Author: Chmshkian Vicken

CONFERENCE ON STRATEGIC PLANNING OF SPHERE OF HIGHER EDUCATION TO BE HELD IN ARMENIA ON SEP 18-20

ARKA
September 17 2007

The closing conference on "The strategic planning of the sphere of
higher education: modern experience and perspectives" will be held
in the State Engineering University of Armenia (SEUA), September 18-20.

The SEUA press service told ARKA that the conference is organized
within the TEMPUS-TACIS project, the objective of which is to
contribute to the SEUA stable development consonant with changes and
European standards of higher education.

"The main objective of the conference is to estimate and spread results
of the implementation of the project in the university and outside it,"
runs the press-release.

SEUA Rector, Prof. Vostanik Marukhyan, Minister of Education and
Science Levon Lazarian and Director of the National TEMPUS office L.

Karlova will make a speech at the opening of the closing conference.

TEMPUS is one of the programs of the European Union which contributes
to conducting social and economic reforms and developing EU
member-states. The aim of the program is to contribute to the
development of the higher education in the partner-countries through
a balanced cooperation with them.

IRAN’S AGGRESSIVE NATURAL GAS EXPANSION PLANS
By Hedayat Omidvar

Energy Tribune, TX
Posted on Sep. 17, 2007

As global energy demand rises, natural gas increasingly plays a
strategic role. The sector is poised for tremendous growth over the
next two decades and some believe that it may overtake oil as the
prime fuel between 2020 and 2030. Iran’s huge proven reserves –
some 28 trillion cubic meters (about 995 trillion cubic feet) ­-
should make it a key player in the emerging global gas business.

These impressive reserves figures – second only to the Russian
Federation’s – underscore Iran’s enormous potential. The National
Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) plans the steady expansion of transmission
and processing infrastructure in a program aimed at increasing imports
and exports of natural gas, which will take natural gas to parts
of the Islamic Republic not yet reached by distribution systems and
boost exports by pipeline and in the form of LNG.

More than 60 percent of Iran’s gas reserves are located in
non-associated undeveloped or partially developed fields. The major
non-associated gas fields include South Pars (280-500 tcf of gas
reserves), North Pars (50 tcf), Kangan (29 tcf), Nar (13 tcf), and
Khangiran (11 tcf). There are also several other large gas fields
with multi-tcf reserves. However, most of the gas will come from the
offshore South Pars gas field, which is being developed in stages.

Supplementing that supply will be imports from Turkmenistan and,
soon, from Azerbaijan.

South Pars was first identified in 1988 and was originally thought to
contain just 128 tcf. Current estimates show it to contain at least
280 tcf (with some estimates going as high as 500 tcf) as well as
over 17 billion barrels of condensate.

By 2010, more than 500,000 barrels per day of condensates could be
produced at South Pars, mainly for domestic consumption. Designed
in 28 phases, so far only 18 phases have been activated. By 2015,
condensate production from South Pars phases 1-14 is expected to reach
628,000 bpd. Besides condensate production and enhanced oil recovery,
South Pars natural gas is intended for both domestic consumption and
exports. South Pars can produce more than 400 million cubic meters
per day (14.2 billion cubic feet/day). Considering internal demand,
half of this production can be assigned to exports.

Internal consumption represents a rapidly growing demand on Iranian
gas supply. The NIGC expects internal consumption to rise to 156.2
bcm per year in 2009 (13.2 bcf/day). (Editor’s Note: The National
Iranian Oil Company is purported to raise oil production to about
5.4 million barrels per day by 2009.)

Market Expansion

By 2009, NIGC expects to have 29,400 kilometers of gas transmission
pipeline in place and a distribution network of 125,000 km. Domestic
gas consumption that year will represent 69 percent of the Iranian
energy market, and 54 million Iranians will have access to natural
gas – about 80 percent of the population.

NIGC plans to invest about $18 billion through 2009 in high-pressure
gas pipelines, compressor stations, gas-processing plants, underground
storage, distribution networks, and maintenance.

Pipeline Projects

Many of the pipeline projects planned by NIGC will be attached to the
Iranian Gas Transmission (IGAT) system. Transmission pipelines with
a length of 20,000 km take gas from various sources to destinations
across the whole country. Lines with diameters of 56, 48, and 42 inches
have been employed to carry more than 500 million cubic meters per day
(17.7 bcf/day) of natural gas.

The IGAT IV pipeline will carry 110 (mcm/day) of gas from South
Pars and the Parsian gas plants to consumption areas. The project
includes 1,030 km of 56-inch pipe in two sections and two compressor
stations. Parts of IGAT IV have begun service. The main part of the
pipeline was connected with the Pol Kaleh compressor station in Isfahan
in 2004; a 351-km section to Fars Province became operational in 2004.

A second stage of IGAT IV will include a 42-inch spur line to Kerman,
a 24-inch line to serve a Fars petrochemical plant, a second 40-inch
line to Yazd, and a 40-inch Isfahan-Mobarakeh pipeline.

