Author: Chakrian Hovsep

TURKEY DID NOT ALLOW THE NATIONAL TEAM OF MACEDONIA TO ARRIVE IN YEREVAN
A1plus
| 17:23:04 | 03-06-2005 | Sports |
The National team of Macedonia was not able to arrive in Yerevan
yesterday evening, as it was planned, in order to take part in the
match with the Armenian national team on June 4. The plane in which
the Macedonian team was coming to Yerevan was forced to return to
Skopje from Turkey.
After losing a day the Macedonian national team will arrive in Yerevan
today at about 8:00 p.m. Factually, the Macedonian footballers will
arrive only 24 hours before the game, which may considerably affect
the game tomorrow.
Besides, the coach of the Macedonian team has invited 8 new players
to the team among whom there are 2 goalkeepers. After this game it
will become clear which team will take the 5th place in the group.
Let us remind you once more that the Youth teams will play at 3:00
p.m. by local time in the Hrazdan stadium, and the National teams –
at 8:00 p.m. by local time in the Hanrapetakan stadium.

FRENCH “NO” TO EU CONSTITUTION CASTS DOUBT ON EU ENLARGEMENT
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 04:06
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Chairperson of the CDU Angela Merkel stated that
the negative outcome of the referendum in France over the passing
of the European Constitution confirms that the opinion of the CDU
over Turkey’s accession to the EU is correct, reported the Yerkir
newspaper referring to Zaman Turkish edition. In her wards, CDU/CSU
parties should reconsider their opinion over the talks on Turkey’s
accession to the EU. In his turn, Saarland Prime Minister Peter Muller
noted that the French “no” to the Constitution casts doubt on the EU
enlargement. He also emphasized that after the latest expansion the EU
needs rest and, like the Turkish case, the questions of accession of
Romania and Bulgaria to the EU should be reconsidered. On the other
hand, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer noted that in spite
of the negative response of the French to the European Constitution,
he respects their decision. He noted at the same time that it would
create difficulties for the EU.

AFTER WARSAW
A1plus
| 15:21:53 | 30-05-2005 | Official |
“After the Warsaw meeting of the Armenian and Azeri Presidents
new possibilities have appeared in the settlement of the Karabakh
conflict”, announced the Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan.
The Armenian Foreign Minister has said that the date of his coming
meeting with the Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov is not
yet clear. Before that Oskanyan will meet the OSCE Minsk group
co-heads. The meeting will take place in June.

Agence France Presse
28 mai 2005 samedi 2:16 PM GMT
Une ronde de 163 km autour de la plus haute montagne d’Arménie
EREVAN
Quelque 200.000 personnes ont formé samedi une chaîne ininterrompue
de 163 kilomètres autour du mont le plus élevé d’Arménie et ont fait
la ronde pour célébrer le 87ème anniversaire de la proclamation d’un
Etat arménien et une fête religieuse, a constaté l’AFP sur place.
Tous coiffés d’un chapeau couleur abricot et de vêtements aux tons
vifs et se tenant par la main, les participants ont commencé à 15
heures une ronde traditionnelle de 15 minutes autour du mont Aragatz,
d’une hauteur de 4.090 mètres.
Le chanteur français d’origine arménienne Charles Aznavour et des
centaines d’autres Arméniens venant de l’étranger y ont pris part. Le
président arménien Robert Kotcharian était également de la partie.
“Le rétablissement d’un Etat arménien en 1918 a été un bouleversement
non seulement historique mais aussi psychologique (…). Le 28 mai
est la fête de la renaissance d’un peuple qui avait été poussé
jusqu’aux limites de la destruction”, a déclaré dans un message le
président, faisant allusion au génocide arménien de 1915.
La ronde a été suivie d’un festival animé par environ 200 groupes de
danseurs professionnels.
Des rondes ont été aussi organisées dans d’autres pays par la
diaspora arménienne autour d’églises, d’écoles arméniennes et de
centres culturels.
La ronde, dansée depuis des temps très anciens en Arménie, était par
le passé censée chasser les mauvais esprits, sa forme symbolisait la
vie de l’homme et le mouvement vers la droite, la réussite.

