4th TOUR’S GAMES OF ARMENIAN FOOTBALL HIGHEST LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP HELD
YEREVAN, MAY 7, NOYAN TAPAN. Games of 4th tour of Armenian Football
Highest League Championship took place on May 5. The following
results were registered: Mika – Banants 1 to 1, Ararat – Pyunik 0 to
0, Gandzasar – Shirak 0 to 0, Ulis – Kilikia 2 to 0.
The games of the next tour will take place on May 13.
PanARMENIAN.Net
Office of General Prosecutor of Turkey accuses Erdogan
of inciting to break laws
05.05.2007 15:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On May 4 Office of General Prosecutor of Turkey
launched an investigation towards
Prime Minister and leader of the Justice and Development ruling party
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. CNN Turk reports the Premier is accused of
trying to `to spread fear and panic among the population’, `humiliate
state judicial bodies’ and `incite breach of laws’.
Erdogan’s negative statements in connection with the decision of the
Constitutional Court served as a cause for accusations. The
Constitutional Court of the country nullified the first stage of
presidential elections. Last Wednesday the Prime Minister called that
verdict as a blow to democracy. `The parliamentarian procession of
presidential elections was stopped. This decision is a bullet shot
towards democracy,’ the Premier stated.
Erdogan himself turns down accusations and clarifies that it was his
reaction to the statement of Deniz Baykal, leader of Republican
People’s Party, which is in opposition. Baykal said if the first stage
of presidential elections is not nullified, the country will be `drawn
into conflict and clashes’. It also served as a cause for parallel
investigation in the Office of General Prosecutor, NEWSru.com reports.
OSCE COUNTRIES’ AMBASSADORS IN YEREVAN
Regnum, Russia
May 4 2007
Armenia has registered substantial progress on its way to free and
transparent elections
Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan discussed the election process
in the country and the parliamentary elections planned for May 12
with heads of diplomatic missions of OSCE member-countries accredited
in Armenia.
As REGNUM was told at the presidential press office, during the
meeting the president pointed out that a very important period
started in Armenia’s life as the election process switched into its
final stage. At the same time, Robert Kocharyan stressed that the
government was resolute to conduct the elections under international
standards. In this connection, he noted that the election process was
taking place in quite a calm and civilized way and called important
the government and leading political parties’ role in it.
In their turn, the diplomats called the elections the decisive step
on the way of Armenia’s democratic development and said that Armenia
has already registered significant progress in the direction of
holding free and fair elections, which is mentioned in reports of
observer missions. The diplomats also said that wide opportunities
were established for all participants in having meetings with the
electorate, sustaining visibility of their programs and opinions and
assess to television.
DAMNED IF THEY DO, DAMNED IF THEY DON’T
By Dan Hannan
The Telegraph, UK
May 3 2007
The poor Turks are damned either way. If they ban the symbols of
Muslim devotion, they’re fascists; if they allow them, they’re
fundamentalists.
Once again, we see Europe’s politicians determined, in Gladstone’s
unhappy phrase, "to turn the Turk, bag and baggage, out of Europe."
They will seize on any development – even an abstruse row about
the presidential nominee’s wife’s headscarf – as an excuse to defer
Turkey’s application for EU membership.
One day we are told that Ankara needs to do more for its Kurds,
the next that it is being obstreperous over Cyprus, the next that it
should grovel about the 1915 Armenian massacres.
Not all these objections are baseless, but it is striking to see how
differently Turkey is being treated from other members. No one asks
the Belgians to face up to what they did in the Congo, or the French
to apologise for Algeria.
Ankara is especially aggrieved about Cyprus, and with reason:
Turkish Cypriots voted to accept the EU’s reunification deal, but
have since been isolated; Greek Cypriots voted to reject it, but have
been embraced.
Some Turkosceptic arguments are plain silly. Last month, MEPs hectored
Ankara about getting more women into politics – this despite the fact
that Turkey elected its first female head of government 14 years ago,
while 18 out of the 27 EU members have never been led by a woman.
The trouble is that Brussels won’t come clean about its real objection
which is, quite simply, that there are too many Turks.
