Author: Kalashian Nyrie

ARMENIAN SOCIETY REJECTS DRUG ADDICTS
A1plus
| 14:39:52 | 27-06-2005 | Social |
“The Armenian society rejects the drug addicts, in contrast to the
developed countries where they are considered full members of the
society”, says Arthur Potosyan, head of the Trans Caucasian Drug
Trafficking and Drug Combat regional program Armenian non-governmental
organizations net. In Armenia they are considered criminals, and in
Europe – ill people.
According to Arthur Potosyan, the drug addicts are people with mental
disorder, as “they do not think about their health”. Potosyan thinks
that a community cooperation must be created which will combat drug
addiction. Work must be carried out with the drug addicts themselves,
as “they do not know that they must be cured, and they know if they
are revealed, the society will reject them”.
There are no exact figures about the number of drug addicts in
Armenia. At present investigations are being held in Trans Caucasus,
and the results will be made public in 3-4 months. But it is already
clear that the situation in Armenia is much better than that in the
other states of Trans Caucasus.

ROYAL-ARMENIA” OUSTED FROM MARKET?
A1plus
| 17:51:38 | 27-06-2005 | Social |
In 10-15 days the coffee of the company “Royal-Armenia” may be
ousted from the local market, as according to the representative of
the company the Tax Committee does not give them license. Today the
representatives of the JSC “Royal-Armenia” rendered a press conference
to express their discontent with the State Tax Committee.
According to the company head Gagik Hakobyan, the Committee does
everything to oust them from the market and to make the other companies
play the game with their rules. By the way, only 20% of the production
of the company is consumed in the local market, the rest is exported
mainly to Russia and Georgia.
The problem is that the products of “Royal-Armenia” get customs
clearance for twice as much as the other companies. According to
the company lawyer Gevorg Minasyan, they pay 1.8 USD for 1 kg of
Indonesian coffee, while others pay not more than 1.1 UDS. “If what
we pay is right, why do they harm the country taking less money from
other companies? “, said the lawyer.
According to the case against “Royal-Armenia” on the basis of the
protocol about the violation of tax rules, according to the lawyer,
the circumstances which served ground for it are false, and “it was
made up as a result of the cooperation of the State Tax Committee
officials and the ex-supplier of the company, head of “Federal
Investment Group”, US citizen Vache Petrosyan”.
By the way, according to Mr. Hakobyan, the organizer of all this is
the STC Judicial administration head “who was convicted in 1996 for
bribery and cheating”.

New York Daily News
June 26 2005
Sleeping with the enemy?

Movies, books & plays use love affairs to probe
the conflict between Islam and the West

BY CELIA MCGEE

Simon Abkarian and Joan Allen in ‘Yes.’