PARTICIPANTS OF “START AND DEVELOP YOUR BUSINESS” SEMINAR-COURSE
ORGANIZED BY ILO TO BE GIVEN CERTIFICATES ON MAY 27
YEREVAN, MAY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The International Labor Organization
(ILO) has been implementing a program aimed at business promotion
starting from May in Armenia. Noyan Tapan was informed from RA
Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs that on May 27 the solemn
ceremony of closure of the “Start and Develop Your Business”
seminar-course organized within the framework of the program and
ceremony of handing certificates will take place. The program is
implemented by the International Labor Organization in cooperation
with RA Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs, RA Ministry of Labor
and Social Issues, Confederation of Trade Unions and Union of
Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Sunday Telgraph (Sydney, Australia)
May 29, 2005 Sunday
NSW blown away by the support
by PETER JENKINS
THE Waratahs were swamped by good luck messages from around the globe
before last night’s Super 12 final in Christchurch.
In the heart of Christchurch, at the five-star hotel where NSW have
been based since Wednesday, the team room was adorned with emails and
faxes from supporters scattered throughout not only Australia but
Fiji, Switzerland,
Armenia, Papua New Guinea, Ireland, Great Britain and New Zealand.
“The support has been absolutely terrific,” skipper Chris Whitaker
said before the Jade Stadium showdown. “We’ve been blown away by the
sentiment and volume of messages coming through.
“It means a lot to the guys to see just how passionate the NSW
supporters are and just how many there are out there, all around the
world.”
A high percentage of the well wishes were from expatriate
Australians, including one in Armenia who went into the detail of
where the country could be found on the map.
“But there have been foreigners writing as well,” Waratahs media
manager Djuro Sen said.
“There have been a lot of Fijians sending us luck. A lot of them
mention Lote Tuqiri. But it has really had an impact on the players.
They can’t believe the level of support.”
NSW Premier Bob Carr sent a personal message to the side.
But the political links have not ended there. Former State Opposition
leader Kerry Chikarovski went one step further and flew to
Christchurch for the game.
Ms Chikarovski was one of more than 300 fans to attend a function at
the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday afternoon, where the NSW Rugby
Union had booked out a function room to entertain its supporters.
“There was no barrier to anyone coming along,” NSW Rugby Union chief
executive Fraser Neill said.
“But there was a dress code being enforced. You had to be wearing
blue.”

Pan Armenian News
ARMENIAN PEOPLE UNITED AROUND ARAGATS MOUNTAIN
28.05.2005 05:11
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ At the moment an unprecedented event – Round Dance of
Unity dated to the Day of First Republic – is taking place at the foot of
Aragats, the highest mountain of Armenia, IA Regnum reports. A live chain of
over 170 thousand people stretches along the perimeter of the mountain that
makes 163 km covering 106 communities of the Aragatsotn and Shirak regions.
The event organized by Nig-Aparan philanthropic friendly association became
a holiday with concerts, fireworks and hundreds of bonfires. Representatives
of the Armenian Diaspora and world mass media are present at the event.
After the event a tree of love to the fatherland will be planted at each
meter around the mountain foot. Participants of the Round Dance are standing
at about 1-meter distance from each other and are wearing a cap of apricot
color symbolizing one of the colors of the Armenian flag and color of sunset
at the Aragats Mountain. The dance is to last 15 minutes. To note,
representatives of the Guinness Records books are as well present at the
event.

IMF allocates 34.2m dollars for economic growth in Armenia
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
27 May 05
[Presenter] The executive council of the International Monetary Fund
on Wednesday [25 May] approved a quarterly programme on allocating a
34.2m-dollar loan to Armenia. The first 5m dollars of the allocated
loan will be sent to Yerevan in the near future.
The funds are earmarked for reducing poverty and securing economic
development in the country. According to IMF experts, the
implementation of this programme would be easier if the volume of
taxes collected from GDP increased. The correlation between taxes and
GDP has not been higher than 15 per cent in our country over the last
few years [as heard]. The goal of this programme is to organize
reforms in the tax and customs sphere.
[Passage omitted: the IMF permanent representative held a news
conference]

Pan Armenian News
ARMENIAN FM CALLED EU TO MAKE ANKARA OPEN ARMENIAN BORDER
27.05.2005 06:18
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The EU should increase the pressure upon Turkey for the
opening of the Armenian border, Armenian FM Vartan Oskanian stated, reported
RFE/RL. V. Oskanian called the EU to be «more confident» and «make Ankara
open the last close border of Europe.» «The Turkish party blocks the
Armenian border, but it is not understandable for us and we expect the EU to
be more confident in that issues,» he said in Helsinki. When commenting on
the proposal of official Ankara to form a joint historical commission to
study the fact of the Armenian Genocide in the course of the meeting with
Finnish FM, V. Oskanian called the terms of the Turkish party
«unacceptable». «We should follow the example of other European countries.
Hardly in Europe or anywhere else there are two countries that do not have
differences over comments of the history. However, it does not prevent them
from having normal ties and diplomatic relations,» the Armenian FM said.

Philadelphia Inquirer, PA
May 27 2005
France set for crucial EU decision
By Ken Dilanian
Inquirer Staff Writer
PARIS – A few days ago, software engineer Julien Benoit found out
that he would be among the latest victims of outsourcing. His
company, Internet portal Lycos, is closing its Paris office and
moving the development work to Yerevan, Armenia, where his
counterparts will earn about $400 per month.
For his part, Benoit, 28, is not worried. Under France’s generous
social insurance law, he will be paid 80 percent of his $50,000
annual salary for up to a year while he looks for work. He doesn’t
see what more his government could have done to protect him from the
unforgiving logic of the global economy. And he certainly doesn’t
blame the European Union in Brussels, Belgium.
But Benoit is in the minority in France, where, according to the
latest opinion polls, voters Sunday may reject the proposed EU
constitution, in part because they think it will be bad for the
economy.
If they do, they will deal a potentially crippling blow to the
50-year process of European integration. Unless all 25 member-nations
approve the document, it’s back to the drawing board.
Here in the very country where the European project was conceived,
debate over the 349-page constitution has strayed far from the text
itself, which few have read. Instead, the impending vote has sparked
a long-overdue argument about the fundamental nature of the EU.
Large numbers of French people, it turns out, have come to associate
the union with a brand of free-market capitalism that threatens their
jobs, wages, and the network of social protections they hold dear.
“Obviously, what happened to us has nothing to do with the
constitution,” Benoit said of himself and his colleagues.
“Outsourcing and relocation is a worldwide economic phenomenon. But
people are saying, ‘This is exactly why I will not vote for it.'”
In essence, Sunday’s vote has become a referendum on globalization –
and in France, that’s a losing proposition.
“Globalization means what? To the French, it means danger,” said
economist Bernard Spitz, who runs the consulting company BS Conseil
and teaches at the Sorbonne. “A large proportion of the people
believe that they are going to lose in this process, so they prefer
to protect themselves.”
While there is a continentwide crisis of doubt over the European
constitution, not all of it is related to economic issues. In the
Netherlands, where a referendum Wednesday also is expected to produce
a “no” vote, hostility to immigration and the EU’s Brussels
bureaucracy is driving what is known as Euroskepticism. The same is
true in Britain.
And in France, some intend to vote no to send a message to their
deeply unpopular leaders, or because they fear a loss of French
prominence in the newly enlarged union, or simply because they don’t
want to give up more power to what they see as undemocratic
institutions in Brussels.
But at the heart of the debate in France is a mind-set that the
country can somehow opt out of the global economy – a notion that
also infects Germany, Italy, and other parts of Europe.
Although the constitution wouldn’t change the basic nature of the EU,
this is the first time since the 1992 vote on the euro that the
French public has had a chance to weigh in on the union, and years of
pent-up concerns are boiling over.
One of the buzzwords in the debate is what Europeans call liberalism
– in the 19th-century sense of the term, which is the opposite of how
Americans use it. On this side of the Atlantic, liberals believe that
to be competitive in a world where capital and labor flow unimpeded
across borders, Europe must reduce government interference in free
trade and free markets.
Even among French supporters of the EU constitution, liberal has
become a dirty word. President Jacques Chirac – who made a dramatic
TV appeal for ratification of the document yesterday and who
supposedly represents the center-right of French politics – said
recently that “ultraliberalism is the communism of our age.” (Similar
language has been used in Germany, where leaders didn’t dare submit
the EU constitution to a vote, and instead had parliament ratify it.)
France finds liberalism threatening because over the last three
decades, it, like the rest of Europe, has built an extensive
social-welfare system that includes long vacations, universal health
care, huge disability and unemployment subsidies, and generous
early-retirement plans – all paid for with the high taxes and big
government that such liberalism disdains.
But although the so-called European social model shares some basic
features, countries have different approaches, and some are doing
better than others. In lower-tax Britain and Ireland, for example,
growth has been high and unemployment low. Ditto in high-tax Sweden
and Denmark, where powerful labor unions have cooperated with
industry.
But the countries that make up the core of “old Europe” – France,
Germany and Italy – have suffered from economic stagnation, in part
because of a poor rate of what economists call “labor flexibility” –
the ability of companies to hire and fire easily, and for workers to
quickly change jobs. In those countries, employers face enormous
legal burdens and high costs if they try to lay off workers, and must
deal with hostile unions and Byzantine labor-law requirements. All of
that makes them reluctant to hire.
In recent years, liberal voices in the EU have been pushing those
countries to reform – not to do away with such basics as free health
insurance, but to make their labor markets more flexible, change
welfare benefits so people have more incentive to work, and do away
with subsidies that protect sluggish state monopolies such as Italy’s
Alitalia airline.
In France, where the government controls 55 percent of the economy,
this message simply hasn’t taken hold. It became an even harder sell
last year when the EU admitted 10 former Communist-bloc countries,
where wages and taxes are much lower than in the core 15.
Now, every time a French factory closes and moves to Eastern Europe,
where labor costs are lower, people blame the EU. The irony that the
companies may well be leaving because of the very social benefits the
French cherish so much, such as the mandatory 35-hour workweek, gets
lost.
“I don’t understand why we should lower our level of social
protections,” said Christophe Beaudouin, 32, a lawyer and spokesman
for one of the anti-ratification groups. “I thought politics was
about making people’s lives better.”
Economists argue that free trade does that by distributing resources
efficiently and making everyone richer. Wealthier Poles, for example,
will buy more French products.
“But it is very hard to explain that trade is a two-way street, that
foreign direct investment creates wealth, when each night on TV,
people are seeing dramatic images of people losing their jobs,” said
Elie Cohen, an economist at Sciences Po, a prestigious French
university.
Moreover, he said, few in France are trying.
“This is the specific problem for France. Since World War II, we
haven’t had any true liberal rightist party that sells the liberal
agenda.”
Even if the French do the unexpected and approve the constitution,
that problem isn’t going away.
Access the EU and the proposed constitution via
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress