Author: Kalashian Nyrie

Sunday Times (London)
January 2, 2005, Sunday
Good reasons and bad for our explosion of charity
by Rod Liddle
The British public should be feeling a little better about itself
this morning. At the time of writing we’ve donated £60m to the
various charity hotlines set up in aid of the victims of the tsunami
that devastated southeast Asia on Boxing Day.
I suppose we could be accused of self-aggrandisement by pointing out
that this is more cash per head of population than almost any other
country on earth, but it is nevertheless heartening.
Where did this sudden magnanimity come from? For once the government
read the public wrong and initially pledged only a stingy £1m,
presumably having forgotten that eight years ago it had made a pledge
of a rather different magnitude: to end poverty worldwide. It may
well be that the parsimony of its first reaction provoked the rest of
us to get our wallets out.
But, whatever, since the original announcement from Hilary Benn,
Labour has been shamed into increasing its contribution to £50m. Now
even institutions that are mistrusted by the public, such as the
English Premier League, are forking out the cash. The country is for
once united.
If what follows from me seems a little cynical, it is not intended to
be. We should allow ourselves a moment to revel in the sin of pride.
Whatever way you look at it, £60m is a quite remarkable contribution
-but we might also ask ourselves, as we recite our credit card
numbers down the hotline, why this particular disaster galvanised the
nation.
Below I’ve listed the reasons why I think the British public has been
prepared on this occasion to dig so deeply. Some of the points are, I
think, blindingly obvious. Others are more complex and perhaps
contentious. Altruism is never so straightforward as it seems; we are
motivated.
oThe disaster was massive and truly calamitous in its impact, and
seems to have victimised the weak and the helpless; children, women,
the poor, the elderly and the infirm.
oIt occurred through an act of God, rather than as the result of
wicked, incompetent or corrupt foreign governments, or through the
offices of evil terrorist organisations.
oIt was a politically neutral disaster that at least temporarily
united communities that in drier moments cordially loathe each other.
One Indonesian chief of police announced that his men would be
helping the separatist rebels in Aceh, rather than killing them,
torturing them or merely arresting them. “They’re searching for their
families, just as our men are searching for ours,” he said, rather
movingly. Who knows, he may even have been telling the truth.
Natural disasters have a tendency to put human, political squabbles
into perspective. We are tempted to hope, vainly I fear, that this
sense of perspective will remain after the waters have receded.
oThe disaster occurred at a time of year when we are most likely to
be reminded of our Christian duty of charity. That sermon from
midnight mass has not yet left our minds, has it?
oThe disaster occurred at a time of year when we have just wallowed
in a shameful orgy of over-indulgence and conspicuous consumption. We
have spent ludicrous sums of money feeding our fat faces and buying
pointless and expensive gifts for people who, in some cases, we don’t
even like very much.
Or at all.
I wonder how many people rang the credit card hotline and,
deliberating how much to give, suddenly recalled that they’d recently
spent £29 in Debenhams on a presentation box of lavender soaps for
their ghastly mother-in-law? Shame was already poking its nose over
the parapet, even before the tsunami struck. It was the time of year
when the British people were at their most morally vulnerable.
oThe disaster occurred in a part of the world that is familiar to
many of us and for which we feel affection and even affinity.
The British public did not fork out over much for that Christmas
earthquake in Armenia, if you remember. Still less for the
destruction of Tashkent, back in the 1960s. Many of us associate
Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Andamans with happy memories: it was as
if part of us -a nice part -was washed away by that tsunami.
oWe were not harangued or bullied into giving money by mouthy,
overpaid, has been pop stars or self-righteous and unfunny comedians
wearing red plastic noses.
There was almost no haranguing of any kind. Just a regular reminder
of where you could give money, if you wanted to. The public was left
to its own devices and to make its own judgment. If we felt guilty
about our own wellbeing or affluence, it was a natural and genuine
response to tragedy, rather than something we were told to feel.
oWe may have a collective gut instinct that on this occasion the
money will go directly towards immediate disaster relief rather than
into the pockets of useless and corrupt governments or the
ever-expanding London offices of our huge charities with their
political lobbyists, campaign co-ordinators and publicists. I assume
that this gut instinct is correct.
oWe may have become shamed and irritated by the media’s incessant
concentration on the plight of well-heeled British gap-year
backpackers rather than, say, Sri Lankan peasants.
One can mourn the deaths of the British holidaymakers and, through
empathy, grieve with their families. But we may retain a sense of
perspective, not like one newspaper which announced that a silver
lining to the disaster was the fact that our bedraggled returning
tourists would be able to claim on their insurance policies.
oThe credit card hotlines were well organised; clear and simple to
use and, crucially, it was easy to get through.
oTony Blair was out of the country. We were spared that dubious
solemn expression he invariably adopts for such occasions. More
seriously, we perhaps felt that collectively we were at least equal
to the government in our ability to alleviate suffering.
oA comparatively high number of British citizens have relatives in
many of the countries affected, particularly Sri Lanka and India.
The Tamils who run my local grocery store in southeast London had set
up a makeshift collection box by midday on Boxing Day. It was placed
next to the bubblegum display and had a brown paper wrapper on which
was scrawled: “Help our family and friends in Sri Lanka.” It was
impossible not to contribute. This is one of the more likeable
aspects of globalisation: these days, we know we are connected.
oIt could have been us. No matter how many times the experts remind
us that the Indian Ocean is prone to the occasional seismological
disruption, the suddenness and the seemingly arbitrary nature of the
disaster let us know that we are surely not immune.
In the face of such irresistible destruction, we all feel weak and
helpless. No matter what the experts say: it could have been us.
The telephone number for the appeal, by the way, is still 0870 606
0900.