As far as conspiracy theories go, the idea that a racist Buckingham
Palace ordered a hit on Princess Diana and her Muslim lover in a
Paris traffic tunnel eight years ago was one of the wilder ones.
But if moviemakers, writers and big-budget musical teams are to be
believed, since 9/11 little is fair in love and war when it comes to
the romantic meeting of the Middle East and West.
With the opening this weekend of “Yes,” written and directed by Sally
Potter (“Orlando”), the entertainment industry is beginning to deal
with the difficult subject of love affairs between Muslims and
non-Muslims in the light of recent world events.
“To some extent love stories with obstacles like the ones in ‘Yes’
have been around at least as long as ‘Romeo and Juliet,'” Potter says
of her movie, which is about a passionate entanglement between an
Irish-American scientist (Joan Allen) and the refugee Lebanese
surgeon (Simon Abkarian) she meets in London, where he has been
forced into a hotel kitchen job.
But, Potter believes, the World Trade Center attacks intensified
feelings on both sides about crossing boundaries of faith and ethnic
background. She set out to make a movie that tackled a lot that has
gone on since then.
“There was so much hate in the air after Sept. 11, with Americans
portrayed as the big baddies and people from the Middle East as
mysterious demons,” she says. “I wanted to set a cross-cultural love
story against it.”
Potter is not alone. This weekend also sees the U.S. release of the
French movie “Lila Says,” in which the lovebirds are a North African
teenager and a French girl of Polish descent living with her devoutly
Catholic and seriously twisted “aunt.” Based on a 1996 literary hit,
the story’s been updated with searing references to post-9/11
tensions.
November will bring Ken Loach’s “Ae Fond Kiss,” which shows a Muslim
deejay and a Scottish piano teacher in Glasgow encountering prejudice
of all stripes when they fall in love.
To be published next month, “Desertion,” a semi-autobiographical
novel by the Booker Prize-shortlisted Abdulrazak Gurnah, should also
draw attention. It reveals how a tragic love story about an
Englishman and a local Muslim beauty in 19th-century Kenya sets the
stage for heartache in modern times.
And playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton is adapting the
best-selling “The White Mughal” as a musical extravaganza that’s
conscious, he has said, of today’s global atmosphere. The book is the
true tale of an 18th-century official with England’s East India
Company who converted to Islam to marry an Indian princess descended
from the prophet Muhammad.
Movies like Potter’s, says Richard Peña, program director of the Film
Society of Lincoln Center, are being made in a climate where “Arabs
have become the ultimate ‘other.’ So the question has become what
happens when one gets involved in a romantic relationship with that
‘other,’ and what does one really know about them. Is it a matter of
‘sleeping with the enemy’?”
Allen says she tried to reflect such questions in her “Yes”
performance.
“I learned about a culture that wasn’t very familiar to me,” she
says, “and my eyes were really opened. One of the crucial messages
for me was the depth of our climate of suspicion and intolerance and
threat.”
LOVE PIONEERS CHANGE
She says she has been especially moved by audiences’ warm responses
to the movie and how “it leaves people in tears. I’m scared about
what’s going on in our government right now – any dialogue has been
shut down, and dialogue is quintessentially American. This movie
should help start it up again.”
To play her sad and angry Lebanese lover, Abkarian, an Armenian
Christian, partly drew on childhood memories of when his family
briefly lived in Lebanon.
But he was also working with the way he has often found himself
unfavorably stereotyped in Europe and the U.S.
“We need to teach people that being one thing is not better than
another,” he says, “that we all need to coexist. I would end my days
if I didn’t believe we can meet in love and mutual respect.”
To that end, Potter says she fought against high odds to get “Yes”
made. Funding was hard to come by, the invasion of Iraq meant she
could no longer shoot scenes in Beirut, and new State Department
restrictions suddenly prevented Allen from filming in Cuba, another
important plot location.
“I do still believe that love can overcome hatred,” Potter says.
“Love – and hope – is the engine that pioneers change for the
better.”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
25. Juni 2005
Wer Geschichte fälscht, ist verkrüppelt;
“J’accuse” oder “Germinal”? Literatur und Politik in der Türkei
von Ahmet Altan
Wenn ein wichtiger Schriftsteller aus der Türkei einen der
angesehensten Preise der Welt zugesprochen bekommt und dann jemand
aus Deutschland in Istanbul anruft und fragt, wie denn die Reaktionen
auf diesen Preis in der Türkei seien, positiv oder negativ, dann
haben wir offensichtlich ein Problem. Warum fällt einem als erstes
die Frage ein, ob man es in der Türkei als Ausdruck von Freundschaft
oder von Feindschaft versteht, wenn Orhan Pamuk, ein Autor der
allerersten Güte, den Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels erhält?
Sie fällt einem ein, weil solche Fragen begründet sind. Heute hat in
der Türkei kaum jemand Zweifel an Pamuks literarischer Qualität. Wenn
heute hinterfragt wird, warum er ausgezeichnet wird, wenn ein
Schatten auf diesen Preis fällt, von dem ich glaube, daß ihn Pamuk
wahrlich verdient hat, dann hat Literatur damit nichts zu tun.
Dafür verantwortlich sind der türkische Mangel an Mut, Tatsachen zu
akzeptieren, und die europäische Geringschätzung der Literatur. Die
Türkei ist ein Land, das seinen Kindern seine Geschichte falsch
beibringt. In diesem Land lernt kein Kind in der Schule, daß in einer
vergangenen Zeit Türken Armenier auf eine blutige Reise über die
Schwelle des Todes geschickt haben.
Wenn eines Tages jemand diese Wahrheit in schlichten Worten
ausspricht, sind die ersten Reaktionen unausweichlich der Aufschrei:
“Das ist gelogen!” Wer so schreit, hat auf seine Weise sogar recht,
denn ihm wurde nie etwas von diesen Dingen erzählt. Der ist nämlich
davon überzeugt, daß jemand, der so etwas sagt, ein Feind der Türken
ist. Daß eine ganze Menge Türken glauben, die Welt hasse die Türken,
liegt an der erbärmlichen Unkenntnis ihrer Geschichte, daran, daß sie
unwissend gehalten werden. Das ist der erste Grund für die Reaktionen
auf Pamuks mutige Äußerungen zum Problem der Armenier.
Der andere ist der bedauerliche Mangel an Liebe zur Literatur, der
bei den Europäern in letzter Zeit zu beobachten ist. Europa erweckt
den Eindruck, als messe es Autoren, die außerhalb seines Territoriums
leben, mehr an ihrem politischen Mut als an ihrem literarischen Wert.
Politischer Mut sammelt mehr Applaus als literarischer Wert. Die
Europäer geben ein so seltsames Bild ab, als würden sie, wenn Émile
Zola Pakistani wäre, sein “J’accuse” für wichtiger halten als
“Germinal”.
Kein wahrer Schriftsteller wünscht sich, daß sein politischer Mut
seinen literarischen Wert verdunkelt, sondern findet so etwas
vielmehr beschämend. Aber manchmal werden Schriftsteller mit solchem
Leid konfrontiert, daß sie nicht anders können, als mit einem
Aufschrei die Menschen aufzuwecken, und daß sie versuchen, das
Gewissen der Leute aufzustören, um menschlichen Schmerz zu lindern.
Daß sie das tun, erhöht ihren literarischen Rang nicht; und wenn sie
es nicht tun, wird er nicht gemindert. Sie tun so etwas, weil sie
keine Wahl haben.
Aber daß Europa sein Ohr mehr dem politischen Aufschrei öffnet als
dem feinen Flüstern der Literatur, weckt bei den Leuten Zweifel. Sie
fragen sich: “Interessiert sich Europa für einen Schriftsteller, der
mich kritisiert, weil er die Wahrheit sagt und mich so in
Schwierigkeiten bringt, oder weil es seine Literatur schätzt?” Und
die das Sagen im Lande haben, stacheln solche Verdächtigungen
schamlos auf.
Daß Pamuk diesen wohlverdienten Preis gleich nach der Diskussion um
die Armenier erhält, führt leider zu mißgünstigen Verdächtigungen.
Nicht wenige rümpfen die Nase wegen dieser Auszeichnung und
unterstellen ihr außerliterarische Motive. Ich glaube, dieser Preis
würde Deutsche, Türken und auch Pamuk glücklicher machen, wenn die
Türkei ihrer eigenen Vergangenheit nicht so unwissend gegenüberstünde
und ihre Schriftsteller, die Tatsachen aussprechen wollen, nicht dazu
verurteilte, “mutig zu sein”, und wenn Europa eine Liebe zur
Literatur demonstrierte, die die Leute davon überzeugte, daß sie nur
mit literarischen Maßstäben gemessen wird.
Bedauerlicherweise durchleben wir eine Zeit der Defekte. Jede
Gesellschaft hat ihre eigenen Defekte. Die Türkei ist durch die Lügen
über ihre eigene Vergangenheit verkrüppelt. Europa ist behindert,
weil es mit der Taubheit von jemandem, der seine Kreativität
weitgehend verloren hat, dazu neigt, politischen Heldenmut in anderen
Ländern wichtiger zu nehmen als Literatur. All diese Defekte werden
am Ende in der Literatur gespiegelt.
Ein wertvoller Schriftsteller wie Pamuk, der der Stolz der Türkei
sein müßte, wird mit ungerechtfertigten Unterstellungen gepeinigt,
eine hohe Auszeichnung von Zweifeln überschattet. Es ist nicht
leicht, Defekte schnell zu beheben, aber wenn Europa glaubwürdiger
macht, daß es die Literatur nur als Literatur sieht, dann tut es
etwas dafür, einen so wichtigen Schriftsteller wie Pamuk, der keines
außerliterarischen Maßes bedarf, vom Zwielicht ungerechtfertigter
Anschuldigungen zu schützen.
Aus dem Türkischen von Christoph K. Neumann.
Der Schriftsteller Ahmet Altan wurde 1950 in Istanbul geboren. Auf
deutsch erschien sein Roman “Der Duft des Paradieses”.

