Author: Navasardian Karapet

AZG Armenian Daily #145, 18/08/2005

Parallels

JEWS LEAVING GAZA

What Will the Armenians of Zangelan Feel When the Time X Comes?

The withdrawal of Gaza strip settlers that came as part of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement” plan entered the forced
evacuation phase yesterday. As a result of the “painful sacrifice”,
as Mr. Sharon called it, more than 7.000 Jews were to leave Gaza
occupied by the Israeli forces in 1967.

Interethnic and territorial conflicts keep smoldering in
different corners of the world. Each one of them has its
peculiarities. The Nagorno-Karabakh issue is certainly no match for
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though having different historic
and legal backgrounds, they are united with unwritten laws that are
applied to many conflicts.

Although people in Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora consider
the territories controlled by Karabakh forces but administratively
belonging to Azerbaijan liberated, the time will come when Armenia and
Karabakh will be forced to give them up, at least some of them. How
will thousands of Armenians settled there leave these territories
and what will they receive in exchange?

Let us take a look at the withdrawal of Jews from Gaza first. The
Israeli government provides $150-400 thousand to each family
voluntarily leaving Gaza strip. Those opposing eviction will get
1/3 less the sum. The 7.000 Jews left Gaza under the cover of 40.000
Israeli policemen and soldiers and 7.500 Palestinian soldiers.

The step of Mr. Sharon and the Israeli government cannot be considered
a serious concession by the highest standards, more so if we think
of the Palestinians who have been failing for 50 years now to get
their state recognized and to take the territories assigned by the UN
resolution as Palestinian State under their control. But Ariel Sharon
views the withdrawal from only 25 settlements a serious concession to
put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed. As Mr. Sharon carries
out his “disengagement” plan, the international media is standing by
his side publishing sensitive articles about resettled residents.

Official Yerevan keeps declaring that the neighboring regions of
Nagorno Karabakh are needed for security reasons only and they were
occupied in course of military operations. Such statements, especially
when they are uttered by defense minister, are a signal to the
thousands of Armenians inhabiting neighboring territories of Karabakh.

Contrary to Israel, Armenia did not inhabit these areas during the 10
years but it should have done so given the fact that Azerbaijan’s
ethnic cleansing and aggression turned 400.000 Armenians into
refugees. Armenians left behind 180.000 apartments and houses while
fleeing Azerbaijan. At least part of those Armenians could have become
resident of the neighboring regions.

It is very likely that Azerbaijan will not consider the return of 5
or 6 regions as a concession from the Armenian side in the Karabakh
issue. Not because they administratively belong to Azerbaijan but
because they are nearly deserted. The OSCE fact-finding mission had a
chance to make sure of that when it visited the regions to check Baku’s
claims that official Yerevan inhabits and appropriates the territories.

Contrary to the Jews of Gaza, there are no Armenians in neighboring
regions of Karabakh to claim their rights and none of them will weep
not to leave his residence. Contrary to Mr. Sharon, who pictures the
withdrawal as a “painful sacrifice” before the world community while
making only small concession, the Armenian President will not have
such tramp card.

What will be the feelings of Armenians in Zangelan, Minjevan or
Ghubatlu when the time X comes? Hardly anyone will offer them hundreds
of thousands of dollars. The residents of the neighboring regions
are ready to leave their places if provided a roof somewhere else,
without demanding concession in exchange.

By Tatoul Hakobian

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT SIGNS A NUMBER OF LAWS PASSED BY NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, NOYAN TAPAN. According to the RA Presidential press
service, the Armenian President Robert Kocharian signed the following
laws passed by the RA National Assembly: a) on making amedments and
additions to the RA Law on Urban Development, b) om making amendments
and an addition to the RA Law on Local Self-Government, c) on making
an addition to the RA Code on Administrative Infractions, d) on making
amendments and additions to the RA Law on Local Duties and Payments, e)
the RA Law on Road Traffic Safety, f) the RA Law on the Rescue Service
of Armenia, g) on making an amendment to the RA Law on Social Security
of Servicemen and their Family Members, h) on making an amendment to
the RA Law on Military Service, i) on making amendments to the RA Law
on Rescue Forces and Status of Rescuer, j) on making an addition to
the RA Law on Income Tax, k) the RA Law on Electronic Communication,
l) the RA Law on Vocational and Secondary Professional Education, m)
on making amendments and additions to the RA Law on Education.