MehrNews.com, Iran
Jan 2 2005
Ups and downs in Ankara-Tel Aviv ties
TEHRAN, Jan. 2 (MNA) — The Turkish Foreign Ministry recently
announced that Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul would be visiting Israel
in early January.
During his two-day stay, Gul will also visit the new Palestine
Authority officials who took charge after the death of Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat.
The talks will focus on Turkey-Israel ties, Turkey-Palestine ties,
the Middle East peace process, and other regional and international
developments.
Ankara and Tel Aviv had previously signed significant political,
economic, and security agreements. However, the countries’ ties were
restrained somewhat after the Justice and Development (AK) Party
gained power in Turkey and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
announced in a press conference that all countries were required to
respect international law but Israel was the only regime that had not
done so.
Prior to these remarks, Turkey had also expressed its displeasure
over the massacre of Palestinians by Israeli troops.
In addition, Turkey suffered certain setbacks in its military ties
with Israel, and animosity toward the Zionist regime increased among
the Turkish populace following the crash of a plane which Israeli
technicians had recently repaired.
Also, the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin further
complicated Turkey’s internal situation.
Erdogan criticized Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for rejecting
Turkey’s offer to mediate between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
`Turkey wants to see peace established in the Middle East, but
unfortunately Sharon does not help us in this process and his troops’
recent attacks against the Rafah refugees are proof of this fact,’ he
said.
The Zionist regime then attempted to improve its ties with Turkey by
dispatching delegations to the country. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert visited Turkey to start a new round of economic talks,
but Erdogan’s refusal to meet him cooled ties between the two
countries.
Olmert tried to patch up ties, saying that he did not think Erdogan
regarded Israel as a terrorist government because he knew it was the
country making the most serious efforts to combat terrorism.
Then a delegation of officials from the Turkish Justice Ministry and
the AK Party traveled to Tel Aviv to hold talks with high-ranking
Israeli officials.
During the visit, AK Party leader Saban Disli and his deputies
visited Israel’s National Security Council in order to discuss
military and security cooperation.
The efforts of the Zionist lobby in the United States to promote a
strengthening of ties between Turkey and Israel should also be
mentioned.
Over the past several years, the Zionist regime has attempted to
expand its relations with Turkey due to its strategic position
straddling Europe and the greater Middle East and its rich resources,
most notably its plentiful supplies of water, which is a key issue in
the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Turkey intends to maintain its military superiority over
its two rivals, Greece and Cyprus, by expanding its military
cooperation with Israel.
It also hopes to take advantage of the influence of the Zionist lobby
in the U.S. in its accession talks with the European Union as well as
in the issue of Turkey’s dispute with the Armenians.
In addition, the Turkey-Israel-Azerbaijan partnership for cooperation
has received the support of the United States. An Israeli daily
recently revealed that U.S. President George W. Bush told Erdogan to
abandon his détente policy and normalize Turkey’s ties with Israel
during the recent NATO meeting.
The paper added that Washington fears that tension among its allies
in the region could be detrimental to U.S. interests in the Middle
East.
This is because U.S. officials believe that the
Turkey-Israel-Azerbaijan partnership could neutralize the efforts of
what they call the Iran-Armenia-Greece partnership.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Vazquez beats Simonyan to retain IBF title