The 56-inch IGAT V trunkline will carry 75 mcm/day of sour gas from
South Pars Phases 6-8 to Khoozestan oil fields for injection. It will
connect Assaluye and Agha Jari, a distance of 504 km, and will have
five compressor stations.

The IGAT VI pipeline will generally parallel IGAT V to serve gas
needs of Bushehr and Khoozestan provinces, including oil field
injection. With a length of 492 km and a diameter of 56 inches, it will
have a capacity of 90 mcm/day. Two compressor stations are planned.

IGAT VII, 860 km of 42 to 56-inch line, will carry gas produced in
South Pars Phases 9 and 10 for use in Sistan and Baluchestan provinces
in southern Iran, and possibly for export to the U.A.E., Pakistan,
and India.

IGAT VIII, a 1,050-km, 56-inch line, will carry South Pars gas to
the Parsian gas plant and north to a line serving Tehran. It will
have 10 compressor stations with a total of 1.8 million hp.

To meet growth in gas demand in the northern and eastern provinces
of Semnan, Khorasan, Golestan, and Mazandaran, NIGC plans a second
pipeline between Parchin and Sangbast, 790 km long with a diameter of
48 inches, and a 110-km, 40-inch segment between Miami and Jajarm. The
system will have four compressor stations and will handle South Pars
gas delivered through IGAT VIII.

To serve the western and northern provinces of Hamadan, Kordestan,
Zanjan, as well as East and West Azerbaijan, NIGC plans to lay 280
km of 48-inch pipeline between a compressor station at Saveh and
the city of Bijar, and 192 km of 40-inch pipeline between Bijar and
Miandoab. Other segments with diameters of at least 30 inches will
boost pipeline lengths planned for this region to 950 km.

Gas Processing Projects

Seven gas processing plants have recently been completed or are planned
and under construction in Iran. The Parsian plant began treatment
operations in 2003, dehydrating 20 mcm/day of gas from Tabnak field
and stabilizing 12,000 bpd of condensates.

Construction of the new processing facilities will proceed in two
phases, one with an inlet capacity of 48 mcm/day and the other, 28
mcm/day. The complex is designed for annual yields of 85,000 tons of
ethane, 11 million barrels of pentanes-plus, 310,000 tons of butane,
and 450,000 tons of propane.

The Bidboland II plant will sweeten and process 57 mcm/day of gas at
facilities that will be built about 14 km southeast of the existing
Bidboland plant. Fed by gas from the Pazanan, Gachsaran, and Bibi
Hakimeh fields, the new plant has design output capacities of 15
bcm of sweet gas, 1.48 million tons of ethane, 1.51 million tons of
propane and butane, and 860,000 tons of natural gasoline.

About 6 bcm per year from the plant are targeted for oil-field
injection, the rest for delivery into the gas grid. Ethane will go to
a petrochemical plant at Arvand. The other products will be exported
through Bandar Mahshahr.

In a separate project, NIGC plans a gas processing plant 25 km
northwest of the city of Ilam and 12 km west of Chavar in western
Iran. The Ilam plant will process gas from Tange Bijar and Kamankooh
fields.

Built in two phases, it will have an inlet capacity of 10 mcm/day and
will supply dry gas to cities in Ilam Province and the transmission
network and liquids to a petrochemical plant at Ilam.

NIGC also plans a small processing plant at Masjed Soleiman with
inlet capacity of 1 mcm/day and is studying a plant able to process
14 mcm/day at South Gesho sour gas field in Hormuzgan Province. The
South Gesho facility, near an existing plant at Sarkhon, would have
two trains with identical inlet capacities.

After removal of 600 tons/day of sulfur and 9,000 bpd of condensate,
sweet gas would move to markets in the southeastern part of the
country, including some to a power plant at Bandar Abbas.

Storage Projects

To overcome seasonal fluctuations in consumption, installation of
underground gas storage has been recognized as the best choice. Three
underground storages are under study, with some degree of progress,
to ensure natural gas supply to internal users and export destinations.

NIGC has also identified several reservoirs that might be converted
for underground gas storage. One of them is Sarajeh gas and condensate
field, about 40 km east of Qom, whose production rates have been
restricted by surface equipment for about 45 years. NIGC believes
that by working over old wells and drilling new ones it can deplete
the reservoir in two years and convert it to storage. Another prospect
for gas storage is the Yortsha Dome saltwater reservoir 25 km south of
Varamin. NIGC has acquired 2D and 3D seismic data over the reservoir
and plans to drill vertical and horizontal wells to prepare it for
storage. Another saltwater reservoir under study for use as gas
storage is the Talkheh Dome in central Iran, which also contains
negligible amounts of light and heavy hydrocarbons. A single well
drilled in 1960 found the structure. NIGC has 2D seismic data from
the area and plans a 3D survey.

Other areas that NIGC thinks might have reservoirs amenable to gas
storage are in the provinces of Abardejno, Siahkooh, Marehtapeh,
Prandak, and East Azerbaijan.

