Author: Toganian Liana

Sporting Life, UK
Scotsman, UK
April 27 2004

ABELYAN FANCIES HIS CHANCES

By Chris Roberts, PA Sport

Cocky William ‘The Conqueror’ Abelyan turned up the heat ahead of his
WBO World Featherweight title challenge by claiming he was going to
“cook” champion Scott Harrison.

The Armenian, who is currently the WBO number one ranked and
mandatory challenger, is not short of confidence going into their
showdown at Glasgow’s Braehead Arena on May 29.

Abelyan insisted: “Harrison is only keeping my world title belt warm
for me.

“Just make sure he is polishing it so it’s nice and shiny for me when
I take it off him on May 29.

“My world title opportunity has been a long time coming. I stepped
aside to let Harrison fight (Manuel) Medina the second time following
his loss to him.

“By rights I should have fought Medina and I am certain I would have
knocked him out and would be the world champion now. Medina gave him
a grilling but I’m going to cook him.”

The Cambuslang fighter had been due to face California-based Abelyan
in his last defence but a shoulder injury forced Harrison to take on
and beat Walter Estrada.

But the 26-year-old finally gets his chance and he is not intimidated
by going into the red-hot cauldron at Braehead.

“Everyone’s telling me what a hostile atmosphere it is going to be in
the arena on the night,” continued Abelyan.

“To tell you the truth I couldn’t care less. If you saw where I come
from in Armenia then you would have a reason to be worried. Going to
Scotland does not scare me one bit.

“What are his fans going to do for him? They are not going to be in
the ring taking sledgehammer punches – Harrison is.

“I’m not going to Scotland to make friends, I’m going there to do my
job which is to knock Harrison out cold.”

With over four weeks until their fight, he claims that he is going to
humiliate the Scot with a first-round knock-out.

“I wish the fight could be tomorrow because the way I am punching now
he will not make it past the first round,” added Abelyan.

“My training for this fight has been fantastic and I’ve never felt in
better shape.

“Come May 29 you will be looking at a new champion and the end of
Harrison.”

New Kerala, India
April 25 2004

A lady entrepreneur who made replica of Golden Temple

>From Ravinder Singh Robin, Amritsar Apr 25 (ANI):

Jaspreet Kaur the entrepreneur took a lead
in making a memorable gift for notable public figures, who visit the
Golden Temple. Gold polished, lacquer finished, framed and encased in
a velvet jewellery box, the new creation immediately became a hit
when it was selected over the traditional model of the Golden Temple
encased in glass.

This woman found instant acceptance for her ‘first-of its-kind’
creation of “embossed plaque of the holy Golden Temple. Handier and
easy to handle, it was readily acknowledged as an apt gift for
visiting dignitaries to the holiest Sikh shrine.

Jaspreet’s joy knew no bounds when her very first creation was gifted
to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak
Committee (SGPC) in March last year (2003).

The tremendous response to her creation propelled an assignment for
‘a special piece’ for the Canadian Prime Minister’s visit to the
Golden Temple. She created a dazzling plaque with a smattering of
cultured diamonds as the haloed sun rays and framed with an inlay of
real pearls and blue sapphires. Even the velvet jewellery box for
this plaque was encrusted with ‘traditional kundan work’. The gift
drew profuse appreciation by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretian on
his visit to Golden Temple on Diwali day on October 25 last year.”

Queries flew in from the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s office for
another piece that could be presented to the Armenian President on
his visit. However, it could not be readied in the short duration,
she claimed.

A dual polish (gold-silver) plaque was presented subsequently to
British Columbian Premier Gordon Campbell recently. ” The plaque is
not only handier as a memento but can be conveniently carried home by
visiting dignitaries compared to the bulkier counterpart of the model
of Golden Temple. Besides this, it has an added advantage of multiple
display choices. A sturdy back-stand holds it as a photo frame, it
can be displayed on a plate stand or could be simply hung on a wall.”

