FLIGHT RECORDER OF CRASHED ARMENIAN JET RETRIEVED
Xinhua General News Service
May 22, 2006 Monday 10:30 AM EST
A flight recorder of the Armenian passenger jet that crashed into
the Black Sea more than two weeks ago was retrieved from the sea on
Monday, the Interfax news agency reported.
“One of the flight recorders has been lifted from the sea bottom,”
a source close to the investigation was quoted as saying.
The Airbus A320 plane of the Armavia airlines crashed near the Russian
resort town of Sochi on May 3, killing all 113 people on board,
among them six children and eight crewmembers. Among the dead were
28 Russian citizens.
The remnants of the airliner sank to a depth of more than 600 meters
below the sea surface. A deep-sea apparatus was involved in the search
for the plane’s flight recorders.

ABSURD NOMINATION OF SPEAKER
Lragir.am
22 May 06
Deputy Speaker Tigran Torosyan says it is absurd that the Republican
faction can nominate two speakers at once. Tigran Torosyan thinks that
it is even unnecessary to consider candidacies unless the position
is vacant. Unless there is a vacant position, it is pointless to
consider nominees, votes, etc. While he is avoiding speaking about his
candidacy or others’ candidacy, a member of the People’s Deputy Group
Hakob Hakobyan is likely to nominate the leader of the Republican
faction Galust Sahakyan. Hakobyan says Sahakyan’s candidacy will be
endorsed by the parliament. “I refuse to comment on backstage rumors
and nonsensical questions,” says Tigran Torosyan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMROSGAZPROM PLANNING IPO IN 2007-2008
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
May 22, 2006 Monday
ArmRosgazprom is planning to hold an initial public offering (IPO)
in 2007-2008 in order to raise resources to develop the company,
Karen Karapetian, CEO and general director of the Armenian-Russian
company, said at a Monday press conference.
The company is planning to conduct an international financial audit
first, he said. ArmRosgazprom has charter capital of $280 million.
The Armenian government owns 45% of the company, Gazprom (RTS: GAZP)
has another 45% and Itera (RTS: ITER) has 10%. Gazprom is planning
to increase its stake in the company.
ArmRosgazprom shares are growing in price, Karapetian said. In any
case, Itera periodically brings up the issue of selling its shares
in the company and selling them at a price higher than par value,
Karapetian said.
Possible changes in the company’s owners will not have an influence
on ArmRosgazprom management, since it was agreed that there would
not be any changes in management, Karapetian said. “In this respect,
I don’t see any problems if Armenia decides not to increase its stake
in company charter capital,” he said.
Gazprom and the Armenian government signed in April a strategic
agreement for 25 years, establishing the strategic principles for
cooperation in gas-energy projects in the country.
The document deals with the acquisition by ArmRosgazprom from the
Armenian government of a 40-km section of the Iran-Armenia pipeline,
currently under construction, and the fifth power-producing unit
at Razdan thermal power plant. Also, according to the agreement the
Armenian government is obliged to give ArmRosgazprom the function of
client for the 197-km second section of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline.
Preliminary purchase and sales agreements had to be signed by April
14, 2006 and the final transfer of right of ownership for these assets
should be carried out by January 1, 2007.
After the deal the Gazprom share in the ArmRosgazprom charter capital
will amount to a qualified majority of more than 75%.

TRAIN WITH VEHICLES OF RUSSIAN MILITARY BASE PREPARING FOR DEPARTURE FROM GEORGIA
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
May 22, 2006 Monday
The preparation procedures for the departure of the second train with
weapons and materiel of the Russian 62nd military base headquartered
in Akhalkalaki are nearing end.
“The second train will take 17 self-propelled artillery systems
and specialized vehicles to Russia,” Colonel Vladimir Kuparadze,
deputy commander of the Group of Russian Forces in Transcaucasia,
told Interfax-Military News Agency by phone from Tbilisi on Monday.
According to him, the vehicles have been loaded on flat cars and
fixed. Customs procedures are being finalized now.
Kuparadze said that the train of 19 cars will depart on Tuesday
morning. “The second train, as well as all the other 20 remaining,
will travel to Russia through Azerbaijan in compliance with the
agreements reached between Russia and the country,” he said.
