Month: March 2007

WORLD TUBERCULOSIS DAY: RED CROSS RED CRESCENT PROGRAMMES PLAY KEY ROLE IN GLOBAL TUBERCULOSIS CONTROL

Reuters AlertNet, UK
March 22 2007

Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies (IFRC) – Switzerland
Website:

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this
article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are
the author’s alone.

By providing increased access to tuberculosis treatment to vulnerable
groups across the world, and ensuring higher treatment completion,
Red Cross and Red Crescent community-based programmes play a key role
in global tuberculosis control, says the International Federation of
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Two successful examples include the Russian Red Cross programme in
Belgorod, where nearly 2,000 patients are currently being treated –
since 2002, the defaulter rate has fallen from 28% to 4%. The second
example is that of the Armenian Red Cross programme, where 86% of
TB patients complete their treatment, compared to only 59% for those
who are not under Red Cross care.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) tuberculosis (TB)
remains a major cause of death worldwide – in 2005, 1.6 million
people died of TB, including 195,000 HIV-positive patients. In its
Global Tuberculosis Control Report for 2007, published on 22 March,
WHO reports an estimated 8.8 million new tuberculosis cases in 2005,
7.4 million of which occurred in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. (*)

Community-based tuberculosis care has been shown to significantly
improve both access to services and adherence to treatment, according
to the WHO report, and although it is in place in many countries,
it needs to be promoted actively and implemented more widely.

"We agree fully with this finding, and, since 2005, we have committed
to scaling up our tuberculosis control programmes across the world,"
says International Federation Secretary General Markku Niskala.

"Through the work of their community-based volunteers and staff,
our Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have a privileged access
to particularly vulnerable people, including the homeless, the
elderly, the very poor, alcoholics, drug-users, prisoners, and other
marginalized groups. They are also auxiliaries to governments and as
such, can work particularly closely with national health systems,"
he adds.

Red Cross and Red Crescent nurses and volunteers help patients
complete their treatment, provide them with food as well as social
and psychological support, and also play a key role in fighting the
stigma associated with tuberculosis. The completion of treatment is
essential not only for patients to be cured, but also to prevent
the development of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB),
and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), forms of the
disease which are much more difficult and expensive to treat, and
with lower rates of cure. Since 2005, the Kazakhstan Red Crescent and
Romanian Red Cross have implemented successful two-year programmes to
treat some 400 people with MDR-TB, with support from Eli Lilly and
Company, the pharmaceutical company, in the framework of the Lilly
MDR-TB Partnership. "We are very proud to help the Red Cross and Red
Crescent support hundreds of patients with MDR-TB, in a programme
that is particularly effective," explains Patrizia Carlevaro, Head
of the International Aid Unit at Lilly. "What makes this programme
very special is the degree of community involvement. People who have
been cured are recruited as Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers,
and in turn, provide essential psychological support to those who
are under treatment."

"In many areas of the world, HIV and TB are a dual epidemic, and
joint action is also essential to treat and care for people who are
co-infected," explains Bruce Eshaya-Chauvin, head of the Federation’s
Health Department in Geneva. "People with HIV are much more likely
to develop active TB because of a depressed immune system, and,
once they do, they will die within weeks if they are not treated for
TB immediately."

To address this situation, many Red Cross and Red Crescent National
Societies are integrating their TB and HIV programmes, particularly
in Asia (such as Myanmar) and Africa (such as Kenya, Mozambique,
South Africa and Zimbabwe).

The International Federation is an active partner in the Global Stop
TB Partnership, whose aim is to halve the prevalence and death rates
of TB by 2015. In 2006, the Federation also established the Stop TB
Partnership for Europe, which brings together the WHO and 30 leading
agencies and NGOs, in order to bring about a more effective response
to the TB epidemic in Europe.

(*) Tuberculosis is a very contagious disease, which spreads through
the air. If not treated, every person with active TB infects, on
average, 10 to 15 people each year.

For further information, or to set up interviews (ISDN line available
in Geneva), please contact:

Marie-Francoise Borel, Information Officer Tel: + 41 22 730 43 46 /
+ 41 79 217 33 45

[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and
not of Reuters. ]

IFAD TO HELP RESTORE WATER SYSTEMS IN VAYOTS DZOR

ARMENPRESS
Mar 22 2007

YEGHEGNADZOR, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS: The International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD) will release this year 300 million
Drams for a major repair and reconstruction of a set of irrigation
and drinking water systems in Vayots Dzor province.

Armenpress correspondent in the region said the targeted villages
are Artabunk, Tor, Zaritap and Azatek.

