Month: November 2006

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 11 2006
OFFICIAL OF ARMENIAN NATURE CONSERVATION INSPECTION TOOK BRIBES FOR
CONCEALMENT OF ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION
An official of the Armenian nature conservation inspection took
bribes for concealment of illegal deforestation.
According to the press-service of the Armenian Police, a group of
citizens turned to the police with a statement that Samvel Yeghikyan
(born in 1966), the senior state inspector of the Tavush territorial
department, Armenian Nature Conservation Ministry, during 2005-2006
took bribes for concealment of illegal storage of timber and
operation of a woodworking enterprise. Thus, the inspector earned 230
thousand AMD. The case materials have been handed over to the
Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office.

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 11 2006
ARMENIAN DM AND IRANIAN AMBASSADOR DISCUSS DATE OF VISIT OF IRANIAN
NATIONAL SECURITY SECRETARY TO YEREVAN
Today Armenian National Security Secretary, Defense Minister Serzh
Sargsyan met with Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Alireza Haqiqian.
The press secretary of the DM , Colonel Seyran Shakhsuvaryan reports
the sides to discuss the program of Iranian-Armenian cooperation. The
sides also discussed the details of the forthcoming visit of the
secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali
Larijani, who will come to Yerevan on Sargsyan’s invitation.

The Economist
November 11, 2006
U.S. Edition
Harry Potter revived; The Dutch election
Ahead of the November 22nd poll
An unexpected turnaround in the fortunes of Jan Peter Balkenende
A FEW months ago Dutch voters seemed ready to dump their centre-right
government in the election on November 22nd. Worries over immigration
and Islam, a sluggish economy and a spate of unpopular reforms led to
a big Labour win in local elections in March. The Labour leader,
Wouter Bos, seemed destined to be prime minister. Yet Jan Peter
Balkenende’s Christian Democrats now lead in the polls. With their
VVD (Liberal) partner, they are now predicted to be just shy of a
majority.
Part of the explanation for the turnaround is an improvement in the
economy. Growth has picked up sharply, to 2.8% this year; disposable
incomes have risen; and the labour market is lively again, with
unemployment down to only 5.6%. More voters are coming to see that
this reflects not just a broader European recovery, but also, in
part, the government’s reforms.
Over the past four years, the government of Mr Balkenende, an
ex-professor nicknamed Harry Potter, has reshaped and trimmed the
generous welfare state. It has scrapped incentives for early
retirement, reduced welfare benefits and introduced more competition
in health care. The reforms may have been aimed mainly at putting the
Dutch fiscal house in order, but they have helped the economy as
well.
Another explanation for the Christian Democrats’ revival is Labour’s
self-inflicted wounds. Mr Bos kicked off his campaign with a promise
to resolve a looming pensions crisis by imposing higher taxes on
richer pensioners. After an outcry, including from his own
backbenchers, Mr Bos changed his plan, lowering the tax rate and
increasing the pension bracket to be taxed. “Flexibility”, Mr Bos
dubbed it, but it was all the government needed to term him an
untrustworthy opportunist.
Mr Bos has also lost immigrant votes by following the lead of the
Christian Democrats in removing from his party list any ethnic
Turkish candidates who denied the Armenian genocide of 1915. The
Christian Democrats, as champions of the white middle-class, could
afford to take such a stand. But Labour has tried hard to gain
support among immigrants at a time of growing anti-immigrant feeling
after the 2004 murder by a Muslim fanatic of Theo van Gogh, a
film-maker who was rude about Islam. Turkish activists are now
campaigning for the tiny D66party, which walked out of Mr
Balkenende’s coalition in the summer, triggering the election.
Strangely, perhaps, immigration and Islam – the issues that have
dominated Dutch political life ever since 2002, when the populist Pim
Fortuyn was assassinated – have been conspicuously absent from the
election debate. This is not to say that anti-immigrant sentiment has
disappeared. On the contrary, it has become mainstream: all parties
now advocate stricter curbs on immigration and demand better
integration. “Immigration politics has been a great success:
immigration has diminished,” says Mark Rutte, leader of the VVD. His
party is best placed to pick up anti-immigrant votes. Rita Verdonk,
the abrasive immigration minister, is a leading VVD light (indeed,
she stood against Mr Rutte for the party leadership).
The election may not produce a quick result. Dutch governments are
coalitions, and the real battle often starts only once the votes are
in. The Christian Democrats and the VVD say they want to stay
together after the election. They may have to lure in a small,
fast-growing Calvinist party, the Christian Union, but its
relationship with the VVD is testy. A coalition between Labour and
the Christian Democrats is also possible. Mr Bos has even hinted that
he might seek an all-left majority with the Greens and the
Socialists.
After a turbulent four years, including not just two political
murders but a string of slightly different governments and the
voters’ rejection of the European Union constitution, the Dutch would
like a period of calm. That may boost their Harry Potter – but only if
there are no more scary confrontations with dark forces.

