Author: Karapet Navasardian

BAKU IS SURE THAT OSCE MISSION WILL CONFIRM THE FACTS OF SETTLEMENT
OF THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF AZERBAIJAN BY THE ARMENIANS
BAKU, FEBRUARY 9. ARMINFO-TURAN. The OSCE mission for reveal of facts
of settlement by Armenians of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan
completed the first stage of its work. This the opinion of the Deputy
Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Araz Azimov expressed to journalist
while commenting on the results of the trip of the mission to the
occupied territories of Azerbaijan. During the next stage the mission
must analyze the collected materials and prepare report. “We expect
it will be done in the near future and the report will be submitted
to the OSCE Minsk group mission, and then to the permanent Board of
OSCE”, Azimov said.
He expressed sureness that facts submitted to the mission by the
Azeri side were confirmed. In particular, the materials from open
and other sources on settlement in the occupied territories of
20-23 people were submitted to the mission. But even if the mission
revealed at least half or one-third of the figure it confirms the
fact of illegal settlement, Azimov said. He told that in accordance
with the Geneva convention of 1949, the occupant does not have the
right to settle or change the demographic situation in the occupied
territories. Azimov noted groundlessness of the arguments of the
Armenian side that the Armenian living before in Baku, Ganja and
Sumgayit were settled there. He told that international humanitarian
law prohibits settlement in the occupied territories the people which
have not lived there before regardless of their origin.
Azimov did not exclude that they would continue settlement of the
occupied territories. He thinks that it can be connected with the
coming liberation of the occupied territories or the question on
withdrawal of people illegally settled there will be brought up, he
noted. Speaking about the significance and the results of the mission
Azimov said that by initiating this question Azerbaijan warned Armenia
that it will never reconcile with annexation of its territory.
Azimov does not exclude that in the end final assessment will be
given to the conclusions of the mission. “However the main goal for
Azerbaijan is liberation of all occupied territories and Azerbaijan
considers the problem of settlement just in that context”, Azimov said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

European Figure Skating Championships results
.c The Associated Press
TURIN, Italy (AP) – Results Tuesday at the European Figure Skating
Championships at the Palavela ice arena:
Ice Dance Compulsory Dance
Golden Waltz
1. Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov, Russia, 44.19 points
2. Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov, Ukraine, 40.39
3. Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski, Bulgaria, 40.08
4. Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, France, 38.49
5. Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski, Israel, 38.32
6. Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali, Italy, 36.10
7. Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, Russia, 35.15
8. Sinead Kerr and John Kerr, Britain, 32.97
9. Kristin Fraser and Igor Lukanin, Azerbaijan, 32.75
10. Svetlana Kulikova and Vitali Novikov, Russia, 32.53
11. Nora Hoffmann and Attila Elek, Hungary, 30.72
12. Natalia Gudina and Alexei Beletski, Israel, 29.88
13. Anastasia Grebenkina and Vazgen Azrojan, Armenia, 29.31
14. Nathalie Pechalat and Fabien Bourzat, France, 29.24
15. Alexandra Kauc and Michael Zych, Poland, 27.39
16. Pamela O’Connor and Jonathon O’Doughterty, Britain, 27.33
17. Christina Beier and William Beier, Germany, 26.64
18. Julia Golovina and Oleg Voiko, Ukraine, 26.13
19. Alessia Aurelli and Andrea Vaturi, Italy, 25.83
20. Daniela Keller and Fabian Keller, Switzerland, 21.08
21. Diana Janostakova and Jiri Prochazka, Czech Republic, 19.97
22. Anna Galcheniuk and Oleg Krupen, Belarus, 12.36
01/25/05 11:39 EST
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
Jan 13 2005
GOVERNMENT GIVES MORE AUTHORITY TO COMMISSION ON PROTECTION OF
ECONOMIC COMPETITION
YEREVAN, JANUARY 13, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian government pledged
today to make protection of economic competition a focal point of its
current economic policy and has approved a bill on making changes to
the relevant law.
Speaking to reporters after the regular government session, deputy
trade and economic development minister Armen Gevorkian said the bill
is expected to give more authorities to the state-run commission on
protection of economic competition, to specify the range of its
operations and apply more clearly-cut punishment measures to business
entities breaking the law.
One of the changes enables the commission to break up into smaller
units those dominating companies which would prevent their
competitors to enter their market. Another change demands that
companies with dominating positions in the domestic market provide
information about their economic activities twice a year.
Some other changes also envisage penalties for companies with
dominating positions for abuse of their position, unfair competition,
which, according to the deputy minister are a frequent occurrence in
Armenia now.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Progress Report
Dec 30 2004
How the Religious Exploiters Exploit

Guest Essay – “MORAL VICTORY- Religious Exploitation, and the New
American Creed”
Have you recently read, or re-read, Sinclair Lewis’ famous novel
“Elmer Gantry”? It explains a lot of what’s happening in the U.S.
today. And so does this article.
“Our moral perils are not those of conscious malice or the explicit
lust for power. They are the perils which can be understood only if
we realize the ironic tendency of virtues to turn into vices when too
complacently relied upon; and of power to become vexatious if the
wisdom which directs it is trusted too confidently.”
— Reinhold Niebuhr
by Dom Stasi
IN THE BEGINNING…
I remember it as though it were yesterday. I was a young engineer
fresh from a successful and heady seven years in the manned lunar
expedition program called Project Apollo.
Along with thousands of other American engineers, scientists, pilots,
and technicians, people accustomed to working in relative obscurity,
we had found ourselves suddenly at the center of the universe. And
though Albert Einstein had already proven that everything and
anything can rightfully be considered the center of the universe, I’m
speaking less prosaically. For a young man in the morning of his
career, or an old man at its dusk, and today I can speak with
knowledge of both circumstances, Project Apollo was that something we
would remember the rest of our days. Physics aside, Apollo simply was
for a time the center of the universe of men. Anyone who had the
great good fortune and talent to be a part of it, would be changed
for the experience, and changed for the better. Such harmless vanity
is simply human nature. We are all of us creatures who delight in
success however small might be our part in its achievement. Self
esteem is critical to our well being as humans. On Apollo it made us
all work harder and with more passion than any work I’ve known since.
Contributing to Project Apollo, and earning the trust and respect of
project engineers older and wiser than I, and ultimately that of the
astronauts themselves, gave this and so many other young Americans a
special kind of self-confidence. Few have had such an opportunity so
early in their lives and careers. Fewer still might have accepted it,
for failure would have haunted all our days, and with each new
moonrise, our nights as well. It’s been said that experience doesn’t
change a person, but make him more of what he already is. Perhaps
that is so. Think of the challenges you have faced in your own life.
Think of how your responses to them tempered or softened you,
contributed to, or somehow affected your social, intellectual, and
perhaps, spiritual growth and attitudes. Reflecting upon ones life
can be a rewarding or a painful exercise. Yet it is a thing from
which we cannot hide. As Socrates observed, `An unexamined life is
not worth living.’ Extreme? Perhaps. But keep these concepts of self
top of mind. Remain mindful of self-confidence, self-esteem, and, not
incidentally, self-worth as you read on.
Of course, even the best of good things must come to an end. So it
was with Apollo. But at its close, when few outside the program
really cared about silly-appearing moonwalks anymore, I was one of a
relatively small group of Earthlings who had learned the empirical
science of orbital mechanics and knew about sending moving pictures
home from space. In our seven years of transmitting and receiving
them, all of America had seen those pictures. All of the world would
see those pictures evolve over time from grainy, hardly discernable
monochromatic images to full color, full motion, high resolution
renditions worthy of National Geographic. Yet, in the mid-Seventies,
and the end of manned missions to other worlds, those of us still
with the civilian sector of the US Space Program were developing more
pragmatic concerns about its future and our own. We’d all be looking
for work soon. As for me and my own future, the ability to send
moving pictures back from space seemed an esoteric skill at best, a
skill wholly devoid of commercial value and now, with no new worlds
on the trip sheet, it was becoming boring as well. I grew restless.
As things turned out, I was one of the lucky ones. I could stay on at
the aerospace plant where we’d built the Lunar Lander. But with the
program essentially over, I would have to transfer back to jets, back
to reconnaissance flight test where I’d started out, but in 1975, I
and just about every other American had had his fill of warplanes.
Also, I came to realize that I’d lost my young man’s taste for
dangerous work. I was a husband and father now, and that was a
convenient excuse to rationalize my growing yellow streak. I needed a
change. I needed another kind of job, and we were in another stupid
recession that the equally stupid TV economists never saw coming, yet
dished out advice about to the credulous masses. Some things never
change. Some jobs don’t need a skill or a record of success to
prevail. Unlike the unforgiving field of flight test, TV seemed full
of such performance-free jobs. But I was an engineer, not a TV
economist. I’d learned about video technology flying Air Force
reconnaissance in the Arctic, transferred it to a civilian career. It
was the technology that revealed the Russian missiles in Cuba, and
kept tabs on the Russian bombers poised like coils to spring from
Siberia if things in Cuba went awry. It was that same video
technology in civilian dress that had allowed us to see the moon
walks. But in its private-sector application, the application known
as commercial broadcast television, video was used shamefully.
Commercial television it seemed, was a medium created by our
collective genius only to have it exploit our collective stupidity…at
least stupidity enough to buy the junk they were continuously
peddling from its screens. A career in broadcast television
engineering held little allure.
