Author: Felekian Ara

YUSHCHENKO URGES NEW PEACEKEEPING FORCE FOR CAUCASUS

Interfax
Aug 20 2008
Russia

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that it is necessary to
come up with new peacekeeping mechanisms for the Caucasus.Yushchenko
was speaking at a joint press conference with Romanian President
Traian Basescu in Kyiv on Wednesday.

"I’m sure that it is necessary to create new peacekeeping mechanisms
to guarantee security in the region, including the Caucasus," he said.

He said the Caucasian events showed that peacekeeping forces
are inefficient. Yuschenko noted the need for serious work to
internationalize peacekeeping forces.

Yushchenko said that everything should be done to avoid repeating
the South Ossetian scenario in other frozen conflict zones.

"We should do everything to avoid such a scenario in other frozen
conflict zones," he said.

Yushchenko listed Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and Transdniestria
among such zones.

He recalled that Ukraine does not recognize the military solution
of conflicts.

"We should make it very clear that we support territorial integrity
of any state," Yushchenko said.

He said Ukraine and Romania share the same position on the settlement
of the Georgian situation. He noted that the recognition of Georgia’s
territorial integrity should become a key principle.

The president voiced concern over the slow implementation of the
Russian-Georgian peace agreements, including the withdrawal of Russian
troops from Georgia.

Basescu, in turn, said the conflict should be settled on the basis
of a peace plan proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

YOUTH CONFERENCE BEING HELD AR ARMENIAN CATHOLICOSATE OF CILICIA

Noyan Tapan

Au g 20, 2008

ANTELIAS, AUGUST 20, ARMENIANS TODAY – NOYAN TAPAN. The Pan-Diaspora
Youth Conference that opened under the patronage of the Armenian
Catholicosate of Cilicia on August 14 is continuing its work,
discussing issues of interest to the youth.

One of the subjects under discussion was the moral aspect of using
the Internet, as well as the diversity of websites on the Armenian
Genocide. Dr.

Joe Pirri, lecturer at the University of Geneva, provided exhaustive
information on this subject. The problem of trustworthiness of sources
was also discussed, taking into account the fact that the truth about
the fair rights of the Armenian people is often distorted deliberately.

Archimandrite Grigor Chiftchian gave a lecture "The Armenian Church and
Armenian Youth". Speaking about Armenian young people’s expectations
from the church, he also touched upon the expectations of the Church
from its youth.

NEW START FOR THE ADL?
by Kat Powers

Wicked Local
Aug 20 2008
MA

The Anti-Defamation League has a new regional leader in Needham’s
Derrek Shulman, and it remains to be seen whether this will change
how folks see the organization.

As for the controversy last year involving the national ADL’s
position on the Armenian Genocide, Shulman directed such questions to
Kappel. Last summer, the national director, Abraham Foxman, called the
"consequences" of the World War I-era murder of 1.5 million Armenians
at the hands of the Ottoman Empire "tantamount to genocide," a position
local Armenian-Americans felt fell short of full acknowledgement.

RA PRESIDENT HAD A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA

armradio.am
18.08.2008 16:20

The RA President Serzh Sargsyan had a telephone talk with the President
of Georgia Michail Sahakashvili on Friday evening. The Press Office
of the President informed that Serzh Sargsyan sympathized with the
President of Georgia for the innocent victims of the last events. The
RA President added that Armenia is ready to be a "humanitarian passage"
and to provide them by humanitarian help.

The Los Angeles Times
Aug 17 2008

Slovenia hammers Armenia in Medals Per Capita
2:41 PM, August 17, 2008

Through eyeballs bloodshot from hours of trivial long division, the
world’s lonely and frivolous Medals Per Capita scholars will look at
you and share with you an ancient Medals Per Capita adage:

Fear Slovenia.

Oh, Slovenia will bring along that dauntingly low population of
2,007,711. Oh, Slovenia will get some medals. And oh yeah, Slovenians
have a demonstrable sturdiness.