Zerkalo, Baku,
10 Nov 2006 pp 1, 2
AZERI DAILY PAINTS GRIM PICTURE OF US TIES AFTER DEMOCRATIC WIN
The victory of Democrats in the mid-term election to the US Congress
will mark “tough times” in the relationship between Baku and
Washington, Azerbaijani daily Zerkalo has said.
Zerkalo said that the possibility of pro-Armenian lawmakers taking
over the leadership in the Congress could lead to a worsening of
relations in the future.
“The pro-Armenian group will take the leading posts in the Congress,
including the posts of committee heads,” the paper said. “The
criticism of the US administration’s support for undemocratic
governments that violate human rights has been a favourite
hobby-horse for the Democrats. The Armenian lobby of the Congress
will naturally use this factor against Azerbaijan. In view of this,
the White House will be forced to make changes to its policy
vis-a-vis Azerbaijan.”
Now that the White House will have to negotiate its foreign policy
with the Democratic majority in the Congress, the US administration
might make “sacrifices” on minor issues, like relations with
Azerbaijan, in order to reach consensus on more important problems,
Zerkalo said.
The paper noted that it was no coincidence that the first visitor
from Washington after the election would be Assistant Secretary of
State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Barry Lowenkron.
“He is likely to tell the Baku government that in the next two years
it will be difficult for the White House to turn a blind eye to
Azerbaijan’s problems in the relevant fields,” Zerkalo said.
Finally, Azerbaijan has failed to live up to the US administration’s
expectations and achieve a breakthrough in the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict settlement in 2006, the paper concluded.
In the meantime, opposition Azadliq newspaper has said that the
weakening of the Republicans’ position can come as a “nasty surprise”
to the Ilham Aliyev government. The oil and economic lobbies of the
Republicans will be no longer able to support the Aliyev
administration as strongly as before, Azadliq said.

The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
November 10, 2006 Friday
Final Edition
Ancestral ties of the Great War
by John Weissenberger and George Koch, For The Calgary Herald
When tomorrow we remember the sacrifice in Canada’s wars, the names
Vimy Ridge, Ypres and Passchendaele will be mentioned.
The slaughter of the now almost century-past Great War still evokes
emotion — the muddy trenches that served to fill fields with tight
rows of white headstones or grim ossuaries holding anonymous fallen.
Many Canadians have family ties to the young men who fought and died
there.
The family stories passed around in Canadian homes may not all have
to do with Flanders fields, however. For the conflict was the First
World War. If you lost an ancestor, it could well have happened in an
even more distant land.
If you’re of east Asian origin, you may have ancestors among the more
than one million British Indian troops who fought. These colonial
soldiers were sent to the Middle East, to Africa and to the Western
Front. More than 40,000 were killed, to Canada’s 57,000.
In contrast to the relentless, industrial-scale slaughter in Europe,
the exotic East Africa campaign fascinated audiences. The British
used thousands of Indian troops to chase the small but resourceful
German force, made up largely of locals. Fighting continued until the
Germans received belated word of the Armistice from an English
prisoner.
When the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) entered the war as a German
ally, it triggered almost four years of fighting ranging from the
Suez Canal to Britain’s conquest of Jerusalem. A similar campaign
took place in Mesopotamia — now Iraq. Canadians of Middle Eastern
origin may have had family fighting with or against the Turks.
The Turks suffered 250,000 killed in the war, while inflicting
massive casualties on others, including Armenians. A few years ago, a
Canadian filmmaker chronicled aspects of the Armenian genocide in the
film Ararat.
Numerous Canadians likely have ancestors among the almost 700,000
Italian dead of the Great War. This figure is 40,000 greater than
Britain’s losses, which ripped the guts out of a whole generation of
young men. Most of the Italians were slaughtered in 12 battles along
the Isonzo River, near today’s border with Slovenia.
Italy also saw some of the only alpine fighting in the war, with
barbed war strung along precipitous rock ridges and huge bunker
networks carved into glaciers. The Austrians once blasted away an
entire mountainside, collapsing it onto the Italian trenches.
Glaciers to this day disgorge detritus from the war, plus the
occasional body.
Michael Ignatieff’s grandfather was the Russian czar’s minister of
education, concerned about the fate of a different “nation.” The
Russian “steamroller” was meant to crush the Germans and
Austro-Hungarians but, after more than two years of war and almost
1.5 million men killed, the czar’s empire was sliding toward
revolution. Inadequate equipment, primitive logistics and clumsy
leadership sealed her fate.
One of our grandfathers, as an Austrian infantryman, tried his best
to speed the demise of Ignatieff the elder’s regime. His story
reflects the complexity of eastern Europe’s ethnic mix. Some members
of the multi-national Austro-Hungarian Empire were less than enthused
about getting killed for the Habsburg emperor. German-speaking
regiments were interspersed along the front to shore up their less
enthusiastic comrades.
During the Russian attack on Lutsk in Ukraine in 1916, the Czech
regiments on either side of grandfather W.’s position gladly threw
down their arms and crossed over. Instead of receiving a bayonet to
the midriff, grandpa W. spent 18 leisurely months in pleasant
captivity in the Caucasus, making his way home during Russia’s
revolution. Meanwhile, the Czechs were formed into a kind of foreign
legion and dragged into the Russian civil war. Scores of idealistic
Bohemians perished in the wastes of Siberia fighting Trotsky’s Red
Army.
If your family is Serb or Romanian, your relatives might have fought
“alongside” Canada in distant corners of the war. But if you’re
Polish or Ukrainian, they could as easily have been fighting with
Canada’s past enemy, or even on both sides of the conflict.
Nor did the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, truly stop the war.
Brutal ethnic cleansing of minority Greeks and Turks in each obverse
country occurred years later, ending only after a huge population
swap. There are probably Canadians whose ancestors were among them.
As we admire the newly restored Canadian memorial at Vimy, we are
reminded of those who paid with their lives in battles that helped
forge our nation. We should also remember those with nothing to mark
their final resting place — in the wilds of Africa, the wastes of
Iraq or the forests of Siberia.
John Weissenberger is a Calgary geologist. George Koch is a Calgary
writer. More of their writing can be read at the weblog: drjandmrk.com
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PAP news agency, Warsaw,
11 Nov 2006
Pole and Slovak killed in Iraq explosion
Warsaw, 11 November: Two soldiers, a Pole and a Slovak, have been
killed in the explosion of a mine booby-trap in Iraq. A Pole and an
Armenian were wounded. As PAP has discovered, it was a sergeant from
the 16th Mechanized Division from Elblag [northern Poland] who was
killed.
The lives of those wounded are not in danger and they have been taken
by helicopter to hospital in Baghdad. The Pole, who is wounded in the
leg, is a junior warrant officer from the airbase in Malbork
[northern Poland].
The accident took place on the road between Al-Kut and a location
where a company of Slovak sappers was clearing mines from an old
ammunition dump.
Up until today, 21 Poles had been killed in Iraq, 17 of them
soldiers.

RIA OREANDA
Economic News
November 11, 2006 Saturday
Fitch Assigns VTB Bank (Armenia) Local Currency Ratings
Moscow. OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings has today assigned VTB Bank
(Armenia) (“VTBA”) local currency ratings of Issuer Default ‘BB’ and
Short-term ‘B’. The Outlook is Stable.
The assigned ratings are aligned with the bank’s foreign currency
Issuer Default ‘BB’ and Short-term ‘B’ ratings.
The local currency ratings reflect the moderate probability of
support being forthcoming, if required, from VTBA’s majority
shareholder, Russia’s Vneshtorgbank (“VTB”, Issuer Default ‘BBB+’),
but also take into account Armenian country risks.

Agence France Presse — English
November 10, 2006 Friday 2:21 PM GMT
Cup of China Grand Prix figure skating results
NANJING, China, Nov 10 2006
Results on Friday from the Cup of China, the third event in the ISU
Figure Skating Grand Prix:
Men
Short Program
1. Sergei Davydov, Belarus, 69.45 points
2. Evan Lysacek, United States, 69.20
3. Scott Smith, United States, 63.77
4. Emanuel Sandhu, Canada, 63.55
5. Yannick Ponsero, France, 62.90
6. Kensuke Nakaniwa, Japan, 60.73
7. Wu Jialiang, China, 57.75
8. Ryo Shibeta, Japan, 57.40
9. Alexander Uspenski, Russia, 56.22
10. Gao Song, China, 55.47
Ice Dance
Original Dance
1. Tanith Belbin/Benjamin Agosto, United States, 58.90 points
2. Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin, Russia, 58.42
3. Jana Khokhlova/Sergei Novitski, Russia, 53.98
4. Alexandra Zaretzky/Roman Zaretzky, Israel, 48.64
5. Pernelle Carron/Mathieu Jost, France, 47.61
6. Anastasia Grebenkina/VazgenAzrojan, Armenia, 46.31
7. Lauren Senft/Leif Gislason, Canada, 43.73
8. Mylene Girard/Bradley Yaeger, Canada, 42.91
9. Olga Akimova/Akexander Shakalov, Uzbekistan, 39.18
10. Huang Xintong/Zhang Xun, China, 39.03
11. Yu Xiaoyang/Wang Chen, China, 37.69

Agence France Presse — English
November 10, 2006 Friday 2:04 PM GMT
Asia moves closer to “Iron Silk Road” railway network
by Jun Kwanwoo
BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 10 2006
Eighteen Asian nations, including China and Russia, Friday signed an
agreement to integrate the continent into a single railway network,
moving a step closer to realising a decades-old dream.
The inter-governmental agreement on establishing the Trans-Asia
Railway (TAR) network aims to promote trade and balanced development
in the world’s fastest-growing continent.
The signing came on the first day of a two-day annual ministerial
meeting on transport, organised by the UN Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
“By signing today, you infuse life into the agreement,” UNESCAP
executive secretary Kim Hak-Su told them.
The 81,000-kilometer (50,200-mile) network, first mooted by the UN
back in 1960, is also dubbed the “Iron Silk Road” after the ancient
trade route. It would link capitals, ports and industrial hubs across
28 Asian countries all the way to Europe.
UN officials cited procedural matters rather than disagreement over
the project as the reason why 10 of the 28 states did not sign. They
have another two years to do so.
The railway network will ease international trade and create “the
conditions for shared prosperity,” Kim told the signatories.
He said earlier in the day the TAR would “link the hinterland areas
in the deep interior of the Asian continent with Asia’s bustling
maritime cities and European markets.”
Twelve of the world’s 30 landlocked countries are in Asia.
“These linkages will provide seamless connectivity through transport
arteries to Asian ports and European markets,” Kim said.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a message to the meeting, said
advances in transport “improve productivity, reduce costs and promote
trade. That in turn encourages economic growth and social
development.”
Kim has said he expects the accord to come into force in the second
half of next year after eight countries ratify it.
The ratification would encourage international lenders such as the
Asian Development Bank to seriously consider loan requests from TAR
signatories, some of whom are in desperate need of finance, he said.
Wang Zhiguo, China’s deputy railways minister, said his country
ardently backs the project.
“The Chinese economy continues to grow through efforts to improve and
maintain efficient transport and logistic systems,” he told the
forum.
“We’re signing the agreement because we can fulfil many of our goals
in transport with it.”
Alexander Misharin, Russia’s deputy transport minister, said Moscow
was working hard to modernise its vast network, including the
trans-Siberia railway connecting to Korea, in support of the TAR.
His country was one of the signatories.
Despite the enthusiasm among many countries, the slow progress over
the past five decades indicates the challenges still ahead.
The TAR network would connect trans-Asian railway networks with
Russia and Mongolia in the north, Malaysia in the south, South Korea
in the east and Turkey in the west.
But one stumbling block is North Korea. South Korea would have to
traverse its territory to gain access to the Russian or Chinese rail
networks.
Work has been completed on laying track across the heavily fortified
inter-Korean frontier. But planned test runs were cancelled in May
amid tensions over other issues.
Continent-wide problems include switching between different-gauge
tracks, where to stop, how to handle sometimes tricky quarantine and
immigration paperwork, and how to safely ferry cargo and people
across many borders.
But Asia, home to 60 percent of the world’s population and generating
26 percent of the world’s economic output, deserves better transport,
UNESCAP chief Kim has said.
It boasts 13 of the world’s top 20 container seaports but has fewer
than 100 “dry ports” — inland container depots. Europe, by contrast,
has 200 and the United States 370.
Signatories of the TAR accord Friday were Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal,
South Korea, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey,
Uzbekistan and Vietnam
At the Busan conference, delegates also plan to issue two sets of
declarations — one on the direction of regional transport
development in the next five years and the other on road safety.