I was offered a job with the State Department’s Voice Of America
propaganda arm, went through all the loyalty and security checks only
to turn it down – twice. I tried teaching college for a time, but
found myself too young and selfish to be satisfied by teaching others
what I still wanted to be doing myself. But where? Who in the world
needed a guy whose skill was sending movies back from space?
The answer came in a completely unexpected phone call.
Home Box Office was something I’d never heard of before that call
came in out of the blue. Home Box Office. HBO? What’s that? I asked
the eager-sounding `head hunter’ on the other end of the phone.
Next thing I knew I was sitting in a mahogany clad room high in the
Time-Life Building on Rockefeller Center in New York City. This was
no airplane factory. Elegant perfect women glided by, sylphlike and
intimidating. All the men were dressed in white shirt and tie. I was
too, of course. Yet, hidden beneath my jacket, was the only
short-sleeved white shirt in the room. How impractical of them,
thought I. It’s high summer. Why wear long sleeves only to roll them
up? Don’t these guys get it? I’d found another world, it seemed,
right here on Earth.
Otherworldly or not, TV and motion pictures was the world in which I
would spend the next 30 years of my engineering career. But first I
had to get through this interview, or meeting or whatever it was.
Eventually, I was led to a private corner office where I was
introduced to yet another of the a long-sleeved executives. His
sleeves were not rolled, but terminated in silver cuff links:
obviously a big shot. To my amazement the guy wanted to send movies –
real Hollywood movies – back from space. Looking beyond his obvious
lack of industrial fashion sense, I told him he was nuts. Then I told
him why he was nuts. He dismissed my unqualified psychoanalytic
opinions, but listened intently to my technical ones. To my surprise,
he offered me a job. To my further surprise, I took it. So much for
lofty ideals and even loftier opinions. I was in the stupid
television business, and in it to stay.
Six months later, our antenna hoisted 22,300 miles above the Earth by
a converted Atlas Delta missile, HBO, was sending movies back from
space. It was an idea that caught on quickly in the private sector.
With a single satellite in space, TV signals – in the case of HBO,
movies – could be received at every single inch of the United States
mainland. There would be no 1500 foot towers (which as a pilot I’d
always hated), no million watt transmitters, and no 100 mile contour
limits of the sort that barricade traditional `terrestrial’ broadcast
signals. Nothing of the sort would impede our little 5 watt
transmitter in the sky. Borne upon a satellite channel whose power
was equal to but that of a night-light bulb, one signal from space
could blanket the entire continental US and most of populous Canada.
It was pure brilliance on the part of those long-sleeved executives –
practical physics and military technology now put to private and
peaceful use. No mind-numbing commercials, and no numb-minded censors
either. I liked it here. This wasn’t stupid. This was cool. This was
way cool. Funny, isn’t it, how we’re able to abandon even strongly
held opinions when our self interest is better served by forming new
ones?
Firmly ensconced in HBO’s fledgling engineering department, and with
our early successes a matter of technical record, I suddenly found
myself being invited to speak at seminars on how to do this TV from
space thing. Ironically, I was teaching again, albeit in a different
venue. Over the next couple of years I would visit all 50 states. But
it was a tutorial for TV execs in the deep South that would remain an
event apart from all the others. Though I was a speaker, I was still
new to the entertainment business, so I knew no one in attendance.
But my talk had gone well, the college teaching experience was paying
off, so there would be no problem finding eager dinner companions
among so large an audience.
Descending the podium, I had noticed but a single empty chair in the
entire room. Taking it, I found myself at a table of strangely
egalitarian folk. They were gentle in manner. They welcomed me
expansively. They introduced themselves. To my delight, they spoke
less of arcane technology than they did of their fellow man and their
responsibilities toward humanity that such technology could help them
fulfill. I listened, interested, noting that they all had that sort
of deliberate not quite real Dixie accent that I’d learned to
recognize in actors when playing Southern characters before the
camera. But why here? Their names — remarkable in retrospect, but
hardly noteworthy at the time — were Jimmy Swaggart, Paul Crouch,
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Pat Robertson, Robert Tilton, and a guy
named Billy Batts. I was present, I know now, at American
Televangelism’s Big Bang, or if you prefer, its Genesis. Big league
Fundamentalist Christian TV Evangelism was born at that table that
day.
These seemingly gentle folk were fairly voracious in their acceptance
of this new way to spread The Word, nationwide. Worldwide! They were
there to learn of a new way to propagate their version of the Gospel
Of Jesus Christ. They conversed in Biblical quotes, nodding their
heads in profound understanding, `Amen, brother,’ so on. The
experience seems a bit surreal now. It was not. They were there to
buy satellite antennas and anything else they would need to fulfill
their self-proclaimed mission as Christ’s revisionist vicars on
Earth. They each seemed to have a little licensed religious TV
station of their own somewhere in the US, and if they hooked that
signal to the satellite, they would not only be able, but mandated to
have that signal carried by another hot, new medium: cable
television. That mandate would come from a little known federal
communications law known as the Must Carry Rule. It was little known
to you and me, perhaps, but well known to the budding televangelists.
These seemingly innocent people, and the equally innocent seeming
circumstances that brought us together would change the lives of
everyone at that table in the decades to come. And that in turn would
affect the world in a way none of us could have imagined. Because,
and though I had no way of knowing it, America was about to take its
first step on a 30 year journey to the Dark Ages. Today we know it
only as the 21st Century. When looking back upon it, history will
prove less kind.
>From this butterfly effect, would grow e-piety’s perfect storm. It
was the mid-Seventies. Our culture had been reeling from the narcotic
excesses of the Sixties and the sexual intemperance of the Seventies.
The divorce rate was the highest it’s ever been in our nation’s
history. The entire concept of nuclear family was under siege as
never before in America. It seemed as if everything familiar was
changing. And while most Americans were blessed with moderate
appetites, self-disciplined behaviors, and a measure of common sense,
and thus well suited to social change, many others were not. To so
many of our repressed and simplistic countrymen and women every new
experience in this brave new age, however intuitive, however mundane,
seemed an epiphany. So, while most Americans also managed to remain
relatively unaffected by the willingly-acquired excesses that
characterized the period, many others could not. America had also
just emerged from a decade-long war of unspeakable horror, and
dubious purpose. Thanks to a still-relevant news media, a mandatory
draft, and casualty rate topping 200,000 (58,000 KIA) Vietnam
affected all aware Americans. To avoid the draft, countless young
Americans married in haste and conceived unloved children in order to
gain deferment. Millions more enrolled and remained in colleges
though they would not ordinarily have done so but for the student
deferment. (No fewer than 12 deferments were granted to chickenhawks
Dick Cheney (5) and John Ashcroft (7) alone!) Since the college
deferment required actually going to college and studying something,
the experience exposed millions of commonplace minds to the volatile
philosophies of extraordinary – and quite often revolutionary –
thinkers for the first time in their personal, and America’s societal
history. One way or another, every American, regardless of family,
background, intellect, or social circumstance shared in the war’s
trauma and were made to look upon, and confront its distasteful
significance. Drenched in this cascade of social and moral upheaval,
vast numbers of Americans were driven to the edge. Many more went
over that edge and found comfort only in denial or in excess, or
both. Be it drugs, sex, alcohol, violence, or all of the above, there
was a measure of comfort and escape to be found in the sensual
distractions of excess, and it was available and beckoning from
wherever one turned.
Indulgence would yield a temporary comfort, and when the millions who
over-indulged came crashing back to reality, many needed comforting
of another kind. They needed reform, and some degree of certainty in
what seemed an even-more-uncertain society than that which they had
attempted to escape. They needed someone or something to which they
could turn for advice, direction, strength, and inspiration. For
those who survived the fall physically but not emotionally, there
arose a need for some mortal contact, someone who would not consider
them failed humans, someone or something to show them the way back.
Or, more simply stated, millions and millions and millions of
Americans needed a new addiction to wean them from and obviate the
mental scars left by their old addictions of war and sex and drugs,
and social transgression, and violence, and confusion, and behavior
outside the limits of their operant conditioning. Instead of
assessing and accepting their memories, so very many Americans needed
forgiveness for their actions. Those among the multitudes lacking the
resolve to accept and assess and repair their assaulted psyches,
those lacking the strength to pick themselves back up (and their
numbers were legion) needed something more. They needed an emotional
crutch. What people need, people tend to find. If they don’t find it
by themselves, there are always those willing to provide it… usually
for a price. In this case, it appeared literally right before their
eyes. Salvation, forgiveness, aggrandizement, self-esteem, courage,
moral superiority, all of it was beaming to them right from heaven
itself, and onto their television screens. Satellite delivered
televangelism was born on that day back in 1975. I watched it hatch.
Suddenly it was everywhere. There was never a time in modern history
when it was `needed’ more. From the flickering boxes in America’s
living rooms came the siren call to her desperate multitudes. `Hey
you out there in TV land, whatever you’ve done, and to whomever
you’ve done it, no worries. Put down that bottle, throw away that
needle, stop punching your wife, whatever. All is forgiven… or can
be. In fact, you can instantly become superior to those infidels
who’ve not found the light and The Way and have done so much to
degrade you for so long. Just listen to me, then send cash, check, or
money order to the address on your screen. You’ll be the best there
is, brothers and sisters, the best there is. Trust Jesus. Trust me.
Send a check. Halleluiah!
