Pacific Stars and Stripes, Japan
May 2 2004
U.S., Armenia sign military compact
By Ward Sanderson, Stars and Stripes
European edition,
The United States recently signed a compact with Armenia making it
possible to swap or buy military supplies and services through that
country’s forces.
Armenia may ask the same of the Americans.
`It shows that we are increasing and cementing our relationship and
that Armenia is a full participant on the war on terrorism,’ said Gen.
Charles F. Wald, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, in a press
statement.
In and of itself, the acquisition and cross-servicing agreement, or
ACSA, may not seem unusual. The Defense Department has negotiated 77 of
these; nearly 50 are with countries dealing with the U.S. European
Command. But the Armenia deal cemented on April 26 means that U.S.
forces can now operate with ready access to local supplies not only in
Armenia, but throughout the strategically important Caucuses region:
U.S. defense officials reached a similar agreement with Georgia two
years ago and with Azerbaijan last year.
The Caucuses region is important because the region is rich in oil and,
as beginning of the ancient Silk Road, is a doorway to the East
directly bordering Russia and Iran. And whatever the merits of having
military-to-military chumminess in that neighborhood, it also
highlights the U.S. push to have such agreements anywhere in the world
where a friendly government holds power.
The arrangements were hatched in 1979 via the Mutual Support Act, a
mechanism for the United States and other NATO members to help one
another without going through the usual contracting hoops. More
recently, Congress expanded the concept so that the U.S. government
could negotiate such arrangements with any friendly nation.
Since then, America has vigorously sought to clinch such arrangements.
`With this country and all 93 countries in our area of responsibility,
we have a responsibility to cooperate with most of them, if they’re a
friendly and willing member,’ said Lt. Col. Charles Sherwin of the
Logistics and Security Assistance Directorate at the U.S. European
Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. `There are certain
agreements you’d like to have in place to work with them.’
The deals take time. The chatting up of Armenia began in March of 2002
when both the State Department and Defense Department signed off on the
idea.
`Here, two years later, we were able to conclude,’ Sherwin said. `We
can’t just go willy-nilly to negotiate these things.’
No one actually gives anything to anyone under the agreements; each
country buys, swaps or returns in kind whatever it needs from the other
military.
As for signing such deals with nations eastward, it could provide
obvious benefits for operations in Afghanistan or Iraq. And, Sherwin
said, were U.S. forces to push on to new bases in Eastern Europe, it
would advance that effort, too.
However, Lt. Col. Bill Bigelow, a spokesman for the Stuttgart
headquarters, was quick to say that the Armenian news does not equate
to a final decision to build eastern bases.
More broadly, `It enhances operability throughout the theater,’ Bigelow
said.

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
May 2 2004
Baku Eats Humble Pie For Its PACE Delegates
Baku Today 03/05/2004 00:15
Azeri parliamentarians’ failure to attend PACE’s 29 April meeting on
Cyprus issue was not out of Azerbaijan’s state policy, but a `careless’
attitude of the MPs, Anadolu news agency quoted Azeri ambassador to
Turkey Mammad Aliyev as saying on Saturday.
The ambassador sought to assure Turkish reporters in Ankara that the
happenings in PACE did not mean that his country had backed down
supporting the Turkish Cypriots.
`Azerbaijan will continue to support the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus as much as it can,’ the ambassador said.
Only one out of nine Azeri MPs showed up at PACE’s meeting, which
adopted a resolution with 47-23 votes. While the resolution paid
tribute to Turkish Cypriots for their backing Annan’s reunification
plan and stressed the need for ceasing the Turkish side’s isolation, it
turned down a suggestion on the Turkish Cypriots’ independent
representation at the Parliamentary Assembly.
The resolution said that representatives of the Turkish Cypriot
community could participate at the PACE only as part of integrated
Cypriot delegation.
The event prompted dissatisfaction in Turkey, as the Turkish media
lashed out at Azerbaijani MPs for being indifferent to the problems of
Turkish Cypriots.
The Azerbaijani government also was quick to accuse its delegation of
negligence in order to sooth ire in Ankara.
Ali Hasanov, head of socio-political department at presidential
apparatus, criticized members of the Azerbaijani delegation at the PACE
for their `irresponsibility.’
`Turkey has a good reason to feel offended,’ Hasanov said in an
interview with ANS on Saturday.
He expressed hope that the `misunderstanding’ in PACE would not serve
to besmirch relationship between Azerbaijan and Turkey.
But Samad Seyidov, head of the delegation, said there was no reason to
exaggerate the event, as he did not see a big problem in the
Azerbaijani delegation’s absence at the PACE meeting.
`Some people are trying to make use of this for their interests,’ he
said, but would not elaborate.
Samadov said since 47 PACE deputies voted for and only 23 against the
resolution, Azerbaijani parliamentarians’ presence could have changed
nothing anyway.
Another member of the Azerbaijani delegation, Asim Mollazade from the
opposition Popular Front Party, even slammed his Turkish counterparts
at PACE for their poor performance on the Cyprus issue and claimed that
the Turkish MPs were trying to put blame on Azeris for their failure.
`I have appealed to Turkish Foreign Ministry several times and said
their delegation to the Council of Europe cannot represent Turkish
interests properly in the high European body,’ Mollazade told ANS on
his arrival to Baku from Strasbourg.
On contrary to the statements that the Azeri delegation did not show up
at the PACE meeting because of misunderstanding, Mollazade said there
were some political reasons they did not attend the meeting.
`If we had supported Turkish Cypriot delegates at CE, a new precedent
would have emerged and Karabakh Armenians could have made use of this
to demand representation at the Parliamentary Assembly,’ Mollazade told
ANS.

The Scotsman, UK
May 2 2004
Gilded youth
by Kenneth Walton
Final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year
USHER HALL, EDINBURGH
IN AN awe-inspiring showcase of prodigious young talent at the Usher
Hall yesterday, 16-year-old Ayrshire violinist Nicola Benedetti beat
off stiff competition to win the grand final of the 2004 BBC Young
Musician of the Year award.
All five finalists showed remarkable presence and confidence before a
2,000 capacity audience and prestigious panel of judges. And each one,
from the pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, 11, to the 17-year-old
percussionist Lucy Beeson, displayed complete professionalism in the
way they handled their concerto roles with the BBC Scottish Symphony
Orchestra, under its principal conductor, Ilan Volkov.
It was, we were told, the youngest set of finalists in the
competition’s 26-year history. Highlighting that, the diminutive
Grosvenor gave a technically assured account of Ravel’s G major Piano
Concerto on a concert grand lent to him by the makers Bösendorfer,
specially adapted to accommodate his size. Grosvenor is scheduled to
appear next season, playing Mozart and Britten, in the Scottish
Ensemble’s High Flyers tour. Each of yesterday’s finalists chose
challenging, rather than predictable repertoire. Lucy Beeson’s
cool-headed performance of Joe Duddell’s percussion concerto Ruby
revealed music of immense beauty. Welsh 15-year-old Daniel de
Gruchy-Lambert chose the Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian’s
excitable Trumpet Concerto to display his buoyant virtuosity. The
Manchester flautist Adam Walker produced exquisite variances of tone in
a bristling performance of Neilsen’s Flute Concerto.
But there was one clear winner. Nicola Benedetti’s performance of
Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto was utterly captivating. It was
technically outstanding, and the charisma and musicianship of her
performance was that of the accomplished artist we know her to be. This
was playing soaked in delicacy, subtlety and sheer virtuosity. Her star
is very much in the ascendent.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Guardian, UK
May 2 2004
Scientists to search for Noah’s ark on Turkish mountain
Expedition will study ‘man-made object’ shown by satellite photos
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
The CIA calls it the “Ararat anomaly”. Mountaineers call it the peak of
the unforgiving range on the Turkish-Armenian border. But some
scientists think it might hold a far greater historical significance as
the great archaeological mirage – the remains of Noah’s ark.
Ten explorers and scientists from the US and Turkey will embark on an
expedition on July 15 to scale Mount Ararat, 4,700 metres (15,000ft)
above sea level, to determine what is behind the image that has been
picked up by spy satellites in the past two decades.
New satellite pictures suggest a huge 14-metre-high structure that was
exposed when the heatwave that hit Europe last summer melted the
snowcap that had obscured it for years.
The expedition will be led by Ahmet Ali Arslan, an English professor at
Seljuk University in Turkey. An experienced mountaineer, he has already
scaled Mt Ararat 40 times and grew up around the mountain range.
“The slopes are very, very harsh and dangerous on the northern face –
it is extremely challenging, mentally and physically,” said Mr Arslan,
who was once a prime-ministerial aide.
The expedition can only occur with the consent of the Turkish
government, and Mr Arslan will meet the prime minister next week to
discuss the proposed trip. The estimated cost is £500,000 and will be
met by Daniel McGivern, a businessman and Christian activist from
Hawaii.
At a press conference to announce the trip this week he said: “We are
not excavating it. We’re going to photograph it and, God willing,
you’re all going to see it.”
“These new photos unequivocally show a man-made object,” he added. “I
am convinced that the excavation of the object and the results of tests
run on any collected samples will prove that it is Noah’s ark.”
Mr McGivern’s Trinity Corporation last year used Quick Bird, the
world’s highest resolution satellite, to photograph the anomaly.
He has said he is 98% sure that the object is the ark, because of beams
of wood he said were visible in the images.
The Bible says that the ark, packed with either seven or two of each
creature, male and female, on earth, came to rest on the mountains of
Ararat after the great floods – thought to have occurred in 5,600BC,
when the Mediterranean flooded into the basin where the Black Sea now
sits.
Sceptics have pointed out that Noah would have had to load 460
organisms a second to fill the ark with two of each species in 24 hours
as the Bible suggests.
The object on Mount Ararat was first noticed by the CIA in 1949 from a
spy plane.
Turkish pilots saw it again 10 years later, and the pictures began to
reinforce the myth around the vessel, giving Christians apparent
archeological evidence that part of Genesis could be physically
substantiated.
The region was off limits until 1982 because of Soviet complaints that
explorers were spying. Since then, teams of explorers have tried to
reach the ark, but failed to substantiate what the object is.
Geologists have discovered evidence of a flood in the region known as
Mesopotamia in Sumerian times (6,000 years ago), yet have maintained
that it is not possible for a ship to have made landfall at an altitude
as high as that of Mt Ararat.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

New University, CA
May 2 2004
Benefit Concert Souls 2004 Raises Awareness

by: Christina Nersesian

Courtesy Of Soul 2004

The Soul 2004 concert was created to spread Armenian Genocide
awareness.

System of a Down took the legendary Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on
April 24, and made the entire place like their own home. It was as if
the band threw this huge event and each band member invited all of
their friends, cousins and their friends, parents’ friends and pretty
much the entire society living in the diasporas of Southern California.
The members of System of a Down – vocalist and front man Serj Tankian,
guitarist Daron Malakian, bassist Shavo Odadjian and drummer John
Dolmayan, all of Armenian descent – lost family during the Armenian
Genocide. The band’s Souls 2004 Benefit Concert was set for April 24,
Genocide Commemoration Day, for a reason.
`The purpose of Souls 2004 is to further raise awareness of the
Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey)
in 1915, and help facilitate its formal recognition as a genocide by
the federal government,’ Tankian said.
Joining System of a Down that day was Saul Williams, Bad Acid Trip, and
Zach Hill, all of whom had donated their time for the event. Along with
those performers several organizations – the International Association
of Genocide Scholars, Facing History and Ourselves, the Center for
Prevention of Genocide, Zoryan Institute, the Genocide Project, and the
Armenian National Committed of America – who support the efforts of
System of a Down were present with booths outside the venue. These
organizations were the beneficiaries for the funds raised from the
concert, Souls 2004.
`[The name given to the concert], Souls 2004, is obvious,’ Tankian
explained. `It refers to the souls that have passed due to the
genocide, and the concert was done on their behalf.’
The cozy setting of the Greek Theatre seems the ideal place for
concerts. Even back in the nosebleeds where most have to bring
binoculars to catch a glimpse of the band playing, the setting of the
Greek is one where even those are seats close enough to the action.
Saturday’s concert was sold out within the first day of ticket sales.
This disappointed some unable to get tickets but there lies reason in
everything System of a Down does.
`We could have sold out the Staples Center,’ Tankian said, `but decided
on a more elegant, intimate venue for this benefit show. We haven’t
played [Los Angeles] in a while and have lots of fans excited to see
another show.’
The fans were very excited-most of all their Armenian fans, especially
since the purpose of the show was to spark awareness about a cause very
personal to their entire culture and ignored for so long.
`My decision to attend the concert was two-fold,’ explained Ararat
Oganesyan, president of the Armenian Student Association at UCI, who
had also attended the show. `Initially I wanted to attend a System
concert, solely for my appreciation of their music, but when I was
informed on their Genocide Commemoration benefit, I was excited because
with a powerful day such as April 24, there was no doubt in my mind
that it would be a special evening.’
Before System of a Down actually went on stage, they showed an ABC
special recorded in 1999 by Peter Jennings about the Armenian Genocide.
The crowd showed a positive response, yet it is always hard to pick out
the negative feedback in a setting like Saturday’s. System of a Down
did have a lot of energy geared towards the presentation of the
Armenian culture, yet did their presentation include enough about their
views on the Genocide? Was it sufficient enough for the fans who know
about the Genocide to really feel their cause presented to the people?
`I felt that they could have done a little more to present their own
views on the Armenian Genocide,’ Oganesyan explained, `because the
audience, especially the ones who are ignorant on the topic would have
listened to their every word, but some people I’m sure were turned off
when they saw the special program on the projectors. But other then
that I believe they did an awesome job.’
The concert was not meant to be a culture shock to those who were not
Armenian, but it did raise the awareness in some about this old culture
with values and history just like any other.
Souls 2004 brought out the young and the old. Some of the younger kids
had their parents with them. Some of the older kids brought their
parents with them as well, and sat them through that hard rock show
just because of its purpose. Although the average parent would not
approve of the way System of a Down runs their concerts, most parents
there were too enthralled by the meaning and purpose of it all to care.
To them, the parents who believe this current generation of Armenians
is going downhill with remembering and keeping their culture, this
concert proved them wrong. System of a Down, representatives of that
generation which parents fear will lose and forget their past, showed
what it was to remember. This crowd clearly demonstrated that they will
not forget.
`I never expected the show to be as good as it was,’ Oganesyan said.
`It was absolutely amazing. I took my friend Aramik’s Armenian flag and
throughout the concert I was waving it and on one instance I got really
brave and began running up and around the isles waving it.’
But why a concert? The issue of the Armenian Genocide has been burning
in the hearts of Armenians for close to a hundred years now. One would
think there are other ways to recognize the Genocide.
Perhaps all those methods have been exhausted by now. With the fresh
faces of System of a Down integrating both their Armenian culture and
the American culture of the 20th century into their style, they were
able to come up with a better way to commemorate by having a concert to
bring together their fans and show them the history of the Armenian
culture’s struggle.
System of a Down has been the high voice for the Armenian community in
reaching out to the government for the cause of recognizing and
accepting the Genocide. Although they are not a political action
committee, the Genocide is a very personal cause for the band and their
families so they work towards the recognition of those atrocities. This
makes them sympathetic to other Genocides as well. And perhaps they
utilize their worldwide recognition to approach government.
`We’ve done lots of interviews talking about the denial of the genocide
and the genocide itself,’ Tankian said, `and have participated in a
grass roots initiative to send out up to 100,000 postcards to the
Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader to press them to
introduce legislation to recommit the U.S. Congress to the Genocide
convention which includes all modern 20th century genocides.’
Most benefit concerts take place to help a contemporary cause. This is
where proceeds go and show that money has physically helped the group
and benefited their cause for need. The System of a Down concert did
more than take profits and send them off to the needed organizations.
They inspired the need to help in others, and made even the ignorant
aware of what they needed to do.

Press-Enterprise , CA
May 3 2004
Church holds initial service

RELIGION: A newly formed Inland parish of the Armenian Apostolic faith
meets for the first time.

By SHARYN OBSATZ / The Press-Enterprise
Tina Baker said she felt at home Sunday as the blue-caped priest
chanted prayers in Armenian.
“I didn’t really understand anything he was saying, but I really
enjoyed it,” said Baker, 35, the granddaughter of an Armenian
immigrant.
The Riverside mother brought her own daughters to the afternoon
service, the first monthly Badarak organized by the recently formed
Riverside parish of the Armenian Apostolic Church. She said she was
only 8 or 9 the last time she attended an Armenian service.
The service lasted two hours, filled with reverent Armenian hymns sung
in minor key by a Palm Desert area choir. Participants stood nearly the
entire time.
“That was like a thousand hours,” Baker’s daughter Stephanie, 6, said
afterward.
The Divine Liturgy service has changed little in the 1,700 years since
Armenia became the first country to officially embrace Christianity in
301 A.D., according to participants and their priest, the Rev. Stepanos
Dingilian.
Priests endeavor to ensure that the ceremony is the same for Armenians
scattered around the globe, Dingilian said. The Armenian Apostolic
Church is part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
Armenians endured deadly attacks by the Greeks, Romans, Persians and
Turks. After decades under Soviet control, Armenia declared its
independence in 1991.
Inland Armenians said Sunday’s service symbolized survival. Riverside
and San Bernardino counties are home to about 4,150 people of Armenian
ancestry, according to the 2000 census.
More than 80 people attended Sunday’s service, and organizers hope to
start recruiting others for the next monthly service in June, said
Norma Cosby, president of the Inland Empire Armenian Club.
“The Armenians are quite scattered” throughout the area, and some have
married non-Armenians so they can no longer be identified by
traditional Armenian last names that end in “ian,” said Cosby, 67, of
San Bernardino.
The service, held at All Saints Episcopal Church in Riverside, was
followed by a meal of sandwiches, deviled eggs, stuffed grape leaves,
pitas, goat cheese and baklava.
Armenian dance instructor Pearlene Varjabedian of Corona coached her
4-year-old daughter, Lara, in a recitation of the poem, “I am Armenian,
Saint Vartan’s Grandchild.” The crowd clapped.
Parents’ goal is to preserve the faith and culture, Varjabedian said.
“It’s planting the seed,” she said.

St. Petersburg Times, FL
May 3 2004
Book review
The resurgence of things repressed
By ELLEN EMRY HELTZEL
The Daydreaming Boy
By Micheline Aharonian Marcom
“In Paradise there is no past,” observes the young Catholic, Rachel, in
Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s highly acclaimed first novel, Three Apples
Fell From Heaven. She is speaking from the grave after drowning herself
to avoid being raped by Turkish soldiers. For her, hell is the pain of
memory.
In her new novel, The Daydreaming Boy, Marcom reprises this theme, her
subject once again the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 genocide against the
Armenians. This time, the story remains in the land of the living, told
by a fictional narrator who’s looking back a half century after the
killings.
Vahe Tcheubjian – curiously, he bears the same name as the person to
whom the book is dedicated – lives in Beirut, Lebanon. He is both an
unexceptional figure and a tragic one, describing himself as “a
smallish man, a man whose middle has begun to soften and protrude, his
long toes hidden in scuffed dress shoes.” Beneath this bland exterior,
however, lies a person “undone by history.”
Vahe has lived a life of suppressing the events that scarred him and
destroyed his family. At the age of 7, his father was bludgeoned to
death and his mother delivered to an unknown fate, while he was sent by
boxcar to Lebanon and the Bird’s Nest Orphanage. There, he grew up
among what he calls the “Adams in the wasteland” – child refugees
pulled from their homes and herded together in a
survival-of-the-fittest environment.
Vahe remembers how he ached with loneliness. He wrote letters to the
mother who never replied. He cherished the weekly assembly-line baths,
a brisk scrubdown by a dour-looking matron, because it gave him the
chance to recall maternal touch.
After leaving the orphanage, he worked as a carpenter, got married. And
then, as a middle-aged man, Vahe can’t stop thinking about Vostanig,
the outcast who was sexually and physically abused by the other boys,
including himself, at the Bird’s Nest. “The stranger: He was all of us,
the damned exiled race in its puny and starved and pathetic scabbed
body,” he recalls. “How we longed to kill him.”
For years, Vahe made a habit of visiting the Beirut zoo on Sundays,
where he shared a smoke with the tobacco-loving chimp Jumba. But before
handing over the cigarette, he would poke its burning end into the
chimp’s flesh, exacting his price. If there’s any doubt that Vahe is a
deeply damaged man, this gratuitous cruelty dispels it.
Jumba and his fellow primates are an on-going motif in the book, their
captivity and behavior reflecting how Vahe perceives a hostile world. A
newspaper article datelined South Africa announces the discovery that
man and gorilla share the same brain size and capacity, underscoring
the primal connection. The metaphor threatens to overpower the story,
but Vahe is too compelling to ignore.
Vahe has learned to translate his grief and emptiness into lust,
braiding sex and violence together, as he was taught. Having been
victimized himself, he becomes victimizer, as indicated by this simple
exchange with the servant girl, Beatrice:
“Would you like a chocolate?”
“No, merci.”
“No, merci? Here, take it. I’ve bought these chocolates and I would
like for you to take it.” She is still looking at the floor and I’ve
grabbed her hand and push the gold truffles into her small hand. . . .”
But dialogue is the exception in a story built mostly on interior
monologue, using poetic, even mnemonic, devices that reflect how memory
works. For Vahe, the past returns in intermittent blasts, like power
surges traveling down the neural pathways. Through his eyes we see the
lies and obfuscations gradually fall away.
The Daydreaming Boy probes Vahe’s interior life, displaying his cruel,
hungry sensibility, and eventually locates the sources of his pain.
What remains is a man who sees himself for what he is, “the ragged
round left by absence of affection and knowing.”
– Reviewer Ellen Emry Heltzel is a book critic and writer who lives in
Portland, Ore. With Margo Hammond she writes the weekly column Book
Babes, which can be found at
“The Daydreaming Boy,” by Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Riverhead Books,
$23.95, 224 pages.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
May 1 2004
PRIME MINITER OF AZERBAIJAN MEETS FOREIGN MINISTER OF GEORGIA
[May 01, 2004, 21:28:48]
Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Artur Rasizadeh received Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Georgia Mrs. Salome Zurabishvili staying in
Azerbaijan for a visit, May 1.
Having congratulated Mrs. Salome Zurabishvili on her appointment to the
high office, Prime Minister Artur Rasizadeh noted that Azerbaijan
attaches great significance to development of political, economic and
cultural relations with neighboring Georgia. Underlining the importance
of intensifying Azerbaijan-Georgia joint economic commission’s
activity, the Prime Minister expressed satisfaction with successful
joint implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and
Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum oil and gas pipelines projects, and pointed to
their good perspectives for the region.
However, Prime Minister Artur Rasizadeh noted touching upon the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that destructive position of Armenia has a
very negative impact on both realization of the mentioned projects and
development of the region as whole.
Thanking the Prime Minister for the sincere meeting, Mrs. Salome
Zurabishvili informed him in detail on the fruitful meetings and talks
she had had in Baku. The Georgian Foreign Minister pointed to
Azerbaijan’s economic revival in a short period and drastic differences
in development between the two neighboring countries, and expressed
confidence in continuation of their close cooperation for the sake of
reestablishment of peace and stability in the region, fair settlement
of the conflicts and further economic progress.
During the meeting held in the sincere atmosphere, the parties also
exchanged views on a number of other issues of mutual interests.
Present at the meeting were Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Georgia Ramiz
Hasanov and Ambassador of Georgia to Azerbaijan Zurab Gumberidzeh.

A1 Plus | 14:40:25 | 03-05-2004 | Politics |
RALLIES HAVE NEGATIVE IMPACT ON ECONOMY
Armenian capital’s mayor Yervand Zakaryan, asked by journalists at his
Monday’s news conference why the municipality denies to authorize
opposition-staged rallies, said demonstrators bar traffic and that has
negative impact on economy.
He said the rally scheduled for May 4 would be denied authorization as well.

A1 Plus | 14:31:23 | 03-05-2004 | Social |
YEREVAN MAYOR SPEAKING AT NEWS CONFERENCE
On Monday, Yerevan mayor Yervand Zakaryan, speaking at a news conference,
said Northern Avenue construction would be completed in 2006 and Main Avenue
in 2007-2008.
He said 3 billion 180 million drams had been spent for urban construction
for past three months.
In his words 24,000 trees have been planted in the Armenian capital for the
last months.
Zakaryan said 100 minibuses are expected to be brought to Yerevan from
France and Italy.