Associated Press
EL CAJON, Calif. — Israel Vazquez handed top-ranked contender Artyom
Simonyan his first defeat and retained his IBF junior featherweight
championship with a fifth-round knockout Tuesday night.
Making his first defense of the 122-pound title he won nine months ago,
Vazquez ended it with a looping right that snapped back Simonyan’s head
and prompted referee James Jen-Kin to halt the bout with 59 seconds gone
in the fifth of 12 scheduled rounds.
The 27-year-old Vazquez of Los Angeles knocked down Simonyan twice early
in the third round with a barrage of blows to the head, and in the
opening seconds of the fifth with a right to the head.
Vazquez, who weighed 121} pounds, won it in the fifth despite Simonyan
receiving an extra 2:20 rest during the fourth when the champion’s
gloves had to be replaced because of a rip on the left one.
The 29-year-old Simonyan from Glendale, who weighed 121½, was cut under
his left eye in the third round, and was bleeding in the mouth start the
fourth.
Two of the three judges’ had Vazquez ahead by five points through four
rounds, The other judge had Vazquez ahead by three.
Vazquez now has a record of 37-3 with 28 knockouts. Simonyan slipped to
14-1-1 with seven KOs.
/This story is from ESPN.com’s automated news wire. Wire index
<;/

New York Times
Dec 29 2004
New Hope of Syrian Minorities: Ripple Effect of Iraqi Politics
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
QAMISHLI, Syria, Dec. 28 – The Iraqi election next month may be
evoking skepticism in much of the world, but here in northeastern
Syria, home to concentrations of several ethnic minorities, it is
evoking a kind of earnest hope.
“I believe democracy in Iraq must succeed,” Vahan Kirakos, a Syrian
of Armenian ethnicity, said recently. “Iraq is like the stone thrown
into the pool.”
Though Syria’s Constitution grants equal opportunity to all ethnic
and religious groups in this very diverse country, minority activists
say their rights are far from equal. They may not form legal
political parties or publish newspapers in minority languages. More
than 150,000 members of Syria’s largest minority, the Kurds, are
denied citizenship.
Minority issues remain one of the infamous “red lines,” the litany of
forbidden topics that Syrians have long avoided mentioning in public.
But in the year and a half since Saddam Hussein was removed from
power in Iraq, that has begun to change, with minority activists
beginning to speak openly of their hopes that a ripple effect from
next door may bring changes at home.
And here in Syria’s far northeastern province of Hasakah, which
borders Turkey and Iraq, there are signs of a new restlessness.
In March, more than 3,000 Kurds in Qamishli, a city in Hasakah
Province on the Turkish border, took part in antigovernment protests,
which led to clashes with Syrian security forces and more than 25
deaths.
In late October, more than 2,000 Assyrian Christians in the
provincial capital, Hasakah City, held a demonstration calling for
equal treatment by the local police. The demonstration, which Hasakah
residents say was the first time Assyrians in Syria held a public
protest, followed an episode in which two Christians were killed by
Muslims who called them “Bush supporters,” and “Christian dogs.”
Nimrod Sulayman, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party’s
central committee, said Hasakah’s proximity to Iraq and demographic
diversity meant that residents of the province were watching events
in Iraq and taking inspiration from the freedoms being introduced
there.
“This Assyrian protest in Hasakah was caused by a personal dispute,
but the way the people wanted their problem solved was a result of
the Iraqi impact,” Mr. Sulayman said. “They see that demonstrating is
a civilized way to express a position.”
“Since the war in Iraq, this complex of fear has been broken, and we
feel greater freedom to express ourselves,” he added.
Mr. Sulayman noted that members of minorities in Hasakah had also
been energized by a sense of brotherhood with their counterparts in