Given that so very many of `Christian’ fundamentalism’s contemporary
American adherents believe that they have failed in the eyes of those
who follow more moderate religious or societal paths, and given the
widespread genetic proclivity toward belonging, they also needed
something more extreme than rational theology to light their way back
from the abyss. They needed to be a part of something so extreme, so
strident that it would also provide them the psychological
wherewithal to dismiss their moderate fellows’ judgments of them.
That would require a system of beliefs and strictures so rigorous, so
abstemonious that it would also serve to obviate or at least
trivialize the beliefs and behaviors of their moderate
Judeo-Christian counterparts, and those of enlightened liberal
practitioners of any religion and religious thought, thus
discrediting those they saw as their mortal judges and despicable
scholarly elites, their betters. Once again, they needed an escape
from reality. They needed a mind fix.
There is but one major creed that has offered such impenitent
forgiveness, even aggrandizement for simply having rejected ones past
transgressions and accepting its tenets. There is but one creed that
associates itself so closely with an Anglo-Protestant American
heritage, despite that no such identity ever existed. (Nature abhors
a vacuum. The vacuum left by most Americans’ ignorance of their own
country’s relatively brief history, is a vacuum easily filled by
myth. Any student of American history knows well that many of the
Founders were religious, but none publicly fundamentalist Christian.
References to God, not to Jesus, prevail in their writings. The
crafters of our Republic were brilliant men. But few would dispute
that the three greatest geniuses among them were Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Franklin and Jefferson
were professed deists, Hamilton a homosexual. From where does the
religious Right’s claim to their legacy stem? It stems from
imagination. Because it simply never was. Religion was a part of the
beautiful fabric of early America, not its foundation. The plurality
of the US Constitution superceded the singularity of the Mayflower
Compact.) There is but one creed that stimulates intolerance while
proclaiming an inclusiveness based on its very antithesis. And
finally, but most critical, there is but one creed that bases its
fundamentalism on an absolutely literal interpretation of a Bible it
considers absolutely flawless. Yet the Bible passed down through the
ages is largely a fabrication. It is laced with revisionist scripture
and distortions of convenience that the most serious of religious
scholars have found to be at best, only 18% historically factual.1 At
best.
Thus, proximate attribution to the approximate Word is the rough
equivalent of a 21st century airline or ship’s captain using 14th
century maps, and only 14th century maps, by which to navigate and
presuming them to be inviolate.
I’ll take the bus.
By exploiting this widespread proclivity to believe, the Bible has
become a convenient vehicle through which unscrupulous interpreters
can derive a creed, a creed which, if accepted with a zealot’s
fervor, would forgive anything – absolutely anything – one might have
inflicted upon himself or his fellow man, woman, child, beast,
vegetable or mineral in the past, and do so sans active or
substantive non-monetary penance. It is a creed that is conveniently
blind to any dichotomy between intolerance and forgiveness, theocracy
and democracy, benevolence and vengeance, faith and political
corruption. That is the creed that encourages one to be born again,
the Evangelical Creed of Biblical literalism. Or what is alternately
called rightist, conservative, Evangelical, fundamentalist
Christianity. So ill conceived and distorted is this ostensibly
`literal’ acceptance of oft revised, translated and interpreted
scripture, that serious Biblical scholars now consider it fabrication
in the interest of self-servitude and the exploitation of mind-cure.
Noted Biblical scholar and psychologist Edmund D. Cohen postulates
that, `Cast free form its Biblical moorings, Christianity came to
denote anything good or wholesome in American life.’2 Inventing
religions of convenience is characteristic of men, not the province
of man.
Nonetheless, and as usual, legions of credulous, disillusioned,
disconnected Americans fell victim to fundamentalism’s lure. Weather
the adherent fancies a turban, a topknot, or a Stetson, religious
extremism serves a purpose no different from drugs when it becomes a
crutch. Religious extremism has become the simplistic answer for far
too many of our countrymen’s mortal problems. For its `Christian’
adherents, the answers to all life’s problems are found between the
Bible’s covers. There is no need to actually indulge in the human
attribute of reasoning. Intellect is fabricated through rote
memorization of scripture. But were it all that simple.
Unfortunately, as with most other forms of extremism which abdicate
thought to dogmatic obedience, fundamentalism is also the source of
so very, very many more problems than it ever has solved, or ever
will solve.
Recall now, the earlier references to self-esteem, the vacuum it
leaves when it is absent or destroyed through self-destructive
living, excess, compulsive-obsessive behaviors, inflicted or accepted
abuse.
Anyone who would have been addicted to sex, drugs, and anything but
rock and roll, was a candidate for addiction to whatever else suited
his or her self-depreciated fancy. Anyone who needed forgiveness for
the harm he’d done to himself or to others, could find it here.
Christianity – but especially this strange, highly-selective, but
very heady new simplistic form of it – was an addiction about which
they could even feel good. They could even feel better than anyone
else. They could garner immense self-esteem, however ill-placed. That
rush was, and is to this day, a first in so many disturbed lives. In
fact, lets throw in faith-healing of the most desperately ill while
were at it. What’s the harm?
The ensuing decades would see the easily led, easily addicted, easily
persuaded, easily frightened, abused, downtrodden, secret-harboring,
pain ridden – in short, vulnerable – masses drawn to the flickering
images of these fire and brimstone preachers on their cable
televisions and they would be converted by the millions, by the
tens-of-millions. They would belong. All is forgiven. All is well, or
will be shortly. All. Absolutely all. Oh, by the way, don’t forget to
send the check.
If these words seem harsh, I simply make no effort to disguise my
disdain for those who would exploit the vulnerable, nor will I
soft-peddle the obvious abuse by so many, of a system of government
created to, among other things, tolerate and protect religious
freedom. The abuse of that trust by so many televangelists, and the
further misuse of the public electromagnetic spectrum to exploit the
irrational, credulous, impressionable, desperate, and weak who
believe them is an especially vile form of TV indecency. But don’t
look for any scrutiny by our current Federal Communications
Commission. Bush stooge and FCC Commissioner, Michael Powell, will be
too busy looking for bare breasts to keep the citizenry’s pathetic
popular mind from realizing that he’s destroying public interest
protections such as the station ownership cap. That cap remains the
only barrier to the continued expansion by the pious parasites of
televangelism. Powell is bent on destroying that cap in the special
interest of his owners.
FALSE PROPHETS / REAL PROFITS:
Keep in mind that we’re speaking of Christianity, albeit an extreme
form, but Christianity: a belief in the divinity of Jesus as Christ,
as God the Son, and in His teachings and principles upon this mortal
coil.
Keep in mind, too, that we’re speaking of the Old Testament as well,
of the introductory scriptures themselves, the scriptures to which
many Evangelicals adhere dogmatically, the fundament, Genesis
2:16-17, the garden, the forbidden fruit. The Bible virtually begins
with God’s admonitions to man on the virtues of moderation, the
perils of excess. It is the first admonition to Adam… the first! Yet,
somehow, today’s Biblical literalism seems to yield to interpretation
at such uncomfortable junctures as Genesis. The flesh is, after all,
weak. So on, so forth, ad infinitum.
As you read further, please remain mindful that Jesus in his Earthly
manifestation owned virtually nothing. Such modesty must have set a
poor example to TV evangelists. They own a lot of things. Boy, do
they own a lot of things. They want to own a lot more. Michael Powell
will soon allow them to do just that.
Need an example of how lucrative is the televangelist business?
Several examples? Easy.
Most of you know of a religious TV show called the `700 Club.’ It was
founded by presidential candidate, gay basher, and TV evangelist
extraordinaire Pat Robertson. It got its name from Robertson’s
admonition to his initial 700 rural viewers to send him a donation of
$10.00 each. That was the estimated cost of operating his fledgling
`terrestrial’ TV show. Ten years after Pat Robertson made his modest
$7000.00 request, and with his channel now being carried by
satellite, he had 26 million regular viewers across the country.
Operating revenues had grown to a staggering $145,517,000.00 annually
in the US alone.3 Today the `700 Club’ is carried in 66 countries.
Robertson and his Christian Coalition purport enormous influence in
American politics. This lofty pulpit allowed Robertson to predict
that Armageddon would arrive in 1982. This prospect would of course
leave faithful viewers with no practical need for such things as
green bananas, nor incidentally, their retirement savings, but that’s
just speculation by this jaded writer. When, despite Ronald Reagan’s
best efforts, the world failed to end, it didn’t matter much to
Robertson’s flock, no one was complaining or seeking a refund,
instead they were told to thank Jesus. They did. Later, Robertson
actually had his television crews preparing to televise the Second
Coming. That was in 1990. Why would Robertson believe that he and he
alone knew this? Are the TV crews still on location? Where might that
be?
Eventually, his lackluster performance as a prophet led Robertson to
abandon prediction in favor of the safer and more politically potent
practice of hindsight. For example, he has recently proclaimed credit
for George W. Bush’s `re’ election. However dubious a distinction
that might be, Bush believes him, so little else matters. As such we
can expect Robertson’s influence to increase in these four dismal
years ahead as Bush continues distributing our US Treasury’s contents
to his friends, and promotes his `Faith Based Initiative’ program.
Initiative indeed.
