AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Feb 26 2005

EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE REJECTS ARMENIANS’ CLAIMS
[February 26, 2005, 17:21:52]

The Court of Justice of the European Communities has decided at its
sitting presided by judge Koen Lenaerts, to reject the Armenian
community’s appeal urging European Union not to admit Turkey to its
ranks until the so-called `genocide’ allegedly inflicted upon
Armenians by the Ottoman government in 1915 is recognized.

Having described the related resolutions adopted by the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe and a few European parliaments in
1887 as political but not legal, the court has not accepted any of
the Armenians’ arguments, and, moreover, obliged the Armenian
community to cover the court expenses.

According to Turkish political commentators, time for Armenian
worldwide propaganda is over, and the voice of Azerbaijan and Turkey
are heard louder and louder around the world.

Zaman, Turkey
Feb 26 2005

Ankara Complains about Medzamor Power Plant to EU
By Foreign News Services
Published: Saturday 26, 2005
zaman.com

The Medzamor Nuclear power plant located 16 kilometers from the
Turkish-Armenian border is remarked to pose more of a threat to
Turkey.

Watching the developments closely, Ankara has concerns about a
possible Chernobyl like disaster at any time. The subject has also
been brought to the attention of the European Union (EU).

The “Armenia-1” and “Armeni-2” units in Medzamor, one of the five
most dangerous plants in the world, are reportedly having technical
problems. After these occurrences Ankara forwarded the matter to EU
and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Following that, the EU
once more called on Armenia to “shut down” the plant as it had in the
past. Armenia was not willing to comply with the shut down request,
as the plant provides 30 percent of the countries total energy
requirements. The Armenian capital Yerevan conveyed to Brussels that
it would run the station till 2016. Since the problem could not be
settled, the matter was then forwarded to the IAEA. The Medzamor
plant is built on the Eastern Anatolia Fault Line. The IAEA has also
decided to investigate this aspect of the situation. The activities
of the plant, which were seen as a” potential threat” following the
earthquake in Armenian’s Spitak region, have ceased. However, Armenia
had resumed activities in 1995 reasoning the energy crises following
the collapse of the Soviet Union. Armenia had shut down the Medzamor
plant for four months last year due to a high frequency current
problem in the electric transporting line.

Cyprus Press & Information Office – Occupied Northern Cyprus
Feb 25 2005

Armenian genocide on the table

Ankara Anatolia news agency (24.02.05) from Strasbourg reports that
the Turkish parliamentarians reacted to French Parliamentarian
Jacques Toubon who brought Armenian genocide to the table and wanted
Turkey to accept Sevres Treaty.

Turkey’s relations with its neighbours were discussed in the closing
session of Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission (JPC) meeting
held in Strasbourg on Thursday. Turkey’s relations particularly with
Armenia, Greece and Cyprus were assessed during the meeting that was
closed to the press.

Speaking at the meeting Toubon said European Parliament made a
decision about the Armenian genocide and stressed that Turkey should
recognize the genocide before joining European Union (EU).

Republican People’s Party (RPP) Parliamentarian Sukru Elekdag denied
the claims of Toubon, saying they were baseless. Explaining
Turkish-Armenian relations, Elekdag said that Turkey that supported
the idea that allegations of genocide should be searched solely by
historians and not by the politicians.