La Stampa, Italy,
9 Nov 2006
Italian, Turkish FMs urge Turkey’s admission to EU
by Antonella Rampino
“D’Alema and Gul: Turkey in EU antidote against terrorism”
Rome: Turkey in the European Union would be “the best guarantee
against the great danger that threatens world stability now, the
danger of a conflict of civilizations,” that is, between Islam and
the West. The statements made by Massimo D’Alema and his Turkish
counterpart, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul were each almost a
photocopy of the other. They were made at the end of the
Italian-Turkish forum, organized by Unicredit and Limes for the third
year running, which this year exactly coincided with the arrival of a
much-expected report by the European Commission on the EU extension
towards Ankara. And precisely as Brussels’ prescriptions were being
published, Gul let it be known from Rome that “he hoped that they
were balanced, without time limits and deadlines: we well know that
there are still shortcomings, but we are determined to meet all the
conditions.” However, he went on, “you must give us time, reforms
must first of all be our achievements, not a way to please the Union,
but the course of a people who deserve the reforms.”
Gul spoke yesterday, saying that “he did not have the time to read
the report,” which sets these same deadlines, in particular over the
thorny Cyprus recognition issue, which will be “monitored” until the
end of 2006: on Gul’s part, a means of conveying a message to
Brussels, reminding it, on this occasion, of Turkey’s economic
weight, “our foreign trade, which was 35 billion euros four years
ago, now stands at 90 billion, and the heavy engineering industry,
not textiles, is the main item.”
Alessandro Profumo had already recalled that Turkey was the first
market for Unicredit (Italy comes third only) and that Turkey “thanks
to a large-scale industrial maturity is destined to become one of the
players in the world economy.”
D’Alema opened the curtain on the future: “With Turkey in Europe, an
adhesion that we consider to be of strategic importance, the European
Union may become a real global protagonist, both on the economic and
the geo-strategic plane.” Precisely for this reason “our government
is against alternatives to complete membership in the EU.”
Former Farnesina [Italian Foreign Ministry] official Ruggiero was
even more explicit in the closed-door session of day’s meeting:
“Within 20 or 25 years the place list of the world powers will be
revolutionized, China will come first, then India, and only after
that the United States and, if it is united and if it grows, Europe
will be among the first five.” “I found the Turks to be rather
downbeat, they attach great importance to the admonishments coming
from Europe,” the long-serving diplomat confides.
D’Alema makes the same evaluation and, at a lunch, urged Gul to
“understand recommendations from the European Commission as a
powerful incentive.”
Cardinal Poupard was also at the table, but sitting at a distance
from Gul. Apparently, there was no exchange of opinions about the
Pope’s forthcoming trip to Turkey. “I am sure it will be a success,”
Gul said, affirming that “the Vatican knew, when it set the dates for
the trip, that neither Erdogan nor I could absent ourselves from the
NATO summit that is to be held at the same time.”
As for the substance of Brussels’ “recommendations,” Gul would rather
not commit himself, but on Cyprus he does not intend to back down.
“Europe had also promised to open the island’s Turkish zone to free
trade,” he says. Then D’Alema steps in, “on Cyprus a compromise is
needed, defusing the short circuit in the island’s unification and in
the dialogue between Turkey and the European Union”: on this front,
the rotating Finnish presidency is working for the Union. D’Alema
also urges Turkey to move on to another point that Brussels stresses:
the notorious Article 301 of the Penal Code, which curbs full freedom
of expression. It is the norm under which, for example, Nobel Prize
winner Orhan Pamuk was brought to trial. “You apply it so seldom, so
there is good reason to cancel it altogether.”
This is all right, but in the meantime France is passing anti-Turkish
laws with penal sanctions for those who do not recognize the genocide
of the Armenians.