He added that a convoy of vehicles will depart from Akhalkalaki to the
102nd base in Gyumri, Armenia, on Tuesday. “The convoy will include
ten trucks and an escort armored personnel carrier. It will carry
part of the military equipment of the 62nd base to Gyumri,” he said.
The first train with Russian equipment and materiel was dispatched
from Georgia to Russia on May 15.

HISTORIENS, CAUSEZ TOUJOURS!
Alain-Gerard Slama
Le Figaro, France
22 mai 2006
L’interruption a l’Assemblee, jeudi dernier, de la discussion de la
proposition socialiste de penaliser la negation du genocide perpetre
contre les Armeniens par les Turcs en 1915, n’est pas scandaleuse en
raison de l’astuce de procedure qui l’a provoquee.
Le scandale reside dans le fait que, pour justifier le report de la
discussion, l’argument des menaces de retorsion commerciale avancees
par la diplomatie turque l’ait emporte de très loin sur le debat
contre les lois ” memorielles ” lance par des historiens de droite et
de gauche au debut de cette annee. Historiens, causez toujours ! Sans
doute les intellectuels se sont-ils beaucoup trompes au XX e siècle,
mais par ideologie. Or s’il est un appel qui n’etait pas ideologique,
c’etait bien celui-la.
La question n’est pas en effet de savoir si le massacre de masse
perpetre par les nationalistes turcs en 1915 etait ou non un
genocide. C’en fut un, de facon indiscutable, au sens retenu par
la resolution de l’ONU du 9 decembre 1948, qui designait de ce mot
” l’intention de detruire, en tout ou partie, un groupe national,
ethnique racial ou religieux en tant que tel “. S’agissant d’un meurtre
collectif, dont Toynbee d’emblee, et Yves Ternon plus près de nous ont
demontre le caractère premedite, ethnique et massif, le seul fait de
discuter l’emploi du terme, sous pretexte que d’autres seraient plus
appropries, ne peut etre exempt de prejuges et d’arrière-pensees.
Il est vrai que ce massacre etait lie a une situation de guerre, et
qu’il venait au terme d’une longue serie de ” populicides ” multiplies
en meme temps que les nationalismes dans les Balkans. Vrai encore
que l’exceptionnalite du genocide des juifs, visant un peuple sans
autre grief que le crime d’etre ne, ” independamment, ecrit Francois
Furet, de toutes considerations intelligibles tirees des luttes pour le
pouvoir ” met en jeu un racisme a l’etat pur, toujours pret a renaître,
et qui ne doit pas etre banalise.
Il n’en reste pas moins que le genocide des Armeniens a repose, lui
aussi, sur une base raciale et qu’il s’est inscrit, comme le souligne
Jacques Semmelin, dans un ” processus ” qui rend la querelle sur les
preuves de sa programmation relativement secondaire (1).
Non, la vraie question, posee par les historiens, est de savoir
si la loi peut intervenir pour trancher de questions où la liberte
de chercher et d’expliquer est d’autant plus necessaire que cette
connaissance a un impact plus passionnel. L’obstination du regime
turc a nier la realite du genocide sera mieux vaincue par le travail
des historiens, y compris turcs, que par une loi d’un pays etranger
imposant une verite officielle sous la contrainte de la prison et
de l’amende.
A cette question s’en ajoute une autre, non moins fondamentale,
qui est la menace que les lois qui multiplient les reconnaissances
de droits subjectifs font peser sur les libertes publiques dans leur
ensemble. Peut-etre l’appel des historiens demandant l’abrogation de
toutes les lois memorielles aurait-il ete mieux entendu s’il avait
aborde la question sous cet angle.
Demander l’abrogation de l’ensemble de ces lois, incluant la loi
Gayssot de 1992, la loi de 2001 reconnaissant le genocide armenien, la
loi Taubira de 2002 sur l’esclavage, declare crime contre l’humanite,
et la loi de fevrier 2005 sur le ” rôle positif ” de la presence
coloniale francaise en Afrique du Nord, revenait a la fois a viser
trop haut et trop etroit.