Under the reheated EU constitution, voting weights are to be determined
by population. Turkey is already larger than every state except
Germany; and, while Europe is shrinking, Turkey is teeming.
EU leaders are determined not to hand the leadership of their Continent
to an assertive, patriotic Muslim nation: they know it would mean an
end to Euro-federalism.
France and Austria have promised referendums on Turkish accession
and, since opinion polls suggest "No" votes of 70 and 80 per cent
respectively, that would seem to be that. But no one wants to say so.
And so the charade continues, with EU leaders crossing their fingers
behind their backs and canting about eventual membership, while
reformist Turks pretend to believe them so as to be able to carry
out a measure of domestic liberalisation under the guise of preparing
for membership. It would have been one thing to say "No" at the outset.
How much worse to string Turks along for perhaps another ten years,
imposing humiliating foreign policy climbdowns on them, making them
restructure their legal system, forcing 10,000 pages of EU rules on
them and then – then – flicking two fingers at them.
The EU risks creating the thing it purports to fear: a snarling,
alienated Muslim population on its doorstep.
Turks have traditionally been our strongest allies in the region.
They guarded Europe’s flank for 90 years, first against Bolshevism
and now against Islamism. They deserve better than this.
Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for South East England
l?xml=/news/2007/05/02/wturkey302.xml
GERMAN FM CONSIDERS TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ABDULLAH GUL A RELIABLE PARTNER
PanARMENIAN.Net
03.05.2007 14:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The General Assembly of the Turkish Parliament
approved the new schedule of presidentiasl elections May 2. The first
stage of elections is scheduled for May 6 and the further stages
will be held on May 9, 12 and 15. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoðan stated he will insist on holding early parliamentarian election
on June 24. However the Central Electoral Commission of the country
offered another date – July 22. Premier Erdoðan is going to reach
amendments into the Organic Law. Particularly he offers to elect the
president by a national vote and not by the parliament.
Yesterday the Turkish Constitutional Court declared invalid results
of the first stage of presidential elections, which was held last
Friday. The presidential candidate is moderate Islamist Abdullah Gul,
whose candidature was offered by current Prime Minister Erdoðan. Gul
could not gather the necessary number of votes. Gul is a representative
of the ruling Justice and Development pro-Islamic party. Up to this
moment he occupied the post of Foreign Minister.
High military commanders "blocked" the way of Gul’s victory in the
presidential elections. The Turkish army, which is considered the
main bases for secular state, threatened the Prime Minister with a
coup if his ally in the party will become Turkey’s 11th president. The
Constitutional Court ruled that the elections "fall short of demands
of the Organic Law", since there was only one candidate. But actually
the second candidate – representative from the ruling party Ersonmez
Yarbay willingly withdrew his candidature.
Now only one question worries everyone; what an end will have the
dispute between commanders and moderate Islamists and if this conflict
will result in a military coup like in 1960, 1971 and 1980.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated it is necessary
to support Turkey on his way to the EU. He called presidential
candidate Abdullah Gul a reliable partner, Deutsche Welle reports.
–Boundary_(ID_W/heeGt/xj3nEpdGYqLr6w)–
RECENTLY AZERI SNIPERS HAVE KILLED TWO NAGORNO-KARABAKH OFFICERS
Arminfo Agency
2007-05-02 17:28:00
Recently Azeri snipers have killed two Nagorno-Karabakh officers. We
have given them a worthy rebuff, says Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Minister
Seyran Ohanyan.
He says that the cease fire between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan
is regularly broken. However, we manage to preserve stability with
no external assistance. Ohanyan refutes the Azeri mass media reports
about Azeri air maneuvers over Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Our armed forces have perfect equipment and can solve any tasks." "The
territories controlled by the NK armed forces are a belt of security
and their future should be determined in the context of general and
final resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," says Ohanyan.
DEATH TOLL GROWS AS SKINHEAD VIEWS MOVE INTO MAINSTREAM
By John Gray
Globe and Mail, Canada
April 30 2007
MOSCOW – In the days after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya,
photographs of the crusading Russian journalist and about 20 other
people began appearing on an Internet website operated by one of
Russia’s many skinhead organizations.
Across the photograph of Ms. Politkovskaya was an unmistakable message:
"The order doesn’t matter, but the result does."
Galina Kozhevnikova was one of the 20 whose photograph appeared on what
was clearly intended to be a death list. Another message identified
her and the others as "enemies of the Russian people."
Frail and pale, Ms. Kozhevnikova nods and shrugs. It is not the first
time for such threats, and not the last.
The 48-year-old Ms. Politkovskaya was shot in the head outside her
Moscow apartment last October. Her offence was that she had been
angrily outspoken about the performance of the Russian army and the
Russian government in the republic of Chechnya, a land of dark-skinned
Muslim people who have always been regarded with suspicion, and
frequently with hatred, by fair-skinned Russians.
For Ms. Kozhevnikova, it’s all part of a climate of race hatred that
you can find almost anywhere in Russia. Racial violence, she says,
is now an almost everyday fact of Russian life. "The situation is
getting more and more grave. It is getting radically worse."
Ms. Kozhevnikova is deputy director of Sova, an organization that
monitors hate crimes against non-Slavic Russians and others such as
Chechens, Africans, Azeris and Armenians. So far this year, Sova has
identified 150 race-motivated attacks, 20 of them involving killings.
Sova’s researchers believe the number of attacks is growing by 20 or
30 per cent every year.
One day after Ms. Kozhevnikova reported those statistics, there were
two more slayings. A Tajik citizen was attacked and stabbed 35 times
in eastern Moscow by two young men who appeared to be skinheads,
complete with shaven heads and army-style boots.
An Armenian businessman was stabbed 20 times, also apparently by
skinheads. The Moscow Times said that before he died the man told
police his attackers had shouted racial epithets.
Such is the growth of racial attacks that Ms. Kozhevnikova and other
researchers believe that it is becoming almost fashionable for Russians
to join skinhead organizations. The victims of skinhead attacks are
reluctant to go to authorities because they do not expect sympathy
from police or even the government.
Even a partial list of the killings in recent months is shocking: A
nine-year-old Tajik girl was with her family in St. Petersburg when
she was stabbed nine times in the chest and stomach; a 20-year-old
Vietnamese student was attacked by 18 skinheads in St. Petersburg and
stabbed to death; five teenagers dragged a young Jewish man into a
cemetery and fatally stabbed him; a bomb thrown into a Moscow market
last August left 11 dead.
Until recently, dark-skinned immigrants have been most visible in
markets in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, but a government decree
that took effect on April 1 banned all non-Russians from selling
fruit and vegetables.
The immediate effect was that about a third of all market stalls were
suddenly empty, with signs inviting applications from tenants.
Within a few weeks, immigrants had started to drift back into the
Kiev market in central Moscow. Some were working as porters, which
is still permitted, others were working as sellers, offering a vague
explanation that their boss had arranged for permits.
People like Ms. Kozhevnikova are convinced that the campaign to
ban immigrants from Russia’s markets is only a start. She points to
the recurring theme of Russian nationalism that has been pursued by
President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Putin has been insistent his government would defend the interests
of Russian people above all.
Ms. Kozhevnikova describes this as crude nationalism, "but they call
it patriotism."
Over the past three years, more than 150 people have died as a result
of racial violence. "It’s scary to live here. And I’m afraid for my
friends, many of whom are different from ordinary Russians," she said.
LIGHTS GO OUT FOR HERITAGE AS CAMPAIGN THUNDERS ON
A1+
[08:25 pm] 27 April, 2007
more images Yerevan-Yesterday, April 26, after Heritage candidates
and volunteers exhausted campaign materials in Gymuri, the campaign
caravan’s final stop of the day, Raffi K. Hovannisian appeared at
the city’s Tsayg television station for a previously scheduled live
interview. Electricity rarely goes off in Gyumri these days, but
nearly ten minutes into the interview, it did for Heritage. And not
just one line of electricity, but the station’s second reserve line,
too. The television administration was not reluctant to find political
explanations behind the sudden outage. When the power was restored
some twenty minutes later, Hovannisian finished the interview, which
was aired in full at a later time.
Today, April 27, Hovannisian headed to Belgium to attend and address
"Brussels Forum 2007," a forum of world leaders, as the campaign bus
"Toward Victory" made its rounds in Yerevan’s Erebuni, Nubarashan,
and Arabkir districts. A sister minibus focused on villages in the
Gavar region.
Tomorrow, April 28, "Toward Victory" will concentrate on the capital’s
Masiv district.
Armenia, Iran cooperate chiefly in economy – Armenian premier
Arminfo
27 Apr 07
Yerevan, 27 April: Armenia limits its relations with Iran to
consultations only in terms of security, Armenian Prime Minister
Serzh Sargsyan has said in an interview with the [Russian newspaper]
Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
He said that Iran is a very important country for Armenia. If we recall
the situation in the 1990s when the situation in Georgia was unstable,
it was through Iran that Armenia was receiving large transportation
shipments. "We have constructed a natural gas pipeline from Iran now;
under the conditions in which energy-poor Armenia is, it is the only
way out. We are intensifying cooperation in the electricity sector. The
thing is that Armenia is the only country in the region that has an
electricity surplus. We have a nuclear power plant the technology
of which does not allow for a sharp decrease or increase in power
generation. That is why we supply extra power generated at nights to
Iran. We gladly establish economic contacts with Iran," he said.
Inside Iran today
By Praful Bidwai
The News – International, Pakistan
April 28 2007
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and
human-rights activist based in Delhi
The Iranian Artists’ Forum is the kind of institution any country
would be proud of — a lively, pulsating place, with auditoria,
seminar rooms and exhibition halls, at which exciting events in
Iran’s flourishing art world happen. It’s similar to Lahore’s Alhamra
complex, only more liberal, multicultural and plural. The Artists’
Forum exudes freedom and creativity. Not many developing countries
have a comparable arts complex.
The Forum is a redesigned military barracks located right next door
to the long-closed down United States embassy. Hundreds of young
people ‘hang out’ at the place. Its ground-floor coffee shop is fully
vegetarian and serves ‘chapatti bread’, besides sandwiches, pizzas,
soft drinks and teas (including ayurvedic tea). Why, it even offers
its own versions of thalis: "Gita Set" and "Lotus Set".
It’s tragic, therefore, that the Forum is becoming a target of
censorship. Last week, it hosted the release of a special issue of a
remarkable magazine "International Gallerie", published from Mumbai,
devoted to Iran’s contemporary culture. But its management turned
down requests to hold a vocal music performance as part of the event.
It also disallowed the display of some posters based on the issue.
"It’s not that the Forum management favours censorship", said an art
critic, who insisted on anonymity. (Nobody wants to be quoted in
Iran for fear of harassment). "But it’s being closely watched. If
the management is to keep the institution running, it must not
say anything critical of the regime – or risk closure. It ends up
practising self-censorship."
Opponents of self-censorship were offered an object lesson last week.
The authorities closed down the cheerful "Cafe 78", located in Aban
Street. "Cafe 78" was the favourite haunt of radical students, both
female and male, who would chat animatedly about avant-garde art,
music, culture, Che Guevara, politics, whatever… As the conversation
progressed, and modern Iranian music blared, veils would recede by
inches (all women must wear headscarves in public), and romantic
words would be discreetly exchanged.
"Cafe 78"’s closure, like the Forum’s self-censorship, is part of
a new drive by Iran’s authorities to regiment individual conduct.
There’s a nationwide campaign against the wearing of tight clothes
and skimpy headscarves by women. This is customary at the beginning
of summer, when hemlines become shorter. Yet, the drive has generated
great fear because it follows countless other repressive measures.
These include detention of dozens of feminists for collecting one
million signatures demanding changes in the constitution in favour
of gender equality. Schoolteachers have been arrested for agitating
for higher pay.
Even worse have been the purges of secular teachers from the
universities and closure of more than 110 pro-reform periodicals over
six years. The repression isn’t a response to a particular threat.
"It’s part of a ‘regime maintenance’ strategy ," says a political
scientist. "Iran’s hardliners don’t want people, especially
the youth, to feel free. They know that young Iranians loathe
regimentation. They take recourse to the constitution’s ‘Islamic’
values and vilayat-e-faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists)
to enforce discipline."