Azat Hovsepian, an official in the provincial governor’s office
in charge of urban and constriction projects, said the tender for
these projects will be held in April to be followed by the launch
of reconstruction. He said the accomplishment of these projects is
expected in late 2007.

ARMENIAN TYCOON EYES RECORD-HIGH NUMBER OF VOTES
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 22 2007

A leading member of he Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) of businessman
Gagik Tsarukian predicted Thursday that it will garner at least
370,000 votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections, which is almost
certainly enough to win them by a landslide.

The minimum figure cited by Vartan Bostanjian, a member of the BHK’s
governing board, equals the number of members the party claims to have,
making it by far the largest political organization in the country.

Asked by RFE/RL whether all of those members will go to the polls and
vote for the BHK on May 12, Bostanjian said, "I think so." "In the
event of free, fair and transparent elections, the figure should be
even higher," he added, arguing that not only BHK members but their
friends and relatives will vote for Tsarukian’s party.

By comparison, the governing Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), the
official winner of the last parliamentary elections, won only 290,000
votes. That made up 23.7 percent of some 1.22 million Armenians
who took part in the ballot, according to the Central Election
Commission. The Armenian opposition and even some pro-government
parties said at the time that both the number of the HHK votes and
the official voter turnout of 51 percent are grossly inflated.

The BHK, which is widely regarded as President Robert Kocharian’s new
power base, claims to have recruited hundreds of thousands of members
across Armenia in the course of last year. It has clearly capitalized
on Tsarukian’s populist appeal and large-scale "benevolent" actions
which many established parties consider a wholesale vote-buying.

Parliament speaker Tigran Torosian, who is affiliated with the HHK,
openly challenged the credibility of the BHK’s membership claims last
week. "If this is the case, then all parties must altogether disband
themselves before the elections," Torosian told reporters. "Because
if we add to the 370,000 [members] a certain number of other voters,
who are relatives of BHK members, we’ll get a huge figure."

"In my view, no Armenian party can poll that many votes, unless,
of course, Armenia one day again becomes a Communist country," he said.

Speaking at a news conference, Bostanjian refused to comment on
Torosian’s remarks. He also denied media allegations that many
Armenians are being forced or paid to join the Kocharian-connected
tycoon’s party.

"We have not used forcible or any other illicit methods," said
Bostanjian. "People themselves ask to join the party. We are a proud
party that does not want artificial votes."

Although many observers consider the BHK and the HHK the frontrunners
in the race, it is not clear just how popular Tsarukian’s party is.

Credible opinion polls are still a rarity in Armenia. Opposition
leaders fear that the BHK’s spectacular membership claims will be
used for legitimizing possible vote rigging.

Bostanjian, who is a senior economics professor at Yerevan State
University, further dismissed speculation that Tsarukian evades taxes
and gets away with that owing to his close ties with Kocharian. "I am
convinced that he pays taxes [in full,]" he said. "Relevant authorities
have not brought any [tax evasion] cases against the leader of our
party. Isn’t that sufficient proof [of his innocence?]"

Despite Tsarukian’s reputation as a Armenia’s wealthiest "oligarch,"
the amount of taxes paid by his businesses is quite modest. The
largest of those businesses, a chain of liquefied and compressed
gas stations, was only 84th in the latest rankings of the country’s
top corporate taxpayers compiled by the State Tax Service (STS). The
company, Multi-Leon, paid only about 500 million drams ($1.4 million)
in various taxes last year.

ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT DECIDED TO SELL 10% OF ARMENTEL TO VIMPELCOM FOR 38 MIL EUR

Analytical Information Agency, Russia
March 22 2007

Armenian Government decided to sell 10% of ArmenTel CJSC to VimpelCom
OJSC for 38 mil eur, said VimpelCom to AK&M.

In case of purchase VimpelCom will hold 100% of ArmenTel.

Purchase negotiations are not finished yet. VimpelCom is still
interested in the purchase.

VimpelCom ranks second among cellular operators of Russia and the
CIS. It provides services for more than 50 million users. Telenor
(26.6% shares) and Alfa-Group (35.8%) are Vimpelcom’s largest
shareholders. Above 40% shares are floated on the New-York Stock
Exchange. The company has issued 51281022 ordinary shares and 6426600
preferred shares; Alfa holds all the preferred stock.

In the III Q 2006, VimpelCom’s net income under US GAAP grew by 37.7%
to $268.4 mln; revenues totaled $1.359 bn, OIBDA – $717.796 mln,
OIBDA margin – 52.8%.