Iraq.
“For example, when Massoud Barzani announced that Kurdish would be
officially recognized as one of the main languages in Iraq, the Kurds
in Hasakah were out in the streets celebrating, expressing their
joy,” Mr. Sulayman said, referring to the leader of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party in Iraq.
Taher Sfog, the secretary general of Syria’s illegal Kurdish
Democratic National Party, suggested that in some sense, Iraq and
Syria were mirror images of each other, as they shared a roughly
similar ethnic composition and a political heritage of Baathism, the
secular Arab nationalist policy of Mr. Hussein and Bashar Assad, the
Syrian president.
“Kurds in Syria feel relieved when we see Kurds in Iraq getting their
rights and holding news conferences,” Mr. Sfog said in his home in
Qamishli. “Democracy there will lead to a push in Syria, too.”
In fact, the Hussein government had long been estranged from Syria’s.
Before the American invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi politicians who
opposed Mr. Hussein made their homes in Damascus. Basil Dahdouh, a
member of the illegal Syrian Nationalist Social Party who represents
Damascus in Syria’s Parliament as an independent, said renewed
contact with Iraq, as well as the chance to observe the changes
taking place there, was leading many Syrians to actively question
their own political ideals. “The Iraq question has raised the idea of
what kind of state we want,” he said.
Emmanuel Khosaba, a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a
political party representing Iraq’s Assyrian Christian minority, said
Syrian political life could not help but be influenced by Iraq.
“In Syria, gradually it’s becoming safer to talk about minority
rights and human rights,” he said. But he cautioned against seeing a
single “Iraq effect” on the very different aspirations of Syria’s
minorities .
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“The interaction between minorities in Iraq and its neighboring
countries really depends on how particular minorities view their own
situation,” Mr. Khosaba said. “For example the Assyrians in Syria are
seeking a national solution within a democratic framework, while some
of the Kurds seek separation.”
Despite their sometimes startling optimism about an Iraqi democracy’s
longer-term prospects, the Syrian minority leaders became more sober
when discussing the violence in Iraq. Not only is it painful to see
Iraq convulsed with strife, they said, but instability in Iraq is
causing problems closer to home.
Bachir Isaac Saadi, the chairman of the political bureau of the
Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that throughout Syria, anger
over the American presence in Iraq had set off a sharp rise in
Islamist sentiment, which was creating difficulties for Syria’s
Christian minority.
“Christians in Syria aren’t afraid of the government any longer,” Mr.
Saadi said. “They’re afraid of their neighbors.”
Though the increase in Islamist feeling is troubling, minority
activists say, fear of the government and of publicly discussing
minority rights has eased to a degree which would have been
unthinkable only a few years ago.
Mr. Kirakos, the Armenian activist, has even begun a bid for Syria’s
presidency, an astoundingly brazen gesture in a country where the
Assad family has ruled unchallenged for more than 30 years.
The Christian Mr. Kirakos’s presidential run – which he announced in
September on , a pro-democracy Web site – is illegal, as
Syria’s Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Muslim.
But though he lost his engineering job as a result of his activism
and his family has received uncomfortable phone calls from the secret
police, Mr. Kirakos is unfazed.
“I carry a Syrian citizenship which is not equal to Ahmed’s
citizenship,” he said, using the common Muslim name as shorthand for
Syria’s Sunni majority. “It is the Syrian Constitution that must
change. We should be writing a constitution that guarantees equal
rights for everyone.”

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
Dec 27 2004
IDB PRESIDENT MEETS IDPS IN SABIRABAD
[December 27, 2004, 23:00:49]
The delegation of the Islamic Development Bank /IDB/ headed by its
president Ahmad Mohamed Ali met with IDPs temporarily settled in the
Galagayin tent camp located in Sabirabad region and got acquainted
with their living conditions and local school. IDB president said
that the main purpose of this visit is to learn of the plight of
people living in tent camps. The guest stated that he would bring the
truth on Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Garabakh conflict, plight of
IDPs to the world community’s notice and send a special IDB
commission to learn the needs of IDPs and, therefore, define the
amount of possible aid.
Deputy of the department of the Cabinet of Ministers Gurban Sadigov
updated the president on the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Garabakh
conflict, plight of IDPs and government’s efforts to ensure their
social protection.
The delegation composed of ambassador of the Saudi Arabia to
Azerbaijan Ali Hasan Ahamd Jafar and ambassador of Egypt to
Azerbaijan Yusif Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sharkari was welcomed and seen off
by head of the executive power of Sabirabad Ashraf Mammadov.

The Daily Star, Lebanon
Dec 27 2004
‘The Daydreaming Boy’ is a triumph for the truth of imagination
Novel deals with one man’s personal journey after the Armenian
Genocide
By Arpi Sarafian
Special to The Daily Star

LOS ANGELES: It is hard to think of another novel that represents the
horrors of war and of violence – or, more specifically, the horror of
the atrocities committed against the Armenian population of Turkey in
the 1915 Genocide – with such freshness and creativity, than
Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s debut novel, “Three Apples Fell from
Heaven” (2001).
Marcom’s new book, “The Daydreaming Boy” (2004), is as good but
deviates from more traditional narrative structures and ordinary
discourse to, once again, “history the unhistoried” and say the
“unsaid unsayable things.”
Whereas “Three Apples Fell from Heaven” dealt with the disruption
caused by the brutalities of the Ottoman government to the lives of
innocent Armenians in Kharpert, Turkey, “The Daydreaming Boy” shifts
the setting to Beirut and deals with one man’s personal journey.
It is the story of the Vahe Tcheubjian, a middle-aged survivor of
Turkey’s Armenian massacres who spends the novel contemplating his
brutal past while losing himself in a series of adulterous trysts
that bring him slowly to a realization of the moral compromises he
has made.
Vahe is an orphan – in Marcom’s words, the least historied of the
victims of war – who, along with other children, was “loaded onto the
boxcars at Eregli [Turkey] and unloaded in Lebanon by the sea’s edge”
at The Bird’s Nest orphanage. A survivor who “would have liked to
remain unexisted,” Vahe is now a grown man living with his wife,
Juliana, also of Kharpert, in 1960’s Beirut in an apartment
overlooking the Mediterranean.
Rather than record the details of Vahe’s external life, “The
Daydreaming Boy” takes us to his interior scenery cycling through the
fantasies, the dreams and the memories of a man attempting to come to
terms with an impossible past.
The book moves back and forth between Vahe’s fantasy of making love
to Beatrice, the Palestinian servant girl; his imagining of his dead
mother’s body; weekly visits to the zoological gardens (perhaps to
free the caged beast inside of him); and memories of Vostanig,
another orphan (who later commits suicide) “left outside the walls of
the orphanage … deposited there in the middle of the night, by whom
we were never to know.”
Besides giving expression to the truth buried deep in Vahe’s
consciousness – Marcom’s primary concern – these repeated images
allow us to share the confusion of a man from whom a whole world has
disappeared.
Marcom writes with mellifluous, poetic tone – for instance, using
such clever linking devices as the sea, “the vast blue belt” of the
Mediterranean whose waves Vahe can still hear hitting the gray rocks
outside the orphanage dormitory windows. Vahe, Marcom writes, “only
loved the sea and to bathe in it. The sea was always his “solace, his
haven,” and also possibly a final resting place: “I want the sea
only, in perpetuity, impossibly.”

Vahe half attempts to commit suicide to return to the sea and its
“quiet eternal warmth.” To “unexist” seems to be the only way out of
the “eternal blackness” of living “in this world devoid of color.”
Vahe is a man haunted by his memories – by the torments he both
endured and visited upon weaker fellow orphans in an Armenian
orphanage; of his long-gone family and his pain at his separation
from them, especially his mother; of his infatuation with his maid,
which turns his wife against him and angers her even as he opens out
this narrative as if a confession.
Vahe survives solely through his fantasies. The fantasy of love makes
the daily bearing of the memory of “this stink-hole orphanage”
possible for him, “and of course there is only the bearing of it.”
Nonetheless, Vahe’s fantasies come right out of the collective
experience of a people “distanced from land and language.” The
journey inward thus taps into a clearly recognizable historical
context, the tragedy that befell a nation still “adrift because the
past is always unspoken heavy and ever-present.”
If Marcom uses fiction of the imagination to tell her story, it is
because only fiction can give expression to what is beyond the daily
conveyance of facts. The book picks up where the testimonies of
Armenian genocide victims left off.
What finally makes “The Daydreaming Boy” such a stunning text is
Marcom’s unfaltering commitment to her medium. She bends language to
coin new words and lulls the reader into a trance. At no point,
however, do her stylistic choices seem intrusive. “This notlistens
Vahe,” and “I unexisted them,” or “they must be intolerated” and “he
notspeaks” are perfectly adjusted to the disjointedness of the mind
of “this sad and desperate boy who’s become a sad desperate man.”
In Marcom’s hands, language becomes a powerful tool to shake us into
the significance of the crime, “the death of a race and our tongue,”
still awaiting acknowledgement. The precision of observation of “the
notroads,” “the spectered notflesh,” or “this notfeeling” is
startling.
“The Daydreaming Boy” is available at all good bookshops

Times of India, India
Dec 24 2004
J&K enjoys more freedom than PoK: Survey
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
WASHINGTON: The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has a greater
degree of freedom than Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the think-tank
Freedom House has said in a survey.
In a significant pronouncement in the Freedom of the World 2005
report, the think tank classifies PoK as “Not Free” compared to J&K’s
“Partly Free” status, thus diminishing military-ruled Pakistan’s
frequent charges of Indian oppression in J&K and calls for
“self-determination” for the state.
In fact, India, with a ranking of 2.5, is only country in South Asia
that is classified as “Free.” Pakistan at 5.5 is deemed “Not Free,”
which would suggest its status is worse than that India’s “Partly
Free” J&K.
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal all rate better than Pakistan with
their “Partly Free” status. The annual ranking is based on political
rights and civil liberties, and Freedom House is evidently not
impressed by Gen Musharraf’s claims of democracy.
In an assessment of what Freedom House considers “disputed
territories,” only northern Turkish Cyprus is rated “Free.” J&K,
along with Nagorno-Karabakh (disputed between Armenia and Azarbaijan)
is rated partly free. PoK, Tibet, Israeli-occupied territories,
Palestinian-occupied territories, Chechnya and Kosovo are considered
“Not Free.”
According to the survey, 89 countries are Free. Their 2.8 billion
inhabitants (44 percent of the world’s population) enjoy a broad
range of rights. Fifty-four countries representing 1.2 billion people
(19 percent) are considered Partly Free. Political rights and civil
liberties are more limited in these countries, in which corruption,
dominant ruling parties, or, in some cases, ethnic or religious
strife are often the norm.
The survey finds that 49 countries are Not Free. The 2.4 billion
inhabitants (37 percent) of these countries, nearly three-fifths of
whom live in China, are denied most basic political rights and civil
liberties. The worst rated countries include close US ally Saudi
Arabia, Turkmenistan, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Syria and
Burma.
Most of Western Europe and the United States topped the freedom chart
with a ranking of 1. India with its 2.5 ranking was in the company of
Brazil, Philippines and Thailand, and below Greece, Japan, South
Africa, Taiwan, South Korea and Israel among others.

Israel Hasbara Committee
Dec 24 2004
JNF Gives Free Xmas Trees to Israel’s Christian Population
Christman Celebrations Begin
By Mayaan Jaffe
In Jerusalem Thursday morning (23 December 2004), the municipality
distributed free Xmas trees to members of the Christian community.
The trees were provided by the forestry department of the Jewish
National Fund. They were cut as part of seasonal thinning of new
growth forest.
Christmas Eve celebrations by Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant
communities will begin Friday. The Greek-Orthodox and Eastern
churches that still use the old Julian calendar will celebrate the
holiday on 7 January. The Armenian Orthodox community will observe
the holiday on 19 January.
The date of 25 December as Christmas is the result of attempts among
the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth.
The Julian calendar was created in 45 B.C.E. under Julius Caesar. 25
December on the Julian calendar is 7 January on the Western calendar.
Armenians believe Jesus’ birthday should be celebrated on the same
day as his baptism, which is 6 January. By the Julian calendar this
date would fall on the Western calendar’s 19 January.

STATE LABOUR DEPARTMENT TO OPEN
Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
21 Dec 04
In the coming year the labour department will be opened in the NKR
Ministry of Social Security. According to minister L. Ghulian, there
are too many drawbacks in the relationships between the employer and
the employee and the creation of the department is determined by the
necessity of eliminating them. In this reference the government made
a decision which will be presented to the national Assembly within
the draft law “On Labour Department” in the first trimester of 2005.
SVETLANA KHACHATRIAN.
21-12-2004

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SUMMING UP
A1+
22-12-2004
Armenian foreign minister Vardan Oskanyan said Wednesday summing up
the 2004 in National Press Club he found the year not so bad with
its sudden surges and falls, its achievements and failures.
He presented a broad summing up saying more detailed report would be
made in the beginning of January.
Oskanyan said positive in Karabakh problem solution has outdone
negative.
He is convinced some progress is seen in Karabakh conflict settlement
process. In his opinion, today we are at more advantageous position
than were in 1997.
The minister says Armenian leadership, demanding Karabakh to
participate in talks as a negotiating side, today found itself in
dilemma: not to enter negotiations, if Karabakh isnâ~@~Yt included
in the process as side, or continue the talks.
In his words, the authorities are leaning toward the second way.
Oskanyan stressed extraordinary importance of political stability in
Armenia saying it is impacting the negotiation process.
It is remarkable that the minister thinks the opposition is hobbling
democracy in the republic by boycotting parliamentary sessions.
–Boundary_(ID_t5CqtsRUSoC3O55AIrFxMg)–