Elekdag suggested that a committee of experts composed of Turkish and
Armenian historians should be formed under the auspices of UNESCO to
investigate the issue.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Glendale News Press
Published February 26, 2005
FROM THE MARGINS
Aram, Snoop and the green dragon
PATRICK AZADIAN
My Japanese- style tattoo was not well received by my family.
My mom threatened not to speak to me until eternity. Later she reconsidered,
and her threats withered away to blocking her vision with her right hand any
time the “ink” was showing.
advertisement
When my freshly arrived cousin, Zareh, saw the green dragon, his reaction
was animated. As his palms were pointing to the heavens, he blurted out his
final judgment with the authority of a revolutionary commissar: “No Armenian
girl will ever marry you.” As is usually the case, revolutionary commissars
are often out of touch with their territory’s cultural conditions. A few
days later, Zareh had softened up. Perhaps, his son’s reaction to the
newborn dragon had put his mind at ease. He reported to me proudly about his
son: “Do you know what Aram had to say about that thing?”
“What?” I asked.
He said: “Why would anyone tarnish their God-given body by a tattoo?”
I was happy father and son were in harmony. But, I was determined to get
back at the little rascal.
Months later, Zareh had to revisit the “old world.” So, when I saw Aram
sitting in front of me at church during a baptism, I knew it was my
opportunity to get even.
I tapped him on the shoulder, as Robert DeNiro would in an Italian-American
mobster movie, and delivered my line: “I’ve heard (pronounced ‘huyd’)
things,” and pointed to my chest.
Aram knew exactly what I was talking about, but displayed the same calmness
Joe Pesci possessed in the first few minutes of “Good Fellas.”
He responded: “I said nothin’.”
“I know what I’ve heard.” I squinted my left eye and stared at him
skeptically: “Tell me, Aram, whom would you prefer to dress up like, Bono or
Snoop Dogg?” (Bono is a Euro-chic rock artist and Snoop is a “gangsta chic”
rapper.)
“Who is Bono?” He asked, and continued: “I like Snoop’s music, and the way
he dresses.”
Aram knew where I was going with my line of questioning.
He had his next answer ready: “But, I know he has done very bad things in
his life. I would never do those things, but his music is cool. I like his
look.”
I wasn’t sure if I had made my point, but I decided to drop it. After all,
Aram is supposed to be the kid, and I am supposed to be the adult. Snoop
Dogg once said in an interview: “I don’t walk around gangsta’ all day,
slapping people up and being a vicious criminal. No. That’s only when it’s
called for … same with the pimp image. That’s a dream of mine I had as a
kid, to be a pimp, living like a pimp. I’ve lived that dream out and had fun
doing it.”
These are not Aram’s roots. So why would a 10-year-old be open to the idea
of taking style lessons from Snoop? Which brings us to President Clinton. He
once said: “I think every country’s image of itself is rather like a
person’s image of himself or herself. It is the product of the accumulated
dreams and nightmares of your family.”
I’d like to revise that statement: A person’s image of himself is a product
of his own, his family’s and his society’s experiences. And if we define
society as a combination of what is immediately around us, as well as
virtual society, which is what we see through the media, then it becomes
easier to comprehend why a significant number of kids take their fashion
sense and music taste from Snoop.
My guess is Aram will never do “bad” things. His ties to his family and his
own roots are too strong. But there are kids out there who are vulnerable.
And there are kids out there who will embrace Snoop Dogg’s fashion sense,
and will listen to his music out loud when they drive their lowered Caddy’s
with shiny spinner rims on Brand Boulevard.
Does this mean they will all mimic what they think Snoop Dogg’s life
experiences are? My guess is that a small minority will, and the majority
won’t.
I am hoping the world of grown ups, which includes our respective families,
friends, neighbors, city officials, school staff and the law enforcement
officers, is keeping up with the changing times. More than ever, superficial
appearance is not indicative of what’s inside. Labeling kids as “bad,”
because of their fashion sense is not only unintelligent, but it can also be
counterproductive.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Times, UK
Feb 26 2005

Bravery that offers beacon of hope in Georgia
by Michael Bourdeaux
A Baptist bishop’s efforts have eased troubled inter-church relations

GEORGIA is a country of outstanding natural beauty. Spring comes
early to its fertile fields and vineyards protected beneath the
towering peak of Mount Kazbek and the Caucasus range, the highest in
Europe. It has one of the oldest Christian civilisations in the
world, dating from 326, and its Church is in the mainstream of the
Orthodox tradition. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is
also a land of chaos.
Stalin, who was born there, attended a seminary and always granted
his homeland special privileges – not least allowing the Church to
exist under its own identity, while abolishing the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church. He encouraged a semi-independent economic development, so
Georgian agricultural entrepreneurs prospered, while collectivisation
brought famine to other places.