Through history, they’ve come under the rule of the Roman Empire, the
Byzantine Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Carantania, the
Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, the
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes, Germans and Italians during World War II and the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

You think they can’t handle the hammer throw?

Now, as a pursuit, the hammer throw can seem alien, inscrutable and
marginal. It can make you wonder just how many dangerous things
they’re going to let people throw for medals in the Olympics.

But on Sunday night in Beijing, the hammer throw turned monumentally,
epically, phantasmagorically pivotal when Primoz Kozmus won it and
lifted Slovenia to No. 1 on the most vital, cogent, counter-snobbish
Olympic ranking, Medals Per Capita.

It brought the first track-or-field gold medal ever to the gorgeous
little kumquat of a nation next to Italy on the Adriatic. It gave
Slovenia four medals for 2,007,711 people, or one for every 501,927
Slovenians. It gave Slovenia a noticeable array of medals thus far —
one judo, one swimming, one shooting, one field.

And it finally dislodged the mighty Armenians from the summit.

Medals Per Capita should take this opportunity, then, to salute the
Armenians, who tenaciously held the No. 1 slot for five long Olympic
days, wringing five medals from 2,968,586 people to fend off hordes of
challengers while forcing us to learn rarefied factoids.

Did you know that Armenia is the smallest of the former Soviet
Republics, that its currency is the dram or that it has a bunch of
extinct volcanoes? You do now, because of Armenian prowess in
weightlifting (three medals) and wrestling (two).

In fact, that five-day reign almost certainly will prove persuasive to
the Medals Per Capita Hall of Fame voters.

Sorry, voter.

In MPC minutiae from Sunday:

— If you saw Jamaican women sweep gold, silver and silver (dead heat)
in the women’s 100 meters, and you instantly thought of how that
might ransack the Medals Per Capita standings, well, that proves
you have no life whatsoever.

It also could mean you’re trivially observant, as the
Frazer-Stewart-Simpson domination rocketed Jamaica from No. 24 all the
way to No. 3 with a glowing MPC rating of one medal per 701,083.

— The Trans-Tasman tussle, so gripping on Saturday, remained on in
earnest — Australia No. 4, New Zealand No. 5 — even though
Australia hoarded four more medals to reach 29 while New Zealand
got zero to stay at five. The Australians had to be scratching
their heads and wondering why they’d reproduced with such relative
abandon. In their defense, they do have a lot more land.

— In an Olympic story that defies all known worldly sporting belief,
Great Britain is kicking serious tail in Beijing. It has gotten so
serious that some columnists were comparing Saturday’s nine-medal
haul to the golden day of July 30, 1966, when England won the World
Cup at Wembley Stadium. Then Sunday continued almost apace, with a
medal (bronze) in men’s gymnastics, unprecedented for a nation long
thought too gorged on beer to navigate a pommel horse. A haul of 17
medals in two days brought a Very Great Britain to 24 medals and
25th place, an outstanding MPC showing for a big population.

The top 10:
(country, medal tally, MPC)

1. Slovenia (4) – one medal per every 501,927
2. Armenia (5) – 593,717
3. Jamaica (4) – 701,083
4. Australia (29) – 710,374
5. New Zealand (5) – 834,692
6. Belarus (10) – 968,576
7. Trinidad & Tobago (1) – 1,047,366
8. Norway (4) – 1,161,114
9. Estonia (1) – 1,307,605
10. Slovakia (4) – 1,311,187

Selected Others:

11. Denmark (4) – one medal per every 1,371,180
25. Great Britain (25) – 2,437,756
26. France (25) – 2,562,311
35. Germany (21) – 3,922,359
39. Singapore (1) – 4,608,167
40. United States (65) – 4,674,225
41. Canada (7) – 4,744,670
44. Japan (20) – 6,364,420
46. Spain (6) – 6,748,508
56. China (61) – 21,804,010

— Chuck Culpepper

Culpepper is a Times contributor.

