A senior election official in Armenia has confessed to the public for forging the 2003 presidential elections. According to him, the current president only received 12 percent of the vote, but they had to forge the number to 60%.

from ArmeniaNow

p.s. the person who actually won the elections… I don't even want to imagine what would happen if he took over

Check out FAREED ZAKARIA's Foreign Exchange this weekend for a discussion on Goldberg's "The Armenian Genocide" (which airs this Monday).

List of Zakaria's programs available at http://foreignexchange.tv/?q=node/135&PHPS…a0028d3e8ba4717.

Many thanks to Andrew Goldberg for sharing the info.

In case any of you has something to say to Azerbaijani murderer Ramil Safarov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, here is the way to send him a letter via Azerbaijani student Hasanli Pari.

[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]

Hasanli Pari
MSc Student at Central European University
Environmental Sciences &Policy Department

CEU Residence &Conference Center
H-1106 Budapest
Kerepesi ut 87
tel. (36-1) 327 3174

Reliable sources are saying Azerbaijan is registering male citizens, who have already served in the army or are exempt, to be ready for a war against Armenia.

Particularly an Azerbaijani family says that the war is close and that they are trying to emigrate from Azerbaijan.

[Private and undisclosed source]

My dear friend Maral Der Ohanessian’s blog plays music when you open her website! I so wish Maral shared her story with her readers… Trust me, she is the most interesting blogger, but I can't tell you why!

After Miss Iraq dropped her award as a result of threats, a new girl is Miss Iraq, and she is again Armenian. [this one is little bit nicer than the previous one…]

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/iraq/060411a.asp

New 'Miss Iraq' Crowned after First Winner Flees Country
By Rae Pearson
CBN News Producer

CBN.com – (CBN News) – Tamar Goregian, a Christian woman, made history as the first Armenian Iraqi to be crowned Miss Iraq.

"Maybe beauty is the final step to end violence and preach world peace after all," Goregian had said. "The power of beauty surpasses the ugly face of politics and greed."

But, after her win, she received threats from a group of religious extremists who referred to her as "the queen of infidels."

She then stepped down after holding the title for only four days, the shortest reign in the pageant's history.

Typically the runner-up gladly takes the crown. But this was not your typical pageant. The second and third runners-up — both Muslim women — said "No thank you," and withdrew from the competition with their own security concerns.

So who will wear the Iraqi crown?

Despite the threats, engineering student Silva Shahakian has accepted the title. The former Miss Teen Iraq also happens to be a Christian.

She refuses to let hatred rob her of this opportunity.

Shahakian said, "This chance does not come to every girl here. So I'm lucky to have that….I'm not going to lose it.”

Pageant organizers plan to send their brave beauty queen to the Miss Universe Pageant.

“We just wanted to show that there are educated, literate, beautiful young women who can do something to revert the PR image of this country," The Pageant organizer said.

If she competes, she will be the first Iraqi delegate sent to the Miss Universe Pageant since 1972,
and Shahakian is determined to make the trip.

“I will take care. I will change my living place,” Shahakian affirmed. “I would like to take that chance. I will do my best."

A couple of days ago I joked that Ben Laden had promised 100 kilograms of gold for Miss Iraq Tamar Goregian’s head.

Man I was damn right! The poor (and I should say, according to me, not-so-cute) girl has dropped her award after numerous death threats, ABC reports.

Miss Iraq pageant winner steps down

(4/10/06 – BAGHDAD, Iraq) – Iraq's newly crowned beauty queen, Tamar Goregian, has decided to step down — just four days after her election, making this the shortest reign in the pageant's 60-year history.

On April 9, the 23-year-old, who was the first Armenian Iraqi to win the Miss Iraq pageant, announced her resignation after receiving threats by a group of religious extremists who referred to her as "the queen of infidels" for participating in the contest.

The pageant director said: "I respect her decision. The country is undergoing rough times, and we understand her desire to protect herself and her family."

This was the first time since the U.S.-led war against Iraq that the pageant was held on Iraqi soil. The last time this pageant was held here was in 2002. Since then, Iraqi exiles had been forced to hold the contest in Kenya where a wealthy Iraqi businessman funded the event.

The pageant organizers will now pass the crown to the runner-up, or "Maiden of Beauty," Mona Hilmi, an Iraqi Sunni Muslim. One of the organizers said she was "equally intelligent and beautiful."

Pageants in Iraq usually attract girls from wealthy, liberal families who often have Western educations.

The pageant organizers are hoping to send the winner to the Miss Universe pageant in an effort to promote a positive and modern image of Iraqi women.

The last time Iraq sent a delegate to Miss Universe was in 1972 when Wijdan Sulyman represented the country in Puerto Rico. This year's Miss Universe pageant is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles on July 23.

During her acceptance speech, Goregian told the crowd, "Maybe beauty is the final step to end violence and preach world peace after all." The Iraqis who disagree have forced her to give up her crown and flee her country.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

I cannot comment on this right now; I feel like vomiting…

We Need to Defend Ourselves from Ourselves

[April 10, 2006]

Stone fragments with Armenian letters inscribed on them were scattered on the ground. Two huge heaps of headstones not far from each other… No, this scene was not in liberated Kelbadjar, nor in Nakhidjevan.

It was in Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia, in April 2006. This construction site was on Aygegortsneri Street, on the road between the Nork and Nor Nork districts.

“I wonder who the owner of this is,” my son said. I had taken him along with me to show him how we Armenians treat our national treasures. “What difference does it make who the owner is?” I said.

The headstones had been brought here from somewhere else. Apparently they had been in someone's way, and he or she “liberated” the territory and decided to use them as building materials. No one had tried to prevent the dislocation, the carnage of headstones.

There was a dead dog lying right between the piles of headstones, next to the symbols of eternity, and, a few steps away, a broken piece of a cross.

The appearance of the headstones, their engravings, suggested that they were centuries-old, cultural treasures.

We Armenians are now building one more restaurant or hotel using our ancestors' headstones. In Kelbadjar, Azerbaijanis used stones from our demolished churches to build houses. There are such houses in dozens of villages there. We are doing the same thing here in Yerevan.

Armenians everywhere have closed ranks to protest against the barbarous destruction of Armenian khachkars by Azerbaijanis in Nakhidjevan. But who will protest, who will fight against us, here at home? Perhaps we should appeal to various international organizations and ask them to come and protect our treasures from ourselves?

Do you think that after seeing these pictures the minister of culture or the prosecutor general or some other official will take this matter up? Of course not—they have more important things to do. One is planning an upcoming pan-Armenian cultural event, another is planting trees, a third is building a hotel, or putting up an “elite” apartment building in the center of Yerevan, or staging a show about fighting against corruption in the National Assembly…

Edik Baghdasaryan

source: http://hetq.am/eng/society/0604-tapan.html

Via Karmir Ankyun, comes a 1933 Soviet stamp in honor of the Soviet Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. In this stamp Azerbaijanis are still presented as “Turks/Tyurks,” the name they were known with before 1917.

Our friend Artyom at www.iararat.com has an interesting entry called “Andrew Goldberg’s ‘The Armenian Genocide’ screened at the Library of Congress.”

Artyom himself participated in the event.

Another blogian, Onnik Krikorian, writes about his interesting meeting with some of Armenia's Indian students.

Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006