This relative prosperity suffered its first blow when Mikhail
Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign led to the grubbing up of some of
Georgia’s best vines. Ethnic strife tore the country apart in the
early years of independence under Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Gorbachev’s
former Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, a man of international
reputation, returned to his homeland to become president – and,
incidentally, to be baptised into the Orthodox Church – but he failed
to bring the separatists back under central control.

The `Rose Revolution’ in 2003 brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power in
a well-monitored election, but the strange death of the Prime
Minister Zurab Zhvania in a gassing accident this month is a huge
setback.

Church life, too, has been troubled beyond measure over the past
decade. Even in the heyday of Soviet atheism, Georgians were proud of
their ancient Christian heritage and since the 1960s its Orthodox
Patriarchate took part in international ecumenical affairs – until
1997, when they withdrew from the World Council of Churches, stating
that they no longer recognised other faiths as legitimate.

Malkhaz Songulashvili, born in 1963, is perhaps the most remarkable
figure in Georgian church life today. He was secretly baptised in a
river at 17. Gifted at languages, he also studied history and
archaeology at Tbilisi University, before Patriarch Ilia II invited
him, as a Baptist, to collaborate in the first modern Georgian Bible
translation.

In his mid-thirties he made the first of periodic visits to begin a
thesis on church relations in Georgia, in which he set out to
demonstrate that Protestants and Catholics were not peripheral to the
Georgian Christian scene, but were part of its lifeblood. Baptists
had existed in Georgia since the mid-19th century. Pastor
Songulashvili struck all his new friends as a gentle, quiet man. No
one guessed that he would soon be propelled into the centre of the
stage, butt of a wave of violence which erupted against non-Orthodox
believers in the late-1990s.

The Georgian Baptists, who in their tradition have bishops, conferred
that title on Pastor Songulashvili, as their leader. From 1997 they
were victims of a campaign of violence instigated by Basil
Mkalavishvili, a defrocked Orthodox priest, now claiming to be an
`Old Calendarist’ and subject, he says, to the jurisdiction of this
tiny branch of the Orthodox Church in Greece. He has led dozens of
assaults against `sectarians’, targeting Jehovah’s Witnesses, a well
as Baptists. Unrestrained by police over nearly a decade, he stole
and burnt what he called `anti-Orthodox’ books in March 1997. On
February 3, 2002, he led a mob which looted the Baptist Union’s
warehouse in Tbilisi and burnt more books, including Bibles.

Even worse was a pogrom against a united Christian service (including
Orthodox representatives) held in the main Baptist church on January
24, 2003, marking the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Worse
violence was averted only when the organisers of the service told the
worshippers to disperse before the service had begun.

President Shevardnadze condemned this and other incidents, but
Mkalavishvili continued unchecked. Only after the `Rose Revolution’
were he and his gang brought to account.

At the trial last November there was a dramatic moment when Bishop
Songulashvili publicly forgave Mkalavishvili and heard words of
repentance in reply. The case dragged on, however. Of the seven
defendants, five were charged only with resisting arrest, while
Mkalavishvili received a sentence of six years, an associate four
years. Hundreds of others have gone unpunished, however, and
Songulashvili has called for a full investigation into the
background, on the lines of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa. He estimates that more than one hundred incidents
have occurred.

Amid this turmoil he has found time to devote himself to the causes
he passionately embraces: building up the work of his own Baptist
community, promoting ecumenism and teaching at Tbilisi State
University. After the violence of January 24, 2003, he worked with
other Christian leaders to reinstate the prayer service on March 14,
attended by President Shevardnadze in person. On Holy Saturday 2003,
Bishop Songulashvili wrote to me: `Yesterday we celebrated Good
Friday. It was a great occasion for us. We observed it by a
six-hour-long procession with a Cross in the streets of Tbilisi and
devotions in different churches (the Roman Catholic and Armenian
Apostolic Cathedrals, the Lutheran Church of Reconciliation),
followed by a service in our own Baptist church.’

Further shocks were to follow, however. On the following Whit Sunday
fanatics, still unidentified, burnt down the Baptist church in the
Kvareli district of eastern Georgia.