Water supply declining fast: Iranian official

IranMania News, Iran
Aug 16 2005

LONDON, August 16 (IranMania) – A senior water industry official said
that Iran?s population will reach 100 mln in the next two decades,
when the country will face serious shortage of fresh water, according
to Iran Daily.

Speaking at the ceremony to inaugurate Nahrain Tabas Dam, Reza
Ardakanian, deputy energy minister for water affairs, said the
country?s entire exploitable water resources is estimated at 130
billion cubic meters.

?If consumption grows at the current rate, Iran will need 140 bln cubic
meters a year to supply fresh water to its 100-million population in
the next 20 years,? he said, adding that the country would need an
effective water management system to tackle the huge rise in demand.

Ardakanian said the economic value of water is increasing day by day,
adding that the agro sector development also depends much on water
resources.

?If water is offered free of charge, plans to optimize water
consumption will get nowhere,? he said, stressing, however, that the
government will have to continue to allocate huge subsidies for agro
water due to the farmers inability to pay.

The government has tried in recent year to construct more dams,
bring surface and border waters under control and discourage overuse
of water in urban areas. However water consumption is still too high
in the semi-arid Iran.

Iran is currently cooperating with neighboring countries, namely
Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia in the water sector.

In the past 26 years, Iran has invested 250 trillion rials in the
water industry. Some 52 dams have been constructed nationwide during
the tenure of former president Mohammad Khatami who took office in
May 1997.

Iranian engineers constructed 80 percent of the Friendship Dam on
a river shared with Turkmenistan and are ready to implement water
projects in Afghanistan, with which Iran shares the key Hirmand River.

YEREVAN MAYOR REVOKES DECISION ABOUT MINIBUS FARE INCREASE

YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, NOYAN TAPAN. Yerevan Mayor’s Office informs
that under the decision made by Yerevan Mayor on August 13, 2005,
the decision on making a change in the fare of the city minbuses of
Yerevan has been revoked. According to the Yerevan Mayor’s Office
Information Department, instaed of 130 drams, the previous fare of
100 drams will be valid. The decision about increasing the minibus
fare took force on August 10.

Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
August 4, 2005, Thursday

CAL STATE SAN BERNARDINO: STUDENT HOPES STUDY WILL HELP DENTISTS;
QUEST TO DIG OUT ANSWERS;
She has spent the last year studying rare reptile’s teeth

by DARRELL R. SANTSCHI; THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE

Kahneria was a four-legged reptile that hung out around north-central
Texas, munching on green leaves and mollusks 50 million years before
the dinosaurs.

These days he lies around in a flat tub on a shelf in a biology
laboratory at Cal State San Bernardino, where a 39-year-old Loma
Linda mother of two glares at him through a microscope and picks at
his teeth.

Araxie Demirdji is his dentist.

A biology student at the university, Demirdji has spent the last year
studying one of only two kahneria skulls ever found.

Considering that the other one is more crumbled debris than intact
skull, Demirdji may be deeper into the head of kahneria than anyone
has ever been.

She will publish a report in scientific journals in the next two
years that will tell scientists what kahneria did with so many teeth
– at least 58 in its upper jaw alone with regular replacements –
and possibly insight into how teeth have evolved in humans and other
critters.

This could be useful, her teacher says, to veterinarians and dentists
wanting to know how jaws and teeth change.

All this from a woman who works as an office manager in an
orthodontist’s office and isn’t really interested in a career as a
paleontologist. Most paleontologists hunt for and study fossils for
the preparation of environmental-impact reports when somebody wants
to build something.

That’s how kahneria wound up in San Bernardino. The critter turned
up encrusted in rock when construction crews were building a road in
Texas. A professor from the Field Institute in Chicago took him there
and then shipped him on to Stuart Sumida, a biology professor at Cal
State San Bernardino. Sumida was looking for the right student to do
the reptile’s share of the work.

The student, a Lebanese-born Armenian immigrant who was drawing
pictures of dinosaurs as Sumida described them during one of his
classes, is Araxie Demirdji.

She came to the United States in 1988 with son, Sevan, 15, daughter,
Marianne, 14, and her husband, Samuel Demirdji, who came to study
organic chemistry at the University of Colorado.

In the mid-1990s, Samuel Demirdji was accepted at the Loma Linda
University School of Dentistry and Araxie Demirdji took a job as an
assistant at the dental school until he graduated in 2000.

Much of the family’s priorities were wrapped around her husband’s
education, Araxie Demirdji said. But once he went into private
practice, while teaching one day a week at the Loma Linda dental
school, she had an opportunity to go to school. She decided to study
biology.

“Since I was a child, my whole world was about insects and plants
and animals and nature,” she said. “I can’t let go.”

She enrolled at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa. Two semesters later
she transferred to San Bernardino Valley College, where she studied
organic chemistry for three quarters and then transferred to Cal State.

One of the first biology courses she took at Cal State was Sumida’s
class on dinosaurs.

“Every time he would show us a picture of a dinosaur or a reptile, I
would draw it as I took notes,” she said. “I could relate the drawing
to what he was talking about. I remember, one day I showed him.”

Sumida was impressed.

“She was sort of a quiet, unassuming person, but she was extremely
meticulous and extremely careful in the laboratory doing dissections,”
he said. “So, when she expressed interest in my research, I invited
her into the laboratory. I knew she had the patience and the mind-set
to do this kind of work. You have to be extremely patient.”

The office-size laboratory is a narrow, cramped room with heavy steel
cabinets to protect dinosaur bones. Microscopes, models and assembled
skeletons are spread around in what appears to the casual visitor
like random disorder.

Demirdji opens one of the cabinets, removes a tray, and finds an
unoccupied corner of a table to study bone fragments, and later the
skull, of the 250 million-year-old animal.

Because Demirdji works as an office manager and X-ray technician
at her husband’s office, Sumida said she was specially qualified to
separate the bones from the rock and study the animal’s teeth. She
took X-rays of the skull at her office and used dental tools for the
tedious close-in work.

She has been at it for a year now, cleaning the specimen in a process
that normally takes as long as two years.

“You’re picking rock off of bones,” Sumida said. “You can’t just
scrub it with water. You have to use dental tools. The experience
she has at her office meant she already understands dental structure.”

Demirdji said she has focused considerable attention on the six rows
of teeth, which have different functions much like in humans.

The critter replaced the teeth as needed. Replacements did not come
as fast as in a shark’s jaw, but unlike humans, kahneria could grow
more than one new set.

The creature lived on dry land, she figures, but likely had a water
hole or a lake nearby. It lived in a semitropical climate and needed
all those teeth because plants are tougher to chew and digest than
meat, she said.

Next up is completing a scientific paper, which Sumida says could
take an additional two years. Then Demirdji said she likely will
start studying a dinosaur. Or a reptile. Something with teeth.

She wants a degree but not a permanent paleontology job.

“I think it would not hurt to have a degree on the side,” she
said. “You do what you like, what you love to do. Then, at the same
time, you do something else.”

GRAPHIC: GREG VOJTKO/THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE / (1) “Since I was a child,
my whole world was about insects and plants and animals and nature,”
Araxie Demirdji says. “I can’t let go.” (2) Demirdji shows the teeth
of a 250 million-year-old reptilian skull that she’s studying at Cal
State San Bernardino. (3) Araxie Demirdji, who works at her husband’s
orthodontist office, has spent the last year studying one of only two
kahneria skulls ever found. (4) “I knew she had the patience and the
mind-set to do this kind of work. You have to be extremely patient.”

STUART SUMIDA, BIOLOGY PROFESSOR AT CAL STATE SAN BERNARDINO; PHOTOS

Law requires genocide education in schools
By Maura Kelly Lannan

Associated Press
Saturday, August 6, 2005

CHICAGO — Illinois public schools are required to teach about
genocides around the world under a bill signed Friday by Gov. Rod
Blagojevich.

The measure, which took effect immediately, expanded the previous
requirement that elementary and high school students learn about
the Holocaust to include lessons on genocides in Armenia, Bosnia,
Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan and Ukraine.

School districts have the entire academic year to meet the law’s
requirement, State Board of Education spokeswoman Becky Watts said.

“As we teach our kids the important lessons of history, we have
to be sure that they understand that racial, national, ethnic and
religious hatred can lead to horrible tragedies,” Blagojevich said
in a statement.