Photo: Primoz Kozmus competes on Sunday during the men’s hammer throw final at the National Stadium during the 2008 Beijing Games. Kozmus, of Slovenia, won the gold medal. Credit: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

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Izmir Azerbaijanis Blackmailing Official Ankara

2008-08-16 12:25:00

ArmInfo. Izmir-based Azerbaijan Culture Center began signature campaign
demanding not to open Turkish-Armenian borders until ‘the withdrawal of
Armenian occupier forces from the Azerbaijani lands’, APA reports
quoting CHA agency.

Head of the Center lawyer Jamal Mammadkhanoglu emphasized the
importance of ‘Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani lands’. "Turkey
has to continue embargo against Armenia for that. Otherwise Azerbaijan
has no way out except liberation of its lands by the military way. The
war will put fate of energy corridor via Turkey under the question.
Therefore we call on those who don’t want war in the Caucasus to join
the signature campaign. We have to be one nation and two states and to
unite like clenched fist".

ARMENIAN SPORTSMEN WIN 3rd MEDAL AT BEIJING 2008 GAMES

Noyan Tapan

Au g 14, 2008

BEIJING, AUGUST 14, NOYAN TAPAN. Armenia has won its third bronze
medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Weightlifter Gevorg Davtian
took third place in 77 kg category.

According to Radio Liberty, Sa Jae-hyouk of South Korea became champion
in this weight category, while Li Hongli of China won the silver medal.

Greco-Roman wrestler Yuri Patrikeyev (Armenia) was beaten by Mijain
Lopez of Cuba (0-5) in a 120 kg quater-final match.

RUSSIA AND GEORGIA: ECONOMY AS A BATTLEFIELD

RIA Novosti
13:30 | 13/ 08/ 2008
Russia

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vlad Grinkevich) – In
international conflicts economic levers are sometimes more effective
than military moves.

Blockading supplies of strategic raw materials, freezing money
transfers, and strikes at the businesses of the national Diaspora may
deal as much damage as tank attacks and air strikes. Since coming to
power Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has repeatedly complained
about Russian economic pressure, and has done much to separate the
economies of the two countries.

Today, economic relations between Russia and Georgia have been reduced
to the minimum. In conditions of tough confrontation, not to mention
armed conflict, this situation is in many respects favorable to
Georgia because it reduces the threat of economic pressure.

Georgia needs about 1.8 billion cubic meters of gas per year, but
unlike many countries in the region it does not depend on Russia for
it. It receives almost all of its oil and gas from Azerbaijan. However,
a pipeline pumping Russian gas to Armenia passes through Georgian
territory. This year, Armenia is to receive 2.1 billion cubic
meters of gas. Georgia gets 10%, or 210 million cubic meters,
as a transit fee. Despite the recent conflict the supplies have
not been stopped. Georgian Minister of Energy Alexander Khetaguri
said at a news conference that there is no threat to the pipeline at
all. However, on August 11, Georgian gas workers reduced supplies by
30%, later explaining that this was because they needed to conduct
some tests. Armenia, meanwhile, has no grievances against either
side. The reductions do not affect its consumption, and the deficit
can be compensated by gas from its underground depot.

If the conflict escalates, however, Georgia may lose 210 cubic meters
of gas, which amounts to 11.6% of its consumption. The Armenian
economy would lose much more.

There have been no reports of fuel shortages in Georgia. After Georgia
reported a bombing in the vicinity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil
pipeline, Azerbaijan’s state oil company announced it would suspend
oil imports through sea ports, but the pipeline’s operator BP did
not confirm this report, and it later transpired that at least one
tanker was ready to go to Georgia.

Until the end of the last year, Russia was the main supplier of
electricity to Georgia, which received 100 megawatts of electricity
per year via the Kavkasioni transmission lines. But after the electric
power station in Inguri reached capacity last November, Deputy Minister
of Energy Archil Nikoleishvili reported that Georgia would not need
supplies from Russia anymore.

Nonetheless, Saakashvili has failed to break all links between
our economies. Like most former Soviet republics, Georgia is
relatively overpopulated, and various estimates say up to one
million Georgians live in Russia. Migration alleviates the burden
borne by the Georgian economy, and earns it considerable money in
remittances. The Russian Central Bank estimated that $142 million
was sent from Russia to Georgia in the first quarter of this year
alone. That is more than three times the official volume of trade
between the two countries. Last year the figure was $558 million,
which is 50% more than Georgia’s military budget.

Russia toughened its stance on Georgian immigration during a bilateral
row two years ago. After the Georgian authorities detained Russian army
servicemen in the fall of 2006, Vyacheslav Postavnin, deputy director
of the Federal Migration Service (FMS), said: "The majority of Georgian
migrants stay in Russia illegally. Last year, about 321,000 people from
this area crossed our border for different purposes and a mere 4,500
of them work in Russia legally. We will toughen measures against them,
up to deportation." Representatives of Georgian Diaspora complained
that innocent people suffered due to some misunderstanding between
political leaders. However, after the FMS statement, followed by the
deportation of only a couple hundred, out of hundreds of thousands
of illegal migrants, the conflict was resolved rather quickly.

Today, the Russian authorities have not yet resorted to deportation,
though the Russian Communications Ministry announced discontinuation
of postal service and money transfers from Russia to Georgia for
technical reasons. However, Saakashvili is pushing Russia to tougher
measures with his increasingly hysterical rhetoric.

For instance, his statement about Russia being at war with his
country requires an adequate response. If two countries are at war,
established practice should prompt Russia to immediately deport
all the enemy’s citizens with diplomatic immunity, as well as women
and children, and declare all men of military age prisoners of war
and intern them. Needless to say, their property should also be
confiscated. Formally, however, Russia and Georgia are not yet in a
state of war.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

FEW BENZINE RESERVES. MINISTER GIVES ANOTHER INFORMATION

Panorama.am
20:43 12/08/2008

The Minister of Transport and Communication Gurgen Sargsyan said in a
briefing that Armenia has no problems with benzene reserves. The oil
is imported from Poti and Batumi as usual. "The railway is working
as usual and the information that if the railway is not working is
not true; these are pure rumors," said the Minister.

Panorama.am took an initiative to study the situation. Talking with
representatives of "Flash" and "Araks" companies we were informed
that only directors are authorized to answer such questions, but they
were out for a break. From "Mika" company we were informed that "the
reason is the war in Georgia. It is a week our wagons are sticked in
there." In the local benzene networks the situation is different:
in some places benzene is sold only by checks, in others it is not
sold. But one thing is common: benzine has limited purchase.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 11 2008

Russia flexes muscles in Caucasus: End of post-Soviet era?

Did Georgia’s young and ambitious President Mikhail Saakashvili
miscalculate everything when he ordered an offensive in his country’s
breakaway region of South Ossetia?

Given the scale of the defeat his army suffered at the hands of the
Russian forces responding to the Georgian offensive, this appears to
be a reasonable conclusion. But whether his miscalculation is to blame
for the latest tragedy in the troubled Caucasus or not, it is a clear
fact that Russia’s backlash was massive and ominous in threatening to
shift the power balances prevailing in the Caucasus since the end of
the Cold War.

And as Moscow teaches Georgia the lesson that there is no way to
return to the status quo before the South Ossetia offensive, there is
little the West can do to stop Russia from overrunning Tbilisi’s
ambitions to assert control over its breakaway regions despite
statements from the US administration that it supports Georgia’s
`territorial integrity.’ The Russian military victory over tiny
Georgia is also a painful message to both Tbilisi and its Western
allies that Georgian desires to join NATO, a milestone in Georgia’s
eventual integration with the US-led West, are unlikely to become a
reality anytime soon.

"My heart aches at this repetitious history of Russian dominance and
aggression, whether Czarist, Bolshevik or Oligarchic," said Thomas
Goltz, a US expert on the Caucasus. "We can ask the question: Did
Misha [Saakashvili] go too far or get pulled into a trap? But it
really makes no difference right now. Russia has just declared the
‘post-Soviet era’ over and a new age has begun."

South Ossetia is one of the breakaway regions in Georgia which
declared independence in the early 1990s and ran its own affairs
without any international recognition. It has been one of the "frozen
conflicts" of the Caucasus in the post-Cold War era and thus its
turning into a full-scale conflict like this is no surprise to
observers. But it is very important to note that this is the first
time in the post-Cold War era that Russia has resorted to military
action on such a scale to defend its interests in a region it sees as
its backyard.

"One of the most important features of the post-Cold War era is the
emergence of ‘geopolitical pluralism,’" said Ã-zdem Sanberk, a
former undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, referring to
the emergence of new states in what used to be the Soviet Union
territory during the Cold War years. But a combination of what Russia
sees as a hostile encirclement by the rival West — through US moves
to build an anti-missile shield system in eastern Europe and Western
support for Kosovo’s independence from Russian ally Serbia — and
growing Russian power thanks partly to rising oil prices, now prompts
Russia to take steps to destroy this "geopolitical pluralism" in the
Caucasus. "That means a return to the Cold War era," Sanberk said.

A New York Times analysis said yesterday that the US administration
officials acknowledge that "Moscow is in the driver’s seat," given the
fact that Russia’s emerging aggressiveness is now also timed with
America’s preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan and a looming
confrontation with Iran. The newspaper quoted George Friedman, the
chief executive of Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis and intelligence
company, as saying: "We’ve placed ourselves in a position that
globally we don’t have the wherewithal to do anything. One would think
under those circumstances, we’d shut up."

Saakashvili won the last elections on promises of NATO membership,
something which Georgia hopes will give it Western protection against
former ruler Russia, and control over the breakaway regions. But
NATO’s Bucharest summit earlier this year disappointed the Georgian
administration, saying it still has problems in ensuring its
territorial integrity.

Russia, on the other hand, sees Georgia’s NATO membership as part of
the hostile encirclement by the West. After Russian diplomacy failed
to stop Kosovo’s independence earlier this year, Russian leaders
warned this would be a precedent for breakaway regions in the
Caucasus, including South Ossetia.

Georgia is the most loyal US ally in the Caucasus and is of key
importance in the transfer of natural gas and oil from Caspian fields
to the West via a non-Russian route. But now, having paid a high price
for its high-stake offensive in South Ossetia, Georgia, and others who
counted so far on the West to counterbalance Russia, are being forced
to reconsider their trust in the US and NATO. The Russian victory in
South Ossetia may well force a change of power in Georgia, with
Saakashvili eventually being replaced by a less pro-Western leader in
a blow to US interests in the region.

Russian experts, on the other hand, argue that the Russian position is
promising and peaceful. Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Peskov
argues that in fact Russia was not preparing for this conflict. "With
our president on vacation and our prime minister at the Olympics,
Russian officials were not ready for such a fast-paced and dramatic
story," he said. Speaking to Today’s Zaman yesterday, Peskov said that
following three days of Georgia’s offensive a humanitarian crisis had
erupted and a number of Russian soldiers had died in Ossetia. The
Russian society is considering the question of when and where it will
be ready to stop the military action. "With Georgian troops outside
Ossetia and with peacekeepers, working under a UN mandate, Russia will
stop immediately," he said.

Turkey, which is cooperating with Georgia in all key trans-Caucasus
transportation and energy transfer projects and is helping Tbilisi
modernize its army, has also been caught in a difficult situation.
Despite its strong support for Georgia’s integration with Western
institutions and the reliance on Tbilisi to reach the region due to
problems with neighboring Armenia, siding with Georgia in its conflict
with Russia is not a smart policy move. Trade with Russia has grown
tremendously over the past years and Russia is Turkey’s largest
natural gas supplier, providing about 70 percent of its annual gas
needs.

11 August 2008, Monday

FATMA DEMIRELLI, MAHIR ZEYNALOV TODAY’S ZAMAN