Author: Kajoyan Gevork

BELGIUM AND FRANCE LIST BANNED AIRLINES
By Sarah Laitner in Brussels

FT
August 30 2005 03:00

France and Belgium have become the latest EU countries to disclose
which airlines are banned from using their airports because of safety
concerns.

Their decision to name 14 barred carriers will step up pressure on
other countries to agree to the creation of a Europe-wide public
blacklist of airlines.

“This list also has the merit, we hope, of leading the way at a
European level, so that we get a European blacklist as soon as
possible,” said Maxime Coffin, the director of France’s DGAC civil
aviation authority.

A spate of aircraft crashes this month in which more than 330 people
have died has increased pressure on countries to reveal which airlines
they have banned.

France named five blacklisted international airlines, while Belgium
revealed nine mostly African carriers barred from its airports.

French citizens made up most of the 160 people killed when a jet from
Colombia’s West Caribbean airline crashed in Venezuela on August 16.
The airline had passed two inspections on French territory.

The UK is the only other member state in the EU to make public which
carriers it has banned.

A Europe-wide blacklist, first suggested in February, would tell
passengers the name of every airline banned from any EU country.
European Commission officials say the list could be compiled by the
end of the year.

Bans are imposed by national authorities, which are meant then to
share safety information among themselves confidentially.

No EU-wide rules exist requiring that passengers, travel agents, tour
operators or other airlines be told of safety bans or restrictions
on particular carriers.

Italy said this week it did not intend to publish its blacklist.
Britain began publishing its previously secret list of 11 airlines
barred from its airspace after a charter aircraft owned by Flash
Airlines crashed in the Red Sea, killing 148 people, mostly French
tourists. Passengers did not know that the airline had for a time
been banned from Switzerland.

Thailand’s Phuket Airlines, Mozambique’s Linhas Aereas de Moçambique,
Air Saint Thomas of the US, North Korea’s Air Koryo and International
Air Services of Liberia are affected by the French ban.

Belgium said it had suspended landing permits for Africa Lines from
the Central African Republic, Egypt’s Air Memphis, Armenia’s Air Van
Airlines, Central Air Express of the Democratic Republic of Congo,
ICTTPW of Libya, Nigeria’s International Air Tours, Johnsons Air
of Ghana, Silverback Cargo Freighters of Rwanda and Ukraine’s South
Airlines.

–Boundary_(ID_ptEw3g8dKpjAmdgnKexIUg)–

NON-ALIGNED YET MILITANT: SYSTEM OF A DOWN USE THEIR POLITICALLY LACED HARD ROCK TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND TO THE CLASS CLEAVAGES OF U.S. MILITARISM
by MARK LEGPAGE, Freelance

The Gazette (Montreal)
August 29, 2005 Monday
Final Edition

“As the father of a dead U.S. serviceman…”

There’s a line no senator will ever utter. Remarkably, it doesn’t
offend the average American – it’s never mentioned in the press,
nor by the Sunday morning pundits – that no serving politician in
Congress has a kid on the line in Iraq.

System of a Down are not average Americans.

“Why don’t presidents fight the wars / Why do they always send the
poor? Why do they always send the poor?” howls Serj Tankian in BYOB
on the band’s latest album, Mezmerize. As full a hard-rock protest
album as will be released this year, it is also one of the very few
(name another) truly angry politicized albums of the decade.

This is disheartening. This should be a firing offense. The least a
band of musicians who’ve escaped serious employment could be expected
to do, you’d imagine, is engage the largest issue of their era.

Why do they always send the poor? “I think it makes a lot of sense
to send the poor if you’re affluent and have a lot to lose,” System
drummer John Dolmayan says. “You don’t look at people who have very
little money as having anything to lose.”

But “whether you’re a billionaire or working at McDonald’s, you still
have a life – and a right to it.”

Against all odds, System of a Down is a “successful rock band.” Its
2001 6-million-selling breakthrough Toxicity (with its crazed single
Chop Suey!) brought a mainstream (or at least mass) audience to a band
with a shared ethnicity whose singer is a vocal, neck-tendon-baring
dissident. As I credit Dolmayan for his band’s having launched itself
into the political arena so aggressively, he takes a small half-step
backwards.

“I don’t know if we’re as head-on as you think,” he says. “We’re not
necessarily (talking) just about this war, but about things that are
taking place on the planet on a daily basis.

“It takes a war to get people to pay attention to what’s happening,
when right here in America there are kids starving to death. There’s
poor people who can’t afford to eat or a decent place to sleep. These
are things that need to be addressed. It’s not just when you go to
another country and destroy their lives and uproot another civilization
that you need to start paying attention to things.”

He is, in fact, avoiding a label, not a stance. “I consider us to be a
‘non-party’ band” – by which he means “no affiliation,” not to a genre,
style or ideology. Anyway, “Definitely we’re outspoken against war.”

Sixteen shows into the current tour, Dolmayan seldom has a sense of
how the confrontational songs are going over during a performance.
What does it look like out there? “I see a blur from the stage,”
he says, “as my drumsticks are whizzing past my face.”

Small wonder. BYOB is one of 11 riff-bombs on Mezmerize (the first
in a two-album series – Hypnotize comes in November). Between the
opening fragment, Soldier Side, and the skewering, elegiac closer,
Lost in Hollywood, the band runs a tight prison-break through
mosh-happy guitars, skirling north-Middle Eastern melodic figures and
neck-violating dynamics – it’s a hard-rock diaspora of sound. BYOB
is itself three songs in one.

“That’s one of the reasons we didn’t release both albums at the same
time,” Dolmayan says. “We felt it would just be too much for people
to take.

“Some people wanna be safe, some people don’t have the capability to
do something … crazier.”

It is an oversimplification, but perhaps they had a sense that rock
‘n’ roll risks were minor-league. Bred in southern California, the
band – Tankian, Dolmayan, guitarist Daron Malakian and bassist Shavo
Odadjian – are all of Armenian heritage. Dolmayan insists this was
purely coincidental, but it is certainly crucial. That ethnicity
brings with it the shared consciousness of an ethnic rupture that
remains, unthinkably, a secret to general history – the Armenian
genocide. Denied to this day by its perpetrators, the Turks, the
events, begun in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire (1915),
constitute what Peter Jennings acknowledged was “quite simply the
first genocide of the 20th century.” Estimates of the dead range as
high as 1.5 million or “half of our population,” Dolmayan says.

“We feel it’s our responsibility to draw attention to it because most
people don’t even know it took place,” he says. Every Armenian is a
walking conscience. But Dolmayan doesn’t fetishize this. When the
amount of people killed then is contrasted, say, with the latest
offhand slaughter of 100,000 somewhere, he responds, “A hundred
thousand people is a vast amount of people! Are we really in a world
that’s so cynical that 100,000 people dead doesn’t mean anything?”

However: non-party band. The Armenian consanguinity is not just a
rallying point.

“We understand each other much better. Armenians are very
family-oriented people, even though we fight like a family sometimes.
Some of our best songs have happened after our best fights. I put
Daron in the hospital and he put me in the hospital on the same
night. Let’s just say we both had to get stitches.” So there’s more
than one way to tie a band together.

The Guide: PREVIEW music: NEW SINGLES

The Guardian – United Kingdom; Aug 27, 2005

IAN GITTINS

GORILLAZ Dare (Parlophone) A decade on from the bloodiest conflict of
the Britpop wars, it’s absurd to reflect that we even fleetingly
considered the Gallagher brothers creatively superior to Damon
Albarn. Yet the Blur man is largely absent from this latest, excellent
Gorillaz offering, a winningly facetious collage of futuristic
electro-doodles and squelches which is marred only by a post-pub
Mancunian dosser slurring a passable impersonation of Shameless
patriarch Frank Gallagher through the open studio window. Oh no, hang
on, that’s special guest star Shaun Ryder!

* GWEN STEFANI Cool (Interscope) She’s a helium-voiced Valley Girl,
her lyrics and interviews are packed with self-regarding Californian
psychobabble and her ambition makes her look pretty ugly, yet Stefani
has a sure-footed pop sensibility that consistently renders her
confections hugely beguiling. Cooing over the vexed subject of
maintaining a civilised relationship with an ex-lover, Cool is yet
another surprisingly palatable cut from her ludicrously named, sugar
rush of an album, Love Angel Music Baby.

* THE DANDY WARHOLS Smoke It (Parlophone) The Dandy Warhols may be
poised to enjoy a second wind thanks to Dig!, the film about their
arch rivalry with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, next to whom they
resemble Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Here they salvage their own
hard-earned reputation for narcotic excess with a thrilling,
hyperventilating shambles of an Iggy-meets-the-Stones number that
doggedly pursues its misguided train of thought to oblivion and
beyond. Excellent.

* SYSTEM OF A DOWN Question (American Recordings) This ambitious
venture finds the Armenia-via-California thrash rockers striving to
answer the biggest existential questions of them all: what is the
meaning of life, and where do we go when we die? All is made clear as,
over alternately symphonic and thunderous shock-metal, they deliver a
remarkable verdict: “Sweet berries ready for two/Ghosts are no
different than you.” We’ve needed this for years: a Jean-Paul Sartre
you can mosh to.

* PRAS Haven’t Found (Universal) Next to the lustrous Lauryn Hill and
the ubiquitous Wyclef Jean, the relatively anonymous Pras Michel was
perennially doomed to be The Other One of the Fugees. Here, he
attempts to vault back into public affection by appropriating the
skyscraping guitar riff of U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking
For and mumbling over the top about how very ace he is. Diddy would
consider this record lazy and exploitative. Those are not words to use
lightly.

COUNCIL ALDERMEN OF INTELECTUALS’ FORUM CALLS TO BOYCOTT REFERENDUM OF
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

YEREVAN, AUGUST 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The Council of Aldermen of the
Intelecturals’ Forum calls on the citizens of the republic to boycott
the referendum on the constitutional reforms to be held in November.
This is said in the August 25 address of the organization. According
to authors of the document, the authorities’ stating the constitutional
reforms as of most importance follows one main goal: to make
legitimate the power not elected and formed by the people. “By this
regular simple and shameless step of disorientating the society, the
authorities want to give a legal and countinuable character to
shameful crimes committed and to be committed by them,” the address
reads. The Council of Aldermen of the Intelectuals’ Forum finds that
if parties participate in discussions of the Constitutional reforms,
and the people participates in the referendum, even with an intention
to say “No,” it will be considered as recognition of the authorities’
legitimacy by the people. According to the Council of Aldermen’s
estimation, it will be an inadmissible mistake “with all negative
consequences coming out of it.” According to the authors of the
address, particularly, if the authorities make decision not beneficial
for Armenia concerning the Artakh problem, “they may quote that they
are those elected by the people and fulfil the people’s will, in the
case, when the 2003 president’s and parliamentary elections were
widely falsified, the power was taken, and nobody has been punished
for that hard crime by now.”

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 60; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

August 26, 2005
___________________

ST. JAMES WELCOMES NEW COMMUNITY LEADER

By Jake Goshert

Dn. Levon Kirakosyan assumed the position of deacon-in-charge of the St.
James Church of Evanston, IL, on August 14, 2005.

“Dn. Levon has shown that he is not only a devout son of the Armenian
Church, but also a proud Armenian,” said Archbishop Khajag Barsamian,
Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern).
“Through his work at the Diocese, he has gained a number of valuable
skills and experiences which will serve him well as he assumes a
leadership role in one of our wonderful Midwest parishes.”

Dn. Kirakosyan grew up in Armenia near Holy Etchmiadzin as a parishioner
in the Araratian Diocese. During a welcome luncheon in Evanston, the
Primate said Dn. Levon truly is answering the call of God to serve the
church.

“Although he is still taking his early steps in fulfilling that call, I
know that, in his heart, this young man who leads his life with
humbleness and reverence, and above all, with love,” the Primate said.
“Deacon Levon Kirakosyan began his life in the very center of our
church’s life: in the Armenian city of Etchmiadzin, home of our holy
Mother See. Growing up in the shadow of Holy Etchmiadzin, Levon was
drawn to our Lord’s service, and is well aware of the deep
responsibility — both to God and to our people — that he is
undertaking.”

A graduate of St. Nersess Armenian Seminary and Yerevan State Economic
University, Dn. Kirakosyan has been working at the Diocesan Center in
New York City for the past five years, first in the development office
and later as assistant to Fr. Mardiros Chevian, dean of the St. Vartan
Cathedral.

“I learned from Fr. Mardiros how to be a pastor and have a pastoral
approach when dealing with people. I also learned from him
administrative work, how to work in the office and organize my time,
hold meetings,” Dn. Kirakosyan said. “He was like an older brother to
me. He was very, very helpful to me and was very understanding.”

He told his new parishioners in Evanston that the Primate, too, has been
a father figure in his life.

“Since I’ve been here in this country I feel like Srpazan has been a
father to me. He was very understanding and supportive,” the new
deacon-in-charge said. “Since I my parents are in Armenia and I came
here as a young man with no one, I felt I could come to Srpazan and he
would help me. And he always did.”

In his new role in Evanston, Dn. Kirakosyan said he hopes to energize
the parish’s senior citizens and create activities for them during the
week. He also wants to build up youth programs and strengthen the
parish’s Sunday School.

“First and foremost, I’m putting a lot of attention on Sunday School,
which is the future of our church,” he said. “If we don’t have a strong
Sunday School, we won’t have a strong church.”

Dn. Kirakosyan, 30, and his wife, Anna, were blessed with a young son,
Aram, this past July.

“We’re still unpacking and finding our way around Evanston, but I really
like the people here,” Dn. Kirakosyan said.

— 8/26/05

E-mail photos available on request. Photos also viewable in the News
and Events section of the Eastern Diocese’s website,

PHOTO CAPTION (1): Dn. Levon Kirakosyan, the new deacon-in-charge of
the St. James Church of Evanston, IL, lifts the chalice during the
celebration of the badarak celebrated by Archbishop Khajag Barsamian,
Primate, on August 14, 2005.

PHOTO CAPTION (2): Dn. Kirakosyan, left, joins the Primate on the altar
of the St. James Church of Evanston, IL, during the badarak on August
14, 2005.

PHOTO CAPTION (3): Archbishop Barsamian and Dn. Kirakosyan, the
deacon-in-charge of the St. James Church of Evanston, IL, are joined by
some of the parish’s altar servers and choir members following badarak
on August 14, 2005.

GLOBAL GOLD CORP BUYS GOLD PRODUCER IN ARMENIA
08/25/05 16:00 ET

YEREVAN, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Global Gold Corp <GBGD.OB> <GBGD.OB> has
bought gold producing plant Tukhmanuk in central Armenia for $3.5
million from the Armenian company Mego Gold, a company official said
on Thursday.

“We have already transferred $1.5 million for a 51 percent stake and
will pay off the rest within two years,” Ashot Boghossian, the head
of the Global Gold office in Armenia, told Reuters.

He said the company had already got a licence for exploration works.
It planned to start works at the Tukhmanuk mining site soon and
invest about $2 million there.

Boghossian added that Global Gold planned to operate the plant all
year round and boost the plant’s output to 500,000-700,000 tonnes of
ore annually, up from 200,000 tonnes now. The mine at present is
explored only in summer time.

One tonne of ore yields about six grammes of gold at Tukhmanuk mine.

Armenia, like many other gold-rich ex-Soviet states, has attracted
foreign investment since the communist collapse in 1991 due to
improving economic conditions.

The Armenian gold-mining unit of Canada’s Sterlite Gold <SGD.TO>,
Ararat Gold Recovery Company, runs two mines — Zod in eastern
Armenia, with gold content of 3-3.5 grammes per tonne, and Meghradzor
in the north, with gold content of five grammes per tonne.

SIX CORRESPONDENCES OF SOCIAL CARDS TO APOCALYPSE FROM ARMENIAN ARYANS

YEREVAN, AUGUST 24. ARMINFO.

“Armenia’s government did no keep its words on re-examine of laws
“On social cards” and “On personal data” having antinational nature”,
stated chairman of Armenian-Aryan order Armen Avetissyan and his
assistant Artur Hovhannissyan at today’s press-conference.

The only indulgence, in Hovhannissyan’s words, was the issue of new
social cards without bar-codes to protesters. He tried to assure
that 666 – “the animal number” is under the bar-code. Thus, Aryans
thinks that “The Union against social cards” removed one of six
correspondences to Apocalypse by John Theologian. “Centralization
of all the personal data by use of social cards opens a way for the
appearance of the most awful, the seventh correspondence – general
obligatory use of backdrops, which are nothing but the stamp of the
apocalyptical Animal and Antichrist”, speakers stated.

Avetissyan tried to assure that laws “On social cards” and “On personal
data” adopted by Armenia’s parliament break Armenia’s Constitution
in 9 points and are written by the order of some Masonic lodge. He
promised to organize protest actions and mass-meetings against the
centralization of personal data. At the same time both Avetissyan
and his assistant recognized that personal information on Armenia’s
citizens had removed from Armenia long before the appearance of social
cards: sect of Mormons had microfilmed considerable size of personal
information in the Central Archive and get out it to the USA.

To note, the main Aryan in his previous press-conference on Jul 16,
2005 stated with honor about his commonness with Armenian pagans. “I
was ordained in Armenian religion in the temple of Garni (the only
preserved pagan temple in the USSR – edit.) by supreme pagan priest
Slak Karkossyan”, confessed Avetissyan with honor. Known for his
anti-christian statements in mass-media Karkossyan did not present
at the press-conference and did not hear evangelical citations of
Aryans. And, if Aryans have read “Afflatus”, one cannot exclude that
supreme pagan priest have read “Karamazov brothers” by F. Dostoevsky
and could find “correspondence” with Dmitriy Karamazov. “Man is
wide, I would like to narrow him”, exclaimed an ineradicable hero
of Dostoevsky.

Turkish Press
Aug 24 2005

Conference On Ottoman Armenians During Decline Of Empire

ISTANBUL – The Conference on Ottoman Armenians during the Decline of
the Empire will be organized in Istanbul between September 23-25,
Bogazici University (BU) Rector Prof. Dr. Ayse Soysal and Sabanci
University Rector Prof. Dr. Tosun Terzioglu said on Tuesday.

Releasing a written statement, Soysal and Terzioglu said that the
conference was scheduled to be held last May, but was delayed.

The conference would be held at the Bogazici University, they added.

ARTICLE OF “ZAMAN” DOES NOT MENTION FACT OF ANI’S BELONGING TO ARMENIA

ISTANBUL, AUGUST 22, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Turkish
newspaper “Zaman” published an article about Ani’s ruins, noting that
the number of tourists to Ani is increasing. According to the
artcicle’s author Murat Kapani, it is conditioned by the fact that
tourists who want to visit Ani no longer need permission of the
military authorities. Recently the General Staff approved a decision
made by the Council of Ministers, according to which the requirement
that tourists to Ani shall have a visa has been canceled. Those
applying for a visa were to go through quite a tiring procedure, for
which reason many were reluctant to visit Ani. Now everyone is allowed
to make a trip across this 7- sq. km area with 10 churches, a palace,
two mosques, a bridge and a land plot which dates back to 5th century
BC. According to the article, about 15 thousand local and foreign
tourists visited Ani ruins last year. This number is expected to reach
30 thousand in 2005. The article wrote about numerous tribes that
popoulated Ani, but did not say a single word that the city had
belonged to Armenia. In the article, mentions can be found about
Moscques of Menucheh and Ebul Muhammeral, Churches of Kechel and St
Astvatsatsin Mayr (Fethie Mosque). The Armenian newspaper “Marmara”
(Istanbul) reminded that the city of Ani was built on the bank of the
River Arpacha (Akhurian) and belonged to the Kamsarakans, from whom it
was transferred to the Bagratids (Bagratuni) at the end of the 8th
century. In 961, the King Ashot III was crowned by Catholicos and the
capital of Aemenia was moved to Ani, with fortresses being bult there
and the city population demobilized. In 989, the King Ambat II built a
second row of fortresses. The Byzantians annexed in 1045 the kingdom
of the Bagratunis, and in 1064 the Seljuk ruler Alpaslan captured Ani.

MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE ACCOUNT – ARMENIA OFFICIAL WEB-SITE LAUNCHED

ARKA News Agency
Aug 17 2005

YEREVAN, August 17. /ARKA/. The official web-site () of the
Board of Trustees of the Armenian program of Millennium Challenge
Account (MCA) – Armenia has been launched to provide publicity of
development and realizations of the projects, the press-service of
the RA Ministry of Finance and Economy reported to ARKA News Agency.
The site contains general information about Millennium Challenge
Account – Armenia, as well as the latest information on the program
development. Special importance is given to the coverage of negotiation
process. The feedback is provided through MCA-Armenia Forum. A.A. -0–