LONDON, June 25 (Reuters)
Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:32 PM BST
Wimbledon-Nalbandian ends Murray’s challenge
By Pritha Sarkar
Argentina’s David Nalbandian clawed back from two sets down for the first
time in his career on Saturday to spike the challenge of British wildcard
Andrew Murray 6-7 1-6 6-0 6-4 6-1 and reach the Wimbledon fourth round.
Former finalist Nalbandian looked to be heading towards the exit after
Murray turned the weight of British expectation to his advantage to grab a
4-2 lead in the fourth set.
But the 18th seed fought back defiantly and used all his experience against
the 18-year-old ranked 312 in the world and who was playing in only his
seventh match on the main tour.
After Nalbandian had levelled the match at two sets apiece, a cramping
Murray, who needed courtside treatment before the start of the fifth set,
ran out of steam and bowed out following three hours and 13 minutes of high
drama on Centre Court.
Although Murray walked out of the famed arena with the sound of deafening
applause ringing in his ears, there was no masking his disappointment.
“He played very good and it was very tough for me in the beginning but I
knew if I could win the fourth, I would win the match,” said Nalbandian.
“He lost this match because of his physical problems and needs to work on
that.”
Murray’s exit also left Britain without a singles competitor in the second
week of the grasscourt championships for the first time since 1991.
For more than 2-1/2 hours, though, Murray looked to be on the brink of
causing another spectacular upset just two days after swatting aside 14th
seed Radek Stepanek.
NOISY FANS
Roared on by the boisterous fans packed into the most famous stage in
grasscourt tennis, the Dunblane teenager left the Argentine shell-shocked
with the ferocity of his groundstrokes.
The moment Murray sealed a two-set lead, the crowd, including actor and
fellow Scot Sean Connery, leapt to their feet to roar their approval.
Murray appeared to take a breather in the third set before once again
turning on the heat in the fourth.
But Nalbandian, sensing Murray’s fatigue, refused to lie down.
He crunched winners past the young Scot to pull back to 4-4 and kept his eye
on the ball to save three more break points in the next game.
That appeared to take the fight out of Murray and his lanky frame let him
down.
Murray’s hopes faded into the twilight and he bowed out with a forehand
error on match point.
“My legs were knackered, I just couldn’t move towards the end. I was annoyed
I couldn’t keep going in the fifth set. My leg just went because I was so
tired,” he said.
The Argentine will run into another teenager on Monday, France’s Richard
Gasquet, as he aims to reach the last eight for the first time since his
runner-up finish in 2002.

Iran Focus, Iran
June 24 2005
Iran’s fourth largest city spends quiet election day
Fri. 24 Jun 2005

Iran Focus
Tabriz, Iran, Jun. 24 – Polling stations across this north-western
metropolis and capital of Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province remained
quiet throughout the day, as the local population by and large
ignored the second round of presidential elections in Iran.
A tour of the city at different times of the day between 9 am and 4
pm showed that there were only a handful of voters in most centres,
with the security forces often outnumbering the voters. In one of the
city’s main thoroughfares, Abressan Avenue, two polling centres had
no one turning up to vote between 10 am and 2 pm.
In Imam Sadegh Mosque, Hannaneh Primary School, Dehkhoda School, and
Masjede Ghariblar, all in downtown Tabriz, the number of voters at
any given time varied between one and four.
The only polling station with a large crowd was Salar-e Shahidan
Mosque, the gathering point for members of Ansar-e Hezbollah, the
state-organized gangs of Islamic vigilantes.
In Taleghani Street, Shahidi Mosque and Imamzadeh Mosque there were a
handful of voters in the afternoon.
The polling station at Shahnaz Intersection, a district populated by
ethnic Armenians, was completely deserted.
People walking in the streets or sitting in cafes and restaurants
smiled and congratulated one another on the evident victory of
boycott calls. Some joked that the state radio and television would
be announcing an extension of voting deadline to deal with `the huge
turnout’.
Observers believe that if the voting pattern in other cities were
broadly similar to what has been going on in Tabriz, Tehran’s mayor
would stand a better chance than former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.
While the vast majority of ordinary voters have stayed away from the
polls, the small minority who support the radical clerics have come
out to vote for their favourite candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The New York Daily News
June 23, 2005
Five must-see plays
Plays that merit the spotlight

If you look at what creates most of the headlines about theater, you might
imagine the only plays that get produced in New York are musicals,
specifically ones based on successful films.
But there is a surprising amount of serious theater in New York now. Apart
from “Doubt” and “The Pillowman” on Broadway, there are exciting dramas in
theaters all over the city, from the West Village to the upper East Side to
what has become Off-Broadway’s busiest thoroughfare, 15th St. just off Union
Square.
Here are five Off-Broadway plays definitely worth considering.
In some ways, the most remarkable play in New York at the moment is “Private
Fears in Public Places,” by Alan Ayckbourn. What is significant about the
production (at 59E59 Theatres until July 3) is that Ayckbourn himself – one
of the leading English playwrights of the last three decades – directed it.
The cast is from his own Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in the north
of England.
Like many of Ayckbourn’s works, “Private Fears” is a quiet comedy. Indeed,
the lives it describes are full of sadness. In one case – a man whose
longtime gay lover has died – the sadness is deep. In others, it is the
sadness of people who live in isolation, even from those closest to them.
They are, of course, English. So this sadness is buried beneath civility and
gentle humor.
Ayckbourn’s actors convey these complex feelings with a combination of
subtlety and intensity that makes the play’s many little dramas as funny as
they are disturbing.
This is particularly true of Melanie Gutteridge as an upper-class woman
whose relationship with an unemployed ex-soldier is souring. Class (in both
senses) is something hard for American actors to convey as effortlessly as
she does. But she also projects a touching stoicism.
As the boyfriend, Paul Thornley has some marvelous drunk scenes, no less
gross for being beautifully understated. As the bartender who serves as a
shrink to him (and whose own grief we discover only late in the play),
Adrian McLoughlin has a deeply touching dignity.
Paul Kemp and Sarah Moyle are hilarious at conveying the repressed longings
of a brother and sister, both single. So is Alexandra Mathie as a born-again
Christian who finds unexpected objects for her sexual needs.
Similar prowess is on display in another theater at 59E59, in Stewart
Permutt’s “Unsuspecting Susan,” performed by Celia Imrie, best known for her
role in the “Bridget Jones’s Diaries” movies.
Imrie plays a very upper-class Englishwoman whose world has raced out of
control. High comedy leads to queasy tension. Imrie balances the humor and
poignancy of her character elegantly.
Most of the characters in Austin Pendleton’s “Orson’s Shadow,” at the Barrow
Street Theater, are also English, but since they are all in the theater they
operate at an emotional and decibel level far above those in Ayckbourn’s
play.
All but one are public figures. The play concerns an actual incident in
1960, when Orson Welles, his Hollywood career in shambles, directed Laurence
Olivier in Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.” It is the moment when Olivier is leaving
Vivien Leigh for his co-star, Joan Plowright.
On the one hand, the dialogue Pendleton has given them is deliciously
theatrical, but at times, especially in the glimpses we get of Leigh’s
breakdown, the emotions are raw and harrowing.
Interestingly, the cast is also “foreign.” Most of the actors are from
Chicago.
Jeff Still has a commanding presence as Welles. John Judd makes a
fascinating adversary for him as the oddly insecure, wheedling, combative,
ultimately poignant Olivier. Sean McNall is superb as the witty but
stammering critic Kenneth Tynan, who has to act as their referee.
Jennifer Van Dyck handles Leigh’s hysteria with tremendous authority, and
Susan Bennett has an impressive strength as Plowright. Ian Westerfer plays a
gofer with panache.
Richard Kalinoski’s “Beast on the Moon,” at the Century Theater (111 E. 15th
St.), is about a woman who survived the 1915 Armenian genocide and has
arrived in Milwaukee five years later as a mail-order bride.
The play moves from tragedy and turmoil to a profound sense of promise, a
journey director Larry Moss captures powerfully. Lena Georgas plays the
bride with affecting delicacy. Omar Metwally, who received a Tony nomination
for his work in “Sixteen Wounded,” is equally impressive here, blending
bewildered vulnerability with Old World masculine assertiveness. Louis
Zorich has wistful charm as an older version of the man.
Just down the block is “Manuscript,” by Paul Grellong, the first actual play
to appear in the Daryl Roth Theatre (101 E. 15th St.). The play about three
friends, two of whom want to be writers, is an extended exercise in fooling
the audience.
But the three young performers catch all of its unexpected turns niftily,
especially Marin Ireland, who makes an unscrupulous woman oddly fetching.
Pablo Schreiber and Jeffrey Carlson are both skillful as college friends.
Producing theater in New York has never been more of an uphill battle, but
all these Off-Broadway productions prove that victory is possible.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE carries out regular monitoring of Karabakh front-line
Arminfo
22 Jun 05
YEREVAN
An OSCE mission today held regular monitoring on the contact line
between the Nagornyy Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces northwest
of the village of Kuropatkino in Martuni District of the Nagornyy
Karabakh Republic [NKR].
The field assistants to the personal representative of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, Miroslav Vymetal (Czech Republic), Peter Kay
(Britain) and Torsten Ahren (Sweden), carried out monitoring from the
positions of the NKR Defence Army, the press service of the NKR
Foreign Ministry reported. Andrzej Kasprzyk, the personal
representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, led the monitoring
group on the Azerbaijani side.
The Azerbaijani side, unlike the Karabakh side, did not take members
of the monitoring mission to its front-line positions. A single shot
was registered from the Azerbaijani side 1 km away from the monitored
area.
Representatives of the NKR Defence Ministry and Foreign Ministry also
accompanied the mission.

Azeri official vows to outlaw Jehovah’s Witnesses
Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
21 Jun 05
[Presenter] The Azerbaijani State Committee for Work with Religious
Structures has put the blame on the Board of Muslims of the Caucasus
for the illegal religious propaganda of Jehovah’s Witnesses community
in the country. The committee’s chairman, Rafiq Aliyev, says these
negative phenomena is occurring while Islam is not being properly
advertised in the country.
[Correspondent] The official registration of the religious community
of Jehovah’s Witnesses will be annulled. The chairman of the
Azerbaijani State Committee for Work with Religious Structures, Rafiq
Aliyev, has said that the reason behind the decision is that the
community’s leaders involve foreign citizens and underage children in
worshipping and sermons and exert psychological pressure on
them. Refusal to obey the country’s law and do military service in
order not to fight against Armenians are among the ideas they
promote. Aliyev said these offenses would be heard in court.
[Aliyev] I gave relevant instructions to the committee’s registration
department about a week ago. They are preparing materials now. We are
waiting for materials from police department No 34 in [Baku’s] Xatai
district and from the Ganca police department. We will submit these
materials to court probably next week.
[Correspondent] Aliyev said that the state committee had not given
permission for the community’s activities. The community was
registered with the Justice Ministry in 1996 and its papers were
automatically sent to the state committee when the latter was
formed. He said the committee had tried to annul the community’s
registration since the religious community involved underage children,
but these attempts failed due to parents’ intervention.
He said that the Board of Muslims of the Caucasus was to blame for the
fact that religious communities of this kind were widespread in the
country.
[Aliyev] The Board of Muslims of the Caucasus is also to blame for the
fact that religious communities of this kind are widespread in
Azerbaijan and lay down what Azerbaijani society should do. The
relationships within the Board of Muslims of the Caucasus, as well as
between Shi’i and Sunni Muslims and between Shi’is and Wahhabis
[changes tack]. Sometimes they appear on TV to insult one
another. Abnormal relations between religious communities representing
different trends in Islam do not allow [them] to struggle against
other destructive communities. This is the result and one of the
reasons of what we have.
[Correspondent] He stressed that foreign citizens who took part in
sermons of Jehovah’s Witnesses had already been deported from the
country since by law, they cannot be remanded in custody for a long
time, nor can they be brought to book.
[Presenter] The spokesman for the Board of Muslims of the Caucasus,
Haci Akif, has said that there are no problems between Shi’is and
Sunnis in Azerbaijan. Their relationship can serve as an example for
other countries, he said.
As to the illegal activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses, he said that the
community was registered with the State Committee for Work with
Religious Structures and therefore responsibility rests with the
committee.
Education Minister Misir Mardanov has confirmed that missionaries have
intensified activities in secondary schools. He said that some
teachers were to blame for children’s involvement in sermons and
promised that serious measures would be taken regarding them.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Newsday, NY
June 21 2005
In rejection of the EU, voices of pride
James P. Pinkerton
June 21, 2005
GENEVA
This is a great place to observe the workings – and unworkings – of
the European Union, because the Swiss were never dumb enough to get
caught up in the politico-bureaucratic trap of the EU.

The failure of the European Union to become a “United States of
Europe” provides a cautionary lesson to all those – on the right as
well as the left – who think national borders and cultural traditions
are just so many scraps of paper to be trampled upon in the name of
some abstract global Good.
The Swiss are nobody’s enemy. They haven’t fought a foreign war since
1815. Indeed, they are eager to trade with anyone, as well as offer
foreigners those famously secretive Swiss bank accounts.
But precisely because Switzerland became a rich country by doing its
own thing, the Swiss never wanted to join the EU, the 25-member-state
conglomeration that stretches from Portugal to Finland to Greece.
The EU has been in the news lately because voters in two linchpin
countries, France and Holland, voted down the proposed EU
constitution that would have cemented the Union. That constitution
was a 474-page brick of a document, written by pan-European elites
who wanted to flatten the continent, politically, so that decisions
about the fate of 450 million people would be made in Brussels, far
beyond the reach of any mere individual nation.
Americans, who prize state and local control of their government,
would immediately reject any similar attempt to move political
authority to Washington, let alone move it to a coalition of
foreigners headquartered in a foreign country. But most observers
thought that the Europeans were different and that people there would
vote for the new EU constitution, thus forever mixing the Irish and
the Spanish and the Maltese into the same Brussels blender for the
benefit of multicultural business, as well as multicultural politics.
But of course, because true democracy is impossible when the voters
speak 100 different languages, the EU constitution would have ushered
in a perpetual Eurocratic reign.
Well, now we know the stubborn truth about Europe. In voting down the
constitution, Europeans demonstrated that they, too, have a pride of
place and reverence for their unique traditions. They don’t want to
see their flags, anthems and everything else buried by red tape from
a centralized Eurocracy.
Indeed, not only has ratification of the constitution been put on
hold, but efforts to enact a new EU budget are deadlocked as well.
And now the euro currency is under siege. “People will tell you
Europe is not in a crisis – it is in a profound crisis,” Luxembourg
Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told Reuters after he chaired the
latest failed summit of EU chieftains.
Of course, what Juncker, a prototypical Euro-litist, regards as a
“crisis” would be regarded by others as a somewhat belated outbreak
of common sense. That’s because the EU elites weren’t eager to create
just a hulking European superstate. They wanted to create an even
bigger Eurasian superstate, by including Turkey and possibly other
Muslim and Arab countries.
Turkey, population 70 million, is a relatively modern and democratic
Muslim country, even if it has yet to properly account for, or
apologize for, its massacre of more than a million Armenians during
World War I. But Turkey has only the barest toehold in Europe,
physically, ethnically and religiously. Its capital and most of its
population are in what the Romans were the first to call Asia Minor,
and most of its people bow down to pray toward Mecca. And so for the
EU elites to seek to bring Turkey into their union was proof those
elites were dismissive of “Europe” all along. What the EU-ers really
wanted was an intercontinental empire, as big as possible, reaching
everywhere possible.
Most people want peaceful trade and travel. The Swiss had it right
all along. And so, like an earlier polyglot project dreamed up by the
powerful, the Tower of Babel, the EU is now falling.