Many of the large mock models of the Golden Temple became cause for
baggage rationalisation, but these plaques have the immediate and
sleek advantage over that, says the young artist.

33-year old Jaspreet started out with an input of Rs four lakh which
she earned from a lecturer’s job. A gold medallist in MA, M.Phil.
history, she is proud to have created hitherto a product that
commemorates history. Her destiny automatically connected her with
Sikh history after she married Manbir Singh, the grandson of Master
Tara Singh, the seven- time president of SGPC.

Armed with a degree in electrical engineering and a keen artistic
taste, Manbir became the inspiration and guide for Jaspreet when she
came up with an idea of the European-style embossment to be
replicated for the Golden Temple on a brass plate.

Countless computer designs and six months of tireless effort to make
a master-layout of the Golden Temple with near perfect angles of its
varied architectural marvels proved fruitful, she says.

“Later, the finished plaque is given pure gold polish and
electrophoratic lacquer treatment to retain finish and negate
oxidation visible in blackening,” says Jaspreet.

However, Jaspreet wants to retain the exclusivity of her product. The
success of her creation has boosted her to innovate and use her
skills to create plaques of other shrines like Gurdwara Khadoor Sahib
for their 500 anniversary celebrations of Guru Angad Dev next year.
She is already in the crafting stage for other shrines including
Gurdwara Hazoor Sahib, Mata Vaishno Devi and Gurdwara Hemkund Sahib.

Pravda, Russia
April 22 2004

Chinese Foreign Minister in Moscow, Russian Defense Minister in
Beijing

17:07 2004-04-22
Igor Ivanov, the secretary of Russia’s security council, and Li
Zhaoxing, China’s foreign minister discussed practical steps towards
strengthening Russian-Chinese strategic partnership and expanding
bilateral interaction in the international arena in the Kremlin. They
discussed different aspects of international relations, said the
security council’s press service.

The sides noted that Russia and China are interested in the
maintenance of stability on the Eurasian space, including Central
Asian.

In the opinion of Mr. Ivanov, positive trends could be promoted by
more specific cooperation between countries of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) and China in the struggle against
international terrorism and drug trafficking, as well as in frontier,
visa and immigration policy.

At the meeting, Russia stressed that long-term strategic partnership
and interaction with China are among its main foreign policy
priorities.

Meanwhile, Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s defense minister who is now on a
visit to China, met with Wen Jiabao, the prime minister of China, and
gave him an invitation from Mikhail Fradkov, Russia’s prime minister,
to visit Russia.

“Mikhail Fradkov gives his kind regards to you and awaits your visit
in September,” Mr. Ivanov said.

“This year our contacts and working meetings calendar is very
packed,” the Russian defense minister said. He added that the Chinese
foreign minister is now on a visit to Russia and that he is in China.

In turn, Mr. Wen said that Mr. Ivanov’s visit was “at a very
important moment.” The Chinese prime minister stressed that the
Russian defense minister has had very productive talks with Jiang
Zemin, the chairman of the Central Military Commission.

“Your visit will not only promote the development of relations
between our armed forces but also between our countries,” Mr. Wen
said.

Canadian Parliament recognizes Armenian genocide

ANP (Dutch news agency)
April 22, 2004

OTTOWA (ANP/RTR) – The Canadian parliament has formally recognized that in
1915 the Turks in the former Ottoman Empire are guilty of a genocide on
ethnic Armenians. With that it distanced itself from the long-running
official standpoint of the government.

On April 24 the Ottomans began with an unheard of series of cruelties with
the aim to eradicate the Armenians from their empire. The exact death toll
has not been established, but it is estimated that two-thirds to
three-quarters of the 2 million Armenians perished. Turkey, that rose from
the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, has always denied the genocide.

The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham is not pleased with the
decision of the parliament, that it will not benefit the relations with
Turkey. He had called on the parliament to refrain from offending Ankara
with an eye on the importance of good relations with NATO-ally Turkey.

For that same reason the American Congress decided in 2000 not to adopt a
similar resolution. The White House warned that such a position could harm
American interests in the Middle-East.

Earlier the parliaments of among others France, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium,
Russia and the European Union decided to recognize the Armenian genocide
despite strong protests from Ankara.

U.S.: Border Crossing Lax for Students

Customs officials lack access to vital information system

The State News (Michigan State University)
MSU’s Independent Voice
Friday, April 16, 2004

By Emily Bingham ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>)

Customs officers are not checking the federal Internet database of
information about international students as often as they should,
government officials said Wednesday.

According to a report released by The Chronicle of Higher Education,
officials have confirmed that the initial customs officers who check
foreign students at border crossings, seaports and airports do not have
direct access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or
SEVIS.

In the report, SEVIS director Jill Drury said a secondary line of
customs officers have access to the database, but they only review new
students and those whose information raises suspicion.

In 2001, the USA Patriot Act set aside more than $36 million for SEVIS
and the Student and Exchange Visitor Program to collect and manage
information about international students. The computerized, Web-based
system replaced a manual, paper-driven method of maintaining this
information, which includes addresses, biographical data, areas of study
and social security numbers. The system was implemented in January 2003
after it was determined that one of the hijackers from the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks entered the country on a student visa.

Some university and college officials nationwide are alarmed at the lack
of SEVIS utilization, because many schools spent time and money
providing information for the system.

“We had heard that some ports of entry didn’t have access to it,” said
Rosemary Max, assistant director for MSU’s Office of International
Students and Scholars. “But we hadn’t heard anything that was as
comprehensive as this.”

Max said that while she wasn’t too worried about time spent supplying
information, she was somewhat concerned about the safety implications of
not using the database.

“It’s a little bit anti-logical, because they put the system in to make
us more secure, supposedly,” she said. “If they’re not able to get the
real-time information they need when that person enters, then I don’t
see what the point is.”

Drury said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hadn’t reached its
goal of allowing SEVIS access for the first line of customs officers,
and added that she did not know how long it would be until the system
was completely implemented.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security could not be reached
Thursday.

At MSU, some international students said their experiences with SEVIS
have led them to question the system’s usefulness.

Grigor Sargsyan, an economics graduate student, came to campus from
Armenia one year before SEVIS was put into place. Once the system was
implemented, Sargsyan said he had to give the government as much
information as possible, which caused him to worry about his return to
MSU after visiting home for the summer.

“I was really afraid I would have problems,” he said. “What was really
to my surprise was that I didn’t have any problems at all.

“It seemed like they didn’t even use that information.”

Sargsyan said he was surprised when the customs officer at the border
only asked him one question, causing him to wonder whether the “hassle”
of filling out SEVIS documents was really helping homeland security.

“I’m from the economics department, and I look at this from the point of
view of cost and benefit,” he said. “The government spent a huge amount
of money for this and I’m not even sure they’re going to use it for its
purpose.

“The benefit will be less than the cost, definitely.”

A1 Plus | 13:45:29 | 13-04-2004 | Politics |

POLICE TAKES ALM UNDER CONTROL

The police surrounded ALM TV Company to bar the opposition activists from
addressing Armenian people and providing them with true information about
what’s going on in the republic.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

GOOD FRIDAY

THE COMMEMORATION OF THE FUNERAL OF JESUS IN THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. GREGORY
THE ILLUMINATOR

Antelias, Lebanon – On Good Friday, in the Cathedral of St. Gregory the
Illuminator, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, commemorated the funeral of
Jesus. His Holiness and the members of the brotherhood remained on their
knees throughout the service. The flower-covered coffin, symbolizing the
tomb of Jesus, lay in front of the altar. In his message, the Catholicos
explained that the tomb represents a period in the life of Jesus on earth,
and is a reminder of the limitless love that Jesus expressed for humanity.
He also explained that “the empty tomb witnesses Jesus’ Godly power and is
the sign of His Resurrection for those who believe in Him.”