Trop haut, parce que l’abrogation de ces textes aurait eu un impact
politique encore pire que le fait de les avoir votes. Mieux aurait
valu sans doute, comme on l’a plaide ici, negocier le retrait de
l’article 4 de la loi de fevrier 2002 contre l’article 2 de la loi
Taubira qui l’avait inspire : en depassant le clivage droite-gauche sur
un point sans ambiguïte, le refus d’edicter une histoire officielle,
ce compromis, si peu satisfaisant qu’il soit, aurait cree un precedent
opposable.
Trop etroit, parce que, en se limitant aux bornes imposees a leur
metier d’historien, les signataires de l’appel encouraient le reproche
de corporatisme, ce qui n’a pas manque. A travers les lois visees par
les historiens, il aurait fallu mieux marquer que c’est la fonction
meme de la loi et du rôle de la sanction en democratie qui se trouvent
menaces.
La loi ne saurait etre edictee pour donner satisfaction a des groupes
particuliers. Une societe qui cède a ces pressions se detruit elle-meme
en favorisant une surenchère de revendications et de frustrations
entre des communautes dont la competition est d’autant plus nuisible
a l’unite nationale qu’elles ont des referents a l’etranger.
Quant au rôle de la sanction, il ne saurait etre de contraindre les
citoyens a faire la preuve de leur vertu. La loi n’a pas a brider la
liberte de penser, d’ecrire et de parler, elle n’a pas a normaliser
les comportements, mais a sanctionner le dommage cause a autrui,
quand celui-ci fait l’objet d’une plainte. Un code juridique, dans
une nation libre, n’est pas un traite de morale. Le drame est que
notre societe se rue sur cette pente avec une hargne de precaution
entretenue par sa peur du risque et du conflit.
(1) Jacques Semelin, Purifier et Detruire, Seuil, 2005.
–Boundary_(ID_1+OY2QgtKmmrmEyjk/N99w)–

AIRBUS BLACK BOX RECOVERED
The Moscow Times, Russia
May 23 2006
Searchers on Monday recovered the cockpit voice recorder from an
Armenian passenger jet that crashed in the Black Sea nearly three
weeks ago, killing all 113 people aboard, Transportation Minister
Igor Levitin said.
Workers using a remote-controlled diving apparatus with a robotic
arm plucked the recorder from the sea floor nearly 500 meters beneath
the surface after removing a layer of silt up to half a meter thick
that had covered the black box and hidden it from searchers for days,
he said.
Levitin said at a news conference that authorities hope to soon
recover the flight data recorder, which they believe is under silt
just three to five meters away.
Officials hope the recorders will help determine the cause of the
May 3 crash of the Armavia Airbus A-320, which plunged into the sea
in heavy rain and poor visibility as it approached the airport on a
flight from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to Sochi.
“I think that what happened would be revealed,” said Tatyana Anodina,
head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, the civil agency that
links Russia with 11 other former Soviet republics.
Anodina said the cockpit voice recorder was damaged by the crash and
may have suffered from the harsh conditions beneath the silt, but
expressed confidence that it would yield information “very important
to investigators” — a recording of the voices and other sounds in
the cockpit in the final minutes of the doomed flight.

TASHKENT BANK ENDS TRANSACTIONS WITH BREAKAWAY AZERI REGION AFTER NOTE – TV
Ceyhun Rzayev, Afat Telmanqizi, ANS
ANS TV, Baku
21 May 06
[Presenter] An Uzbek bank has presented Nagornyy Karabakh as an
independent state. Tashkent corrected its mistake following the
intervention by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry and it was possible
to end the presentation of Nagornyy Karabakh as an independent state
in documents.
[Correspondent, over video of scenes in Uzbekistan, Tagizada
speaking] A diplomatic scandal has emerged between Azerbaijan and
Uzbekistan. A bank in Tashkent which deals with money transfers to
CIS countries showed Nagornyy Karabakh as an independent state in all
its documents. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry had to interfere and
send a note to Tashkent.
The head of the press and information department of the ministry,
Tahir Tagizada, told ANS that Baku held talks with the appropriate
Uzbek authorities. Only after that the name of Nagornyy Karabakh was
removed from advertisement posters and its presentation as a separate
state was stopped.
The Uzbek side officially declared that it had ended all transactions
with Nagornyy Karabakh and any other occupied territories of
Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani embassy in Uzbekistan also sent a note
to the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.
The incident happened when Tural joint-stock commercial bank [as heard]
showed Nagornyy Karabakh as a separate republic on its advertisement
posters in Tashkent late April. The Azerbaijani embassy in Uzbekistan
held talks with staff of the bank to discuss the issue.
As a result of the talks, the staff said that they had made no direct
transactions with the occupied Azerbaijani territories. They said
that the bank made transfers [to Karabakh] through a Russian bank,
the name of which was not specified.

AZERBAIJAN PROTESTS AT FORMER RUSSIAN KARABAKH MEDIATOR’S REMARKS – TV
ANS TV, Baku
20 May 06
[Presenter] Vladimir Kazimirov, a former Russian co-chairman of the
OSCE Minsk Group who mostly sides with Armenians and who is known for
his pro-Armenian statements, has made a new statement, causing serious
dissatisfaction. Azerbaijan was so displeased with the statement
that the Russian charge d’affaires to Azerbaijan, Pyotr Burdykin,
was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
[Correspondent over archive footage] Vladimir Kazimirov’s latest
statement represents a dangerous trend that could deal a serious blow
to both the peaceful settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict
and Russian-Azerbaijani relations, said Novruz Mammadov, head of the
foreign relations department of the Presidential Executive Staff.
Kazimirov threw into question UN principles on national rights and
the inviolability of borders, which were confirmed by the Helsinki
Agreement signed in 1948.
Kazimirov said, quote, these principles do not work today. But
[Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev believes in these principles as
dogmas, which is why he is in an impasse now. I do not even mention
that the war rhetoric undermines the basic moral premises of society
and adversely affects the psychology of the young generation, unquote.
[Passage omitted]
Mammadov believes that such statements, which could hamper the
settlement of the conflict, cannot coincide with the positions of
Russia and other co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Pyotr Burdykin, head of Russia’s diplomatic mission in Azerbaijan,
today was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in connection with
Kazimirov’s statement. Baku expressed its dissatisfaction verbally
to Burdykin.
Tahir Tagizada, head of the ministry’s media and information
department, told ANS that Deputy Foreign Minister Xalaf Xalafov had
informed the Russian charge d’affaires of Azerbaijan’s dissatisfaction.
Tagizada said Burdykin had promised to relay Baku’s official position
to Moscow and inform the Azerbaijani side of measures to be taken in
connection with Kazimirov’s statement.

TOGETHER WITH IDEOLOGICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE OPPONENTS
Anna Israelian
Aravot.am
20 May 06
Specificities of the new-formed majority in the parliament according
to the RPA soviet member, RPA fraction deputy Armen Ashotian.
The RPA fraction leader Galust Sahakian has already declared publicly:
”The field of mutual agreements is enlarged and others, ”People’s
deputy”, ULP, will also get the existed levers. The ULP leader
Gurgen Arsenian reminded ”Regnum” yesterday that the ULP was for
Robert Kocharian’s pre-electoral project and they would continue
the collaboration. We also must remind that the ULP declared a “cold
war” to the coalition in the enlarged sitting of the city soviet on
22 of July, and Gurgen Arsenian promised that they would continue
in a strong way. And more, he declared the ARF as the ideological
opponent of the party, RPA as the administrative opponent, and partly
the OEP. In this case how Gurgen Arsenian explains the readiness
of collaborating with the ARF and RPA will be obvious after the
sitting of the party soviet. But before we reminded the RPA fraction
deputy Armen Ashotian the ULP these positions and were interested
how he considered collaboration with the party which declared them a
“cold war”. “Political processes have a logic, clash or coincidence
of interests, -Mr. Ashotian answered. – I think it is possible to
find points of coincidence of interests with your mentioned political
powers before parliamentary elections. It is wrong to exclude anything
in the policy. The joint activities of the RPA and ARF with the ULP,
‘People’s deputy” or new formed dep uty group, I think, will be by the
principle of synthesizing of interests. If the coalition was formed
by incompatible political powers, which signed an agreement round
general strategic superiorities and were working for three years,
then I don’t exclude that collaboration will take place among these
political powers though without that juridical formulation. I think
the NA work will be continued in ordinary way and there will be no
problem of decisive majority during voting as it will be solved on
the principle of political agreements and coincidence of interests.”
It is less possible but “People’s deputy” can threaten the agreements,
because its members don’t intend to collaborate with the coalition. We
should remind that though ”People’s deputy” group was voting
in decisive moments as the majority wanted, the head of the group
Karen Karapetian was criticizing the coalition. Let’s cite one of
such examples; Karen Karapetian declared in last February that the
coalition wasn’t only able to lead the processes in ordinary way
but it didn’t want; ”They have divided the authority by coalition
principle and now each of them want to increase the percent of
their authority by mutual accusations. It seems to me that these
powers have come to power to feel good with their parties”. The
RPA soviet member answered to this that the interpretations are the
same as it was in case of the ULP. ”I’m sure that the RPA and ARF
will find points of contacts round of which they can work even with
the deputies of extreme demonstrations”. And on this occasion he
added a factor, which will stimulate the desire of collaboration
of parliamentary powers. “Special elections aren’t desirable for
democratic development of the state. Though there were declarations,
which excluded that threat, this circumstance will make political
powers work together. The time and situation has been changed. And
it is natural that other approaches are also possible”.
The expression of “principle of summarizing the interests” highly
sounds but everything leads to the appointment of posts. Are they
enough in the circumstance when some persons who left the OEP still
continue to fill their posts?
But the most important thing is that whether their behavior doesn’t
become standard. The RPA council member Armen Ashotian answered; I
don’t think that we deepen the incompleteness of political field as
the political system can’t reach to completeness only by these events.”
–Boundary_(ID_syYwuvOpba3HUoziGeKbfw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GIRL, FATHER TO RETURN TO LEBANON: 7-YEAR-OLD MARINEH IS EAGER TO SEE HER MOM, BUT SHE STILL CAN’T WALK
by Doug Hoagland, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
The Fresno Bee (California)
May 22, 2006 Monday
A 7-year-old girl from Lebanon who came to Fresno to get medical care
that might help her walk is going home still crippled.
Marineh Damirjian and her father were scheduled to fly to Beirut,
Lebanon, today after 5 1/2 months in the Valley.
Marineh got caught in a struggle between her parents and the U.S.
government over a visitor’s visa for her mother, who was unable to
join her husband and only child. Marineh’s father refused to make
decisions about her care without his wife in Fresno.
Local officials tried to help the family and had contacted the U.S.
Embassy in Beirut. The mother was scheduled to talk with embassy
officials Tuesday about a visitor’s visa. But with no guarantee she
would get it, and with the father’s and daughter’s visas running out
in early June, the father said they were leaving.
“Of course I am sad,” Marineh’s father, Hagop Damirjian, said in
Armenian. “We have to leave it in God’s hands. My conscience is
relaxed. Whatever God wants to do, let him do it.”
Marineh said in Armenian she was looking forward to sitting in her
mother’s lap again: “I am going to hug my mother.”
The girl and her parents are Armenians with Lebanese citizenship.
The Bee profiled Marineh two weeks ago.
She suffers from progressive muscle tightness in her legs and tendon
problems in her feet.
A spinal abnormality is likely the cause, and she must crawl, be
carried or use a wheelchair to get around.
Hagop Damirjian says doctors in Lebanon suggested seeking medical
treatment in the United States. American officials would give only
one of Marineh’s parents a visitor’s visa, which the parents decided
the father would use because he could more easily lift the child.
Hagop Damirjian says embassy officials didn’t explain why the parents
got only one visa. Some people use visitor’s visas to immigrate
illegally, but Damirjian, who has extended family and a job in Lebanon,
said he wasn’t trying to do that.
He brought Marineh to Fresno because his uncle, Manuel Damirjian,
lives here. Marineh might have had surgery on her spine, legs and
feet at Children’s Hospital Central California. One of her doctors,
Dr. Steven Ehrreich, wrote embassy officials that Marineh would
benefit psychologically if her mother came to Fresno.
Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, called embassy officials on
Marineh’s behalf.
Zakar Bedoyan of Fresno, a family friend, cried tears of frustration
as Marineh prepared to head home. “Just because of a little visa,
we can’t help her and get her on her feet,” Bedoyan said.
Hagop Damirjian said he was grateful for all that people did: “When
I came here, I didn’t have anybody, just my uncle. But I have all of
Fresno helping me, and they’re all my friends. I’ll never forget what
they do for me.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress