Author: Kanayan Tamar

CALIFORNIA PARLIAMENT PRESENTS DRAFT ON INVOLVING ARMENIAN LANGUAGE IN
EXAMS TO GET TEACHING CREDENTIAL

GLENDALE, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Saro Nazarian
(Glendale), a representative of the Armenian community of California
gave Noyan Tapan additional information concerning the draft law
presented by Dario Frommer, the California State Assembly Majority
Leader. We informed about the draft on May 2 as well. Saro Nazarian,
whose efforts greatly supported presentation of the draft, explains
that Frommer’s draft relates not to teaching the Armenian langauge at
state schools of California (Armenia is already tought in some state
schools of California cities populated with many Armenians), but to
the issue that this draft affirms involvement of the Armenian language
in the state exams called CSET held for getting a Teaching
Credential. The above-mentioned credential, that the California
Commission on Teacher Credentialing confirs, is needed for occupying a
teacher’s post at state schools of California. Without it,
educational regions may not give a job even to experienced teachers.

And one of the most important demands for getting that credential is
passing of two state exams called CBEST and CSET. The level of an
entrant’s knowlegde of English and Mathimatics is estimated by the
CBEST, and by the CSET exam, an entrant factually gets a possibility
to teach different subjects at state schools. And one of those
subjects is language. According to the CSET, the Spanish, French,
German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian and Vietnamian languages
are considered foreign languages in the sense of the state. As Saro
Nazarian emphasized in one of his articles and in letters addressed to
Sacramento officials on educational and legislative issues, the
Armenian language is not officially involved in the CSET foreign
languages’ list, while California is one of the places of the world
populated with too many Armenians, in state schools of one of biggest
educational regions of which, Los Angeles, many thousands of Armenian
pupils study. The Armenian community representative asked to do works
in the direction of involving the Armenian language in the CSET.

As a result, Deputy Dario Frommer presented the State Parliament draft
No2913 by which the Armenian language is involved in the CSET foreign
languages’ list. “By involvement of the Armenian language in the CSET
foreign languages’ list, our Claifornian Armenian young people,
particularly those pupils of Los Angeles Armenian secondary schools,
who intend to devote themselves to the teaching sphere in future, are
able from now on to seriously think about getting their Teaching
Credential with the Armenian language and becoming a teacher of the
Armenian language,” Saro Nazarian emphasized.

AREA STUDIES MUSEUM OF GEGHARKUNIK MARZ NEEDS URGENT FUNDAMENTAL
REPAIR

GAVAR, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. No repair works were ever held at the
Gegharkunik marz Area Studies Museum which was founded in 1953: only
the building roof “was patched up” in 1993. But, as Byureghik Hoveyan,
the museum Director informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent, during the
rains it drips in all rooms of the museum what is negatively reflected
on exhibition models of great historic-cultural value kept in the
museum. It was also mentioned that the museum is not heated and the
sanitary system does not function. According to B.Hoveyan, two former
Ministers of Culture, Tamar Poghosian and Hovik Hoveyan, promised to
assist the museum during their visits paid to the marz. But, because
of the short terms of their officiating, those promises left
imperfect. As a result, the museum building appeared in a sad state
and needs urgent repair. “Though there are many problems, we do our
best to keep the museum models. We take care of every exhibit to pass
them to generations.” B.Hoveyan said. More than 9000 exhibits are at
preset kept and exhibited at the Gegharkunik marz Area Studies
Museum. According to the Director, the most ancient of them are of the
second century B.C. Pupils of education institutions and tourists
visiting the marz are main visitors of the museum.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
May 6 2006

Goran Lenmarker: My report is representing facts

Source: Trend
Author: E.Huseynov

06.05.2006

Azerbaijan’s dynamical progressing can play a significant role in
various spheres, including conflicts resolution, reportedly said Goran
Lenmarker, PACE chairman’s special representative for Azeri-Armenian
conflict.

At his meeting with vice-speaker Bahar Muradova May 5 in Baku, Mr
Lenmarker highly appraised PACE’s and PA NATO’s attention to this
conflict resolution. Alongside, he assured Ms Muradova that his report
would met the reality.

In turn, Muradova said Azeri public hopes for OSCE in resolution of
the conflict.

Armenian Prime Minister: cannot speak of A-320 crash objectively
until investigation is over

Regnum, Russia
May 7 2006

Speaking of the situation that lead to the crash of the A-320 plane,
a unified objective assessment will be made, instead of several
subjective ones, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan asserted
at a news briefing..

The Armenian Prime Minister suggested not to jump to conclusions and
wait for official results, a REGNUM correspondent reports. “We take
an active part in the investigation. Armenian defense minister is now
in Sochi, and we are thoroughly informed on the issue. Let us wait for
the official conclusions. Since it could happen that what seems obvious
is not actually true. This is a very serious issue, and I do not want
to make preliminary conclusions,” Andranik Margaryan confessed.

He thanked both the Russian and Georgian sides for the quick response
to the disaster. “France is also paying special attention to the
situation. They have sent their specialists to the plane’s crash
site. We needed data received by Georgian air traffic controllers.

Georgian authorities said they were ready to deliver the information,
and they did deliver it, for which we are grateful. As for the
participation of Georgian specialists in the investigation, that is
to be decided by the two countries,” Margaryan added.

Armenian Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan informed
reporters that a number of transfers have already been made to a
designated account: “There is a transfer from the Union of Armenian
Businessmen. The money will be donated to the victims’ relatives.”

KARABAKH MINISTER SAYS PEACEKEEPERS’ DEPLOYMENT “HARDLY POSSIBLE” -ARMENIAN PAPER

Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
4 May 06

Text of Kristine Khanumyan’s report in Armenian newspaper Aykakan
Zhamanak on 4 May

NKR [Nagornyy Karabakh republic] foreign minister Georgiy Petrosyan’s
first interview with Karabakh’s [opposition] newspaper Demo.

“We are worried that a worsening of Iranian-American relations may
affect the Karabakh conflict, as well as the whole of the South
Caucasus. Any settlement to the Iranian problem that will involve
changing the military balance in the region is a potential danger
to the interests of all the players in the region. For this reason,
we back balanced political decisions through negotiations, decisions
which will not disturb the fragile stability and security in the
region,” Petrosyan said.

Touching on the possible deployment of peacekeepers in the region in
Iran “sauce”, he said that this seemed hardly possible. “I believe
that the military and political balance in the region, which has
been preserved since the signing of a cease-fire agreement by the
three parties to the [Nagornyy Karabakh] conflict, will prevent the
issue of peacekeepers’ deployment from being speeded up artificially,”
the minister said. He added that there were also several complicated
problems connected with the deployment of peacekeepers such as terms,
procedures, mandate, responsibility and others, which should be
resolved within the framework of settlement and agreed with all the
parties to the conflict, especially with the NKR. But the minister
said the deployment of peacekeepers could be unnecessary since there
was the self-regulating factor as the contact line, which had been
emphasized by many international experts.

Touching on the recent hearings in the NKR parliament [on the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict settlement], Petrosyan said that the fact of holding
hearings was positive in itself but one should admit that “it is a
little bit late” to openly discuss painful problems in parliament. “I
am glad that all the political forces of the NKR had the same view in
principle on the Karabakh problem which coincides with the general
foreign policy of our state. Moreover, taking into account the
fact that the Karabakh issue is often discussed by international
organizations, it is time for the NKR parliament to intensify its
efforts taking account of the vital significance of the problem,”
Petrosyan said.

ARMENIAN ARMY OFFICIAL CRITICAL OF AZERI LEADER’S REMARKS ON IRAQ PEACEKEEPING

Azg website, Yerevan
4 May 06

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev recently said in Washington that
Azerbaijan is taking an active part in anti-terrorist operations in
Iraq while Armenia is sending only drivers there.

Armenian Deputy Defence Minister Artur Agabekyan thinks that only a
person who has no idea about military service and the importance of
transport in a conflict zone could make such a statement.

Noting that the command of the multinational division has expressed
its gratitude to Armenian servicemen for implementing their task in
Iraq, Artur Agabekyan advised Azerbaijani TV to show the valour of
their servicemen and refrain from statements against Armenia.

MOST PART OF FRUIT TREES OF LORI MARZ FROZEN

Noyan Tapan
May 02 2006

VANADZOR, MAY 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The most part of fruit trees of the
marz of Lori, especially of the region of Alaverdi, was frozen as
a consequence of hard rains of recent days. Volodia Buniatian, the
Chief of the Agriculture and Nature Protection Department of the
Lori Governor’s Office informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent about
it. According to his data, rains will continue till May 10.

TERRORIST ATTACK WAS NOT CONFIRMED

Lragir.am
03 May 06

Igor Zhukov, the head of the North Caucasian Bureau of Transport and
Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation stated that the version
of a terrorist attack on the Armenian A-320 plane, which crashed
when flying to Sochi from Yerevan in the morning of May 3 was not
confirmed. “There are several versions, it was either caused by a
mistake of the pilot, or a technical problem, or maybe the ground
services made some mistake,” announced Zhukov May 3 to news reporters.

The spokesman of the Southern Regional Agency of the Ministry of
Emergencies of Russia Oleg Grekov announced that by midday the rescuers
have already found 38 dead bodies. It is known that out of the 105
passengers 28 were citizens of Russia, there was a national of Georgia,
and a citizen of Ukraine. The rest were citizens of Armenia. By
preliminary information all the passengers died. The rescuers work in
the place of the crash but the weather is getting worse. The speed of
the wind is 10-11 mps, with fog and rain, there might be a storm. All
the small ships are to leave the place o the crash.

The press secretary of the Department of Civil Aviation Gayane Davtyan
said there is unconfirmed information that the black box of the plane
has been found. At midday on May 3 the families of the passengers of
the crashed plane left for Sochi.

The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
April 25, 2006 Tuesday
All Editions

The Darfur crisis, the delegation, and you

M. CHARLES BAKST

In a recent House speech, Rep. Jim Langevin said of Darfur, “We
should all be ashamed that the atrocities that have taken place there
are happening in our time. Where is the world’s outrage? Why have we
not learned from the mistakes in the past — the Holocaust, Armenia,
Cambodia and Rwanda?”

He was speaking for a bill, which the House passed, directing
President Bush to impose sanctions on Sudan and calling on NATO to
step in to help protect people.

Government-sanctioned genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region has killed
400,000 civilians and displaced millions. Rape and hunger are
rampant.

There’ll be a Save Darfur rally in Washington on Sunday
(). Fittingly, the 150-plus sponsor organizations
include more than 20 Jewish groups. In light of the Holocaust, Jews
should feel a special obligation to demand that Mr. Bush and Congress
intensify efforts to end the horror in Darfur.

Rhode Island’s congressional delegation says constituents are far
likelier to talk about, say, gas prices, health care, immigration or
Iraq. Indeed, the heavy commitment of troops in Iraq can work against
acting on Darfur. For example, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the Rhode
Islander most vocal in support of sending troops to Darfur — in
concert with forces from African countries and the United Nations —
finds no appetite for it in Washington.

Sen. Jack Reed says America probably could provide some limited
logistical military support but, given the Iraq war and threats from
North Korea and terrorists, “The strain on our military forces is
severe.”

To many Americans, Darfur is remote and complex. “It doesn’t have the
clarity of what we recognized too late was the Holocaust,” says Reed,
who nevertheless deems it imperative to act. (Darfur would be an apt
place for the kind of up-close, on the ground observation mission he
likes to make.)

There are several economic and diplomatic steps the United States
could take in regard to Darfur and which Rhode Islanders in Congress
endorse.

For instance, Sen. Lincoln Chafee says U.N. peacekeeping troops
showed “amazing effectiveness” in Liberia and the United States
should lean on the U.N. to send a force to Darfur.

But Washington needs to be jolted into making Darfur a top priority.
Langevin says, “Get educated about the issue.” And contact Congress
and the White House. A critic of the Iraq war, Langevin asserts,
“It’s amazing that the president can act decisively when he cares
about injecting the U.S. into a situation. Why can’t he get this
worked up about the genocide that’s occurring in Darfur?”

Kennedy, discussing Sunday’s rally, says that advances in America,
such as on civil rights, haven’t happened simply because they’re
just. “They’ve happened because people have petitioned their
government and raised the consciousness of America.”

He says of the atrocities in Darfur, “I don’t think human beings can
look the other way.”

I’d like to think he is right.

Certainly, he is right when he says that Darfur calls to mind a quote
identified with Martin Niemoeller, who was a Protestant minister in
Nazi Germany:

“They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I
wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak
up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they
came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a
Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left
to speak up.”

Will you speak up for Darfur?

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

Former Soviet Union Media Still Under Assault — Freedom House

Created: 29.04.2006 14:04 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:04 MSK

MosNews

Independent media in the countries of the former Soviet Union have
come under further assault over the course of the last year, Freedom
House said in its annual report. The political, legal, and economic
environments in most of the non-Baltic former Soviet countries remain
distinctly inhospitable to independent journalism, Christopher Walker,
the organization’s director of studies, wrote in an article for Radio
Liberty’s web-site.

Of the 12 non-Baltic former Soviet states only Georgia and Ukraine,
which are categorized as “Partly Free,” escape the Not Free
designation. No country in the region achieves the designation of
“Free.” The degree to which each country permits the free flow of
information determines the classification of its media as “Free,”
“Partly Free,” or “Not Free.”

The downward trend was particularly evident in countries with
regimes that place a premium on controlling the airwaves. Among
the Not Free states, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan experienced declines. Uzbekistan and Russia suffered the
most dramatic backslide.

Russia slipped due to the Kremlin’s ongoing obstruction of journalists
from reporting on sensitive topics and its tightening of control
over news sources. According to this year’s report, the Russian
“authorities continued to exert direct influence on media outlets and
determine news content, as the state owns or controls the country’s
three main national television networks — Channel One, RTR, and
NTV.” In 2005, Russian journalists continued to be subjected to
detention or physical attack, ostensibly from coverage of sensitive
topics such as corruption. The Russian government’s posture toward
the media has also led to increased self-censorship.

Critical coverage of the Kremlin on national broadcast media is
virtually nonexistent today.

The government in Uzbekistan, which has crushed independent voices
throughout society, paid particular attention to the elimination of
independent media. The Uzbek press freedom rating for the last year
dropped accordingly.

The Andijan massacre, which occurred one year ago, was the trigger
for the further crackdown on the media in Uzbekistan. In the
immediate aftermath of the events in Andijan, the regime of President
Islam Karimov instituted a news blackout, preventing virtually any
information about the violence in the eastern Uzbek city from reaching
wider audiences.

Western-funded media in Uzbekistan drew particularly intense attention
from the government. The Karimov regime refused to renew the agreement
that allowed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to operate a bureau in
Tashkent. It likewise forced other international news and media support
organizations, including the Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(IWPR) and Internews, to close their operations in the country.

Manipulation of television news content in Uzbekistan, as in a number
of neighboring repressive countries, reached new heights over the
last year. The television medium was a favored tool in regime security
efforts. The report on Uzbekistan in this year’s press-freedom survey
cites the September trial of 15 men accused of involvement in the
Andijan unrest, where “prosecutors charged that the BBC, Institute
of War and Peace Reporting, and RFE/RL had advance knowledge that
violence would break out in the city.

State-controlled media gave prominent coverage to these unsubstantiated
charges.”

In Belarus, the autocratic government of Alexander Lukashenko
intensified its control over the country’s media, at least in part
due to elections taking place this spring. Last year, among the
measures taken by the Belarusian authorities was passage of broadly
defined legislation that makes it a crime punishable by up to two
years in jail to “discredit Belarus” in the eyes of international
organizations and foreign governments. The same prison terms apply
to those convicted of distributing “false information” about Belarus’
political, economic, social, or international situation.

Among the regulatory tricks relied upon by media-unfriendly regimes,
the Belarus press-freedom report relates a May 2005 decree issued
by Lukashenko that banned all privately owned, but not state, media
from using the words “national” or “Belarus” in their names, forcing
a number of publications to reregister.

In a region where good news on the news media is hard to come
by, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan were the only countries to register
improvement. In Kyrgyzstan, given the larger questions concerning the
country’s overall political direction, the durability of the positive
press-freedom change was far from certain, however.

Kyrgyzstan remains in the Not Free category.

Ukraine enjoys a wide range of state and private television and radio
stations, as well as print and electronic news outlets. While Ukraine’s
media ownership is diverse, it still confronts the challenges that
accompany oligarchic ownership structures.

Nevertheless, since the end of 2004 the media in Ukraine, while today
still designated Partly Free, have achieved a degree of pluralism
and independence that would have been unthinkable in the pre-Orange
Revolution era.

Ukraine, now with the strongest press-freedom rating among the former
Soviet states, therefore remains a critical media case study. Just 1.5
years ago, the country suffered from many of the same pathologies that
continue to confront most of the media in the region today. In the
run-up to Ukraine’s pivotal 2004 elections, for example, “temnyky” –
editorial theme directives from the president’s office — were standard
operating procedure. This practice was purged from the Ukrainian media
landscape but remains a blight on many other former Soviet states’
media systems.

The significant yet incomplete progress in Ukraine should serve as
a reminder that overcoming deeply entrenched Soviet-era habits and
practices will be a trying, long-term effort for reform of the media,
as well as for other key institutions that form the building blocks
of democratic societies.