At the end of the ceremony, the faithful kissed the tomb and each one took a
commemorative flower home.

##

View printable pictures here:
top

********

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the
jurisdiction and the Christian Education activities in both the
Catholicosate and the dioceses, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

Armenians to commemorate genocide
Events in region culminate April 24
By Rhonda Stewart, Globe Staff, 4/11/2004

As the world marks the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, members of
Watertown’s Armenian community prepare to commemorate the eight-year
genocide that devastated their native country.

Beginning Tuesday, events will be held throughout the area leading up to a
program at the Armenian Cultural and Educational Center in Watertown on
April 24. On that date in 1915, the Ottoman Turkish government began a
campaign of genocide in which more than 1 million Armenians were killed.

Last week, ceremonies were held around the world to remember the 100 days of
killing in Rwanda during which an estimated 800,000 people were murdered.
But the United States does not officially recognize the eight-year period of
killings in Armenia as genocide. In Congress, Democratic Representatives
Barney Frank and Stephen Lynch are among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who
have signed a letter encouraging President Bush to characterize the murders
as genocide.

The Turkish government’s position is that the killings do not constitute
genocide, and officials also dispute the number of Armenians killed.

Henry C. Theriault, a professor at Worcester State College, said that
despite growing public acknowledgment of genocides such as those in Rwanda
or the Holocaust in World War II, it is still common for mass killings to be
covered up or denied.

Theriault, who is also the coordinator of the college’s Center for the Study
of Human Rights, will give a talk at Boston College Tuesday night called
”The Challenge of Denial: The Armenian Genocide and Beyond.”

”Denial isn’t just about past genocides,” he said. ”This is a real ongoing
problem. There’s a long history of genocide. It’s continuing today and part
of it is really confronting the full history and the full problem in the
present.”

Half of the 120,000 Armenians in Massachusetts live in Greater Boston,
according to the Washington-based Armenian National Committee of America. On
April 24, French author and political scientist Gerard Chaliand will deliver
a keynote address at the Armenian Cultural and Educational Center. The
Greater Boston Armenian Genocide Commemoration Committee is sponsoring
programs in Watertown, Newton, Arlington, and Belmont to mark the genocide
anniversary.

Joyce L. Barsam, a founding director of the National Center for Genocide
Studies, said the Armenian diaspora exists largely because so many people
left their native country to escape the genocide. This was true for Barsam’s
late mother, who was born as her family was fleeing to safety.

”I think almost everyone in the diaspora has a blood relationship to
someone who was a victim or a survivor of the genocide,” she said. ”Each of
us feels it very personally. It’s not a theoretical historical issue, it’s a
living fact.”

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

East Mountain Telegraph, NM
April 8 2004

Where Did Noah Park the Ark?

By Kathy Louise Schuit
Telegraph Staff Writer
Almost since Moses reported the great flood and the ark that
survived it in the Bible’s book of Genesis, men have searched Mount
Ararat for remains of the life-saving craft.
In this century, Ed Davis of Albuquerque was one of the few who,
before his death in 1998 at age 95, claimed to have seen the ark.
But it was Mountainair’s Don Shockey who told Davis’ story to the
world in his book “Agri-Dagh, Mount Ararat – The Painful Mountain” and
who continues trying to prove that what Davis saw in 1946 was indeed
Noah’s Ark.
In the book, Davis recounts to Shockey his experiences in and
near Hamadan, Iran, while serving with the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers in 1943. Mount Ararat rises from within the Turkish borders
near Iran and Russia.
Davis said he was shown artifacts from the ark and held them in
his hands. Then, accompanied by the family of a man who represented
himself as a guardian of the ark, Davis said he was taken to it.
Since writing the book Shockey has himself scaled Mount Ararat
three times – in 1984, 1989 and again in 1990.
Countless TV and radio appearances, including an episode of the
popular “Unsolved Mysteries” series, have given thousands of people a
look at Shockey’s own photographs of the mountain and what appears to
be an object resting high on a northern slope. Shockey believes this
object is the ark.
But Shockey, a true New Mexican who made all three climbs to the
snowline in cowboy boots, has never been able to get close enough to
gather conclusive evidence of his find.
On the 1984 trip that resulted in the now-famous photos, he said,
climbing permits issued by the Turkish government and enforced by
guides did not allow him to cross into the distant area where the
object was resting.
On subsequent trips – including 1989, when Shockey rented a
helicopter to photograph the object from the air and hopefully land
nearby – he said he was prevented by border hostilities and military
actions taking place in Russia and Iran.
If proven, the finding of Noah’s Ark would validate Christianity
and set the world on its ear, Shockey said in a recent interview at
his Mountainair home.
“Gilbert Grosvenor (chairman) of National Geographic said it
would be the single most important archaeological find in the world,”
Shockey said.

Anthropology past
Though Shockey is retired from a long career as an optometrist,
he is no anthropological amateur.
Under the tutelage of Dr. Frank Hibben, renowned anthropology
professor, Shockey graduated from the University of New Mexico in
1957 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a minor in biology
and then went on to finish a degree in secondary education.
While completing his anthropology studies, he said, he was
privileged to assist in the excavation of a site near Lucy, N.M. –
between Willard and Encino.
The location, Shockey said, has since been officially designated
as a site once occupied by Sandia Man, considered by anthropologists
to be one of the most ancient inhabitants of North or South America.
The original Sandia Man site centers on a cave in the Sandia
Mountains.

Findings doubted
Despite Shockey’s expertise and connections in the scientific
community, many people challenge his belief that he, with the help of
Ed Davis’ recollections, has found Noah’s Ark. The “Unsolved
Mysteries” episode, which aired in 1993, also examined the findings
of archaeologist Dave Fasold.
Fasold claimed at that time to have found the ark’s resting place
14 miles away from Shockey’s site, and from Mount Ararat.
According to “Unsolved Mysteries,” disagreement between biblical
scholars about whether the ark actually came to rest on Ararat itself
adds plausibility to Fasold’s claim.
The Bible says the ark landed on “the mountains of Ararat.”
Unfortunately for ark hunters, Shockey said, the mountains of
Ararat are one of the world’s largest – not tallest – mountain ranges,
and include greater and lesser Ararat in a mountainous region that
geologically extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalaya
Mountains. At high elevations, they are mostly covered with snow and
ice year-round.
The size and shape of Fasold’s find – a depression in the earth
near Ararat – coincide roughly with archaeologists’ best calculations
of the ark’s dimensions, said “Unsolved Mysteries.”
Additionally, the depression is filled with what Fasold claimed
were regularly spaced iron deposits – something, he said, you might
find after 5,000 years of deterioration left behind only the traces
of iron studs that once possibly held the ark’s framework together.
Shockey, however, said Fasold’s claims are completely
manufactured.
“If that’s Noah’s Ark, Noah had a fleet,” said Shockey.
He explained that similar iron deposits occur throughout the
Ararat range.
Based on his photographs and his research into historically
recorded sightings of the ark throughout recorded time, Shockey said
he is offended by Fasold’s claims that the ark is today nothing more
than a deteriorated depression in the side of the mountain.

Ark sightings
According to Arktracker, an obscure ark timeline on the World
Wide Web, ark sightings date back to the year 275 B.C., when
Berossus, a Babylonian priest, scholar and astronomer, claimed that
“pilgrims went up a mountain in Armenia to carve amulets from the
petrified pitch that covers the ark.”
In the fourth century, Faustus of Byzantium reported the
experiences of bishops who said they saw it, and in the 13th century
Marco Polo wrote an account of seeing the ark in his book “The
Travels of Marco Polo.”
In 1883, Turkish officials documented avalanches on Ararat that
they said revealed the scattered remains of the ark and left them
fully visible for six years.
Davis was just one of five American servicemen who between 1942
and 1946 claimed to have seen the ark, either from the ground or from
their planes.
Shockey credits his belief in the ark’s continued survival to its
construction from “gopher wood.”
There is no Hebrew word for gopher wood, said Shockey, but the
Bible says it is the material from which the ark is constructed. Most
biblical scholars believe gopher wood to be a type of cypress or
cedar, but Shockey has a different theory.
“What if gopher wood is a process, not a species?” said Shockey.
Much like the process used to create modern-day laminates, gopher
wood, Shockey said, might have been a composite material formed from
strong wood and tree sap that hardened to steel strength.
Shockey said he discovered the possibility of a gopher wood
process in talking with members of the Jewish community in the Middle
East.
“If we didn’t know what plywood was, we might be looking for a
tree,” he said.
Today’s stealth bomber technology includes some construction with
a similar, “para-laminate” material, which contains no metal, Shockey
said.
Whether the ark actually rests on Mount Ararat or ever existed at
all, the probings of Shockey and other ark hunters will likely
stimulate thought, interest and discussion from now until the matter
is finally proved one way or the other.
However, no one can dispute the geological facts that from the
icy center of the mountains of Ararat, the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers are born. Between these two rivers Mesopotamia, the historical
“seat of civilization,” took shape.
Historians can’t say for sure whether a great flood preceded
these events, but if Noah did come down off the mountain to
re-establish life on earth, scholars agree it was a fertile place
that guaranteed humanity’s success.

UCLA (press release), CA
April 8 2004

Three Deaf Armenian Children Receive Region’s First Cochlear
Implants, Thanks to UCLA Medical Mission

Contact: Elaine Schmidt ( [email protected] )
Phone: 310-794-2272

Three hearing-impaired Armenian children now can hear, thanks to a
medical mission led by the UCLA Department of Head and Neck Surgery.
The medical team performed the region’s first cochlear implant
surgeries in the youngsters, aged 2, 3 and 4.

A cochlear implant is an electronic device that restores partial
hearing in deaf people.

“Three out of every 1,000 Armenians suffer hearing impairment, but
local medical centers are not equipped to address this devastating
problem,” said Dr. Akira Ishiyama, associate professor of head and
neck surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

“Armenia and the general Caucuses region have no cochlear implant
centers and hearing-test equipment is very primitive,” he said.
“People often use hearing aids intended for their relatives, making
the devices inappropriate in size and frequency.”

The UCLA trip followed two years of international exchanges between
medical teams in UCLA and Erebouni Medical Center in Armenia. A year
ago, UCLA Medical Center provided cochlear-implant surgical training
to Armenian otolaryngologists Dr. Artur Shukuryan and Dr. Vigen
Bakshinyan.

Last fall, UCLA audiologist Stanton Jones visited the Armenian
hospital to train his professional counterparts. UCLA also sent eight
hearing aids to the medical center, which screened potential
cochlear-implant candidates.

UCLA physicians and nurses donated their time and services to travel
to Armenia and perform the implant surgeries. In addition to Ishiyama
and Jones, team members comprised anesthesiologist Dr. Denise
Hawkins, surgical nurse Diane Sennott and nurse Salpy Akaragian,
director of the UCLA International Nursing Center.

The UCLA mission was sponsored by the Armenian International Medical
(AIM) Fund, which formed last year to help Armenia rebuild its
health-care system. AIM Fund, Southern California Kaiser Permanente,
RENEW and other organizations donated equipment and supplies for the
surgeries. These resources will remain in Armenia to enable local
physicians to perform future cochlear implant surgeries under modern
conditions. Vram Aslanian, the Madikians family and the Republic of
Armenia provided additional financial support.

The UCLA team will be honored by the AIM Fund at a May 23
fund-raising dinner at the Glendale Hilton Hotel. For tickets and
more information, please call (818) 244-7200.