Robertson is not alone. Fabulous wealth and power would be visited
upon many of this new breed of high-tech missionaries, and now it
seems they and their fiscally less impressive sycophants are
everywhere one turns. There is no admission prerequisite to the
salvation club, and no barrier to moral superiority. All one need do
is buy it at the two-for-one sale that’s always going on. (Call the
number on your screen). State it aloud with some reference to Jesus,
wave your hand in the air, and back the rapt gestures with cash,
check, or money order, and you’re on the Heavenly Express. But don’t
forget that check. God don’t save no deadbeats. The tax-free American
dollar is still worth plenty in heaven.
Another dinner companion that fateful night was Paul Crouch. Like
Robertson and Jesus, Crouch, the televangelist, and story telling
founder of Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN), started out with
virtually nothing. Using a rented studio in southern California and a
set made from his living room furniture and shower curtain, Crouch
went on the air from Burbank. He claims that later, in 1975 to be
exact, he was visited by God one night. God projected a map of the
United States on Paul’s ceiling, and told him about satellite
technology. God went on to tell Paul Crouch how the satellite (No,
not the moon. God forgot to put batteries in that satellite. We’re
talking modern here.) would allow him to broadcast to all those
cities all across America.
Thanks to God’s little slide show on Paul Crouch’s ceiling, Paul
would have no further need of his living room sofa and shower curtain
as a set. In fact, today he sits upon a golden throne in a
velvet-curtained studio, all of it generously funded by the
$126,000,000.00 in annual donations from his faithful viewers in
satellite television land.4 I often wonder why Paul Crouch came to
that seminar at all. Why listen to dopes like me babble on when God
Himself had already told Paul about satellite television? Funny how
Crouch never mentioned his nocturnal visit from God. It would have
been great dinner conversation. Because, except for that smelly guy I
always see at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, I’ve never met anyone
who’s been visited by God.
Yet another of these people is Robert Tilton. Tilton was flying high
with his TV ministries beaming forth from Texas or Oklahoma to
America’s living rooms, thus pulling in $800,000.00 per month in
donations. But an industrious dumpster-diving reporter would find
thousands of prayer requests intended for the preacher’s attention,
in that dumpster unopened and unread except to extract the checks and
cash enclosed. The story got to ABC-TV and put a temporary crimp in
Reverend Tilton’s style. He’s back on the air again though, and doing
just fine.8 Today’s media takes no notice.
There were more. Everyone remembers Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. We all
of us endured their spectacular public implosion, so I won’t drag it
out here. But they, of course, had a TV ministry too. They called it
Praise The Lord. Its letters, like those of TBN, were PTL. Remember
PTL? It was not long, however, before their intemperately flamboyant
lifestyle had the FBI wondering whether PTL stood for Praise The
Lord, or Pass The Loot. They found out. When Bakker went to jail,
Jerry Falwell took over the ministry. Falwell would shortly be
accused of swindling his new flock out of $73 million in a bond
scheme.5 Falwell also claims credit for Bush `re’ election. Only
history will decide which was the more heinous offense.
Of the seven people at that fateful dinner table, most would be
embroiled in scandals. They would stand accused or proven guilty of
behavior violating their very admonitions and those of their
professed god. One would be indicted for fraud, another convicted,
two would be involved in extramarital affairs with prostitutes and
another accused of sexual harassment by a same-sex employee.6 The
preacher accused of this laying on of hands would pay that employee
nearly half-a-million dollars to keep his silence. Another would
enter drug rehab. One I would personally witness attempting to pass a
worthless check for $2,000,000.00 of satellite equipment and
services. Nice bunch.
Yet they prevail. One multi-millionaire not mentioned previously, is
Armenian-born preacher, Benny Hinn. Clad in a strange,
cassock-emulating Nehru suite, Hinn is a player’s player.
An Elmer Gantry style faith healer, to this day Hinn has been unable
to show concrete admissible physical evidence of having healed anyone
of anything at any time, anywhere. No problem. (Though he has not yet
been able to re-attach the slugger’s ear, Hinn does accept credit for
curing Evander Holyfield’s heart problems. While most overly-muscular
athletes simply stop taking steroids to accomplish this, Holyfield
credits Benny Hinn with his miraculous recovery.) But to the point,
Hinn takes a salary of $500,00.00 per year for his medical miracle
work. That’s actually modest by many standards. But there’s no mal
practice premium, and it’s taxable. His ministry, however, takes in
$80,000,000.00 a year in donations. He says the donations go back
into the ministry, but Hinn refuses to join the Evangelical Council
for Financial Accountability. (Ministers such as Billy Graham are
members in good standing, but membership requires revealing ones
finances.) Hinn does not make any apologies. `I don’t need gold in
Heaven,’ Hinn says, `I got to have it now.’ Benny Hinn owns several
homes, including his multimillion dollar residence in Dana Point,
California. He travels in a $7 million Gulfstream jet between
$2000.00 a night hotel rooms. He rarely quotes from Genesis 2:16-17.
He’s apparently getting it now.7
In fact, nearly all of them are. These TV preachers prevail and
flourish regardless of their obvious transgressions against their
own, and their gods’ admonitions. And why wouldn’t they? All they
have to do is go back on the air, shed a few tears, promise to be
good, proclaim their love of Jesus, and everyone believes them,
starts crying, hugging one another and writing checks again. Like the
battered wife who believes the `never again’ lies and keeps going
back for more, America is a society ever-more driven by faith and the
dependencies which rationalize it. We’re constantly told what a good
thing faith is. Yet Webster’s defines faith as a belief in something
for which there is neither evidence nor proof. What makes that a good
thing? Imagine if the Justice Department operated on such a premise.
They could jail whomever they wanted to jail, for whatever reason
they chose, with neither evidence or proof of wrongdoing…oh,
they’ve already started doing that? Sorry. My mistake.
We are the most religious advanced society on earth today.9 A recent
poll showed that 59% of Americans consider God and religion very
important in their everyday lives. Compare this to Italy’s 23%, or to
Japan’s and France’s 12% and you start to get the picture.
Surprising, isn’t it? It doesn’t change much between the oceans
either. While we might fondly consider ourselves socially and
economically more similar to our progressive northern neighbors than
we do those to our south, the similarities begin and end with
language. Mexicans answered the same question with 57% of them saying
that religion plays a very important part in their lives. That
compares tightly with the 59% of Americans, while only 30% of
Canadians considered this to be so. Thus, with the most moneyed
country in the world publicly proclaiming its citizens’ faith – or
more simply stated, their eagerness to believe things without
supporting evidence – it’s no wonder the preachers of prey find their
way to our shores, while their bank accounts remain off-shore. It’s
no wonder they have become ever wealthier in material things, ever
more revered by their faith-filled-flocks. They prevail and have been
joined by many others, with doubtless many more yet to come. In
Isaiah 1:18, the Bible tells us – and them – exactly why: `Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’
Despite their record of apparent hypocrisy, scandal, and evident
deceit, the televangelists prevail, and have become ever more
powerful a political force in a no-longer secular US government. The
empire of influence – real or perceived – has been built by the TV
preachers on the faith, fortunes, and fealty of the credulous,
desperate, terrified. That it has been founded upon and in violation
of the American Creed is of no concern to them or their
history-oblivious flocks. Now, it is welcomed and even nurtured by
one of the most irrationally faithful among them. In their poster boy
of the moment the fundamentalists have found a man who believes the
world is doomed to destruction in our lifetime, so take what you can
get, and throw the wrapper in the river. And what’s worse, with his
return to power, the idiot-king seems bent on fulfilling that false
prophecy of doom himself if only to prove it correct. I am speaking
of course of extremism’s repentant, born again Christian
fundamentalist and reformed party animal, deserter, tooter, boozer,
stock manipulator, and president, George W. Bush.10, 11, 12, 13
It’s important to know that Bush recently said, `If you want to
understand me, you got to go to Midland Texas.’ I did. What I learned
there is this. George W. Bush bottomed out in Midland, Texas in the
mid-Eighties. But in doing so, he was by no means alone. Midland,
Texas in the Eighties was filled with failed oil men. Not even the
competent ones could make a go of it then. The town was wracked by
suicides and drunkenness as a result of its one and only industry
going bust. When one does not have work in Midland, there are few
alternatives to idleness. One alternative is drink. The other is
Church. Among troubled men the alternatives often proceed one to the
other, and in that order. When George W. Bush, despite his background
of incalculable privilege, found himself just another drunken and
failed oil man in Midland, he had run his string full out. Cocaine
had failed him, business had failed him, drink had failed him. He had
called himself the Bush family’s black sheep. Small wonder. Despite
being the fortunate son of the incumbent Vice President of the United
States, the fortunate heir to a fortune his grandfather Prescott Bush
had amassed as a banker to such luminaries as Adolph Hitler, despite
massive investment from the bin Laden family in his Arbusto oil
business, George could not make a go of it.14, 15 He couldn’t find
oil in Texas. There was little left for the hapless drunk but God.
Midland might have run out of customers, and George might have run
out of other people’s money, but God was everywhere here, still is
despite the town’s economic upturn.
Skip Hedgepeth, a contemporary in the Midland Men’s Community Bible
Study group explains Bush’s epiphany thus, `Hard times have a way of
making people draw closer to God. When we’re faced with troubles, we
realize we’re not in charge of everything. So we start looking for a
power greater than ourselves to help us in our troubles.’
While most of us realize we’re not in charge of everything at about 3
months of age, it takes others a bit longer. For them, there’s God.
So, in the Fall of 1985, his cocaine and alcohol abuse no longer a
viable escape, his Arbusto Energy company now just plain busto,
George W. Bush joined the Midland Men’s Community Bible Study Group.
Here he would be introduced to daily Bible readings and the emotional
security found through hugging other men, crying, and dogma. To the
surprise of few who knew him, George’s addictive personality was
about to take control of his ever-smaller brain yet again.16
In Evangelical Christianity, George W. Bush found a culture
supporting non-judgment and unearned forgiveness of ones past deeds.
This is known as Motivated Belief. Further, Evangelicals quite
deliberately separate themselves from moderate Protestants by their
belief in the Bible’s absolute unerring accuracy as the written word
of God. Unless God has continually edited it vicariously, that stands
in stark contrast to logical and rational religious belief and
learning. It stands in equal contrast to Anglo-American concepts of
jurisprudence. It profanes science. But it thrives because it serves
a purpose, and that purpose is self-delusion. It has no place in
enlightened government or philosophy, yet today it dominates
America’s. It is the primary reason Bush won or stole this election
despite his abysmal performance as president these last four years,
and it is the primary reason that he, just like the tainted
televangelists who sent their legions of faithful lemmings out to
vote for their born-again miscreant, can get away with just about
anything in the conditioned minds of his and their followers.
The point of all this is simple. After all, if these American `value
voters’ cannot find it within themselves to ignore the mountains of
evidence and FORGIVE their very leaders of dastardly deeds, and do so
unconditionally, how can they expect to be forgiven themselves? Yet
there is a sinful dichotomy at play here. They will forgive one
another, but condone the vengeance-killing of 100,000 Iraqis without
evidence that any of these slaughtered men, women, or children were
guilty of anything – anything other than being different, that is. To
me, such inconsistent beliefs as forgiveness and vengeance,
sanctifying life while taking it indiscriminately, do not pave the
way to Heaven. Such beliefs are the road to Hell. Unfortunately we’re
all on it together and the kooks are driving.
To Bush and his ilk, life, despite its being a gift from God, is
trivialized as nothing more than a dress rehearsal for the afterlife.
Here you make your mistakes, and here you correct them in order to
achieve salvation. The misused concept is emphasized in the New
Testament, and called upon often by preachers, `…he that shall endure
unto the end, the same shall be saved.’ In the Evangelical
interpretation, it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish after
you’ve finished. This removes the fear of `salvation doubt’ if
believed with vigor and absolution. To the literalists, the Bible
teaches that everyone should be judged only after they’ve died.
Consider how sainthood is ascribed but posthumously. Only thus are
mortals afforded full opportunity to repent and be saved. However,
inconsistent in this interpretation is how the Religous Right’s
dogmatic adherents, such as George W. Bush, deny other potential or
wayward Christians this chance by their vindictive actions. Bush sent
147 convicts to the death chamber in five years as governor. That’s a
record. Nearly all called themselves Christians. Were they given the
opportunity to `endure unto the end,’ and achieve repentance by their
actions, or was Bush better suited to determine their temporal end
than was God? While the wholesale execution of prisoners is an
extreme example, to Bush’s mind, it seems once you’re born, you’re
kill fodder for a greater good independent of your past deeds. He
spent as little as four minutes deciding who lives and who dies. In
this context then, once again, consider the bloodbath that is Iraq.
When and where did Jesus Christ teach this stuff to anybody? Simple.
He did not. Mortal men of purpose made it up. Mortal men find purpose
by acting on those beliefs.
Sigmund Freud writing in his 1927 postulation, The Future Of An
Illusion, says of conservative Christians, `Their acceptance of a
universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal
one.’ Can there be a better explanation of why fear is so liberally
used in our theocratic government’s message today? Can there be any
doubt as to whom they are speaking?
As Americans, as members of what was so recently called the most
advanced society in human history, should we not be looking forward?
Why then do we reward those who always look backward for guidance,
backward to a time and place and a circumstance that never existed
but in their fantasies and the imagination of those who foist such
false ideas about America’s religious heritage upon them? The
Evangelists’ version of That Old Time Religion is, in reality, a very
new concept. But unless we’re about to start burning witches again,
and offering our daughters into slavery, it’s just another bill of
goods they’ve sold themselves…sold being the operative word.
As a culture, we will be made to understand the perils of blind faith
and of retrospection without reference, perils we’ve already loosed
on a more rational world. It has never been stated more succinctly
than wherein Proverbs 29:18 observes how, `Without vision the people
perish.’ Yet by its very definition, blind faith is without vision.
Could there be a more profound misinterpretation of scripture than
that manifest by this administration and the fundamentalist
sycophants who’ve not only rewarded its crimes, but assured their
continuance? They ask us to have faith while they take the lives of
our young in exchange for oil. They ask us to have faith because if
we were intelligent or courageous enough to demand evidence we would
ask them why they’ve embarked upon an illegal war with no plan for
termination; a daily slaughter of Iraqi innocents within their own
homes, a slaughter devoid of honest objectives or reasonable
justification; a daily desecration of the most holy of places without
concern for mortal suffering or divine retribution; a national
security plan that breaks the bank while obviating national security;
a financial deficit with no plan for recovery; a Social Security
privatization plan with no vehicle for funding it other than robbing
an entire generation of retirees and borrowing $2-trillion from
foreign nations; a headlong rush to deny the weak among us aid and
comfort in violation of Christ’s teachings; a national economic model
equal to that of the second worst economy in the hemisphere,
Argentina; a policy of spend and borrow that will leave our children
bankrupt and beholden to the children of other nations; an energy
policy leading to fatal global climate change with no plan for
counteraction or survival of the human race; a collapse of the U.S.
Dollar on world markets with no plan for recovery; a spiraling
national debt with no ability to repay so much as its interest
without selling our country to the Chinese at wholesale; and finally,
the deliberate and pointless alienation of the 6.4 billion people who
did not vote for George W. Bush but whose lives will be affected by
his actions and to whom we will owe trillions of the US dollars our
children must repay.
Summary
Satellite television today allows the majority of those billions and
billions of foreigners to see America and her government’s actions in
her people’s name. This has never before been so. We’ve always known
that power corrupts. But corrupt leaders have been able to shield
themselves from the world’s view in past generations. They’ve often
been able to do so long enough to amass great wealth and power at the
expense of their peoples before running off. But they cannot do so
any longer, not with impunity. America’s actions affect the whole
world. Today, the entire world is watching us. They’re nervous. Their
multitudes will not allow their `values’ to cloud the truth unfolding
before their very eyes on the planet they are willed by God to share
with us, the `superpower.’ For the moment, we’ve abdicated our nation
to delusional screwballs. Many nations have done this before. They
already `get it.’ We don’t The world will not follow our lead. They
will bankrupt us this time. This time they can.
Conclusion
We’ve examined but a few of the shortsighted, self-serving and
visionless prospects for our America under its current irrational,
faith driven `leader.’ On Saturday he told us that `God is guiding
our nation.’ So I guess Bush has delegated even that task to faith.
Call it charm, lunacy, ignorance, stupidity, or just call it what it
is, policy, Bush’s attributes work wonders with many Americans. As
one wag put it, `I like Bush ’cause he’s as dumb as me.’
Bush’s style appeals to what the TV ministers call their `Value
Voters.’ So, let the exit polls be damned, the Evangelicals carried
the day for their poster boy. If they didn’t, they at least gave the
Republican crooks who own this president a plausible vehicle to which
they might attribute the otherwise inexplicable vote counts in this
year’s national election. They have changed our country into
something its founders never intended it to be, a virtual theocracy,
and they did it through abuse of the very system first designed to
prevent it.
Though 30 years ago they had no substantive national influence,
today, by their own literally incredible estimate, born-again
Evangelicals represent 38% of voting age Americans. This year they
appeared in record numbers casting, according to Barna Research, an
estimated 53% of the total vote. That’s a majority however you cut
it. Their votes went overwhelmingly to George W. Bush and his
anti-gay, anti-science, anti-pluralist, anti-social, anti-secular,
anti-Earth, backward-looking, blind faith agenda.
Evangelicals have been convinced that they were the spoiler in this
election. They equate Bush’s victory with their infantile ideas about
morality. They think they exhibited free will, imposed it upon the
Liberal infidels by sending the Bush numbers over the top. In reality
all they did was fall for the Republican line the same way they fall
for their TV preachers’ baloney. They responded as a herd. As always,
it’ll cost them. That’s expected, and it’s old news. What’s really
troubling is this. The TV preachers have shown the manipulators in
the Bush administration how easy it was to use the credulous masses,
to direct them to ends that most would consider outrageously stupid
at the very least. The faithful herd will now be led to the
slaughter, double crossed, deserted, and robbed of something they
consider valuable, as have so many others the Bush administration has
used and discarded during these four graceless years. Perhaps they
deserve it. Perhaps we all do. For, after all, haven’t the rest of
us, those who so fondly consider ourselves enlightened, behaved no
better? Have we not silently and passively ignored the empirical
evidence of exit polls? 17, 18 It was these very exit polls which
caused my source to hear one White House official exclaim, `We’re
being creamed,’ before it miraculously changed in their favor.19 Have
we not ignored the mathematical improbability that nearly every error
uncovered accrued to Bush’s advantage? The laws of probability demand
that multiple random errors trend toward even distribution, but only
if they are truly errors. Are we questioning the electronic `news’
media’s absence from this story? Nope. So, having seen all this
before, are we not therefore, accepting the nearly impossible results
of this election on blind faith?
Blind faith is not a plan for any society’s future survival; neither
is it cognition worthy of the fully developed human mind. Blind faith
is just a pretty mask that hides the ugly face of ignorance. Today,
America wears that mask, and it does not represent the moral or
ethical or religious `values’ of its most rational citizens. Neither
is it fooling anyone but other Americans.
It is said that of all God’s creatures, only humans can deliberately
consider any but their immediate future. Humans and humans alone have
the power of mind to appreciate the implications of their present
actions upon their long-term future and the welfare and survival of
their children. Despite these unique gifts of mind, we are told and
apparently believe that 59,054,087 Americans voted to continue a
dismally failed presidency. Despite that presumably cognitive
understanding, despite that ability to anticipate disaster, another
estimated 80,000,000 voting age Americans chose to stay home on
Election Day altogether. They chose not to vote. One can only ponder
upon what kept them away from the polls, and what might be the values
they consider important, but not important enough to get them get out
of their easy chairs in the interest of saving their lives. There is
but one conclusion to be drawn from these disparate behaviors.
America has suffered a crisis of intellect. We are become a people no
longer adequate to the rigors of sustaining an ethical and equitable
democracy.
As Thomas Paine said at America’s birth, `A people gets the
government it deserves.’
Oh, well. God save America! Her citizens, it seems, are all watching
television.
——————————-
Dom Stasi is Chief Technology Officer for an international media
network. A pilot, Air Force veteran, and member of both the Planetary
Society, and Center For Inquiry, he is a widely published science and
technology writer. A father of two, Mr. Stasi lives in Los Angeles
with his wife of 38 years.
Footnotes
Please have no faith in anything you’ve read here. Unless and until
you check the facts for yourself, that’s all they are, some
stranger’s written words. The following references are provided to
start you on that road – or as an aid to sleep, whichever you prefer.
(DS)
1/
2/ The Mind Of The Bible Believer; by Edmund Cohen, Prometheus Books,
2003
3/
4/
5/
6/
7/
8/
9/ An Anatomy Of American Nationalism, by Anatol Lieven; Oxford
University Press, 2004.
10/
11/
12/
13/ 37.htm
14/
h___Bin_Laden_-_George_W__B/bush___bin_laden_-_geo rge_w__b.html
15/ ler.htm
16/ s/view/
17/
duboard.php?az=view_all&address3x79760
18/
19/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenia does not Seek to Join NATO
The Journal of Turkish Weekly
Dec 20 2004
Armenian Defense Minister: “Accession to NATO isn’t on current agenda
of Armenia”
JTW Staff, 20 December 2004
The accession to NATO is not on the current foreign political agenda
of Armenia, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan said at Friday debates
organized by the Public Dialog and Development Center, Russian News
Agency Itar-Tass reported.
“At the same time, Armenia is realistic about regional security. It
does not make premature statements but develops cooperation with
the North Atlantic Alliance step by step. In this light relations
with NATO have a serious role in the provision of Armenian security”
added Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan.
Armenia mainly based its security on co-operation with Russian
Federation while Georgia and Azerbaijan develop close relations
with the United States and Europe. Armenia also has serious border
problems with Azerbaijan and NATO member Turkey. About 20 percent
of Azerbaijani territories is under Armenian invasion occupation,
and international organizations ask Armenia to withdraw its forces
from the occupied territories.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Iraqi TV reports anger by Mosul residents over church attacks
Al-Sharqiyah, Baghdad
8 Dec 04
Al-Sharqiyah correspondent in Mosul reported that Mosul city today woke
up to a strong wave of anger and condemnation following the criminal
attack against the Chaldean and Armenian churches last evening.
The correspondent said that there was sadness and anger among the
Muslim and Christian residents of Mosul, adding that the residents
expressed denunciation of this criminal act, which was strange to
the Iraqi people’s ethics and brotherly coexistence. The residents
of the city stressed that only external parties would carry out such
an act because they hated Iraq and were trying through such criminal
acts to sabotage the country and its strong national structure.
The correspondent added that nobody stopped the thieves who stole the
contents of the Armenian church this morning following yesterday’s
explosion. He added that no Iraqi police forces or US troops were
present to protect the two churches after they were blown up.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

2nd Iran-Armenia electricity line to be launched
IRNA News Agency (Tehran)
29/11/2004
Tehran, Nov 29, IRNA — A second line of the Iran-Armenia electricity
network with a capacity of 230 kw is due to be inaugurated tomorrow.
Iranian Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf and his Armenian counterpart,
Armen Movsisian, will be attending the inaugural ceremony.
“Electricity exchanges between the two countries will reach a total of 450
megawatts through this project,” the managing director of the Iranian SANIR
Electricity Company said on Monday.
Alireza Kadkhodaei said that the project costs 8.4 million dollars.
He also announced that the two countries’ energy ministers are scheduled to
sign an agreement for construction of a third line of the the two
countries’
electricity network.
Meanwhile, Iran and Armenia on May 13 signed an agreement to construct a
42-km gas pipeline between the Armenian cities of Megri and Kajaran.
The project is to be inaugurated during an upcoming visit of Energy
Minister
Bitaraf in Armenia.
The Iran-Armenia trade volume is expected to reach 10 billion dollars in
the
next 20 years with implementation of the above-stated project.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

“SAFETY ON SOUTHERN CAUCASUS” SEMINAR ENDED
[November 27, 2004, 22:25:29]
AzerTag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
Nov 27 2004
As was informed by AzerTAj, on November 27, the 58th Rose-Roth seminar
conducted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the NATO together with
Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan Republic rounded.
Opening the action, international expert John Roberts informed that
discussed would be the topic “Reforms in the field of defense in the
new independent states”.
At the seminar, making was statement the Minister of Defense of
Azerbaijan Republic Safar Abiyev. He has told that the Azerbaijan
Republic even during war with the aggressor state Armenia, on May 4,
1994, has joined the NATO “Partnership for Peace” Program.
Activity of Azerbaijan within the framework of the “PfP” Program
has created opportunity for expansion of the international
links and cooperation with the states of NATO and Armed Forces of
partner-countries in military-political and military-technical area
on the way of strengthening of defensibility of the Republic.
He has noted that in 1997 the state commission on cooperation of the
Azerbaijan Republic with the NATO has been created. Since that period
in the Armed forces of Azerbaijan and in system of its education,
reforms have begun according to standards of the NATO. First of all,
the educational system of Armed Forces has been reformed according
to modern standards, and purposeful concrete measures directed on
preparation of the officer staff were undertaken.
And in 2004, the Center preparing younger experts for Armed Forces
of Azerbaijan has been created. In this Center, within the framework
of programs of cooperation with the NATO and bilateral cooperation,
it is planned preparation of officer and sergeant staff for Armed
Forces of the Country.
In 2004, Azerbaijan has undertaken 33 more Partner obligations under
the “Planning and Processing Analysis” (PPA) program of NATO and
plans to increase in further their number.
Minister also has emphasized that the structure headed by him prepares
for the Individual program of partnership of the NATO, and according
to the program, officers of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan take
part in the NATO’s 250 exercises, conferences, seminars, courses and
other actions.
Cooperation between the Azerbaijan Republic and the NATO proceeds
also at the level of the leadership of both sides, the Minister
emphasized. The President of the Azerbaijan Republic repeatedly has
visited Headquarters of the NATO, the Secretary General of the NATO,
his assistants, Supreme Commander-In-Chief of forces of the NATO
in Europe, director of group on Coordination of partnership, the
commander of the United Forces of the NATO in southeast Europe and
its other representatives of high rank have visited Azerbaijan and
carried out here useful consultations.
Further, The Minister has dwelt on participation of Azerbaijan’s
Armed Forces in peace-making operations. The peace-making platoon
of the Armed Forces of the Republic since September 1999 carries out
peace-making mission in Kosovo, other platoon since November 2002 –
in Afghanistan, and another unit since August 2003 – in Iraq. Then,
the Minister has told that Azerbaijan carries out bilateral cooperation
with the NATO and partner-countries in military sphere and has signed
various documents with these states.
In conclusion, Minister Safar Abiyev has drawn attention of
participants of the seminar to that military-political conditions in
the Southern-Caucasian region that is very intense and difficult. The
main reason of it consists that Armenia does not refrain of its
aggressive policy. Today, the basic part of Armed Forces of Azerbaijan
continues serving in front conditions. All this impedes more successful
integration of Azerbaijan and its Armed Forces into the NATO and in
structures of security of Europe, the Minister said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

5,200 STUDENTS STUDY IN NAGORNO KARABAKH
STEPANAKERT, November 17 (Noyan Tapan). A solemn arrangement was
held on the occasion of the International Youth Day in Stepanakert on
November 17. The NKR Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport awarded
the best students of higher schools of the republic with diplomas and
souvenirs. Universal tree planting was organized by the students in
the capital of the republic.
According to the NKR Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, one
state, seven private higher schools and five technical secondary
schools operate in Nagorno Karabakh today. A total of 5,200 students
study there, 3,600 of them study at the Artsakh State University.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

[16-11-2004 ‘Armenia-Azerbaijan’]
————————————————- ———————
AREAS OF COOPERATION BETWEEN THE COUNTRIES OF THE REGION AS A FACTOR
FOR REDUCING THE CONFRONTATION LEVELS IN SOUTH CAUCASUS
Source : Yerevan Press Club (Armenia)
Author: Boris Navasardian
If we attempt to speak about the complicated processes of integration
into international structures and on the problems of peaceful
resolution in South Caucasus, it is reasonable to try and understand
what the resources at our disposal to solve these issues are. It is
also important to try and estimate the dynamics of these resources
after the latest stage of the ethnic conflicts in the region and the
independence of the South Caucasus countries. This presentation is an
attempt to consider the issue primarily in the context of Karabagh
conflict and the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan as the most
complicated problem in the region, however, many regularities present
here are also characteristic for other conflicts in South Caucasus.
DYNAMICS OF RECONCILIATION RESOURCES
The whole period in question (since 1988 up to present) can be
subdivided into four periods: a) Soviet, b) period of was and conflict
internationalization, c) post-war period till the Key-West meeting, d)
the post-Key-West period. The Soviet period. One of its main features
is the orientation to the central government, the aspiration to find a
solution by the bodies of USSR central administration. Thus, all
aspects were discussed only with the direct participation of Moscow
and there has been little direct dialogue aimed at
reconciliation. There has been no interaction even at the level of the
Communist Parties of the two republics. However, the
national-democratic movements and human rights activists made some
attempts to find common ground. The media of Armenia and Azerbaijan
were strongly controlled and mostly had to follow the Moscow
policy. However, there were some spans of weaker pressure, when the
media were seized by nationalistic euphoria and they were largely
contributing to the interethnic hostility. The interpersonal contacts,
so active during the pre-conflict period, diminished drastically.
The period of war and internationalization of the conflict. The
military and diplomatic channel went out into
foreground. International organizations started to join into the
conflict resolution process. At the initial stage the Armenian party
displayed much interest in the internationalization of the problem,
believing that its arguments are stronger. However, it soon became
clear that while the intervention of international structures is
inevitable, it was naïve to expect them to come up with an
unequivocal recipe for the resolution. The civil society (primarily,
the non-governmental organizations and human rights activisms) made
the interaction more active. Their activities were focused on the
problems of prisoners of war and hostages, but soon some elements of
popular diplomacy on a very narrow ground started to emerge. The media
thought it their duty to provide the information support to the
military actions of their party. The interpersonal contacts remained
quite weak.
The period after the war and before the Key-West. This time span can
be considered to be the most intensive one in terms of the use of
various reconciliation resources. It is in 1994-2001 that the OSCE
Minsk Group proposed three plans for conflict resolution, and while
each of them was turned down by one of the parties, including the
Mountainous Karabagh which acted as a quite independent factor, the
set of resolution components in the three models was quite complete
and diverse. It looked as though the reasons they are rejected are
simply the way the components are combined, and should another
principle be used, positive result can be achieved. Active mediating
role at various stages was played by all three co-chairmen of the
Minsk Group – Russia, France and the USA. At the same time no
recurrence of the idea to solve the problems in the `Center’ occurred,
since Moscow was decreasingly considered as the main mediator and on
various levels bilateral (more seldom – trilateral, including Karabagh
or regional formats, with the involvement of the whole South
Caucasus. This occurred also between the presidents, the parliaments,
also between some ministries and agencies. Against this background the
role of the purely diplomatic channel stopped being exclusive,
instead, the contacts on a non-governmental level got immediately more
active. Joint projects started to be implemented by the whole array of
NGOs’ activities. Media started to display significant interest to
the events in the rival country, various forms of information
exchange. Much attention was paid to the contacts between young
people, improvement of interpersonal relations started. Even in the
economic sphere, where the cooperation initially was excluded by the
Azerbaijani party, certain progress was manifest: some spontaneous
border trade started and joint researches of the economic perspectives
of the region were conducted.
Period after the Key West meeting. The meeting of President Heydar
Aliev and Robert Kocharian on this Caribbean Island and its
consequences have changed the situation significantly. The
`crushability’ of the stances of the Presidents under the pressure of
constructive proposals was probably wrongly interpreted. The phrase
of the American diplomat Kerry Cavanaugh that the Presidents were
ready for reconciliation and they only had to convince their public of
the acceptability of the agreements achieved. The reality proved to be
different: Aliyev and Kocharian only pretended that they were ready
for the resolution, but in reality they disagreed with the model,
defined in Paris and Key West, or did not feel secure enough to
implement it. To dismiss the burden of responsibility for the refusal,
they did start to work with the public. But this work was not the one
they were expected to do, it was just the contrary – to the work aimed
at making their stances stronger and say the countries were unready
for compromise. In Armenia statements of uncompromising nature were
made by all Parliament factions, and in Azerbaijan a document
appeared, which was conventionally called `The Charter of Four’
eventually signed by about 600 leaders of non-governmental
organizations and reputable members of society. The `Charter’,
actually put an end to the `popular’ or `civil’ diplomacy, since the
people who initiated the Dialogue with Armenian signed below the
principles, unacceptable for their peers. Thus, the basis on which the
dialogue was taking place was destroyed and arguments were provided to
the leaders of the country, enabling them to go back on the `Paris’ or
`Key West’ principles.
The situation started to rapidly return to the realities of the early
days of the conflict, when the controversies were much more numerous
than the space for compromise, and the smell of war was strong in the
air. The contacts in all the spheres were reduced. The meetings of
presidents and other high-ranked officials had become pure
rituals. The parliamentary contacts were disrupted after an incident
of little significance during the regional meeting of the MP in
Sophia, in summer 2004, held under the auspices of UK `Links’ NGO.
Several provocative actions, similar to the one that occurred in
September 2001 Baku against the human rights activist from Karabagh,
Karen Ohanjanian, reduced intensity of contacts between NGOs. The
mutual visits of journalists and other professional, civil groups that
were the strongest instrument for the restoration of mutual confidence
became completely impossible.
As the numerous researches showed, the experts of the two countries
stressed that the interaction of Armenia and Azerbaijan, of all the
international structures, was particularly promising under the
auspices of NATO, due to its extreme effectiveness in practical
matters. However, in 2004 it was under `the roof’ of NATO that several
incidents occurred raising the mutual hostility towards a height,
unprecedented since after the war. These were the assassination of an
Armenian officer by an Azerbaijani one in Budapest, an attempt of the
members of Organization of Karabagh Liberation to attack the Armenian
participant of the NATO meeting in Baku, and finally, the
scandal-making refusal of Azerbaijan to accept the Armenian officers,
resulting in the cancellation of the NATO exercise.
The sociological researches conducted by Yerevan Press Club and its
partners in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Mountainous Karabagh showed that
at least in three spheres the public of conflicting parties advocates
cooperation, even if the conflict is still unresolved. These are: 1)
the search of people lost in action, greaves, joint work on the lists
of supposed hostages and prisoners of war; 2) regional projects on
environment protection; 3) efforts aimed at the reduction of a level
of mutual hostility in the media publications. The interaction in
these spheres is favored both by people from the street, the experts
and the decision-makers. However, despite all of this, the joint
search of people missing in action is practically frozen, the
environmental subjects became another sphere where confrontation
increases and the media during the past three-four years keep
contributing to xenophobia development.
At the same time there has been no new escalation of hostility in
interpersonal relations of Armenians and Azerbaijanis and the interest
towards joint study of economic perspectives of the region. But
against the background of regress in all other spheres this gives
little comfort.
EUROPE AND CONFLICTS
The popular references to the public as the main obstacle for the
establishment of dialogue in various spheres have little ground. It is
true, the public at large in both Azerbaijan and Armenia is not very
inclined to make compromises, but it is in no way (and this has been
confirmed by numerous surveys) opposes the development of contacts on
various levels, seeing them to be a guarantee for confidence building
and rapprochement (which is actually the base for compromise). No
significant influence is made on the radicalization of the stances of
the parties by the public opinion, independent institutes. Moreover,
there is a trend of monopolization of all the processes related to the
conflict by the administration, moreover, a narrow group within it,
the exclusion of all alternative components, capable of initiating
development uncontrolled by the authorities. To this effect the
authorities are usefully manipulating the media, some civil society
institutes that due to their financial and political dependence, being
little developed are easily becoming an object and subsequently the
subject of manipulations. The pseudo-patriotic ideals, established in
this manner, are further reproduced by the whole social and political
field, there appears a creating competition as to who is more
uncompromising, the perpetual mobile is launched, the whole knots of
which are interdependent and work to strengthen the hostility.
In Azerbaijan the idea that the rigid stance will allow to gain most
results is instilled. So all the attempts to start a dialogue
proceeding from compromise are suppressed. The authorities in Armenia
see no reason in any contacts, but for official ones, so, while not
exactly suppresing, they are simply neglecting the possibilities of
`the second way’. This yields a serious controversy of transitions and
values of Europe, into which the region is seemingly trying to
integrate, and our South Caucasian attitude to conflict resolutions.
The `European recipe’ of conflict resolution, formed after World War
II calls for accentuation of common interests, the strengthening of
their influence on the relations of the conflicting parties (by
consistent, often very small steps), reduction of the impact of
dividing factors and their gradual deactualization.
The `South Caucasian recipe’ did not change during the past one
hundred years and is confined to the opposition of the idea of
compromise as such, accent on the controversies, the resolution of
which is seen to be the pure advancement of one’s own position.
The first option actually results in overcoming the conflict by an
open and unconventional dialogue of the parties involved, and the
second one eventually results in power solutions (a war or other forms
of inducement). At the same time the `South Caucasus recipe’ proposes
the only serious alternative to the military solution to be the
involvement of the international community, some `center’, that is, as
noted above, signifies a certain return to the Soviet period. The only
difference here is that Moscow concedes its place to other `centers’ –
Vienna, Strasbourg, Brussels, New York or something else. And
similarly to the situation with Moscow, the strengthening of the role
of the `center’ results not in the relief of tension, but in its
escalation. Thus, the report on Karabagh Conflict, produced by the
current Secretary General of CE Terry Davis convinced Baku that its
uncompromising position yields results and it is the one to be
followed. In Yerevan similar documents cause the accusations of the
`center’ of partiality and again the radicalization of positions.
The purely mediating role of the new `centers’ is negative under the
lack of will displayed by the parties to have constructive
dialogue. An example of this is the futility of the Minsk Group
efforts. Thus the only resolution method is imposing the constructed
model to the parties or, as it is commonly called `inducement to
peace’. The shortcoming of this method is that it usually results in
dissatisfaction of one of the parties, similarly to the war solution,
and very often – to dissatisfaction of both. In other words, the
probability of conflict regeneration remains high.
For this very reason the preferrability of the `European recipe’ is
apparent, but it calls for a process, reverse to the one existing in
Karabagh issue today: maximal expansion, and not narrowing, of
cooperation areas. Should this condition be met, the intermediary
mission of OSCE Minsk Group can turn out to be productive, and in this
regard the integration of the region to Europe should be considered
not only as a political and economic process, but also in terms of
adoption of values, traditions and experience. Also, the value and
traditions of overcoming the confrontation after World War II.
[16-11-2004 ‘Armenia-Turkey’]
———————————————————————-
ARMENIA SAYS GENOCIDE POLICY UNCHANGED
Source : “Turkish Daily News” newspaper (Turkey)
Author:
Yerevan will not stop trying for the recognition by the international
community of the so-called Armenian genocide under Ottoman Empire
rule, a move that could open the door for improved ties with Turkey.
Armenian and Azeri media recently reported that dropping, by the
Armenian government, of a regular reference to the alleged genocide in
next year’s draft budget was a sign of a possible shift in Yerevan’s
genocide policy.
But an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman outrightly denied the
reports. “There is no change in our policy for the recognition of the
genocide on the international platform,” Anatolia news agency quoted
spokesman Hamlet Gasparyan as saying.
Recognition of the so-called genocide is not only a matter of Armenia
and Armenian Diaspora but also of the entire international community,
he added. “So, the matter of recognition cannot be limited to a
budget or financial document.”
Abandoning the genocide claims is high among the conditions put
forward by Turkey to normalize ties with land-locked Armenia. But
Yerevan should also end its occupation of the Azeri territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh and revise its constitution to take out provisions
that include territorial claims in Turkey, for better relations,
Turkish officials say.
In response to the media reports, Ankara earlier this week said that
it had not observed any indication that Armenia would abandon its
genocide policy.
Armenians claim that 1.5 million Armenians died as part of a genocide
campaign at the hands of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the
last century. Turkey categorically denies the charges, saying that the
death toll is inflated and that the killings occurred when the Ottoman
Empire was trying to quell civil unrest during the World War I period.
[12-11-2004 ‘Armenia-Azerbaijan’]
———————————————————————-
YEREVAN DISTRIBUTES LICENSES ON AZERBAIJAN
Source : “Echo” newspaper (Azerbaijan)
Author: N. Aliev, R. Orujev
The scandalous `Karabagh Telecom’ company got a license for operating
on the occupied territory of our country from the Ministry of
Communication of Armenia
Armenian government issued a license for provision of mobile
communication services in Armenia to the scandalous `Karabagh Telecom’
company, in the hope to impede Azerbaijan in `its strenuous activity’
for depriving the Karabagh separatists of any connection with the
outside world. That was the exact statement of Andranik Manukian,
Minister of Transport and Communication in his interview to Yerevan
newspaper `Aravot’. Moreover, he stated that official Yerevan granted
a license to `Karabagh Telecom’ company for activity on the occupied
territory of Azerbaijan proper.
According to Manukian, `Karabagh Telecom’ company invested 15 million
dollars to Karabagh, viewed as a zone of risk, and in accordance with
the license issued by us, assumes the obligation to invest additional
10 million dollars”. Doubtlessly, it gives a serious reason to
Azerbaijan for publicizing all of these data on international level.As
head of the press service of AR Ministry of Communication and
Information Technologies, Mushfik Amirov stated to `Echo’ yesterday,
it is not long ago that `Karabagh Telecom’ was accepted as member of
GSM Association. “However, we sent a relevant appeal to the
association, and the separatist structure was deprived of membership.
However, immediately after it `Karabagh Telecom’ sent a repeated
appeal for membership in GSM Association. On November 1, this appeal
was considered and rejected”.
By the way, after the information on official establishment of a
branch enterprise `Karabagh Telecom’ on the Armenian market, AR
Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies sent a new
appeal to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and
GSM. “Based on the fact that our first appeals got a positive response
of these international organizations, we have certain confidence that
ITU will oppose the presence of `Karabagh Telecom’ on the Armenian
mobile communications market’, M. Amirov stated.
As a reminder, our newspaper repeatedly reported that the competition
for the license on mobile communications in Armenia was won by the
branch enterprise `Karabagh Telecom’ – “K-Telecom”. This fact provoked
a surge of emotions in Armenia proper. For instance, leader of
`National Democratic Bloc’ Arshak Sadoyan declared that the process of
negotiations of Armenian government with the telephone monopolist
`ArmenTel’ company of Armenia on suspension of its monopoly in the
sphere of communication was only an imitation with an aim to introduce
`Karabagh Telecom’ company on the Armenian market. Sadoyan is
confident that already nine months ago the Armenian authorities
adopted a secrete decision for introducing `Karabagh Telecom’ company
on the Armenian communications market.He accused Armenian officials of
getting a bribe of 7 million dollars.
In his turn, Minister of Communication of Armenia, Manukian stated in
his interview to `Aravot’ that the package of investment proposals
given to `Karabagh Telecom’ foresees investments amounting to 50
million dollars for the development of mobile communications in
Armenia. “We attach particular importance to the establishment of this
type of communication in border regions of the country. At the same
time “Karabagh Telecom”, in contrast to `ArmenTel’, provides a higher
quality communication”. “I want to mention one more important fact
impacting the Commission’s decision. In Karabagh, viewed as a zone of
risk, `Karabagh Telecom’ company invested 15 million dollars and, in
compliance with the license granted, is to pay 10 million dollars
more. Besides, only for getting the license, the company will pay 7
million dollars to the Armenian state budget. “Karabagh Telecom”
ensures roaming communication of Karabagh with 88 countries, thus
contributing to the recognition of Artsakh in this sphere by the
leading countries of the world. It is a fact that communication
operators in USA, Britain, France, China and other developed countries
signed agreements with `Karabagh Telecom”. Why shouldn’t we have given
this company the opportunity to become a second operator in Armenia,
moreover with rather limited rights?” the Armenian Minister states.
– Does the word “Karabagh” in the company’s name prompt the public
that the real owners of this business are high-ranking officials of
Karabagh origin?
– It is malignant gossip. I hope that when owner of `Karabagh
Telecom’, Arab businessman Pierre-Michelle Fetusha comes to Armenia,
you will have the opportunity to speak with him. Then these absurd
doubts will disappear themselves…
By the way, as regards `absurd doubts’, the Armenian Minister was
obviously overexcited. It is enough to open the site of `Karabagh
Telecom’, which directly states that the owner of this structure is
not Pierre-Michelle – Arab businessman, but Ralph Yirikian, citizen of
Lebanon. It is this personality that with the persistence that might
be applied for a better purpose, has taken all efforts for developing
mobile communications on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in
recent years.
In his turn, deputy of Milli Mejlis Mayis Safarli stated to `Echo’
that `the developments in Armenia are generally accorded with the
current strategy of the country to integrate the separatist regime of
Karabagh to the international community, i.e. the course for
recognizing this structure. For many years on end, the Armenian budget
has included a separate item on the expenses for Mountainous Karabagh,
which is also absolutely illegal on the international level”.
“The introduction of `Karabagh Telecom’ to Armenia testifies to the
intention of Yerevan, through development of communications on the
occupied territories, to help the separatists in their access to the
international arena. I hold that official Baku should not stay
indifferent to these moments. We have all the grounds for submitting
this issue to the discussion of UN Security Council and OSCE”, the
deputy thinks.
By the access of `Karabagh Telecom’ to its market, Armenia once more
obviously proves that the occupation of Azerbaijani territories is its
responsibility, as Safarli stated. In his opinion, this topic also
requires the position of our country’s Parliament. “At the coming
session of Milli Mejlis, I intend to insist on the inclusion of this
issue on Parliament agenda”.
—
Yerevan Press Club of Armenia, ‘Yeni Nesil’ Journalists’ Union of
Azerbaijan and Association of Diplomacy Correspondents of Turkey
present ‘Armenia-Azerbaijan-Turkey: Journalist Initiative-2002’
Project. As a part of the project web site has
been designed, featuring the most interesting publications from the
press of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey on issues of mutual
concern. The latest updates on the site are weekly delivered to the
subscribers.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress