have had little impact. The scale of mayhem has gone
down — though Steidle says 75 percent of south Darfur’s villages
have already been destroyed. Yet the janjaweed still kill, attack
refugee camps, rape women and spread terror into neighboring Chad.

“For the last year, I’ve been banging my head against the wall,”
Steidle says. “It’s like screaming in a dream, and no sound comes
out.” So he decided to approach the public directly. He wants you to
lobby for a U.N. force that would protect civilians in Darfur.

He is touring 22 cities, in a campaign backed by Jewish, Armenian,
mainstream Protestant, evangelical and other groups that will culminate
in an anti-genocide demonstration April 30 in Washington.

The goal: get 1 million Americans to send this message to the White
House: “Dear President Bush: During your first year in the White
House, you wrote in the margins of a report on the Rwandan genocide,
`Not on my watch.’ I urge you to live up to those words by using the
power of your office to support a stronger multinational force to
protect the civilians of Darfur.”

Cynical opposition To set up a robust force would require approval
from the U.N.

Security Council. The council would also have to authorize immediate
help — perhaps from NATO — during the months it would take to set
up a U.N. force.But Sudan is lobbying the Security Council to block
a U.N. force. China, which buys Sudanese oil, is opposed, as are
Russia and Qatar, the current Arab representative on the council. Arab
solidarity apparently trumps the protection of African Muslims.

Khartoum has also persuaded the AU to back off its earlier willingness
to hand over command to the U.N.; African solidarity apparently trumps
saving African lives.

Sudan claims that a U.N. force will mean a Western takeover of the
country, which should be resisted by Muslims, and might inspire attacks
from al-Qaida. Muslims who demonstrated violently over cartoons have
yet to show the same passion about the murder of Darfurian Muslims.

Those who oppose genocide can’t accept such cynicism. Nor can global
hostility to Bush be used as an excuse to let thousands more die.

What’s needed now is grassroots pressure on the White House. Such
pressure would demonstrate that there are people who refuse to
tolerate genocide. Brian Steidle wants to show that one person can
make a difference. But he can succeed only if, one by one, other
Americans join in.

How To Help Darfur Get information or send a message to the White
House online at Contact the Save Darfur Coalition
at 2120 L St. NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20037 or by phone at
(202) 478-6132.

TROOPS TRADE GUNFIRE WITH ARMENIAN FORCES
>From Times Wire Reports

Los Angeles Times
March 8 2006

Azerbaijani and Armenian forces exchanged heavy gunfire and mortar
shells at several points along their border in the most serious
fighting in months.

Azerbaijan said one of its soldiers was killed and one seriously
wounded. Armenian forces said several of their troops were wounded.

The two countries remain at odds over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic
Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. A cease-fire agreement was reached
in 1994 after six years of fighting, and the enclave is now under
the control of ethnic Armenians.

U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: “YEREVAN, BAKU SHOULD SET NK SETTLEMENT TIME”

Today, Azerbaijan
March 8 2006

The leaders of parties to the conflict should set the Karabakh
settlement time, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew
Bryza for European and Eurasian Affairs said in Yerevan on Tuesday.

He said the United States was ready to do its best for the soonest
Karabakh settlement, Itar-Tass reports.

He disagreed with the opinion that the recent meeting between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in the Paris suburb of Rambouillet
was a failure. The sides were close to an intermediate agreement in
Rambouillet, and their inability to do that does not mean that the
process is in a deadlock, the diplomat said. He said that final steps
are always very difficult and require determination of the leaders.

Normalization between Armenia and Turkey will become a necessary
and natural consequence of the Karabakh settlement agreement, the
official said. He said that normalization of the Armenian-Turkish
relations was discussed at every meeting of American administration
members in Yerevan and Ankara.

Bryza said that his Tuesday meeting with Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan was very constructive.

URL:

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ANOUSH’S PLACE
By Patrice Stewart
DAILY Staff Writer

The Decatur Daily, AL
March 8 2006

Anoush Place regularly cooks foods from her native Armenia for her
husband and children, but now she has a new goal.

Her dad, who has cancer, is visiting from her homeland, “so I’m trying
to cook healthy dishes for him,” she said.

Her kitchen is filled with “green stuff,” vegetables and grains,
as she makes her own version of veggie burgers to serve with her
special potato salad. Lentils star in her soup.

“I’ve always tried to make healthy food, but now it’s more important
than ever,” said Place. In addition to preparing food for her dad,
Shavarsh Hovhannisyan, who turned 72 Sunday, she sometimes cooks for
her mother-in-law, Marge Place of Decatur, who also is battling cancer
and likes her pieroski.

Have you cooked any buckwheat lately? It’s practically a staple around
this Decatur home. “My youngest, 8-year-old Karen, loves buckwheat
and begs for it as a snack,” Place said, and while it’s no substitute
for potato chips, 10-year-old Mary will eat it, too.

It’s cooked similarly to rice or pasta, and Place adds a tomato-based
sauce with meat on the side.

“Buckwheat is good for diabetics, those trying to lose weight, and
people with heart, colon and digestive system problems,” Place said.

In her home country, you needed a doctor’s prescription for buckwheat,
because of a shortage, she said, and it’s not easy to find in Decatur,
either. She buys bags of buckwheat at Gloria’s Good Health, while
Garden Cove Produce in Huntsville carries it, too.

“The first time you eat buckwheat, it doesn’t seem so special, but
that’s why I add the sauce,” Place said. When she’s in a hurry, she
uses Ragu and adds beef or other meat cooked with onion. Some like
buckwheat in a bowl with milk or butter.

To cook buckwheat, she puts 1 cup buckwheat and 2½ cups water in a
pan and lets it boil for about 5 minutes and then puts it on low heat
for another 5-10 minutes. Then she turns off the heat. Like rice,
it will be ready in 10 minutes, and you can add margarine or salt.

Her homemade “veggie burgers” are a mixture of chopped greens: spinach,
parsley and cilantro. You can add green onions.

She uses one bunch of parsley, one bunch of cilantro and half a plastic
bag of salad spinach leaves (chopped frozen spinach, drained, works,
too). She beats together two eggs, about 5 tablespoons all-purpose
flour, a bit of salt to taste and some milk. Then she mixes it with
the greens in a bowl and cooks it in a skillet in olive oil in one
large piece, which she cuts into smaller portions for serving.

Uneaten portions can be chilled for later. “Sometimes at night, when
we want something to eat but not too heavy a snack, I pull my veggie
burgers out of the refrigerator,” Place said.

While Mexicans use cilantro and Europeans add parsley, she said,
“Armenians use parsley and cilantro in everything.”

Lentil soup

“Lentils have a bunch of protein,” said Place. “People use beans,
but they don’t know about these lentils.” She said they are often used
in Greek-style cooking, and there are many similarities in Greek and
Armenian foods.

Dried lentils can be found in grocery stores and take longer to cook
than rice, she said. To her lentil soup, she also adds cubed cooked
potatoes. She fries a bit of onion with tomatoes or tomato sauce and
adds bits of red bell pepper to her lentil soup, which can be made
with beef or lamb. Over the top of the soup, she sprinkles a bit of
parsley and cilantro.

For her soups and sauces, she buys tomatoes at the Decatur farmer’s
market in the summer and cans them for later use. “You don’t have to
put tomato in lentil soup, but it gives it a good flavor,” she said,
as well as more nutrients.

Potato salad

Her Armenian-style potato salad is quick, easy and healthy. She cooks
and cubes potatoes and then adds onion, parsley, cilantro, salt,
pepper and olive oil for mixing. “It doesn’t have all that mayonnaise
or sour cream like American-style potato salad,” she said.

With her food, she likes to serve thin slices of lavash bread. Since
that requires a special oven to make correctly, her husband, Tom,
usually pick it up at Nabeel’s Cafe & Market (which has Greek,
Mediterranean and Italian foods) when he’s in Birmingham on business,
and she keeps it in the freezer. “My girls like it spread with cream
cheese as an after-school snack,” she said.

“My daddy loves dolmar, too – that’s his favorite food,” she said,
referring to grape leaves stuffed with a mixture of cabbage and
vegetables.

He likes all kinds of soups, too, so she’s prepared them during
the months he was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for colorectal
cancer. “I wanted to cook things he could digest that are good for him,
too,” she said.

“The doctors and others at Decatur General have been wonderful to him,
and everybody calls him Papa,” said Place.

While waiting at the oncology center, she got to thinking when she
saw many people bringing burgers and other fast food in to feed
family members.

“Food won’t heal you, but it will help your body fight against cancer,”
she said.

With her meals, she serves cool tea made with rosehips (crushed dried
berries brought from Armenia) and small cups of finely ground, pungent
Armenian coffee. Back home, that coffee might be cooked slowly in
hot sand, but here it’s made espresso-style and served with Pirouette
chocolate hazelnut cream-filled wafer sticks for a simple dessert.

“I miss my foods I can’t get here,” said Place. Some items are
available at an Armenian store in Los Angeles, so when friends came
to visit, they brought her two suitcases filled with buckwheat,
coffee and sweets.

food/060308/healthy.shtml

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