Author: Chaltikian Arsine

“ARMENIAN BUSINESS WOMAN 2005” FIRST EXHIBITION TO BE HELD IN ARMENIA
ON MAY 27-28

YEREVAN, May 26. /ARKA/. “Armenian Business Woman 2005” first
exhibition will be held in Armenia on May 27-28. According to Anahit
Bobikyan, the Coordinator of business women assistance project of
Armenian SME Market Development Program, the basic aim of the
exhibition is the familiarization with business women of Armenia and
their activities. 50 Armenian companies from various sectors of
economy will participate in the exhibition. Among the main
participants are – “Vordi Armen ” (dairy products), “Mariam Grigoryan”
(carpet weaving), “Tamar Tatik” (dried fruits), “Aragrina”
(souvenirs). The organizers of the exhibition are Logos Expo Center,
USAID and ASME program at DAI corporation. L.V.-0-

AZG Armenian Daily #095, 26/05/2005

Home

50 ‘BOGDAN’ BUSSES RUN IN YEREVAN

An important for the capital event took place yesterday. 50 busses of
“Bogdan” brand reached Yerevan from the Ukrainian Cherkasi city. Yervand
Zakharian, Yerevan mayor, said that the necessary financial sources for
purchasing the busses were allocated as a loan by “the inter-state bank” at
the Yerevan Municipality. He didn’t specify about the percents and the terms
of the loan.

“Bogdan” busses will function on the six new routes. As the number of the
busses grows day by day, it is not excluded that the transportation fees
will be increased in the future to attract new investors and enlarge this
new business. The fees are high today as well.

The Municipality has just finished studying and calculating the number of
the passengers. Hopefully, the passengers will not be disappointed with the
quality of the transportation service.

By RA President’s instruction, Yerevan Municipality will purchase 200 new
busses by the end of the year for the capital.

By Karine Danielian

Times of Malta, Malta
May 24 2005

Stage set for European education market
Education Minister Louis Galea has signed the Bergen Communiqué, the
latest in a series of declarations as part of the Bologna Process at
a conference entitled Realising The European Higher Education Area,
which took place in Bergen, Norway.

The Bologna Process has set the stage for ministers of education in
Europe to create a European education market. This is not simply an
EU bloc: the process has also welcomed Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Moldova and Ukraine.

Students from participating countries will be able to move freely
between one higher education institution and another, where there are
harmonised systems of credits, degrees and quality assurance.

Maltese students are recognised as full partners in this process, and
the students’ representative body, the KSU, has been active in
promoting the Bologna process locally as well as promoting students’
interests in the communiqué.

The new declaration puts added emphasis on the social facet of the
Bologna Process. This is defined as a collection of “measures taken
by governments to help students, especially from socially
disadvantaged groups, in financial and economic aspects and to
provide them with guidance and counselling services with a view to
widening access.”

Anthony F. Camilleri, incoming president of the KSU, explained: “By
reaffirming its commitment to the Bologna Process in the signing of
the Bergen communiqué…we have shown that despite some nagging
drawbacks, Malta can be at the forefront of education reform.”

Mr Camilleri backed this up by mentioning the “positive results
awarded to Malta in the midterm stocktaking report of progress in
implementation of the Bologna Action Lines”.

He did not hesitate, however, to warn that this shower of praise was
“no reason for complacency.” The KSU is calling for a full
implementation of a free-of-charge diploma supplement and the setting
up of a national quality assurance agency by the end of the year.

Mr Camilleri revealed that he felt a certain amount of pride when he
saw “students’ efforts recognised by the reference to our positions
and surveys within the Communiqué.” He was quick to emphasise that
the new prioritisation of the social dimension should be complemented
with deserved action.

The KSU was present for the conference in Norway.

Armenian premier dismisses deputy governor

Arminfo
24 May 05

YEREVAN

Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan has relieved Artsruni
Agadzhyan, the deputy governor of Shirak Region [western Armenia], of
his post.

The press service of the Armenian government has told our agency that
Ruben Sanoyan has been appointed to the post by another decree [of the
prime minister].

SON OF ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER ELECTED PREFECT OF YEREVAN COMMUNITY OF AVAN

YEREVAN, MAY 23. ARMINFO. Son of Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margaryan, 27 year-old representative of the Republican Party of
Armenia Taron Margaryan was elected the prefect of Avan community may
22 evening.

To note, Taron Margaryan was the only candidate to the post. He
received 14,429 votes “in favor,” 218 null and void, 324 votes
“against all.” 14,972 people voted of the total number of the electors
of 35,550 people. The final results of the election will be summed up
later, however it is evident that the premier’s son will head the
community for 3 years.

The News Tribune, WA
May 23 2005

Elegantly `wasted’

JEN GRAVES; The News Tribune

Photo: AARON HARRIS/AP FILE
Eric Bogosian talks about his 2002 film `Arafat’ at the Toronto
International Film Festival. At left is actor Elias Koteas. Bogosian
got his start on the New York punk scene.

Photo: AARON HARRIS/AP FILE
Eric Bogosian talks about his 2002 film `Arafat’ at the Toronto
International Film Festival. At left is actor Elias Koteas. Bogosian
got his start on the New York punk scene.

Eric Bogosian’s most recent stage role was Satan, and this did not
surprise anybody.

He wore a Gucci suit and testified in Judas’ defense in this spring’s
off-Broadway courtroom play `The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,’ in
keeping with the caustic, raunchy and dangerous characters he’s
personified in writings and performances since the 1970s, when he
rose to prominence as a hero in New York’s punk clubs.

No one would ask the 52-year-old Bogosian to play a teetotaling man
happily married for 25 years, who spends evenings cooking, tending a
vegetable garden and asking his teenage sons about math class.

It would probably destroy his career if everyone knew that’s who he
really is.

`I don’t even know why I’m friends with him – he’s that dull,’ joked
Warren Leight, Bogosian’s friend of 25 years and a playwright and
screenwriter for `Law & Order: Criminal Intent.’

Leight suspects the bad boy of performance art to be a secret
Prevention magazine reader who has far more in common with the people
who hate his work than anyone would imagine.

`We’ll go to Knicks games or Yankee games and I’m shouting
obscenities, and he’s worried people are going to think ill of him,’
Leight said. `He’s a mensch. This is a guy you’d be happy to have as
your next-door neighbor grilling for you on the Fourth of July.’

Bogosian, who on Tuesday will read from his new book `Wasted Beauty’
at University Book Store in Seattle, cops to the gulf between his art
and his life.

In the book, a middle-aged doctor has an affair with a brutally
exploited, heroin-addicted model as his fitful momentary escape from
his longtime marriage and kids.

`I feel bad for my kids, because the day they read this book, they’re
going to see the negative sides – the days I was thinking, what if I
walked out the door and never came back?’ Bogosian said in a phone
interview that interrupted his work on a graphic novel. In the
background, the blasting sounds of progressive-rock band Rush filled
his New York office.

`I guess it’s human nature to say, `What if I just tipped the whole
thing over and walked away?” he said. `I feel so blessed that I have
my wife and my children, but I wonder what it would be like to just
get an apartment in St. Louis under an assumed name, and deal crack.’

He gets out the hard living in his art.

`Talk Radio’ first brought him to national attention as the shock
jock Barry Champlain. Oliver Stone directed the 1988 movie, but
Bogosian wrote it, based on the true story of an acid-tongued Denver
radio host gunned down by neo-Nazis.

His Obie-winning one-man shows include the growling titles `Pounding
Nails in the Floor with My Forehead’ and `Drinking in America.’ His
first novel, 2000’s `Mall,’ was

the story of a speed freak on a rampage in a shopping center. His
explicit short-story series `31 Ejaculations’ appeared on Salon, and
in 2003 he played the thug mobster Eddie Nash in the Val Kilmer movie
`Wonderland’ about the 1981 murders involving porn star John Holmes.
He also wrote the cynical play `SubUrbia,’ which became a 1996
Richard Linklater movie.

Testoserone Addicts

Bogosian himself was a fugitive from suburbia. He left Woburn, Mass.,
to study theater at Oberlin College, after which he high-tailed it to
New York.

Most of his characters are testosterone addicts, and almost all his
fan mail comes from college guys trying to impress him, said Amanda
Moran.

`They’d write what they thought would appeal to Eric, and we were
always like, `Oh, god, look at this,” said Moran, who was Bogosian’s
assistant from 1994 to 2002 and remains his friend. `But the people
he’d be responsive to are people who have been doing his work in
Poland.’

Bogosian is an organized and gracious anomaly in a line of work that
rewards chaotic behavior, she said.

`He’d be doing four shows at (the New York venue) the Knitting
Factory, and everyone is drunk and throwing beer bottles and women
are sneaking into the dressing rooms, and then he’s able to turn
around and broker a heavy deal for himself writing a pilot,’ Moran
said.

Bogosian’s most recent brush with the law was a simple road rage
incident around 10 years ago when, fed up with unmoving traffic, he
jammed his car into the one ahead of him in the Holland Tunnel. He
apologized to the other driver, and they worked it out.

But his dark personas are not entirely an act. Before marrying
theater director Jo Bonney in 1980, his life was full of fighting,
drinking and drugging, glimpses of which mutate into panoramic views
in his creations.

`He takes basic impulses from basic situations and spins them out,
and says, if you took this thing you really want, and took it to the
nth degree, this is where you’d end up,’ said Jill Rachel Morris, a
Touchstone/Disney executive who first booked Bogosian in a one-man
show for the regional theater where she worked in Baltimore.

`Buried in all that, if people are really paying attention, is a
great deal of compassion,’ she said. `He has real compassion about
what people do to get by, how people get through the night. He’s
talking about people you feel you know, and you feel and fear you
are.’

In `Wasted Beauty,’ the model Reba is based on Gia Carangi, a cover
girl who shot to the top of the profession, became a heroin addict
and, in 1986, was one of the first American women known to die of
complications from AIDS.

`This is a theme I’ve wanted to explore – when beauty is a problem,’
Bogosian said.

Men heap abuse on Reba, the type of beautiful woman who attracts a
particularly ferocious brand of misogyny, Bogosian said. (As an
Armenian American whom critics called the perfect `oily, greasy’
choice for Satan in `Judas Iscariot,’ Bogosian said he is accustomed
to being judged by appearances, too.)

Crudeness with a purpose

Since watching the World Trade Center explode in close view out a
window in his office building, Bogosian has retreated a little from
political crusading.

`I really didn’t want to hear my own yapping mouth in the middle of
all this,’ he said.

He might yet do an angry one-man show targeting the Bush
administration. The shows are not monologues: Bogosian, a master of
impressions, assumes a lineup of often unseemly characters.

But he sees his crudeness as a sharp object pointed at deception and
social injustice, not a tactic for shock’s sake.

Bogosian’s depth and commitment have seen him through the transition
to elder statesman of performance art, a position similar to elder
statesman of anarchists, said his friend Leight.

Going straight all those years ago has delivered him a full midlife,
Bogosian said.

He works in his office days, then goes home to his family the nights
he’s not performing.

`Somewhere along the line, I came to understand that you can’t be in
two places at the same time, and it’s fine to give lip service to
this notion of loving people around you and having them in your life,
but you have to actually do it if you want it to happen,’ he said.

Morris, the executive, remembers Bogosian’s phone call when her
father died. He urged her to come over so that he and Bonney could
care for her.

`I have no doubt in my mind that in any dark night of the soul, Eric
would show up,’ Morris said.

And he would know the territory.

WHAT: Eric Bogosian reads from `Wasted Beauty’
WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday
WHERE: University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle
ADMISSION: Free
INFORMATION: , 206-634-3400

ARMENIANS WANT ISRAELI HELP IN CHURCH FEUD
by Matti Friedman

The Jerusalem Report
May 16, 2005

Representatives of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem are
decrying a failure on the part of Israeli authorities to intervene to
protect their rights in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in the face
of what they say is a concerted attempt by the Greek Orthodox patriarch
to show that Armenian Christians are subservient to his authority.

“The Israeli government is the legal sovereign at the Holy Sepulcher,
and it is bound by its own laws to make sure that the rights of
all sects there are not violated,” says Eytan Epstein, the attorney
representing the Armenian Patriarchate. “When the Turks were in charge,
or the Jordanians, they didn’t hesitate to intervene in conflicts
between the groups. But unfortunately, the Israeli authorities take
the approach that it isn’t nice for Jews to get involved in a conflict
between Christians, and they keep their distance.”

The result, Epstein says, is that the Armenians’ rights in the church
are being eroded by the Greeks, led by their patriarch, Irenaeus,
elected to the position in 2001. (Irenaeus is also under fire within
his own church, for alleged involvement in the sale of Greek-owned
real estate in the Old City to Jewish groups, and because of charges
of impropriety in his election.)

The focal point of the conflict between the two groups is a ritual
called the Ceremony of the Holy Fire, held every year on the Saturday
before Easter Sunday. (Orthodox Christians mark Easter this year on
May 1.) On that day – according to a belief thought to date at least
to the ninth century – divine fire miraculously lights a torch in
the inner chamber of the Edicule, the small chapel built on the site
of Jesus’s tomb in the center of the rotunda of the Holy Sepulcher.
Traditionally, both the Greek Orthodox Patriarch and a representative
of the Armenian church light candles from the divine flame and
pass it to their followers outside. Since 2001, however, Irenaeus
has insisted that the Armenians light their candle from his flame,
rather than directly from the divine fire inside the tomb.

“There’s more than the ceremony involved,” Epstein says. “Irenaeus
is trying to make the point that the Armenians answer to him. The
Armenians feel that the police have been leaning toward the Greeks
on this issue and are doing nothing to stop Irenaeus from eroding the
status quo.” Historically, the Armenian church is entirely independent
of the Greek Orthodox Church.

The conflict over the Holy Fire – only one of countless tensions
and intrigues among the Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Catholics, Copts
and Ethiopians who jealously guard their turf in the ancient church –
threatens to erupt into violence every Easter. In 2002, in a brawl that
broke out during the ceremony, the fire carried by Armenian Patriarch
Turkum Manoogian was extinguished, and the police had to restore order.

But Epstein demands that the police go farther than merely jumping in
after violence erupts, and wants the Israeli authorities to actively
make sure that the rights of all sects are respected all year round.
The Armenians filed a petition to the Supreme Court in February
demanding that Israel actively uphold the Status Quo, the 19th-century
accord between European powers on relations in Christian holy places
in the Holy Land. The court gave the state until the summer to respond
because of the complex diplomatic issues involved – thereby putting
off resolution until after this year’s ceremony.

No comment was available from the Greek Patriarchate. Shmuel Ben-Ruby,
a spokesman for the Jerusalem police, rejected out of hand any
allegation of bias on the part of police. “The Israel Police takes
no side in internal conflicts in the church,” he said in a statement,
“and does its best to enforce the law and keep public order.”

NEWLY APPOINTED RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA PRESENTS HIS
CREDENTIALS TO RA PRESIDENT

YEREVAN, May 19. /ARKA/. The newly appointed Russian Ambassador to
Armenia Nikolay Pavlov has presented his credentials to RA President
Robert Kocharyan. The RA presidential press service reports that
President Kocharyan pointed out steady development of Armenian-Russian
relations and expressed hope that Ambassador Pavlov will make his
considerable contribution to the consolidation of bilateral ties.

In his turn, Ambassador Pavlov stated that he has some economic
development plans and assured President Kocharyan that he will apply
all his experience and knowledge to the development of Armenian-Russian
cooperation in new directions.

RF President Vladimir Putin appointed Nikolay Pavlov RF Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Armenia.

N. Pavlov was born on June 8, 1948. After leaving school he was sent
to Ulan Bator University as a member of the first group of students.

Pavlov graduated from the Institute of Asia and Africa, Moscow State
University (1973). He has worked at the RF Foreign Office since 1979.

Since May 1996 N. Pavlov had been Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary to Mongolia. Since 2002 he has been
Ambassador-at-Large. N. Pavlov is Representative of the RF Foreign
Minister to the Siberian federal region P.T. -0–

SPORT: Kasparov to play white knight
By Simon Kuper

Financial Times
Mar 19, 2005

“Yeah, I want to make a short statement,” Garry Kasparov began last
week. “I think it could be sort of surprise for many of you.” Whereupon
possibly the best chess player in history revealed he was retiring
from the game aged 41. Kasparov said that among other things he wanted
to help make Russia a democracy.

In fact the statement wasn’t “sort of surprise”. Eighteen months ago,
when I interviewed Kasparov in London, he was already a political
junkie who knew his chess mind was waning.

We started badly that day when I tripped him on The Strand. Though it
was an accident, he glared at me over his flat boxer’s nose. You did
not want to be across a chessboard from this guy. Later we settled on
the sofas of Home House, a mansion on Portman Square, where Kasparov
drank Earl Grey tea and talked in a rapid-fire English marred only
by a Russian tendency to mislay articles.

He told me his mental powers were waning. “Absolutely! Obviously you’re
losing concentration with age.” It didn’t seem to bother him. Already
he was turning his energies elsewhere. While remaining the world’s
number one in chess, Kasparov followed politics so minutely that he
could profile individual Moldovan politicians.

But when talking politics, he kept using the phrase “the big
picture”. Chess helped him see the big picture, he said. “In chess
if you make the wrong assessment of the big picture you are wiped
out.” Most politicians, though, couldn’t see the big picture. They
got distracted by detail.

What exactly did Kasparov mean by “big picture”? “The big picture
is the Middle East conflict, European constitution, Russia. It’s
not Africa.”

Further probing revealed that “the big picture” entailed seeing the
world as a sort of chessboard. The issue wasn’t losing the odd pawn. It
was winning the game. “The freedom”, as Kasparov called it, played
with white. Facing it across the board was dictatorship: communism,
fascism, Islamic fundamentalism. To win, you had to crunch lots of
data, as in chess.

In short, Kasparov sounded like a neo-conservative. He said: “I am a
scientist, a political scientist. I cannot be a politician because I
am not flexible.” And, he might have added, because he struggles to
hide his impatience with us humans.

I asked how growing up in Baku had shaped his thinking. “Everything
I learned from my relatives was very non-complimentary for communism,
and I had very lively brains. So I was already involved in political
debate, but at very passive level, because I had to fight for my
chess survival, I had to be officially a good boy, and I had some
strange views that eventually Russia could change.”

Did he still believe that? The problem now, he said, was that
Vladimir Putin’s people couldn’t leave the Kremlin because they had
used it to enrich themselves. If they lost power, they would lose
their businesses.

Soon after this interview Kasparov helped found the liberal Free
Choice 2008 committee, which aims to oust Putin’s people in the next
elections. Despite being a half-Jewish Armenian born in Azerbaijan,
he had wedded himself to Russia’s future.

“Look, it’s still my house,” he sighed. “I’m not a big fan of
Moscow climate, I was born on the seaside. But you don’t select your
country. If you have any hopes of having impact on the life of your
country, you must stay there.”

The question is how much impact a mere chess genius can have in
contemporary Russia. A Mexican soap star might do better.

Do Muscovites still play chess in the park? “No, it’s definitely not
a national habit any more, because country’s busy. People are busy
making money. Now there’s too much information available, so it’s:
‘Who cares?’ It’s no longer Kasparov playing Karpov. It’s no longer
the match of utmost importance.”

At the end we talked chess. What had been Kasparov’s zenith? “Probably
my best day was this second simultaneous match against the Israeli
national team. I beat them 4-0. Four very strong grandmasters, and
each game I played off my original strengths. So I would assume that
this day was the day of my greatness. The masterpiece, you know,
needs hand of God. I remember certain games I played in my life,
great games, and I was very, very ecstatic before the game. I sensed
that there’s a great energy. Unfortunately it was some time ago.”

He said he hoped people would remember him. They will, but probably
only for his chess.

‘Powerless’ candidates set to take on dominant lists
By Adnan El-Ghoul

The Daily Star/Leb
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

BEIRUT: Former Premier Omar Karami, Zghorta MP Suleiman Franjieh,
General Michel Aoun and many other Lebanese politicians all seem
“powerless” in face of the present electoral alliances: Amal with
Hizbulllah, and Saad Hariri’s Future Movement with Walid Jumblatt’s
Progressive Socialist Party. Described as “bulldozers” by the Lebanese
public, these alliances, created collectively or separately, are
likely to prevent the possibility of genuine political reform in the
near future.

Nevertheless, many of these “powerless” candidates have decided to
meet the challenge in order to truly reflect the voters’ ambitions
and choices.

In Beirut, sitting MPs Adnan Araqji, Beshara Merhej and former MP
Najah Wakim will run in the elections and are looking for support
from Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya, which has no candidate in Beirut.

To confront Hariri, these political figures and others will concentrate
on exploiting apparent “gaps” in the list, and may attempt to incite
excluded Beiruti families against Hariri.

Another plan might be to attack the Hariri list’s two controversial
Christian candidates, Gebran Tueni and Solange Gemayel, portraying
them as the wrong people for the job,  especially given Gemayel’s
recent statement following her uncontested victory, where she claimed
to have won “thanks to Ghattas Khoury’s withdrawal.”

Gemayel declared at the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkirki that she would
not commit herself politically to Hariri’s parliamentary bloc, and
she reiterated her opposition to all those she considers “strangers”
– an old civil- war phrase that might be considered “provocative
language” to many Muslims. Critics say Gemayel should have waited
until Hariri’s list had passed the election test before making such
“embarrassing” statements.

The Armenian community in Beirut is also unsatisfied with Hariri’s
alliances, which “ignored the Armenian political groups and selected
uncommitted members from their community.” In a news conference,
the Tashnag Party called on members and supporters to boycott the
elections and “stay at home on May 29” .

In the North, the “opposition” alliance formed by the Future Movement,
Qornet Shehwan, the Lebanese Forces and the Tripoli Bloc is very
close to announcing a final list, with potential members posing for
photographers Tuesday.

In face of this “powerful” coalition, Karami and Franjieh are
still considering their “final changes” before announcing their list
Thursday. Aoun is expected to be the “envisioned rescuer” and Al-Jamaa
al-Islamiyya the “badly needed catalyst to making up the difference.”

In the South, independent candidates are running with little hope of
winning .

“We want to send a message, a political statement that we object to
the confiscation of the people’s will,” said one leftist activist.

The Democratic Forum and the Democratic Left Movement are to field a
limited list of candidates in Nabatieh’s second electoral district;
they are considering whether to include Nadim Salim from the Democratic
Renewal Bloc and Ziad Aswad of the Free Patriotic Movement.

The Communist Party and the Democratic Labor Party led by Elias Abu
Rizk are forming separate lists of left-wing politicians who seem
unable to unite even now, in these “hard times.”

The traditional Asaad family is also plagued by division, with a father
running against a son, and a distant cousin running against both.

Former Parliament Speaker Kamel al-Assad will compete for the Shiite
seat in the South’s second district with his son Ahmad and two other
candidates representing Amal and Hizbullah.

In the Chouf and Baabda-Aley, Aoun, Talal Arslan, Dory Chamoun’s
National Liberal Party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party are
still struggling to conclude a meaningful alliance to oppose Jumblatt
and his alliance with the LF.

–Boundary_(ID_HqTXq85sD3KvFXq+4pKCwg)–