This did not deter Songulashvili from promoting his ecumenical work
in practical ways. Most notably, in December 2004 he went with two
Orthodox priests to support the Ukrainian democrats on Independence
Square, Kiev. They met Christian leaders and appeared on television
(with a fishing rod converted into a staff to carry the Georgian flag
they had brought to identity themselves).

Peaceful inter-church relations may still seem a long way off for
members of Georgia’s minority denominations, but the commitment and
bravery of Bishop Songulashvili and his supporters stand out as a
beacon of hope for the future.

Canon Michael Bourdeaux is the founder and president of Keston
Institute, Oxford, which monitors religious freedom in the communist
and former communist countries ()

Journal Times Online, WI
Feb 26 2005

Group from St. Mesrob will be building a home and hope in Armenia
this summer

By Marci Laehr

Parishioners at St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church know they take
for granted everyday blessings many people in their homeland will
never know. Like indoor plumbing. That is why a group from the church
is going to Armenia to help build a new home for a family there
through Habitat for Humanity International’s Global Village Program.

The St. Mesrob team members will be taking time off from their jobs
and away from their children to labor with concrete work, helping to
build a home for people they have never met before.

They are happy to do it.

“It’s for the love of our people,” said Avak Grigorian, one of the
nine people making the trip this summer.

Abe Ouzounian, the team leader, will be going back to Armenia for the
second time with the program. He called the project a “labor of
love.”

“We’re paying to go and build someone else’s house,” he said. “We’re
doing it out of sheer love.”

Abe is the only one in the church group who has made the trip before.
The others, including his wife, Michelle; Avak; and Meline Grigorian
have been inspired by him and others to participate.

Meline, who has seen video from previous trips, said she always is
brought to tears by the photographs of the homeowners smiling.
“That’s why I want to go,” she said. “I want to see that smiling face
and know I was a part of it.”

The group will be making the journey July 23 and staying until Aug.
6. They are one of several teams who will help build one home,
working alongside the homeowners. Each team does a portion of the
work until the house is complete, Michelle said.

While they haven’t been told exactly what community they will be
helping to build a home in yet, they know what to expect. According
to Habitat for Humanity, over 50 percent of the people in Armenia
live in poverty.

“It’s very primitive by American standards,” said the Rev. Yeprem
Kelegian. “Bread is still made in ovens in the ground.”

This is the fourth year that St. Mesrob has participated in the
program, Kelegian said. Habitat for Humanity International has been
working in Armenia for five years. In that time, volunteers from
around the world have helped build 90 homes, with 34 of those being
completed just last year.

However, the experience is not just about the homes being built. It
is just as much, if not more important to everyone involved, to build
friendships and bond with the homeowners and the people in their
village.

“It’s not about building a home,” Kelegian said. “It’s about respect
for humanity; helping lift people up. It’s not charity. These
families are awesome. They barely make enough to live. It’s
humbling.”

And yet they all help each other. In years past, all the people from
a village where a home is being built stop to help daily.

Those in the St. Mesrob group said they feel they need to help, and
come face-to-face with the reality of just how blessed they are. Most
of those going are first-, second- and third-generation
Armenian-Americans who hope to reconnect with the people of their
motherland, by giving of themselves.

“Some are living in dire situations,” Michelle said.

Kelegian said the last time they were in Armenia, he blessed the new
home of a family of six, who had previously been living in the
basement. It was damp, dark and they lived down there for 10 years,
because they didn’t have the money for the brick and mortar to build
up their home.

Through Habitat, the family received an interest-free loan, and
volunteers helped to build their house. Offering that type of help to
people is inspiring, and the group from St. Mesrob is excited to
participate.

Last year, Abe was reluctant to make the trip for the first time.
Michelle convinced him to go. He came back and told her she had to go
back with him.

“Now he’s our team leader for our church,” Michelle said. “That’s how
excited he is about it.”

Avak said he would like to know what Armenia is like, and see how the
people there live. “We want to be there and help people of our own,”
he said.

Meline was in Armenia 23 years ago. She is interested to see how much
has changed in the country. She also hopes to meet with some friends
she has there.

“I want to come home with the knowledge and satisfaction that we
helped a family,” she said. “It’s something God put in front of us.
It’s something we want to do every year.”

The group has already raised enough money to cover the cost of
building a home, and are now fund-raising to help offset the costs to
the group to make the trip. It will cost each team member $3,000 to
go, in addition to the vacation time they have to take from work.

Harold Doan and Associates, CA
Feb 26 2005

Armenia: World Bank Supports Improvement of Water and Wastewater
Services in Yerevan

Feb. 25 2005

Press Release – World Bank

The World Bank’s Board today approved an International Development
Association (IDA) credit of US$20 million for the Yerevan Water and
Wastewater Project (YWWP). The credit will assist the Armenian
Government in its efforts to improve Yerevan’s water and wastewater
system by continuing and expanding accomplishments achieved under a
previous IDA-financed Municipal Development Project (MDP).

The YWWP will help provide Yerevan with safe, continuous water supply
while reducing environmental pollution. This is the third
IDA-financed water and wastewater project in Armenia. The World Bank
also financed the initial Municipal Development Project to support
Yerevan’s Water and Sanitation Company (YWSC) and a more recent
(FY04) Municipal Water and Wastewater Project for Armenia’s medium
and small-sized cities.

`Because of Government’s visionary leadership of the Armenian water
sector, and diligent efforts by all project participants, significant
improvements have been made in Yerevan’s water service since the
first project began in 1998,’ said Brian Steven Smith, head of the
World Bank team designing the YWWP, – `Much work still remains of
course, and we look forward to continued improvement during
implementation of the new project.’

The Project benefits directly from Yerevan’s successful experience
with a management contractor recruited under the MDP. For the YWWP,
Government will increase private sector involvement and competitively
recruit an operator for YWSC under a lease contract. The Project will
finance investments in YWSC during the first five years of the lease.

The Project has two components: a YWWP Fund and Technical Assistance.
The YWWP Fund will finance investments undertaken by the water
utility operator during implementation, which will yield energy
savings, improved reliability of supply, and reduction of
environmental pollution. The Technical Assistance component will fund
interim operational management of YWSC, project financial and
technical audits, and incremental operating expenses.

The Credit will be made to Armenia on standard IDA terms, including
40 years maturity and a 10-year grace period.

Since joining the World Bank in 1992 and IDA in 1993, the commitments
to Armenia total approximately US$ 860 million for 38 operations.

Press-Enterprise , CA
Feb 26 2005

Church papers, checks stolen

“VIOLATED”: Rancho Mirage parishioners’ personal information was
taken from a social hall.

By MONIQUE H. HENDERSON / Special to The Press-Enterprise
Armenian Apostolic Church of the Desert

For more information on the theft or to find out if your information
was stolen, contact the church at (760) 773-2155.

Donation records, construction contracts and other sensitive personal
information are among items reportedly stolen from a newly built
Armenian church in Rancho Mirage.

The break-in at the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Desert is
believed to have occurred late last week, according to Parish Council
Chairman V.J. Mkrtchian.

Police discovered the break-in after a neighbor’s alarm sounded at
about 3 a.m. Saturday, Mkrtchian said. The church’s checkbooks,
computers, a $6,000 sound system and food also were taken.

The items were housed in the church’s social hall, which was
completed about six weeks ago. Worship services are being held in the
hall while negotiations continue on construction of a sanctuary.

The social hall had an alarm system, but it apparently did not sound
during the break-in, Mrktchian said. Several doors leading into the
hall were broken, according to Mkrtchian.

“We are investigating what happened with the alarm,” he said.

Church members have been notified about the break-in and about the
missing financial documents, Mkrtchian said. Many members were
particularly concerned to know their social security numbers and
banking information are in the hands of criminals.

“People are very disappointed, angry and confused,” he said of the
church’s estimated 50 members. “We are not a business. This is God’s
house – it’s where we hold our services. You feel violated when
something like this happens. You like to think that God’s house is a
safe place.”

Laramine Boomerang, WY
Feb 26 2005

Keeping the country secure

By Micah Sturr
Boomerang Staff Writer

William Webster has a more intimate understand than most of how the
government can keep the country secure. The former federal judge, FBI
and CIA director spoke to an assembly at the University of Wyoming on
Friday about `protecting our homeland.’

Webster spoke as a part of the Milward Simpson Distinguished Lecture
Series in UW’s Department of Political Science and focused on the
lessons he learned professionally and his ideas about future
challenges for the intelligence community in curbing terrorism.

`It was my view that the way to attack the problem was to get there
before the bomb went off rather than simply follow through and arrest
the people responsible. Well, how do you do that? It’s a very simple
answer, not necessarily easy to do, but have better intelligence –
know what is being planned so you are in a better position to
interdict it,’ Webster said.

In 1984 as the director of the FBI, Webster added terrorism to
foreign counter intelligence, white-collar crime and organized crime
as major threats to the country. Webster served as FBI director from
1978-1987.

By getting to terrorists before the bomb went off, the FBI was able
to eliminate Armenian terrorism against Turks in the United States,
Webster said. (Armenian action against Turks stems from the attempted
genocide of Armenians by Turkey in 1915.)

`That is still an issue in the United States but it is no longer a
terrorist issue. By getting in ahead of the curve we were able to
head off a number of planned events to the extent that those who
planned them gave up the idea, considered that they were penetrated
and we had no more trouble with them for 20 years,’ Webster said.

Despite this victory and successes in suppressing terrorism of
American Serbs and Croats directed at one another and potential
terrorism by anti-government militia groups, the Sept. 11th attacks
forced the intelligence community to change the way anti-terrorism
operations are conducted, Webster said.

`We had to live with that atmosphere of `need to know’ and not `need
to share.’ The Patriot Act changed that,’ Webster said. `Most of the
changes that occurred with the Patriot Act were much needed.’

Sharing information between agencies is essential, Webster said, as
was updating the way warrants can be issued. Issuing a warrant for a
terrorist’s cell phone is inefficient when the terrorist can simply
get a new cell phone. The Patriot Act allows a surveillance warrant
to be issued for the person.

When he was director of the CIA, 1987-1991, Webster said the former
model for old Europe, specifically France, Italy and Greece, was to
act as sanctuary countries to protect their own citizens. Internal as
well as international terrorism has forced a shift in that approach.

`The principle was – you leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone. It
doesn’t work that way,’ Webster said.

`The advantage that the terrorist has, it is a victory on the cheap
over larger institutions and organizations, because he can pick his
method, he can pick his place, he can pick his time, and many of them
have demonstrated extraordinary patience in carrying out their
activities,’ Webster said.

More than the natural advantages terrorists have, technology and
globalization have redefined the way terrorism can operate and
changed the parameters of security, Webster said.

`Your part of the solution is cooperation with the authorities and
making sure that everybody does what their supposed to do without
unnecessary complaints,’ Webster said.

Webster said he is proud of the American people in the wake of the
9/11 attacks given their willingness to preserve shared values.

`We do not want to turn ourselves into the people we are
confronting,’ Webster said. `We have to preserve our values, but we
must also preserve our order.’

After the hour-long speech before a crowd of more than 100 in the
Wyoming Union’s Yellowstone Ballroom, Webster joined former Wyoming
Sen. Alan Simpson and Professor Emeritus and former UW Vice President
Peter Simpson for questions from the audience.

Interfax
Feb 26 2005

Kocharian dismisses possibility of revolution in Armenia

YEREVAN. Feb 26 (Interfax) – There are no preconditions for the
replay of the Georgian or Ukrainian revolutionary scenarios in
Armenia now, said Armenian President Robert Kocharian.

“The best guarantee of stability is an efficient and energetic
government and a targeted and balanced foreign policy,” Kocharian
said in the Saturday issue of the newspaper Voice of Armenia.

“If the government is sluggish, there will always be someone who
could try to seize power; if there are a lot of angry people, this
someone could lean on them; and if the government stands on the way
of someone powerful, these attempts will gain support from abroad.
All the three factors worked in Georgia and Ukraine,” Kocharian said.

At the same time, the president said there is no strong opposition in
his country now. “The higher the opposition’s level, the higher the
standards that society wants the government to comply with. A weak
opposition corrupts the government and produces apathy in society,
and therefore I am in favor of a strong opposition,” Kocharian said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress