Author: Karagyozian Lena

LESSONS OF THE HISTORIES

The Observer
Sunday June 17, 2007

In Travels with Herodotus, the late, great Polish writer Ryszard
Kapuscinski weaves epic stories into his own reportage to stunning
effect, says Stephen Smith

Buy Travels With Herodotus at the Guardian bookshop

Travels with Herodotus
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Allen Lane £20, pp275

With Agatha Christie, you know you’re off and running when the
first stiff turns up in the library, harbinger of a terrible body
count. In the case of Ian McEwan, it’s a hint of transgressive
how’s-your-father. Aficionados of Ryszard Kapuscinski, the late
grandmaster of reportage, know to hug themselves in anticipation when
the following conditions obtain: our man is the last European left in
a sweltering hellhole, a wretched government is on its last legs and
about to give way to packs of marauding goons and all contact with
the outside world has been lost. This was the scene of the Polish
writer and journalist’s gripping Another Day of Life (1975). He was
the only foreign correspondent in the Angolan capital, Luanda, as
the Portuguese colonialists fled and rival militias closed in on the
abandoned city. In his suffocating hotel, Kapuscinski sweats and frets,
a Kafka of the tropics. If the book had been any more tightly wound,
it would have turned back into wood pulp in your trembling fingers.

Open Kapuscinski’s Imperium (1994), an account of his travels
through the collapsing Soviet Union, and you may well be met with a
passage like this one, describing the airport at Yerevan in Armenia as
‘hundreds, thousands of people’ awake to another day of waiting in vain
for a seat on a plane, any plane. ‘How long have they been sleeping
here? Well, some not so long; this is only their first night. And
those over there, the crumpled up, unshaven, unkempt ones? Those
– a week. And those others one cannot even get closer to because
they stink so terribly? Those – a month.’ Travels with Herodotus,
which has been published in English following Kapuscinski’s death
earlier this year, will not disappoint his admirers. We are with the
indefatigable reporter in Congo in 1960. ‘There is no functioning
radio station, no government. I am trying to get out of here –
but how? The closest airport is closed. The roads (now in the rainy
season) are swamped, the ship that once plied the River Congo has
long ceased to do so.’ Bliss! You know that by the time you finish
Travels with Herodotus, you’ll be shaking your own gnawed fingernails
from its pages. Once again we have before us the strangely cheering
image of the lonely news agency man from eastern Europe endlessly
chastising himself for the gaps in his knowledge rather than giving
himself credit for what he has learnt the hard way. As before, the
roving reporter is bowed down beneath his own bodyweight in books,
including the Histories of Herodotus, the ancient Greek who opened
the young Kapuscinski’s eyes to the world. The great traveller of
antiquity, he says, was ‘someone who always had many questions and
was ready to wander thousands of kilometres to find an answer to any
one of them’. Kapuscinski could be writing about himself, of course.

A much-travelled journeyman who came to book-writing in mid-career,
Kapuscinski also invites comparison with fellow Pole Joseph Conrad and
mention of the author of The Secret Agent leads us to the ticklish
issue of Kapuscinski the spy. He was named as a former communist
operative after his death. He had allegedly collaborated with the
party in Poland in return for the rare licence he enjoyed to travel
to the outside world – ‘to cross the border’, as he puts it. To which
one can only say that if it is true, a ‘deal’ of this kind is what one
would expect the authorities to have insisted on. What matters is how
Kapuscinski observed his side of the bargain, and that was to publish
The Emperor (1978). Ostensibly an account of Haile Selassie’s court
in Ethiopia and its hysterical feudalism, it was read in his native
Poland as a mordant if samizdat commentary on matters closer to home.

Frankly, anyone who was paying attention will know the reporter’s
dispatches were the flimsiest cover for his ‘product’, as the
spymasters call it. What was encrypted in them was Kapuscinski’s
humanity. Somehow, he crosses Ethiopia with a local driver who knows
only two English expressions: ‘Problem’ and ‘No problem’. How do
the pair communicate? Kapuscinski relies on the ‘tradecraft’ of
his own extraordinary empathy. ‘Everything speaks; the expression
of the face and eyes, the gestures of the hand and movements of the
body … dozens of other transmitters, amplifiers and mufflers which
together make up an individual being.’

It may seem perverse to recommend Travels with Herodotus for the
beach. But if you haven’t encountered Kapuscinski before, you’ll be
pleasantly surprised by how much satisfaction, as well as salience,
there is to be found in this perfect discomfort read.

· Stephen Smith is the culture correspondent of BBC Newsnight

Three to read

Reportage

Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski The journalist’s personal portrait
of the life and death of the USSR, 1939 to 1991.

Dispatches by Michael Herr Frontline reports from the madness and
mayhem of the Vietnam War.

All the Wrong Places by James Fenton Powerful examination of South
East Asian politics, from the fall of Saigon to the Philippines
under Marcos.

–Boundary_(ID_El1lcZG73XGaBQUJYI6Xcg)–

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

HIS HOLINESS ARAM I RECEIVES THE REPRESENTATIVE OF MARONITE PATRIARCH

His Holiness Aram I received Archbishop Roland Abou Jaoude, the
representative of Patriarch Sfeir, Spiritual Head of the Maronite Church on
June 15. The Patriarchal Vicar passed on to His Holiness Patriarch Sfeir’s
concerns and viewpoints on the Middle East in general and Lebanon in
particular.

The Armenian Pontiff also expressed his thoughts for bringing Lebanon out
of its current unstable and tense situation. The Catholicos particularly
emphasized the need to form a Government of National Unity and search for
solutions through dialogue, as well as the importance for all sides to agree
on a common candidate for a new President.

His Holiness also received the general director of the Ministry of
Environment, Dr. Berdj Hadjian and former minister Arthur Nazarian.

Iran Strategy Stirs Debate at White House

Published on Saturday, June 16, 2007 by the New York Times

by Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger

WASHINGTON – A year after President Bush and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a
behind-the-scenes debate has broken out within the administration over
whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program,
according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be
winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the
administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office
who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are
pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian
nuclear facilities.

In the year since Ms. Rice announced the new strategy for the United
States to join forces with Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to
suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than
a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic
Energy Agency predicts that 8,000 or so could be spinning by the end of
the year, if Iran surmounts its technical problems.

Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the
administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran’s leaders that he
will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones,
leaving the implication that a military strike on the country’s
facilities is still an option.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing
source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the
insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has
provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group
Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Even so, friends and associates of Ms. Rice who have talked with her
recently say she has increasingly moved toward the European position
that the diplomatic path she has laid out is the only real option for
Mr. Bush, even though it has so far failed to deter Iran from enriching
uranium, and that a military strike would be disastrous.

The accounts were provided by officials at the State Department, White
House and the Pentagon who are on both sides of the debate, as well as
people who have spoken with members of Mr. Cheney’s staff and with Ms.
Rice. The officials said they were willing to explain the thinking
behind their positions, but would do so only on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Bush has publicly vowed that he would never `tolerate’ a nuclear
Iran, and the question at the core of the debate within the
administration is when and whether it makes sense to shift course.

The issue was raised at a closed-door White House meeting recently when
the departing deputy national security adviser, J. D. Crouch, told
senior officials that President Bush needed an assessment of how the
stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program was likely to play out over the
next 18 months, said officials briefed on the meeting.

In response, R. Nicholas Burns, an under secretary of state who is the
chief American strategist on Iran, told the group that negotiations
with Tehran could still be going on when Mr. Bush leaves office in
January 2009. The hawks in the room reported later that they were
deeply unhappy – but not surprised – by Mr. Burns’s assessment, which
they interpreted as a tacit acknowledgment that the Bush administration
had no `red line’ beyond which Iran would not be permitted to step.

But conservatives inside the administration have continued in private
to press for a tougher line, making arguments that their allies outside
government are voicing publicly. `Regime change or the use of force are
the only available options to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear
weapons capability, if they want it,’ said John R. Bolton, the former
United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Only a few weeks ago, one of Mr. Cheney’s top aides, David Wurmser,
told conservative research groups and consulting firms in Washington
that Mr. Cheney believed that Ms. Rice’s diplomatic strategy was
failing, and that by next spring Mr. Bush might have to decide whether
to take military action.

The vice president’s office has declined to talk about Mr. Wurmser’s
statements, and says Mr. Cheney is fully on board with the president’s
strategy. In a June 1 article for Commentary magazine, the
neoconservative editor Norman Podhoretz laid out what a headline
described as `The Case for Bombing Iran.’

`In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be
prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to
the actual use of military force – any more than there was an
alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938,’ Mr.
Podhoretz wrote.

Mr. Burns and officials from the Treasury Department have been trying
to use the mounting conservative calls for a military strike to press
Europe and Russia to expand economic sanctions against Iran. Just last
week, Israel’s transportation minister and former defense minister,
Shaul Mofaz, visited Washington and told Ms. Rice that sanctions must
be strong enough to get the Iranians to stop enriching uranium by the
end of 2007.

While Mr. Mofaz did not threaten a military strike, Israeli officials
said he told Ms. Rice that by the end of the year, Israel `would have
to reassess where we are.’

The State Department and Treasury officials are pushing for a stronger
set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of
Iran’s government, including an extensive travel ban and further moves
to restrict the ability of Iran’s financial institutions to do business
outside of Iran. Beyond that, American officials have been trying to
get European and Asian banks to take additional steps, outside of the
Security Council, against Iran.

`We’re saying to them, `Look, you need to help us make the diplomacy
succeed, and you guys need to stop business as usual with Iran,’ ‘ an
administration official said. `We’re not just sitting here ignoring
reality.’

But the fallout from the Iraq war has severely limited the Bush
administration’s ability to maneuver on the Iran nuclear issue and has
left many in the administration, and certainly America’s allies and
critics in Europe, firmly against military strikes on Iran. On
Thursday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the international nuclear
watchdog agency, warned anew that military action against Iran would
`be an act of madness.’

The debate over `red lines’ is a familiar one inside the Bush White
House that last arose in 2002 over North Korea. When the North Koreans
threw out international inspectors on the last day of that year and
soon declared that they planned to reprocess 8,000 rods of spent fuel
into weapons-grade plutonium, President Bush had to decide whether to
declare that if North Korea moved toward weapons, it could face a
military strike on its facilities.

The Pentagon had drawn up an extensive plan for taking out those
facilities, though with little enthusiasm, because it feared it could
not control North Korea’s response, and the administration chose not to
delivery any ultimatum. North Korea tested a nuclear weapon last
October, and American intelligence officials estimate it now has the
fuel for eight or more weapons.

Iran is far behind the North Koreans; it is believed to be three to
eight years away from its first weapon, American intelligence officials
have told Congress. Conservatives argue that if the administration
fails to establish a line over which Iran must not step, the enrichment
of uranium will go ahead, eventually giving the Iranians fuel that,
with additional enrichment out of the sight of inspectors, it could use
for weapons.

To date, however, the administration has been hesitant about saying
that it will not permit Iran to produce more than a given amount of
fuel, out of concern that Iran’s hard-liners would simply see that
figure as a goal.

In the year since the United States made its last offer to Iran, the
Iranians have gone from having a few dozen centrifuges in operation to
building a facility that at last count, a month ago, had more than
1,300. `The pace of negotiations have lagged behind the pace of the
Iranian nuclear program,’ said Robert Joseph, the former under
secretary of state for international security, who left his post partly
over his opposition to the administration’s recent deal with North
Korea.

ARMENIAN JOURNALIST SUES RFE/RL IN PRAGUE OVER DISMISSAL – PRESS

Czech News Agency
Published: Jun 14, 2007

Prague, June 14 (CTK) – Czech courts will probably deal with the
alleged discrimination against some employees of the U.S.-funded
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) seated in Prague, the daily
Lidove noviny (LN) writes today, referring to the case of Armenian
reporter Anna Karapetian who complaints against her dismissal from
the radio after 12 years. Karapetian claims that the notice is
invalid and wants the employer to annul it, LN adds. RFE/RL refused
to comment on the case. The RFE/RL employees who do not come either
from the United States or the Czech Republic have problems with
defending their rights. While Czechs can rely on the Labour Code,
disputes with U.S. employees are solved by the Washington-seated Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. But foreign employees from the third
countries have no institution to turn to with labour disputes. They
sign contracts with RFE/RL on the basis of U.S. laws but they have not
right for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to deal with
their cases, LN writes. Czech courts had ruled in the case of another
employee that the RFE/RL can sign contracts with foreigners on the
basis of U.S. law. This actually means that foreigners working in the
Czech Republic can be deprived of the employees’ rights guaranteed
for Czech citizens. The defence counsel of this female employee,
who requested anonymity, has filed a recourse with the Supreme Court
and his client is prepared to turn to the Constitutional Court.

Karapetian says she is willing to do the same, LN notes. LN commentator
Martin Zverina writes in today’s issue of the paper that the practice
in the RFE/RL concerning its different approach to employees is
at variance with the radio station’s ideals. "Prague’s office of
the Radio Free Europe promising to promote the ideas of freedom,
democracy and law is behaving as an employer as if the proclaimed
principles should apply ‘only’ to the whole world, but not inside this
respected institution," Zverina says. He adds that the radio employees
are divided into three "castes" – Americans, Czechs and those from the
third countries who "enjoy" no protection. The radio management grossly
abuses this situation and treats such employees like "a colonial power
treated natives with no rights," Zverina says. It is also strange,
if not even alarming that Czech courts consider this practice
correct. It will be interesting to watch the higher-level court’s
stance on these cases as in relation to the possible stationing of a
U.S. radar defence base on Czech territory, the Czech Republic should
clearly prevent such practice, Zverina writes in LN.

ARMENIAN CITIZEN KILLED IN SAINT PETERSBURG

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.06.2007 17:37 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A criminal case on premeditated murder was initiated
in Saint Petersburg. On Thursday night hooligans assaulted a group
of Armenians, who were returning from a wedding party. A 37-year-old
Armenian citizen was gravely injured and died later in hospital.

6 Armenian citizens were going to spend the night in a hostel in
Lunacharsky avenue, according to investigators. Three unknown attacked
them and provoked a fight that resulted in tragedy, hayinfo reports.

5 CANDIDATES REGISTER TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN NAGORNO KARABAKH

Panorama.am
16:55 14/06/2007

Nagorno Karabakh Central Electoral Committee (CEC) has issued a
decision to register all five candidates who will run for Karabakh
presidency: Bako Sahakyan, head of national security service, Masis
Mailyan, deputy foreign minister, Armen Abgaryan, NA deputy, Vania
Avanesyan, professor of Artsakh university and Hrant Melkumyan,
leader of communist party. The official campaign will kick off on
June 20 to end on July 17.

The official presidential elections will take place in Nagorno Karabakh
on July 19.

NKR PREPARING FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

ArmRadio.am
13.06.2007 11:25

Preparations for the presidential elections of July 19 continue in
the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

According to the preset schedule, 227 precincts have already
been formed in NKR, one of which is situated in the NKR Permanent
Representation in Yerevan.

24 precincts will operate in Stepanakert.

According to NKR Vice-President Seyran Hayrapetyan, the voting lists
have been prepared and delivered to polling stations.

The voters can already check up their data in the voting lists and
report to corresponding bodies in case of noticing inconsistencies.

AMBASSADOR TO OSCE JIVAN TABIBIAN TO REPRESENT ARMENIA AT EXTRAORDINARY CONFERENCE OF CFE TREATY MEMBER-STATES

Yerkir
12.06.2007 16:42

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Armenia’s Ambassador to OSCE Jivan Tabibian
participates in the extraordinary conference of the Conventional Forces
in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which is being held in Vienna June 12-15,
RA MFA Acting Spokesman Vladimir Karapetyan told PanARMENIAN.Net.

On the eve of the conference the Byelorussian MFA, which holds the
chairmanship in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO),
spread a statement of its member-states, BelaPAN reports. Particularly
the statement says that CSTO member-states proceed from the stance
that the current situation with armaments in Europe does not meet
interests of keeping stability on the continent.

In this regard Armenia, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Russia,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan hope that conduction of the extraordinary
conference will serve as a beginning for serious negotiations with
participation of all CFE Treaty member-states, aimed at restoring
its viability.

The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty was signed in Paris
in 1990.

30 states participate in it. The refreshed variant of the Treaty
was signed in 1999 in Istanbul. Only four countries have ratified
the document -Russia, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. NATO
member-states refused to sign the Treaty until Russia withdraws its
forces from Georgia and Transdnestria.

GAGIK MINASIAN AND KHACHATUR SUKIASIAN POSITIVELY ASSESS TAX POLICY CONDUCTED BY STATE

Noyan Tapan
Jun 12 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 12, NOYAN TAPAN. Solution of the problems related
to reduction of the shadow economy and income polarization will be
continued under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper of the Armenian
government. Chairman of the RA National Assembly Standing Committee
of Financial, Credit and Budgetary Issues, RPA member Gagik Minasian
stated this during the June 12 discussion with NA deputy, Sil Concern’s
founder Khachatur Sukiasian.

Responding to NT correspondent’s question about what steps the
government can take in this direction, G. Minasian said that
reduction of income polarization is no so much social as political
problem. According to him, the poverty index is currently below 30%
in Armenia, while extreme poverty index is declining faster than
poverty index. In terms of poverty reduction, G. Minasian attached
special importance to solving the problem of unequal development of
Yerevan and marzes.

He noted that the shadow economy is declining as well: in the first
5 months of 2007, the growth of GDP/taxes ratio exceeded by 1.2%
(instead of the envisaged annual 0.4%) the index of the same period of
lst year. Besides, the 2007 state budget envisages that tax revenues
should grow by 27% against 9% GDP growth.

In the opinion of K. Sukiasian, improvement of tax administration in
the last 5-6 years rather than use of the "attacking" method by the
tax service with respect to economic entities has made it possible
to register such indices of tax collection.

He said that by its tax policy, the state promotes the progress of
certain sectors with a potential for development. In particular,
in the construction sector, taxation is not yet done depending on
the zone where the residential building (whose apartment is sold)
is located. K. Sukiasian expressed confidence thah as regards the
sale of apartments by urban developers, taxation should be done in
the form of fixed payments calculated by zones rather than in the
form of value added tax (VAT), which will facilitate their taxation
by the tax service.

Agence France Presse — English
June 10, 2007 Sunday 7:14 AM GMT

Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders in Karabakh talks

SAINT PETERSBURG, June 10 2007

Presidents Robert Kocharian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan
were to continue talks on Sunday on settling the status of the
mountain territory of Nagorny Karabakh, RIA Novosti news agency
reported.

The two were to meet during an informal gathering of heads of state
of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) group of ex-Soviet
countries in Saint Petersburg, a member of Kocharian’s press service
said.

The talks began on Saturday with the participation of mediators from
France, Russia and the United States.

Western diplomats have indicated that an agreement could be signed by
the end of this year on basic principles for resolving the dispute
over Nagorny Karabakh.

The two ex-Soviet states have remained at loggerheads since they
fought a war in the early 1990s, with corrosive effects for the whole
Caucasus region.

A final settlement still appears out of reach, analysts say.