Armentel CJSC provides fixed-line and cellular telephony services in
the territory of Armenia in GSM – 900 and CDMA standard. The operator’s
subscription base totals some 600000 fixed telecommunication users
and 400000 cellular subscribers.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GENOCIDE BILL DIVIDES US AND TURKEY

Spiegel Online, Germany
March 22 2007

Ankara is deeply unhappy about an effort in the US Congress to pass
a bill declaring the 1917 massacre of Armenians by the Turks to be a
case of genocide. Turkey has warned it could sever military ties if
the law goes through.

An Air Force cargo plane lands at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. If US
Congress passes the Armenian genocide resolution, military relations
could suffer.

A push in the United States Congress to pass a bill condemning the
1915 Armenian massacre under the Ottoman Empire as a case of genocide
is threatening to put yet another strain on ties between Turkey and
the US, which are already strained.

Turkey has threatened to take dramatic steps against its NATO partner
if the bill passes, including a curtailing of military cooperation
between the two countries.

"The consequences of such a step would go beyond the imaginable and
would have a lasting effect," the Turkish Foreign Ministry in Ankara
warned last week. Mehmet Dulger, who chairs the Foreign Relations
Committee in the Turkish parliament as a member of the ruling AKP
party, warned that Turkey might even go so far as to restrict American
access to Incirlik Air Base.

The base is of major strategic importance to the US, which uses it
to supply its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ankara’s refusal in
2003 to permit US troops to cross into northern Iraq through Turkey
triggered the current tensions.

For its part, the Bush administration is seeking to stop Congress
from pushing through the resolution. In a March 7 letter, Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned
leading members of Congress about the potential fallout the bill could
have for US-Turkish relations. And on Wednesday, Rice cautioned that
the US should not get involved in the dispute over the mass-killings,
which resulted in the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians.

In February, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Yasar
Buyukanit, chief of the general staff for the Turkish Armed Forces,
began a political offensive against Washington, saying that Ankara
considers the massacre to be a tragic act of violence that happened
in the context of World War I but not genocide.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, made her view very
clear: She didn’t even receive Foreign Minister Gul.

GOVERNMENT SELLS ITS SHARES IN ARMENTEL TO RUSSIAN COMPANY

ARMENPRESS
Mar 22 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS: The government of Armenia has decided
today to sell 10 percent of its shares in ArmenTel telephone operator
to the Russian VimpelCom that had bought the company from the Greek
OTE last year.

The government said the price of 10 percent stake was set based on
the fact that 90 percent were sold to VimpelCom last year at 342
million euros.

In the wake of selling ArmenTel to the Russian company the government
said it would sell the remaining 1,883,771 shares to Russians given
it declined all type of exclusive rights that had been granted to OTE.

TOXIC MYSTERY IN ARMENIA
By Arpine Galstian in Yerevan

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
March 22 2007

Experts cannot trace the source of dangerous substances finding their
way into the food chain

Armenian doctors and scientists are sounded the alarm after discovering
traces of toxic substances in patients, including the mothers of
young children. Yet despite the potential health implications for the
Armenian public, no one can identify the sources of the problem with
any certainty.

In tests, doctors have found evidence of chlorides which could lead
to serious medical problems.

One strong suggestion is that the chemicals have found their way into
the food chain from pesticides used in farming.

"Chlorine compounds are present not just in the soil and in water, they
are also detected in a human biology – in sweat, saliva and mother’s
milk," said Albert Hairepetian, director of Armenia’s Institute of
Environmental Hygiene and Prophylactic Toxicology. "This is just
unacceptable."

Organochlorines such as the notorious pesticide DDT were used in
Armenia until they were banned across the Soviet Union in 1972.

The poisoning could have come from a residue of DDT still left in the
ground, but some experts suspect the banned chemical is still being
used illegally by farmers.

"We carried out research to find out whether the presence of these
toxic substances in humans was due to the use of DDT in Soviet times,"
said Lilik Simonian, an expert with the organisation Armenian Women
for Health and a Healthy Environment. "We established that there are
fresh traces of DDT as well as old ones."

Hairepetian and his colleagues studied milk samples from 40 mothers
in maternity wards in Yerevan and the town of Ashtarak, and concluded
that the toxic substances were being passed on to newborn babies.

This information was not passed on to those tested. "It’s pointless
to subject people to unnecessary stress, because at the moment there’s
nothing we can change," said Hairepetian.

Simonian’s group came to similar conclusions when it carried out a
similar study in 2004 in ten villages in the Ararat region south-west
of Yerevan.

Farms in the Ararat valley, which supply markets in the capital
Yerevan, are being seen as the main source of these toxic pesticides.

At one Yerevan food market, 37-year-old Nora said she heard on the
television recently that food grown in the Ararat valley may be
unhealthy. "Now I ask where vegetables come from before I buy them,"
she said.

But market trader Gayane said her sales had not suffered from the
alarming media reports.

"Sometimes the customers ask where the vegetables come from, but
later on it all gets forgotten," said Gayane, adding that as she is
not buying her produce direct from the farmers she doesn’t know what
it contains.

IWPR spoke to 15 shoppers at the market and only one of them knew
about the toxic issue.

"We breathe such poisonous air that a little bit more poison or a
little less won’t make a lot of difference," said 55-year-old Vardges.

Experts say that the toxic substances involved will be discharged
from the body naturally, but that they do some damage to the nervous
and immune systems along the way.

"There is practically nothing doctors can do about this," said Nune
Bakunts of the Anti-Epidemiological Institute for Hygiene, run by
Armenia’s health ministry. "It’s the job of those who own the land.

"We have to ban the use of toxic chemicals containing chlorine. They
have been labelled as ‘persistent’ as they are present in the
environment for a long time, and now they have entered the human
organism."

The ministry of agriculture insists that banned pesticides – however
cheap and effective they may be – are not on sale in Armenia.

"These [included] the acaricide group which have a sulphur or nitrogen
base," said Garnik Petrosian, head of the ministry’s plant cultivation
department. "You see we do not use trichlorfon, methyl parathion,
DNOC or DDT, which are considered dangerous."

Petrosian said that pesticides were sold only after they had been
approved by a special licensing commission.

His words were echoed by environment minister Vardan Aivazian, who
said, "We carry out checks, we question the customs authorities and we
consistently get the same answer – these substances are not imported
into the country."

However, Elizabet Danielian of the World Health Organisation’s Yerevan
office suggested that regulation of imports was lax.

"Research done by various non-governmental organisations shows
that there is no record of all the toxic chemicals imported into the
country and that we don’t know what substances they actually contain,"
she said.

The environment minister believes the toxic traces may come from
Soviet-era accumulations of pesticides in the soil, but he said it
was also possible that villagers still have stores of old chemicals
left over and may be using them.

Experts from Armenian Women for Health and a Healthy Environment say
they have evidence that this is the case. They say chicken-farmers
are using DDT, so toxic substances make their way from the soil into
the eggs.

As an alternative to agriculture as the source of the problem, Aivazian
pointed the finger at two industrial plants as possible suspects –
the Nairit chloroprene rubber factory and the gold extraction plant
in the town of Ararat, which uses cyanide as part of the process. He
also suggested a further possible cause – a toxic waste dump in the
village of Nurabashen outside Yerevan.

The Nairit plant was closed in late Soviet times but has since
reopened. The head of its environmental department told IWPR that the
factory was running at low capacity and there was no evidence it was
causing any damage.

Arpine Galstian is the pseudonym of an Armenian journalist. IWPR’s
Armenia editor Seda Muradian contributed to this report.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY’S DISSIDENT INTELLECTUALS GROW ACCUSTOMED TO LIFE WITH BODYGUARDS
Nicholas Birch

EurasiaNet, NY
March 22 2007

Waving a yellow press card usually opens doors in Turkey. It didn~Aft
impress the police officer guarding the entrance to Agos, the
Turkish-Armenian newspaper run by Hrant Dink until a 17-year-old
Turkish nationalist gunned him down in January as he stepped outside.

"Who are you working for," the officer asked suspiciously. "Who do
you want to talk to?"

Like the closed-circuit camera set up last month to survey the patch
of Istanbul street where Dink died, the officer~Afs questions
underscore the heightened sense of insecurity facing dissidents in
Turkey today. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. A
well-known columnist who took over as editor of Agos after his
friend~Afs death, Etyen Mahcupyan has been receiving threats for as
long as he can remember.

"It~Afs like a side dish," he says. "You are so accustomed to it that
when the threats go down, you ask what is happening. And that~Afs why
the murder was a real shock. Because you have so many threats every
day and nothing happens."

Hrant Dink~Afs death was a turning point for Atilla Yayla, too. An
Ankara-based political scientist, his nightmare began last November
when he adopted a position during a public conference that the
single-party regime set up by Turkey~Afs founder Kemal Ataturk was "a
period of regression, not progress."

Turkish media outlets branded him a traitor. His university removed
him from his teaching position for four months. Last week, a
prosecutor opened a case against him for "insulting the legacy of
Ataturk." He faces up to three years in jail.

"For five days, I couldn~Aft sleep," Yayla remembers, comparing the
media campaign against him to "the Moscow courts in Stalin~Afs time."

The stress eventually overwhelmed him. "I collapsed physically," he
said. It wasn~Aft until after Dink~Afs death, though, that he began to
take the death threats he was receiving seriously. Now, like more
than a dozen other Turkish dissidents, he shares his life with a
police bodyguard. "He is so much a part of me that I~Afm planning to
buy him and his family presents," Yayla commented wryly.

Other Turkish intellectuals find it much less easy to laugh at the
new climate of fear. One of the most prominent of 50 people taken to
court by ultra-nationalists last year on charges of "insulting
Turkishness," best-selling novelist Elif Safak has now given up
writing columns in two newspapers and keeps trips outside her house
to a minimum. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Dink "was a close friend, and I haven~Aft got over the shock of his
death," she said in a telephone conversation. She declined to talk at
length.

Interviewed by daily Hurriyet in February, her husband Eyup Can said
she was so upset that she was no longer able to breast-feed her
six-month-old daughter.

Orhan Pamuk, meanwhile, the novelist who won last year~Afs Nobel Prize
for literature, left Turkey under police escort in February,
declaring himself "furious at everyone and everything." [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. A week before, the man
police believe organized Hrant Dink~Afs murder had warned him to
"watch your step" as he was taken into custody.

When well over 100,000 people attended Dink~Afs funeral procession
late in January, many hoped his death might mark the end of what one
columnist called "the ultra-nationalist tsunami" that has swept
Turkey since its European Union bid started. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive]. In fact the protest, and the protestors~Af
choice of the slogan "we are all Armenians," stirred up nationalist
ire further. A key demand made by the protesters — that the law
criminalizing insults to "Turkishness" should be repealed ~Aã has
failed to make an impact on legislators.

Despite the risks they face, many Turkish dissidents say they have no
intention of giving up the struggle. "Such a thing has happened, you
know, that you cannot be cautious any more," says Mahcupyan, the new
Agos editor. "It~Afs immoral to be cautious."

Like Mahcupyan, who says you can only tell the real threats from the
false ones after it~Afs too late, Baskin Oran knows his bodyguard will
not be able to stop a professional assassination attempt. "This nice
person is protecting me from amateur killers, like the one who killed
Hrant," said Oran, an Ankara-based political scientist who
co-authored a 2004 government report on minority rights that sparked
today~Afs nationalist surge.

He goes on to quote the Turkish proverb that he who fears birds
doesn~Aft plant corn. "If you are afraid, you should stop. But how can
I look into the mirror in the morning if I do stop? How can I lecture
my students?"

Today~Afs threats and restrictions on freedom of movement, he says,
are part of the growing pains of Turkish democracy. "The road to
paradise passes by hell, and we are walking."

Editor’s Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the
Middle East.

–Boundary_(ID_BP2fEoBRtwnRU+kw40hlJg)–

FRENCH PRESIDENT AWARDS NANI OSKANIAN FOR HER INPUT IN HELPING VULNERABLE CHILDREN

ARMENPRESS
Mar 22 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS: French president Jacques Chirac awarded
Nani Oskanian, the spouse of Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian,
a French medal in appreciation of her contribution to helping disabled
children and children from vulnerable families to get proper education.

Mrs. Oskanian began a set of charity projects designed for children
in 1992 through the Association of Diplomats Wives she established.

Speaking to reporters in Yerevan Mrs. Oskanian said she is grateful
to former French ambassador in Armenia, Henry Cuny, who presented
her for the award.

"This is not only an encouraging award, but it also obliges me to
continue my projects with the same vigor,’ she said.

LEBANON: AGREEMENT ON CABINET EXPANSION

Stratfor
March 22 2007

An agreement has been reached in principle between Lebanese parliament
majority leader Saad al-Hariri and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri
regarding the expansion of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s Cabinet,
sources said March 22. Berri’s opposition alliance will endorse
the tribunal in exchange for one-third plus one veto power in the
Cabinet. The agreement’s announcement is awaiting a Saudi commitment
to ensure the expanded Cabinet will not become polarized.

The new Cabinet is expected to consist of 30 members as follows: six
Maronites, six Sunnis, six Shia, four Greek Orthodox, three Druze,
three Catholics and two Armenians.