True, this discipline isn’t extreme. Iran is no "Taliban Lite" – a
Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. Iran is sufism’s homeland. Its Islam is
more about ritual than rigid doctrine. Iranians interact closely with
the west through their million-plus expatriates, the Internet, and
consumption of mass culture, including Hollywood, jeans and fast food.
The mismatch between "regime maintenance" and popular aspirations to
freedom produces duality, even hypocrisy. Public debate is banned on
"sensitive" subjects, including nuclear issues. But people discuss
these in classrooms, buses, taxis, homes, and cafes. Women "jump"
communications barriers ingeniously – through dummy websites and
blogs. (Iran has the world’s third highest number of blogs.)
Officially, liquor is a strict no-no. But it flows like water in
Iran’s living rooms. The Armenian minority is allowed to make wine,
beer and spirits. Specially established distilleries in neighbouring
countries cater to Iran’s thirst for alcohol. Iran is one of the few
West Asian countries which holds relatively free and fair elections.
But Iran’s democracy is deeply flawed, with little freedom of political
association. Parties are registered only if they conform to Islamic
tenets. Freedom in this deeply paradoxical society has had periodic
ups and downs. Today, it’s on a downward trajectory.
Three factors will influence Iran’s short-term evolution: President
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s growing unpopularity; the ability of reformists
to counter the government’s use of the current slogan, "Islam and the
nation"; and Iran’s confrontation with the west, in particular, the
US. Ahmedinejad recently suffered several setbacks, including defeat
of his nominees in local elections. His populist handouts have blown
up the special fund financed by Iran’s oil sales, estimated at $40
billion. He’s increasingly seen as a politician given to intemperate
statements. He’s not fully trusted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.
If he’s reined in by the Establishment – as happened during the recent
British sailors’ detention and release – that will strengthen the
reformists. Reformists, including former presidents Mohammed Khatami
and Ali Akbar Hashmi Rafsanjani, could still exercise a restraining
influence. The reformists’ success will critically depend on preventing
nationalism from being used as a self-legitimising platform by the
hardliners. Britain’s recent adventurism on the sailors issue played
straight into their hands. They drummed up national pride and won a
public relations victory. Britain had to open clandestine talks with
Tehran and make a deal.
Much will also depend on how the west deals with Iran’s nuclear
programme. The US is implacably hostile towards Iran, which it wrongly
sees as an "Axis of Evil" state supporting terrorism. In fact, Iran
is anti-Al Qaeda and has behaved with restraint in Shia-majority Iraq
despite its considerable influence there. Iran feels humiliated at
the sanctions imposed on it for running a nuclear programme which is
legitimate – despite relatively minor infractions of International
Atomic Energy Agency rules.
The more Iran is cornered over its nuclear activities, the more
it’ll be tempted to be defiant – and made boastful claims about its
uranium enrichment prowess. Iran is many years away from enriching
enough uranium for a bomb. Its facilities for uranium conversion into
hexafluoride (Natanz) and its centrifuge plant (Isfahan) are under
IAEA safeguard and cannot be used for weapons purposes. Contrary
to the claim that it has installed 3,000 centrifuges, the IAEA says
it has about 1,300 primitive machines. It’s unlikely that Iran has
stabilised these delicate centrifuges, which rotate at extremely high
speeds like 1,000 revolutions per second. (Even India has had serious
difficulties in stabilising centrifuges.)
More important, the Natanz facility produces gas which is probably
too impure to lead to enrichment. IAEA director-general Mohammed
ElBaradei discounts Iran’s claim to "industrial-scale" enrichment and
says "Iran is still at the beginning stages". This offers the US, UK,
France and Germany an opportunity to negotiate nuclear restraint with
Iran while not denying its right to enrichment for peaceful purposes.
Iran is willing to talk -without suspending enrichment. A way out
is possible. But the US must muster the will to explore it while
abandoning ill-conceived plans to attack Iran.
Much of what happens to and in Iran will depend on the US – just as
in 1953, when it toppled Iran’s first elected leader, and in 1979,
when it courted the Revolution’s hostility by backing the Shah.