Glenn “Max” McGee, superintendent of schools in the Chicago suburb
of Wilmette and a former state schools superintendent, said learning
about genocide and other tragedies should be part of the curriculum.

“I think it is important for boys and girls to learn about these
tragic events so that maybe they can make contributions that will
truly change the course of history in the future,” he said.

But McGee worried the requirement could become an unfunded mandate
from the state.

“I hope and trust that the state Board of Education will provide
resources and some training in teaching these and it won’t fall in
the district’s lap to develop units,” McGee said.

The law says the State Board of Education may give instructional
materials to districts to help them develop classes. Local school
districts would set specifics on the classes for each grade level.

The state board’s curriculum and instruction division, which is
responsible for learning standards, was researching what curricula
exists and which ones would be most helpful to schools to teach about
genocides, Watts said.

No decision has been made yet about whether the board will recommend
a curriculum or help schools access parts of one by providing online
resources, she said.

Schools will teach a unit on genocide and the lessons can last for
different lengths of times, she said.

The genocides students will learn about include Rwanda, where about
500,000 people, most of them from the country’s Tutsi minority, were
killed in 100 days by a regime of extremists from its Hutu majority
in 1994. In July 1995, as many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys
in the U.N.-protected Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica were killed in
Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.

In the Darfur region of Sudan, war-induced hunger and disease have
killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than 2 million from
their homes since rebels from black African tribes took up arms in
February 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan’s
Arab-dominated government.

Richard Hirschhaut, project and executive director of the Illinois
Holocaust Museum and Education Center, praised the bill.

“The new law affirms the continuing relevance of applying the universal
lessons of the Holocaust to the tragedies of genocide in our world
today,” he said in a statement.

The measure was sponsored by state Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago,
and state Sen. Jacqueline Collins, D-Chicago.

Armenia rejects Azerbaijani charge of anti-government plot

Agence France Presse — English
August 5, 2005 Friday

YEREVAN Aug 5 — Armenia rejected Friday accusations from Azerbaijan
that its secret police were involved in an alleged plot to overthrow
the government in Baku.

“It is funny and bears no relation to reality,” Lieutenant-General
Gorik Akopyan, director of Armenia’s national security service,
told AFP.

He said the charge looked like an effort by security officials in
Baku to solve domestic political problems “with long-forgotten methods
used in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s.”

Azerbaijani prosecutors said Thursday that a youth opposition leader
had been arrested for planning to overthrow the government in a plot
allegedly hatched by a prominent US non-governmental organization,
Armenia’s secret police and local opposition groups.

The arrest of Ruslan Bashirli came after a member of the Yeni Fikir
youth movement that he leads informed authorities that Bashirli
had received 2,000 dollars (1,600 euros) in a secret meeting with
Armenian agents.

The arrest was denouced by opposition leaders as an attempt
by Azerbaijani authorities to smear their groups. It came amid
increasing government pressure on opposition political parties ahead
of parliamentary elections in November.

U.S. ANCHORS HOPE WITH KARABAKH SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS

PanArmenian News Network
Aug 5 2005

05.08.2005 08:13

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ When commenting on the meetings of Azeri Foreign
Minister Elmar Maamadyarov in Washington, OSCE Minsk Group U.S.
Co-Chair Steven Mann stated that the negotiations proceeded
a fruitful and calm atmosphere peculiar to the American-Azeri
relations. “We focused discussion at the Karabakh conflict. My
government anchors hopes with the peaceful negotiations based on a
serious dialogue continuing for two years already between the parties”,
the U.S. diplomat said. In his words, the Armenian and Azeri leaders
decided to settle the conflict peacefully and certain progress is
obvious, however the process should advance till the signing of a
peaceful agreement, AzerTage agency reports.

Chess champ manoeuvres to take a piece of Putin
by Jeremy Page

The Australian
August 4, 2005 Thursday All-round Country Edition

Despite a rough opening, Garry Kasparov is determined to topple the
political king, writes Jeremy Page in Moscow

IF chess is mental torture, as Garry Kasparov once said, then Russian
politics has not been much kinder to him since his dramatic debut
this year.

In the past five months he has been hit over the head with a
chessboard, roughed up by police, pelted with eggs and tomato sauce
and bombarded with verbal abuse.

All this after he announced in March that he was retiring from
competitive chess to dedicate himself to the political fight against
President Vladimir Putin.

Kasparov, 42, is not used to being the underdog, having dominated
chess since 1985 when he became its youngest world champion.

Yet far from being intimidated, he is throwing himself into the
toughest — and riskiest — contest of his life, with all the flair
and aggression that made him the greatest chess player to date.

“There’s only one chance for this country — if the regime collapses,”
Kasparov said.

“If the Government doesn’t change, then we must change the Government.”

Unlike most of Putin’s opponents, he is not talking about running in
the next parliamentary elections in 2007 or standing for president
in 2008.

He is travelling around Russia calling openly for a peaceful
revolution, like those that rocked Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine
last year.

The trigger, he predicts, will be an attempt by the Kremlin to change
the constitution to allow Putin to serve a third term instead of
stepping down in 2008.

“Next year the country will go through a political crisis which will
decide the future of the country,” Kasparov said. “We’re talking
about mass protests.”

Such talk is highly provocative — if not seditious — when the Kremlin
has spent much of the past five years silencing political opponents.

In May, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed for nine years in
what was widely seen as punishment for meddling in politics. Then
Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, became the target of a
corruption probe last month after hinting at running for president
in 2008.

So far, the worst Kasparov has suffered is being hit on the head with
a chessboard by a young activist in April and roughed up by police
outside Khodorkovsky’s court hearing in May.

In public, Russian officials have responded to his challenge with
disdain — dismissing him as a political non-entity who appeals only
to the West.

Many political analysts agree, saying most Russians have not heard
about his campaign and would not support him because of his Caucasian
and Jewish roots. He was born in Azerbaijan to an Armenian mother
and a Jewish father.

But at the same time, officials are going to extraordinary lengths
to prevent such a respected celebrity from entering the political fray.

That much became clear when Kasparov went to southern Russia in June
to drum up grassroots support in Dagestan, North Ossetia, Stavropol
and Rostov.

“Unlike my critics, I go to the Russian regions,” he said.

“It’s the only way to learn the situation in my country because the
media is under the Kremlin’s strict control.”

In Dagestan, authorities blocked him from meeting refugees from
neighbouring Chechnya and even tried to stop him giving prizes at a
children’s chess tournament.

In North Ossetia, a meeting with Beslan residents in a cultural centre
was cancelled after officials hastily arranged a showing of the movie
Madagascar there.

Then he was hit with eggs covered in tomato sauce in Vladikavkaz,
the regional capital.

At his next stops, in Stavropol and Rostov, the airports refused to
let his charter plane land.

Hotels in Stavropol would not accept him and meetings in both places
had to be held outside after the venues developed “technical” problems.

Kasparov says he believes local authorities were under orders from
Putin’s personal representative in the region, Dmitry Kozak.

“If they act in this way, they are scared — scared of anyone talking
with the people,” Kasparov said. “If people don’t like my ideas,
then fine, but at least let them speak with me.”

Kasparov dabbled in politics in the 1990s and, early last year,
was voted chairman of Committee 2008: Free Choice, a liberal group
dedicated to ensuring the next presidential election is free and
fair. But his real political awakening came after the Beslan school
siege, when the Kremlin announced plans to abolish direct elections
for regional governors.

This year he formed his own, more militant, group called the United
Civil Front.

“It’s extreme because the situation is extreme,” he said.

“The Government is violating the Russian constitution and limiting
our rights to influence the electoral process.”

SPEAKER OF NKR PARLIAMENT RECEIVES GROUPS OF ARMENIAN STUDENTS FROM CANADA

ARKA News Agency
Aug 3 2005

STEPANAKERT, August 3. /ARKA/. Speaker of the NKR Parliament Ashot
Ghulyan has received a large group of Armenian students from Canada.
Welcoming the students, Ghulyan stressed that that Karabakh
people are building up an independent democratic state, and the
international community’s attitude to the country is changing day by
day. Responding to one of the guests’ question as to how he pictures
Nagorny Karabakh in ten years, Ghulyan said that “life will be better
and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic may be recognized.” In conclusion,
Speaker Ghulyan thanked the delegation for their interest in Artsakh.

In his turn, Head of the Canadian diocese of the Armenian Apostolic
Church Bagrat Galstanyan presented Speaker Ghulyan with a Bible. P.T.
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