Expansion of Iran’s gas industry follows a strategy in place since
the early 1990s to displace oil with gas in domestic consumption. In
2002, gas moved ahead of oil in Iran’s total energy consumption. Gas
now claims 70 percent and oil, 30 percent of Iran’s overall primary
energy use.

Export Markets

The strategic role of the Persian Gulf and the huge amount of gas
reserves in this area have provided a good opportunity for Iran to
export gas to consuming countries through pipeline or in the form of
LNG. NIGC believes pipeline exports can reach 44 bcm/year in 2009 and
110 bcm/year by 2020. Besides Turkey, potential customers for Iranian
gas include Ukraine, Europe, India, Pakistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Georgia, and China. NIGC is targeting LNG exports from three planned
liquefaction projects to China, Thailand, and India of 35 mcm/day in
2009 and 180 mcm/day in 2020.

Assalouyeh and Kish Island have been named as possible LNG export
terminals.

Oman and Iran have signed an agreement to develop offshore gas fields
in Iran and take the gas to Oman.

The gas from the joint Bukha-Hengam and other fields would be converted
into LNG at Oman’s Qalhat LNG plant and marketed as exports by a joint
company. The agreement also calls for joint petrochemical projects.

Bahrain has started discussions with Iran over importing natural gas
through a new pipeline by 2015.

As part of its plans to meet the Kingdom’s future electric power
needs, Bahrain has implemented a twin-pronged strategy to boost gas
supply. This involves both increasing domestic output and negotiating
import agreements with its gas-rich neighbors.

The project for transferring gas to Europe is also economically
attractive and will benefit all parties involved. Turkey and Ukraine
have been considered as alternative routes, but the former is less
expensive.

By the end of 2007, Iran expects to be exporting about 300 bcf/year
of gas to Europe via Turkey.

Since the discovery of natural gas reserves in Iran’s South Pars
fields, the Iranian government has increased efforts to promote
higher gas exports abroad. The prospects for profit are especially
good in south Asian countries like India and Pakistan, where natural
gas reserves are low and energy demand exceeds supply. Pakistan and
Iran signed a preliminary agreement for the construction of a natural
gas pipeline linking the Iranian South Pars natural gas field in the
Persian Gulf with Karachi, Pakistan’s main industrial port. Iran
later proposed an extension of the pipeline from Pakistan into
India. Although India and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding
in 1993 for a land-based natural gas pipeline, regional political and
security concerns continue to block the completion of a feasibility
study.

Import Markets

Apart from natural gas exports, Iran has also discussed
importing natural gas from Azerbaijan and already imports it from
Turkmenistan. This is basically for use in Iran’s northern areas,
far from the country’s main natural gas reserves in the south.

In December 1997, Turkmenistan launched the $190 million
Korpedze-Kordkoy pipeline to Iran, the first natural gas export
pipeline in central Asia to bypass Russia. According to the 25-year
contract’s terms, Iran will take between 5 and 6 bcm of natural gas
from Turkmenistan annually, with 35 percent of Turkmen supplies
allocated as payment for Iran’s contribution to building the
pipeline. Iran’s gas imports from Turkmenistan will peak at 8 bcm
per year.

Armenia and Iran have agreed to a long-term deal under which Iran
will supply an annual 1.3 tcf of natural gas to Armenia over 20
years (starting in 2007) in exchange for electricity supplies from
Armenia. The two countries will also build an 85-mile gas pipeline
at a cost of more than $200 million (construction on the pipeline
began in late November 2004). Armenia is also reportedly keen to
receive credit from Iran for building hydroelectric plants on the
Aras River in exchange for electricity supplies to Iran. These deals
are expected to boost regional trade and cooperation between Iran
and central Asian states.

Iran’s gas industry now contributes the lion’s share to the
country’s fossil fuel basket and it has entered an intense stage of
development. For more than 40 years, gas has played a secondary role
to oil. But the growing demand for natural gas in the residential and
industrial sectors, along with surging export demand, have launched a
new era. To respond adequately, Iran’s gas sector needs investments,
especially in upstream development, technology transfer, and export
and import facilitation. With or without foreign investment, Iran
will be a key gas exporter for decades to come.

Since 1992, Hedayat Omidvar has been a gas consumption expert in
the National Iranian Gas Company’s corporate planning department. He
currently heads NIGC’s strategic studies, research, and technology
department, and serves on the marketing committee of the International
Gas Union.

–Boundary_(ID_mmj1aAt0Y4pZWUssroUk2Q)–

THE NEGOTIATION FORMAT NEEDS TO CHANGE, MEDIATORS SAY

armradio.am
17.09.2007 11:35

Yesterday the President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan
received the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Matthew Bryza (USA), Bernard
Fassier (France) and Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia). NKR Presidnet’s
Press Office reports that at the start of the meeting the Co-Chairs
congratulated Bako Sahakyan on assuming President’s office.

Issues related to the current stage of the peaceful settlement of the
Karabakh conflict and the its possible developments were discusses
during the meeting.

Presenting the position pf NKR, the President underlined that Karabakh
stands for exceptionally peaceful resolution, especially stressing that
without full participation of the Karabakh side in the negotiations
the resolution of the issue is impossible.

The Co-Chairs also attached importance to Karabkh’s participation in
the talks, expressing hope that it’s a matter of time. Bako Sahakyan
stressed the importance of the Co-Chairs’ visit to Nagorno Karabakh
in the framework of a regional visit.

A number of other issues of mutual importance were also discussed. The
meeting was attended by acting NKR Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosyan.

According to the Co-Chairs, the aim of the visit was to get acquainted
with the newly elected President of Nagorno Karabakh and to exchange
opinions. Following the meeting with Bako Sahakyan, Russian mediator
Yuri Merzlyakov noted that the meeting was extremely productive,
karabakh-open.com webpage informs.

According to French Co-Chair Bernard Fassier, the meeting was very
interesting and positive, adding: "I think we shall deepen and develop
the cooperation with the leadership of NKR."

"It’s obvious that one day we shall see the representatives of Nagorno
Karabakh ate the bargaining table, and the sooner it happens, the
better. We have not set the current format, but it’s time to change
it," Bernard Fassier said.

American Co-Chair Matthew Bryza added that the start of the new
political season in Armenia and Azerbaijan does not mean that the
negotiation process must stop.

Following the meeting Bako Sahakyan told the journalists that the
Karabakhi side reaffirmed its commitment to the peaceful settlement
of the issue and constructive dialogue.

"We spoke about the format of negotiations and noted that it’s an
ineffective format. We spoke about Armenia’s participation and said
we tryst in Armenia. Moreover, we are grateful for its efforts,
but for the logical conclusion of the talks the full participation
of Karabakh is needed," NKR President noted.

Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC
Posted on Sun, Sep. 16, 2007

Key West has new attraction

Goal to re-create Little White House as in Truman’s years

By Cammy Clark – McClatchy Newspapers

KEY WEST, Fla. –If the late Harry S. Truman could stroll into the
Little White House after the current restoration is complete, the
museum’s staff hopes the 33rd president would say: The old place
hasn’t changed one bit.

My desk. My piano. My poker table. My Colonial Plantation fabric.

For the meticulous project, the buck stops with museum executive
director Robert Wolz, who said: "Our goal is 100 percent authenticity
as it was in Truman’s time. It may take years. It may never
happen. But that’s our goal for Florida’s only presidential museum."

John F. Kennedy’s compound in West Palm Beach is closed to the
public. Richard Nixon’s Key Biscayne home was bulldozed in 2004 for
new development.

But the Little White House, once abandoned for 12 years, has become
one of Key West’s most popular attractions, with about 65,000 visitors
a year.

In 1990, the original $1 million restoration was completed, but there
were inaccuracies. For example, the foyer’s wallpaper has French
scenes. During Truman’s time, Miami architect Haygood Lassiteur picked
a scene that was clearly American: old-fashioned covered bridges and
colonial homes.

>From old black-and-white photos, the Scalamandre company of New York
has recreated the wallpaper. Technological advances have made it
economically possible to now handprint the small amount needed.

Every little detail

The ongoing second phase of the restoration takes the authenticity to
the next level. No detail is too small.

>From paint analysis under a microscope to reprinting antique oil
paintings loaned from the U.S. Naval Academy to searching for the
banana leaves fabric for the poker porch, Wolz is determined to make
the seven-bedroom, 9,000-square foot home look exactly as it did in
1949.

That’s the year the Navy, in just three months and with $95,000,
renovated the place Bess Truman called a "fishing camp" into a
tropical retreat worthy of a sitting president.

The restoration is getting a boost from pure luck.

Wolz was at home browsing on eBay, he says, when something in his head
told him to click on plantation floral fabric.

"I said, ‘Wow, that looks like the Little White House fabric,’" he
recalled. "I sent the picture to work and it matched" the 16 dining
room chairs and the living room’s drapes and couch. "I think it was
probably one in a million even to find it."

Another bit of luck: About a year ago, a longtime Key West resident
showed up with a battered chair that had been sitting on her porch for
years. Her husband had "saved it" from the Little White House while it
was abandoned. That chair goes with the six others around the poker
table, which got plenty of use by Truman.

Ken Hechler, 93, a speechwriter and aide for Truman, said the
president invited candidates for Cabinet and executive positions to
join the poker gang: "He would advise members of his staff to rib the
hell out of the guy to see if he’s got a thick enough skin to
withstand the barbs of the Washington press corps."

The house was built in 1890 by the Navy and was used by commandants of
the submarine base and their families. It became empty when a bachelor
commandant decided it was too big.

Prescribed relaxation

In 1947, Truman’s physician told him he needed a warm, relaxing place
to recover from a nagging cold and exhaustion. The vacant home on
naval property was perfect. Truman fell in love with the southernmost
city, spending 175 days of his presidency here.

Five other presidents also have used the house: William Howard Taft,
Dwight Eisenhower, Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. And in
2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell used the home for peace talks
between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"This house deserves this kind of restoration," Wolz said. "The chance
of us having a sitting president is slim now because we are surrounded
by residences and no longer a secure Navy base. But we probably will
continue to get past presidents."

For about $200, Wolz bought two Staffordshire collectible ceramic dogs
on eBay that matched ones in old Truman photographs. A Key West
importer is trying to find the 16-piece Lenox china place settings
that were used.

"And to show how crazy this gets, we had an elderly woman visitor come
into the museum and ask why we had Japanese frames," Wolz said. "She
was a friend of Margaret Truman and said her family was the official
framers to the White House. We were able to perfectly match the
frames."

Historic paint consultant Matthew Mosca spent a week at the Little
White House gathering 150 paint samples.

After analysis, he determined that many walls were not a bluish cool
gray as thought but more of a warm gray, almost beige, which was
popular after World War II.

The current restoration suffered a setback this year when the state
Legislature did not come through with $150,000 approved for
humidity-controlled air conditioning.

Although the state owns the registered historic site, it is financed
and maintained by a private nonprofit foundation. Wolz said the money
now will have to be borrowed, because the painting, wallpapering and
upholstering can not begin until there is new air conditioning.

"It’s already a wonderful site," said Mosca, who also worked on the
U.S. Capitol and George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.

"Once they get the refinements that can now be done, it will be one of
the most accurate historic restorations."

OF BEING CONNECTED

Economic Times
N. Kumaraguru, TNN
15 Sep, 2007, 0344 hrs IST
India

The word globalisation has become so common in our life, in whatever
way we understand the term, that we have come to the conclusion that
the process is the last step to development. Most of us think that
it is altogether a new phenomenon that started with the formation of
WTO. Here we fail to see the bigger picture as we confine ourselves
only to the globalisation of trade and commerce. Webster’s dictionary
in its 1961 edition described globalisation as "making worldwide
in scope and application". In this sense, the spread of humans over
50,000 years ago to almost all parts of the world from East Africa’s
Rift Valley is the first globalisation – globalisation of human
beings. Gradually people moved to other places out of the basic human
urge to seek a better and more fulfilling life. How we see the world
today as a well-connected place, where anyone can do anything in any
field from anywhere, is the culmination of the efforts of so many
people all over the world, that lapped up millennia in the process.

It was not only trade that led to globalisation, but there are other
forces too that spurred the activity.

With the passage of time, four major groups of globalisers emerged –
traders, preachers, adventurers and warriors. As Nayan Chanda puts
it in his book Bound Together – How traders, preachers, adventurers,
and warriors shaped globalisation, "the urge to profit by trading,
the desire to spread religious beliefs, the desire to explore
new lands and the ambition to dominate others by armed might –
all had been assembled by 6000 BC to start the process we now call
globalisation". Then, slowly, empires and new settlements were formed
throughout the world. India also witnessed its rise as a major centre
of activity with the Harappan civilisation and the Chera and Pandya
kingdoms in South India. Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu had been a major
trading centre for the Romans from the first century after Christ
and the Malabar coast for the Arabs, Persians, Armenians and the Jews.

The formation of the Silk Road, that ran through three continents,
was a major inland trade route of that time. It was also a huge
conveyer belt of armies of various nations.

Later, the capture of Jerusalem and Constantinople by Muslims forced
the seafaring nations like Spain, Portugal and Italy to find new sea
routes to the East, which was then the only source of fine-quality
textile, spices and incense. Improvements in ship design and techniques
gained momentum after 1300 AD, and the introduction of steamship in
1780 was another major boost to global trade and colonisation. Until
the Industrial Revolution, Indian-made textiles remained the biggest
major manufacturing export in the world. India’s GDP was 25% of the
world GDP in 1700.

Contact of the western empires was not only confined to India,
but to Indonesia, Jawa, Sumatra and China as well. Portuguese
apothecary-turned-trader Tome Pires wrote about Malacca in 1512 that
"sixty-one nations (are) represented in its trade and some eighty-four
languages spoken at the port".

The spread of major religions like Buddhism, Christianity and
Islam gave another push to globalisation. They were most appealing
to traders, who spread ideas, cultures, foods and languages far
and wide. The religions also helped the growth of languages and
trade. Here, we can relate the growth of vernacular languages, paper
and tea trade with the spread of Buddhism and the growth of Arabic and
coffee trade with that of Islam. As their tenets found ready followers
in traders, these religions began transcending national boundaries
without much difficulties. It is quite in place to quote Chanda here
as he says, "global NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch play the role of old preachers in the present day, by creating
global consciousness about the sufferings of human beings in various
corners of the world. Yale professor of missions and world Christianity
Lamin Sanneh says that "missionary translation was instrumental in the
emergence of indigenous resistance to colonialism" also. Missionary
zeal too led to the discovery of new lands as exemplified in the life
of Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who laid open almost one
million square miles of Africa.

The ambition to control the whole world and greed have been
giving birth to so many empires throughout history – from the
largest contiguous land empire of the Mongols to the largest and
longest-enduring empire of the British. Today, the sole superpower
in the world, the US, has more than 700 military installations
world-over. Similarly, the spirit of adventurism and desire to attain
personal glory had been also driving countless adventurers to find
new places, nations and new routes. Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus,
Vasco da Gama, Ferninand Magellan, Bortolomeu Dias, et al, deserve
notice here.

Now most of the things we use in our daily life – from pens, jeans,
shirts, mobile phone, iPods to bikes and cars – have some parts, or at
least the basic technology designs, made in some other countries. In a
way, we all, as consumers, have become agents of globalisation. Apart
from the traditional groups, new groups of globalisers in the form
of students, patients and doctors have come to add up to the speed.

But what makes the word so new now is the velocity with which products
and ideas are transferred, the ever-growing volume of consumers,
products and their ideas, their variety, and the resultant increase
in the visibility of the process.

Globalisation has been suggested, though not always explicitly,
as a panacea for all the ills of under-development in several
nations. IMF’s first deputy managing director Anne O. Krueger said in
2002: "Globalisation is a process that has been going almost throughout
recorded history, and that has conferred huge benefits. Globalisation
involves changes, so it is often feared, even by those who end up
gaining from it. And some do lose in the short run when things change."

Thomas Friedman in his book The World Is Flat says: "Whenever
civilisation has gone through one of the disruptive, dislocating
technological revolutions – like Gutenberg’s introduction of the
printing press – the whole world has changed in profound ways." He goes
on to say that laying of optical fibre cable across the Atlantic is
one such revolution that helped speed up globalisation, and millions
of youth in developing countries like India and China, who otherwise
were not able to capitalise on their suppressed and neglected talents,
earn unimaginable money through outsourcing of software development
and IT-enabled services. But the picture is not so rosy as Friedman
or Krueger depicts.

As Marx and Engels point out in Communist Manifesto, "the need of a
constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie
over the entire surface of the globe….in place of the old wants,
satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants,
requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and
climes". So, those at the receiving end in the international trade
agreements and those who have not achieved any development through
the industrial revolution naturally feel left out.

Not only in the underdeveloped world that globalisatoion has tilted the
scales heavily against the less privileged, even in developed countries
like the US the gap between the rich and the not-so-rich is widening. A
US Federal reserve survey in 2004 found that the top 1% of the American
families held more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. Similarly,
in China – which is riding high on the globalisation wave tossing
aside the red garb – less than 0.5% of the households now own over 60%
of the nation’s personal wealth. Globalisation has some unintended
effects also.

But for the ‘globalised’ world, the anti-globalisation and
alter-globalisation movements – the former trying to stop the
globalisation train and the latter trying to get the left-out millions
on board- cannot get such wide attention. Only when their views too
are integrated into talks, globalisation can bring the desired results.

MUSIC FOR PEACE CONCERT IS TODAY

Daily News – Galveston County, TX
Tuesday, September 11

GALVESTON – The Sister Cities Committee of Galveston is inviting the
public to a free concert today.

The Global Day of Music for Peace Concert is part of an international
effort to promote widespread cultural acceptance following the Sept. 11
terror attacks, organizers said.

The concert will include a parade of traditional dress from all
around the world, cultural exhibits from the island’s sister cities,
a dance performance by Indian movie star Divya Unni, ballet folklorico
performances, singing by Amy Brennan, entertainment from The Strand
Theatre and a finale song by students from Galveston Independent
School District.

Rajan Koshy, a member of the committee, said the group is urging
everyone who attends the concert to dress in their traditional
costumes, from the Indian sari to the "Texan cowboy."

At the concert, the committee will collect donations of medical
textbooks to go to students in Galveston’s sister cities.

Sister Cities International, the concert’s sponsor, is a nonprofit
network that provides relationships between United States and
international cities.

Galveston has six sister cities: Niigata, Japan; Vera Cruz, Mexico;
Tamsui City, Republic of China; Stavanger, Norway; Trivandrum, India;
and Armavir, Armenia.

+++ At A Glance

WHAT: Global Day of Music for Peace Concert

WHEN: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. today

WHERE: The Garten Verein Pavilion, 27th Street and Avenue O in
Galveston

COST: Free

CALL: 409-744-6877 or 409-762-5621

ACCORDING TO ARAM MANUKIAN, NECESSITY FOR SHIFT OF POWER HAS ALREADY MATURED

Noyan Tapan
Sep 7, 2007

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian authorities have
already implemented part of their reproduction program in the May 12
parliamentarian elections. As for the other part, it is envisaged
to be implemented during the 2008 presidential elections. As Aram
Mayilian, an MP of the former RA Supreme Council, mentioned during
the discussion held on September 7, that scenario assumed from the
very beginning that the force making a majority as a result of the
parliamentarian elections "will bring its chairman to power." According
to him, a new leader, who will be accepted by the people, is necessary
"in order to spoil the game" of the authorities. Giving the name of
Levon Ter-Petrosian, the first RA President, in connection with the
forthcoming presidential elections, in the words of A. Mayilian,
cannot shake the bases of the current political system.

To oppose, Aram Manukian, a member of the administration of
the Armenian National Movement party, mentioned that pessimistic
people should not be involved in politics. He expressed conviction
that Armenia will go to a shift of power without agitations, as the
necessity for it has already matured: the country has been left out of
international proceedings, it has become a tool in the hands of Russia.

ARMENIA 32-ND IN ECONOMIC FREEDOM RATING

ARMENPRESS
Sep 7, 2007

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS: Armenia has improved its ranking
in providing freedom to do business in terms of personal choice and
competition leaving behind such nations as France, Belgium, Italy
and its immediate neighbors Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The Economic Freedom of the World Report 2007 released on Tuesday,
ranked Armenia as number 32 freest nation in terms of business
doing. Among CIS nations Armenia shares the same rating with
Kazakhstan. Another former Soviet republic of Estonia is ranked number
8, while Russia is number 112 in the list of 141 surveyed nations.

The report was prepared by U.S.-based economists and the Fraser
Institute.

Based on 2005 data, the compares the level of economic freedom in 141
countries. As a global index, it measures the degree to which policies
and institutions of these countries are supportive of economic freedom,
which includes elements like personal choice, voluntary exchange,
freedom to compete and security of privately owned property.

The report warns, however, that economic freedom index should not be
confused with democracy developments levels.

IN THE MARGINS
by Peter Koch

Artvoice, NY

September 06, 2007

Just Buffalo Literary Center has turned a corner this year with Babel,
a dramatic upgrade to the previous If All of Buffalo Read the Same
Book reading series. With four internationally prominent authors
on the bill–Orhan Pamuk, Ariel Dorfman, Derek Walcott and Kiran
Desai–including two Nobel Prize winners (Pamuk and Walcott), Babel
promises to vault Just Buffaloto the level with UB’s Distinguished
Speaker Series.

According to artistic director Mike Kelleher, "The idea of the series
is really to bring global perspective to the literary discussion in
Buffalo." This is much-needed perspective, especially as we approach
the six-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World
Trade Center. In those years, our nation’s foreign policy has grown
increasingly aggressive and antagonistic, its people more xenophobic
under the guidance of the Bush administration. But globalization
will only force us into more and more frequent, and undoubtedly
uncomfortable, encounters with the wide, unknown world. Kelleher offers
this: "You can and should read history, and you can and should read
the newspaper, but literature brings experience down to the personal
level, and you, as the reader, see events from the inside through the
eyes of a character. I think that’s a crucial experience, in terms
of learning to understand other cultures." Seeing the world through
the eyes of other cultures by reading their greatest writers is a
first step in that direction. Just Buffalo has recruited four such
renowned writers, and they make up the Babel reading series.

The series’ title recalls the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel,
in which all of humanity, united in language and purpose, attempts to
build a tower to the heavens. When God witnesses man’s arrogance, he
resolves to confuse the uniform language of the earth so that humans
can not understand one another, thereby preventing future attempts
to build such a tower. He scatters the people across the globe, and
the tower is abandoned. (A footnote: The tower is said to have been
built in ancient Sumer, which many historians believe to be Biblical
Shinar in modern Southern Iraq, today the world’s most visible stage
for cross-cultural misunderstanding.) The Tower of Babel has popularly
become a representation of human beings’ separation from one another by
way of language (the Hebrew verb balal means "to confuse or confound")
and culture. At the same time, it suggests the possibility of their
coming together once again, which is where Just Buffalo’s Babel series
steps in. The four authors in the series could be said to be united
by a single factor: duality. Each of them straddles multiple cultures,
multiple ways of seeing and understanding the world.

Though he’s never left the wealthy district in Istanbul where he
grew up, novelist Orhan Pamuk has been straddling worlds his entire
life–Europe and Asia, wealthy and poor, secular and religious,
popular and avant-garde. Such is the nature of life in contemporary
Turkey, which for the past century has been experiencing a rocky
transition from the Islamic Ottoman Empire to a secular, westernized
democratic republic that began with the leadership of Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk in the 1920s. While it’s that new political system, along
with its accompanying shift in values, that made his family rich
(his grandfather built railroads in the 1930s), Pamuk has been openly
critical of the government’s suppression of free speech, as well as
its violent civil war against Kurdish separatists and denial of the
Armenian genocide of World War I. These radical ideas have landed
him in hot water from time to time, most notably in 2005 when he was
tried by the government for "blatantly belittling Turkishness."

Pamuk has published seven novels, a screenplay, a book of essays and
a memoir entitled Istanbul: Memories and the City. Snow, published
in 2004, and the book chosen by Just Buffalo for his presentation,
tells the story of Ka, a poet and political exile who’s returned
to Turkey for his mother’s funeral. While in country, he travels
to Kars (kar is Turkish for "snow"), a remote city in Anatolia,
in search of Ipek, a beautiful woman he knew as a student who is
recently divorced. Kars is isolated by a snowstorm, during which
Ka investigates the recent suicides of girls forced to remove their
headscarves by an occasionally brutal secular regime. Through this
lens Pamuk dissects and examines the ongoing conflict in Turkey,
and arguably the world beyond, between the forces of "Westernization"
and fundamental Islam. Pamuk reads on Thursday, November 8 at 8pm.

Argentinian-born Ariel Dorfman also operates at the borderlines,
focusing much of his work on exploring the intersection of art
and human rights. He has spent much of his life on the run from
repression. Born to Jewish immigrants in 1942, his family fled to
the US in 1945, due to anti-Semitism and political intolerance in
Argentina. In 1954, however, in the age of McCarthyism, Dorfman’s
father was targeted as a communist threat, and the family fled once
again, this time settling in Chile, where he gained citizenship. The
peace he found there wouldn’t last, though. On September 11, 1973,
the American-backed General Augusto Pinochet led a violent coup
against the democratically elected government of Marxist Salvador
Allende. Dorfman, media adviser to Allende’s chief of staff, was forced
to run for his life, and he lived in exile in Brazil and Europe for
17 years. Many of Dorfman’s friends and political allies, however,
didn’t make it out of Chile. Their fate–torture and death–has
shaped much of Dorfman’s ongoing examination, and condemnation,
of human rights abuses worldwide.

As the political winds have blown Dorfman’s life from exile to exile,
he’s had to struggle with reconciling his dual identities.

Through the writing of countless works spanning nearly every genre
(novels, plays, a memoir, a travel narrative and collections
of poetry, short stories and essays) Dorfman has come to highly
value that duality. By living in two worlds and borrowing from their
"linguistic rivers," he believes he can unite distant communities. He
strives to do this, just as he strives to keep human rights abuses
at the forefront of the reading world’s mind. His play Death and the
Maiden tells the story of a Chilean woman who kidnaps the man she
believes tortured her during the rule of Pinochet’s regime. Dorfman
reads Friday, December 7 at 8pm.

West-Indian poet and playwright Derek Walcott has spent his career
examining the conflict between the heritage of European and West
Indian culture. Walcott was born in 1930 in St. Lucia, a small
windward island in the Lesser Antilles that was then a British
dependency. St. Lucia has been variously influenced by its original
Amerindian inhabitants, 400 years of colonial rule by England and
France, and by the African slaves brought over by the Europeans to
work on the sugar cane plantations. Walcott, who is of mixed heritage,
has dealt with his own duality partly by writing his plays in a mix
of English and Creole patois, but is still defining his own role in
the complex culture and history of St. Lucia.

Walcott’s poetry suggests an inner exile from both European and African
cultures. Divided between the two, he can be accepted by neither. He
is a nomad between cultures, trying to find the meaning of home, a
way to reconcile the two. One of his first plays, Henri Christophe,
is typically themed: The freed slave Henri Christophe helps Toussaint
L’Ouverture liberate Haiti from French rule, but then himself becomes
a despot. Walcott has published dozens of plays and numerous poetry
collections in his time, and was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in
Literature. He reads Thursday, March 13 at 8pm.

Indian-born author Kiran Desai is a permanent resident of the US. At
the relatively tender age of 35, she’s also the youngest woman ever to
win the Man Booker Prize, the highest honor bestowed upon a citizen of
a British Commonwealth country. It’s an honor that’s somewhat ironic,
given that the book which was awarded with the Booker, The Inheritance
of Loss, is a sprawling examination of globalization, multiculturalism,
economic inequality and fundamentalism. Much of this is seen, however,
through the window of the postcolonial chaos and despair left by Great
Britain on her homeland. A wide cast of characters is united by their
common humiliation at the hands of the economic and cultural power
of the West.

For Desai, who affiliates strongly with both India and America, the
book "was a return journey to the fact of being Indian, to realizing
the perspective was too important to give up." She insists, however,
that literature "is located beyond flags and anthems, simple ideas of
loyalty. The vocabulary of of immigration, of exile, of translation,
inevitably overlaps with a realization of the multiple options of
reinvention, of myriad perspectives, shifting truths, telling of
lies–the great big wobbliness of it all."

It is a complex situation, being of two worlds, and perhaps the only
way to sort it out is through writing. Desai will continue to do
that. She reads Thursday, April 24 at 8pm.

VARTAN OSKANIAN: IT’S HARD TO MAKE PREDICTIONS ABOUT THE INTENSITY OF THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS IN 2008

armradio.am
06.09.2007 15:25

"It’s hard to make predictions about the intensity of the negotiations
on the Karabakh conflict settlement in 2008. Now we are in a stage,
which is decisive as regards the further development of the process,
since presidential elections are expected in both Armenia and
Azerbaijan.

It’s important what kind of impact these will have: they may have no
influence at all, if there are concrete perspectives of progress,
but they can also stop the process. Therefore, it is difficult to
predict whether 2008 will be an intensive phase of negotiations
or not," Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said during the
discussions of the 2006 budget execution in the Standing Committees
of the National Assembly.

In response to a Deputy’s question, the Minister noted that no
additional financial problems emerge connected with the negotiation
process.

The Minister categorized the expenses into two groups: traveling to
foreign countries and the Co-Chairs’ visits.