ArmenPress
Feb 25 2005

WORLD BANK TO CONSIDER NEW LOAN PROGRAM TO ARMENIA

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 25, ARMENPRESS: A team of experts from World
Bank program for evaluation of rural communities development is in
Armenia. World Bank Resident Representative Roger Robinson said today
the program is very important for Armenia, as many of its remote
rural areas need strong support.
He said a credit program that is expected to be sent to World Bank
Board of Directors in July, will try to find new resources to help
population of both rural settlements and small towns to increase
their incomes. The new program will provide farmers with a broader
range of assistance and consulting and will also make available
short-and-long-term loans. The programs’ budget is approximately $20
million.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Detroit Free Press
Feb 25 2005

CANDID COURTROOM: No-nonsense jurist cast into spotlight by NBA brawl

BY L.L. BRASIER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

District Court Judge Lisa Asadoorian had a warning for the rowdy
national media and basketball fans who crowded into her courtroom not
long ago to watch as five Indiana Pacers players were charged with
assault.

ABOUT JUDGE LISA ASADOORIAN
Age: 40

Residence: Rochester.

Family: Single. Her mother, sister and brother live in the area.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, Michigan State
University; University of Detroit Law School.

Background: She is a former Oakland County assistant prosecutor and
magistrate. She is so adamant about the dangers of driving under the
influence that she sends everyone who appears before her on a drug or
alcohol conviction to tour the county morgue.

Hobbies: Likes spending time with her extended family. She keeps
treats in a desk drawer for visiting nieces and nephews.

What she drives: 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

“I am a blunt person,” she said.

Then, she showed just how blunt.

Ticking off her fingers, she told spectators what they were allowed
to do in her Rochester Hills courtroom: “Sit, stare and breathe.”

Camera crews quieted. Reporters turned off cell phones. Onlookers
stopped whispering. The diminutive judge with the wild mop of hair
and stern voice was holding court on national television, and there
was no doubt who was in charge.

Asadoorian, who otherwise might have whiled away her years on a
relatively unknown district court bench in a largely peaceful Detroit
suburb, is enjoying her national debut as the get-tough jurist
overseeing the cases of five basketball players and five fans charged
in the Nov. 19 melee at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

The courtroom action could be more fun to watch than the brawl.

Tall players. Short judge. Fabulously wealthy, pampered superstars
facing a firebrand with demanding ways who tends to point her finger
when she lectures. This is a woman who, a few months into her
judgeship, issued a ruling an attorney did not like, prompting him to
storm out of her courtroom. She leaped off the bench, black robe
flying, and chased him down the hall, chastising him and demanding
that he return. He did.

“She is very aggressive, very passionate,” said John Skrzynski, a
senior Oakland County prosecutor who worked with Asadoorian when she
was an Oakland assistant prosecutor in the mid-1990s. “If you were in
a fight with her, you knew it.”

Asadoorian is expected to get lots of airtime as the cases wend their
way through the courts. The Palace brawl, aired around the world, and
the subsequent fallout, including the criminal charges, have garnered
the attention of Court TV, ESPN and the national networks, and the
interest isn’t expected to diminish.

More court action will come today — the first of a series of
deadlines set by Asadoorian — as attorneys for the five players file
motions by the end of the day. Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Anthony
Johnson, David Harrison and Jermaine O’Neal face misdemeanor assault
charges and are due back in court April 6. Trials could begin this
spring.

Some of the attorneys will question whether Asadoorian should have
been assigned all of the Palace cases simply because she was assigned
the first one, that of Flint-area fan Bryant Jackson, who is accused
of tossing a chair. In their motions, the attorneys will ask that the
Pacers’ cases be reassigned in a blind draw of all three judges on
the 52-3 District Court bench.

Asadoorian has indicated that she will not consider typical,
first-time offender programs for the defendants, none of whom has a
prior record. Such programs often allow convictions to be expunged or
defendants to plead guilty with the understanding that their
punishment will be limited.

“I happen to like Lisa Asadoorian. She is always attentive and polite
and conscientious, even if I may disagree with her rulings from time
to time,” said attorney James Burdick, who represents Pacer forward
Jackson. Burdick and wants his client’s case reassigned to a blind
draw. “Besides that, my client is innocent.”

Asadoorian, in keeping with court rules, declined to discuss the
cases while they are pending before her.

The attorneys, should Asadoorian deny their requests to reassign the
cases, can take the matter to a higher court.

If Asadoorian is flustered by the national attention and television
cameras, she has not shown it. “I’ve got a face for radio,” she
deadpanned during a recent interview.

And she has not changed her courtroom demeanor one whit.

Sometimes she is so formal as to seem haughty.

“Welcome, citizens,” she might say as she begins her morning session.

Other times, she is so informal, it unnerves the deputies who guard
her. She has left the bench during a hearing, taken off her robe and
perched on the end of the defense table to talk to teens before her
on drug or alcohol problems.

“I want them to know that I believe in them. That I am not their
friend, not their mother, that I’m their judge, and that I believe
they can do what they have to do,” she said.

Off the bench, she can be hilariously funny. During the recent
investiture ceremony of her close friend, newly elected Oakland
County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews, Asadoorian offered this advice
to the new judge as several hundred people listened:

“You can’t say to an attorney in your courtroom who is arguing
nonsense, ‘Don’t bring that pile of crap in here, sprinkle it with
sugar and try to tell me it’s an Eskimo Pie.’ No, you have to say,
‘The court does not feel inclined to entertain that motion.’ ”

“She is the funniest person I know,” Matthews said. “And she is the
most intensely loyal person I know.”

Asadoorian’s strong temperament — “I can’t think of anything that
scares me” — is what led her to become a prosecutor and then
eventually to challenge incumbent 52-3 District Judge Ralph Nelson in
2000, a move considered ill-mannered in the staid politics of
judicial circles. Incumbents, the unwritten and unspoken rule goes,
have the job for life.

She said her large, extended Armenian family gave her the support she
needed for success in life. She was close to her maternal
grandparents, both Armenian immigrants, and was raised by a single
mother who taught her a sturdy work ethic.

She offers up a simple explanation of how she runs her court:

“No one comes to court because they want to. So somebody has to take
charge and make sure things run efficiently. That’s my job — to let
the people know I’m in charge.”

National Underwriter, NJ
Feb 25 2005

Armenian Groups To Get $330,000 From N.Y. Life
NU Online News Service, Feb. 24, 2005, 3:59 p.m. EST

A large insurer is starting to implement a settlement with a class of
plaintiffs that includes descendants of the victims of the 1915
Armenian genocide.

The insurer, New York Life Insurance Company, will send a
representative to Pasadena, Calif., Feb. 28 to donate $330,000 to an
Armenian relief group, an Armenian educational group and 2 Armenian
religious groups.

New York Life agreed to the settlement to resolve a suit filed in
1999 in a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on behalf of Martin
Marootian and other descendants of victims of the Armenian genocide.

New York Life acknowledged during litigation that about 2,400
policies sold to Armenians before the genocide remained unpaid.

The settlement fund is open to claims from descendants and heirs of
Armenians who bought New York Life policies before 1915.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs note that the Marootian case is the oldest
resolved case in U.S. history and that it is the first recorded case
that addresses the Armenian genocide.

Descendants of victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide have March 15 to
file settlement claims.

More information about the claims process is on the Web at

Moscow Times, Russia
Feb 26 2005

Georgian Pipeline Sale

TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) — Georgia plans to make hundreds of
millions of dollars on the sale of pipelines that supply Russian gas
to supply Georgia and Armenia, Georgian Economy Minister Kakha
Bendukidze said Thursday.

“We want to sell the coastal pipelines to Gazprom or to a Western
investor,” Bendukidze said, adding that the sale would include a
clause to guarantee supplies to Georgia.

“The price for the pipeline will not be tens of millions but hundreds
of millions of dollars.”

He also said the buyer could extend the network, enabling Gazprom to
pipe gas from Russia to Turkey.

Newsday, NY
Feb 25 2005

Eats
Home cooking, if your home is Armenia

BY JOSH OZERSKY.

SEVAN

216-07 Horace Harding Expy.

Bayside, 718-281-0004

Its thing: Armenian home cooking

Its hours: 12 p.m.-10 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday

The Tab: Appetizers $3-$5; entrees $9-$12

Disabled Access: easy: open seating, no steps

If you have Armenian friends, sooner or later they are going to sing
you a song of lamejun.

At least that’s been my experience. I had been hearing for years
about this delicacy, which is a flatbread topped with ground lamb and
herbs. Every Armenian granny makes it, and their fortunate relatives
keep it frozen away like waffles, reheating it at needy moments.

Armenian food is said to have other hidden treasures, as well. So
when I heard about Sevan, on the service road off the Long Island
Expressway in Bayside, I headed out.

Sevan isn’t run by a grandmother, but it is a family operation. Next
door is a large grocery loaded with Armenian and Turkish specialty
items: dates, cheese, spices. A family member waits on you, bringing
out courses with helpful explanations.

On each of two trips, I started with soup. Jujoukh, or yogurt soup,
was warm and tangy, closer to great tzatskiki than what we tend to
think of as yogurt. Borscht was a satiating medley of beef, cabbage,
beets and little vegetables in broth, with a dollop of sour cream
added for richness.

On both occasions, I had lamejun on my mind.

As it turned out, the lamejun is a little underwhelming here. It’s
ground beef, not lamb, and though the herbs give it a nice little
kick, it didn’t knock me out with either its taste or texture. Far
more exciting were the potent hummus, the bulgur-dusted ground beef
kuifta, and the air-cured meat called basturma, which went well with
the olive and cheese platters that my party wisely ordered on both
occasions.

The carrot salad was the biggest surprise – bound up with ground
walnuts and garlic and scented strongly with cilantro, it made an
excellent appetizer, refreshing without being filling.

Main courses were simpler – good, if a little plain. I tried the
manti, the so-called Armenian ravioli, which the menu here describes
as “seasoned ground beef shells served with specialty tomato sauce
and yogurt with garlic.” I thought it was good but neither very
interesting nor a match for the other entrees. Pork chops are mildly
marinated, thick and grilled carefully, though I made a point (as I
always do) of asking for them not to be too dry.

The “Sevan original chicken dish” is delicately breaded poultry,
served with a “specialty yogurt sauce.” (There are a lot of
specialties at Sevan.) Grilled quail were plump and vivid. And
khinkali, a meat dumpling, was probably the homiest of all the
entrees I tried.

The best part of the meal was drinking Armenian coffee, a thick and
sweet brew like Turkish coffee, and browsing the selection of
“specialty food” next door.

I was able to enjoy Sevan completely and leave happy. I even took
some lamejun home and have been eating it for breakfast.

ArmenPress
Feb 25 2005

GERMAN CDU TO DEMAND TURKEY ACKNOWLEDGE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 25, ARMENPRESS: Germany’s main opposition
parties, which oppose Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, plan
to submit a motion to parliament calling on Turkey to acknowledge
responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians
in 1915, Bloomberg reported.
The Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the
Christian Social Union, said the Turkish government arrested the
Armenian political elite in Istanbul in 1915, marking the start of
mass deportations and murders in which as many as 1.5 million
Armenians are estimated to have died.
The Turkish government’s refusal to accept responsibility for the
crimes committed 90 years ago “stands in contrast to the idea of
reconciliation that spearheads the shared values of the European
Union, which Turkey aims to join,” said the draft motion, a copy of
which was e-mailed to Bloomberg News.
CDU leader Angela Merkel and CSU head Edmund Stoiber have called
for Turkey to be allowed a “privileged partnership” with the
25-nation bloc. EU leaders including German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder agreed two months ago that Turkey should start membership
talks in October this year.
Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper today called the motion an attempt by
Merkel to block the country from joining the EU. The CDU leader has
said Turkey isn’t European enough in terms of its culture and history
to join the union.
“It isn’t true that we want to bar Turkey from EU entry with this
proposal, but still we think it’s important to honor the memory of
the Armenian victims,” the CDU’s Christoph Bergner, one of the
legislators who signed the motion, said in a telephone interview.
Germany has a part in the crimes because the government at the
time didn’t act to prevent the killings in spite of detailed evidence
documented by German ambassadors in Turkey, Bergner said.
Not all CDU lawmakers back the motion.
“I reject this proposal and didn’t vote for it,” said Volker
Ruehe, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary foreign- affairs
committee, in an interview. “I think it will be modified eventually.
We’ve no right to thrust this demand” on Turkey. The Turkish
government denies accusations of genocide over the deaths. It says
the Armenians were killed during civil conflicts in which many Turks
also died.

The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 25 2005

Russian paper: U.S. to increase pressure on Moscow

The Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta questions why the majority
of the Russian political elite still believes that the re-election of
George Bush is good for Russia.
It is true that, as Russian President Vladimer Putin has said,
American-Russian relations have visibly improved since Bush’s
election.
“But this does not really comply with reality,” the paper writes.
“Relations between both presidents are really very good, but from the
point of view of cooperation between America and Russia, especially
in the post-Soviet area, this is far from the reality.”
It also notes that during the last four years, Russia was ousted from
almost all post-Soviet states, and the Bush administration, which had
spoken of its wish to take Moscow’s interests in this zone into
account, did nothing to help it or at least to achieve a compromise.
It seemed that it was good for Russia, the paper states, that Bush’s
administration considered Russia a country that can be a reliable
ally in the fight against terrorism. The paper thinks that this view,
which the United States has toward other countries including Ukraine,
Caucasus and Central Asia , helped free the Kremlin’s domestic
activities.
“This is very good if you are an ally in the fight against terrorism
and bad if you are not,” Kommersant writes. “America will work with
all of you, by making every effort to transform you into allies. On
the one hand, it is convenient for Russia when it is considered an
ally in the fight against terrorism, when nobody goes deep into its
domestic problems.”
The paper states that in contrast, the Americans does not accept
Russia’s wish to have its own spheres of influence.
“Here Russia loses, because Washington continues to force it out from
the sphere of the post-Soviet area. This is not a conflict, but
rather a conceptual misunderstanding between Moscow and Washington,
which can become the reason for a serious conflict,” the paper notes,
adding that 13 years have already passed and while analyzing events,
its obvious the situation has only been aggravated.

America’s “primitive” view of the Caucasus
In the same article, the paper states that now the main task facing
America is to dare Russia and start to actively deal with the
Caucasus at the risk of Russian-American relations.
“It seems that Washington is far from the idea of reaching out to the
Caucasus and what is more important we should not forget that America
has a rather primitive idea about the Caucasus. The United States,
for example, thinks that Armenia is not the Caucasus and they think
that it needs a special approach,” the paper writes.
As the situation gets worse, Americans will increase their pressure
on Moscow with the aim to internationalize peacekeeping forces in the
region. First of all they intend to deploy peacekeepers from other
CIS countries and NATO in the conflict zones of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia.
“This will be inevitable,” the paper states, “if there is a large
scale military conflict in the Caucasus and Russia is not able to
settle it.” This will show the west that the region is becoming a
threat and they will have to intervene, the paper concludes.

Zaman, Turkey
Feb 25 2005

‘Turkey must Accept Sevres and Genocide’
By Cihan News Agency, Anadolu News Agency (aa)

French diplomat Jacques Toubon has told the Turkey-European Union
(EU) Joint Parliamentary Commission that Turkey should accept the
Armenian Genocide and the Treaty of Sevres.

Touban said that the European Parliament had made a decision on the
alleged Armenian genocide and that Turkey would have to accept
responsibility for the genocide in order to be accepted into the EU.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Sukru Elekdag reacted strongly
to Toubon saying that these claims do not reflect the realities,
which should be discussed by historians not by politicians. Turkey’s
Permanent Representative to the EU, Ambassador Oguz Demiralp, also
opposed Toubons speech about the Treaty. Greek diplomat Marios
Matsakis increased the tension by claiming that Turkey had committed
genocide against Armenians, Greeks and Kurds.

The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 25 2005

Armenian paper deplores “Orange babble”

Armenian newspaper Aravot (Morning) reports that the president of
Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has divided the mass media into two
categories: acceptable and propagandistic.
He thinks that six Belarus publications as well as the Russian
newspaper Izvestia, Voice of America, and Radio Liberty should be
included in a black list. However he recommends reading the newspaper
Soviet Belarus, one of the founders of which is the presidential
administration.
The Armenian paper writes that there is nothing surprising in this
because this is the disposition of the dictatorship of Lukashenko’s
government.
The paper compares this dictatorship to the new Ukrainian president
Victor Yushchenko, who prohibited high-ranking officials from
visiting bathhouses, to hunt and to have houses abroad. The new
president also ordered high-ranking officials who live outside the
capital to move to the center.
“The goal is to work more effectively and not to close the roads for
an hour while they are going to work from their country estates,” the
paper reports.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Timoshenko also ordered that lights
be turned off at 10:00 pm in all state institutions. According to
her, officials should have some sleep and not work all night as this
reduces their effectiveness. Yushchenko also prohibited high-ranking
officials from dealing in business.
“What should the people do if they are prohibited to bathe in
bathhouses, to hunt or even live outside in the country, in the
suburbs?” the paper asks.
According to Aravot, Yushchenko has chosen the old Bolshevic method
to govern the country. “He does not distinguish himself from
Lukashenko at all, only by the fact that Lukashenko does not declare
himself a democrat. This is pure babble when they order people when
to sleep, where to live and when to go to the bath. Anyway, this has
nothing in common with democracy,” the paper states.

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Feb 25 2005

SITTING OF CIS COORDINATING COUNCIL ON HIV INFECTION PROBLEMS TAKES
PLACE IN BAKU
[February 25, 2005, 20:26:53]

A sitting of the CIS coordinating council on HIV infection problems
took place in Baku. The sitting was attended by national coordinators
of CIS countries (except Armenia and Turkmenistan), representatives
of CIS executive committee, World Health Organization, United Nations
program on HIV/AIDS. The discussions at the sitting revolved around
the issues of providing better access for AIDS carriers to the
antiretrovirus medicines. The participants are adopted a document of
joint prophylaxis and fight against this disease which to be later
considered by heads of CIS member-states.

Commonwealth states adopted the `Program of Urgent Actions to Prevent
Spreading of HIV in CIS member-states’, which expires in 2005,
representative of CIS executive council Sergey Barshevskiy said at
the press conference held in grand-hotel Europe, February 25. The HIV
growth rates in CIS states are making necessary to adopt this program
and a list of drugs to alleviate the life of AIDS infected peoples.

Head of Azerbaijani National Center to fight and prophylaxis of AIDS
Galib Aliyev reported that there are 740 people infected with AIDS in
Azerbaijan. 65 of them died while 63 are in the final stage of the
disease. According to him, this document will allow coordinating the
work of CIS health organizations towards fighting AIDS.