Author: Khondkarian Raffi

Armenian Graduate Students Association at UCLA
c/o Armenian Graduate Students Association
Kerckhoff Hall Room 316
308 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Contact: Raffi Kassabian
Phone: 626.372.4630
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
6TH Annual AGSA Mentorship Series for UCLA Undergraduates
ARMENIAN GRADUATE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION (AGSA) TO OFFER HIGHER EDUCATION
GUIDANCE AND A UNIQUE LOOK INTO UCLA’S VARIOUS GRADUATE SCHOOL PROGRAMS
WHAT: Graduate student mentors from various UCLA departments,
including Law, Medicine, Business, Dentistry, Nursing, Near Eastern
Languages & Cultures, Comparative Literature, Biological Sciences,
Computer Sciences, Engineering and Film, will share their experiences
and advice with UCLA undergraduate attendees. The goal of the program
is to encourage undergraduates to pursue graduate level studies by
providing them with information, tools, contacts, and individual
graduate student mentors to help in the long term.
The program is open to all UCLA undergraduates; however, the AGSA
takes a special interest in helping undergraduates who have immigrated
to the United States and who may not be as familiar with graduate
programs and application processes.
The event will include:
~U5:00-6pm: Ethnic Buffet Style Armenian Dinner and Graduate
Student Introductions
~U6-7pm: Small Group Mentorship Sessions for individual graduate
departments led by graduate student representatives
For more information see below
WHEN: Tuesday November 14, 2006 5:00-7pm
WHERE:Kerckhoff Grand Salon, UCLA
CONTACT: Raffi Kassabian, Project Director, 626.372.4630
Sincerely,
Raffi Kassabian
UCLA School of Law, Class of 2008
[email protected]
626-372-4630 (Mobile)

Watertown TAB & Press, MA
Nov 10 2006
Mayrig & Me
By Jillian Fennimore/ Staff Writer
Friday, November 10, 2006
Whether the sound a dog makes when it barks is “huff huff,” ”ruff
ruff” or “how how” in Armenian, attentive toddlers at St. Stephen’s
Armenian Preschool easily learn to make that connection once they see
a stuffed puppy dog in the arms of their teacher.

Sitting with legs crossed on the floor of a colorful classroom,
parents and their children watch a teacher make a sparkly fish float
from face to face of each student, and a bird flutter to the sound of
the music.

Well into the school’s inaugural preschool program “Mayrig & Me”
– an Armenian toddler music and movement class first of its kind in
Watertown – turnout has been high and skills are certainly growing.

Mayrig may mean “mother” in Armenian, but Assistant Principal
Heather Krafian said they have welcomed fathers and grandparents into
the mix, too.

“It really varies,” she said.

With an age range from 17 months to 3 years of age, Krafian said
they first estimated about six to eight children per class, but now
have 13 in both morning classes each Wednesday.

The new program, which kicked off its fall session on Oct. 18,
plans to end on Dec. 22, with winter classes slated to start the
third week in January.

Funded with support from the Watertown Family Network, and a
grant from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care,
Krafian said the program targets listening and Armenian language
skills, rhythm and beats, along with creativity and physical
coordination through an engaging musical experience.

“If children are not fluent in Armenian, they get the exposure
here,” she said.

Mayrig & Me instructor Maro Arakelian holds one-on-one
interactions with the children, while incorporating instruments and
props, speaking and singing in Armenian and witnessing their change
in demeanor and confidence.

“They are very active now,” she said. “I see them as more social,
getting up and moving across the room.”

Arakelian also teaches “Music & Movement” to preschool students
at St. Stephen’s, in addition to a bi-weekly music class.

Zaman Online, Turkey
Nov 10 2006
Brussels Insistent on Freedom of Speech, Opening Ports to Cyprus
By Selcuk Gultasli
Thursday, November 09, 2006
zaman.com
On Wednesday, the European Union released the progress report and
strategy paper, two extremely critical documents for the future of
the negotiation process between Turkey and the European Union.
The EU Commission, which underlined freedom of expression and the
Cyprus issue, did not make any recommendation on the resolution of
the Cyprus issue at this stage, despite the insistence of some
commissioners. The Commission, which, in an attempt to support the
Finnish Plan on Cyprus, postponed the issuance of the report for a
month, increased the importance of the Finnish Plan and the Dec.
14-15 EU Summit for Turkey.
Replacing the controversial `absorption’ capacity with `adaptation’
capacity, the Commission also clarified its strategy for future
enlargement. At the press conference held after the release of the
report, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn did not respond to
questions over whether membership talks with Turkey would be
suspended if it did not implement the additional protocol. Rehn noted
that both the Commission and the EU strongly supported the Finnish
Plan, and wanted to see what it would achieve. The report, while
noting that Turkey had sufficiently fulfilled the Copenhagen
Criteria, stressed that the pace of the reform process slowed down.
It also urged Turkey to maintain EU standards with regard to the
issues, such as non-Muslim communities, recognizing the rights of
working women on labor conditions and civil-military relations.
Despite the persistence of the correspondents present at the press
conference, Olli Rehn did not answer the questions on the probable
suspension of membership talks with Turkey in case of its
non-compliance with the additional protocol. Asked whether the EU
gave an ultimatum to Turkey by the report, Rehn said they wanted to
give time to the Finnish Plan, and decided that it would not be wise
to make any recommendation at this stage.
Rehn, implicitly criticizing German, French and Austrian politicians,
who favored Turkey’s privileged partnership rather than its full
membership in the European Union, said, `Instead of such rhetoric
that create a vicious circle, we should try to create a virtuous
circle that would make Turkey more European.’ When asked about the
controversial Article 301 of Turkish Penal Code, Rehn accused Kemal
Kerincsiz without mentioning his name. Welcoming the Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s meeting with civil society
organizations to discuss possible amendments to this article, Rehn
recalled that the article should be ameliorated not for Europe, but
for the Turkish people. Rehn also noted that it would wrong to assert
that Turkey had stepped back from the reform process, but its pace
had slowed down.
———————————————– ————————-
Major issues covered by the Progress Report and Strategy Paper:
Freedom of Speech: Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code is
extensively abused. The conviction of Hrant Dink in relation to this
article created a case law that restricts freedom of speech. Hence,
the article is a matter of concern, which might cause
auto-censorship.
Cyprus: If Turkey does not fulfill its obligations under the Ankara
Protocol, the entire negotiations process would be negatively
affected. If Turkey does not proceed with implementing the
aforementioned protocol, the Commission will adopt recommendations
accordingly before the December summit of the Council of European
Union. In addition, Turkey should take concrete steps toward
normalizing its relations with all EU member countries.
Civil-military relations: Senior army officers persist in making
public statements on issues out of their area of competence. Turkish
armed forces still have unusual political influence. Senior military
officers publicly express their views on both domestic and foreign
political issues, such as Cyprus, secularism, the Kurdish question
and the Semdinli indictment.
Religious freedoms: Ratification of the draft laws on religious
minorities has been postponed several times. There is no alleviation
of non-Muslims’ problems. This is also the case with the Alevi
community. To ensure full operation of all religious communities
without any restrictions, framework legislation should be devised in
accordance with the European Court of Human Rights case law. Even
though it refers to religious communities, the report does not make
any mention of Sunni majority’s problems.
The Southeast: Turkey is target of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
terrorism in an increasing scale. The PKK is on the EU’s list of
terrorist groups. The European Union has condemned terrorist
activities. Turkey should resolve the serious economic and social
problems of the Southeast.
Judiciary: The reforms introduced so far presents a blurry picture.
There is strong need for steps that would ensure independence of the
judiciary. Honor killings should be investigated with scrutiny, and
the perpetrators should be sentenced to imprisonment. Corruption is
still commonplace in the public sector and the judiciary. Legislation
on fighting corruption remains weak and unsatisfactory; the
institutions which carry out the fight against corruption should be
empowered. There is a steady decrease in the number of incidents
involving torture and ill treatment. However, the amended articles of
Anti-Terror Law might endanger the fight against torture and ill
treatment.
`Mr. Ocalan Removed
The expression `Mr. Ocalan,’ which caused outrage in Turkey, was
replaced with `Abdullah Ocalan.’
The report also makes reference to the predominantly Roma vicinities
in Ankara and Istanbul. It asserts that nearly two million Turkish
Romas are subjected to discrimination in access to housing, health,
and employment. Unlike the previous report, this year’s progress
report does make any reference to the Armenian allegations over the
1915 incidents.

INDO-ARMENIAN BUSINESS
The Hindu Businessline, India
Nov 9 2006
There are several potential areas of trade with Armenia where Indian
businessmen can either invest or set up joint ventures, says Harshad
R. Mehta, honorary consul general of Armenia in Mumbai and promoter
of the Rosy Blue and Orpa Group of Companies, which have been doing
business in Armenia for the past 35 years.
A diamond entrepreneur with offices in 15 countries, Mehta
celebrated the Consulate’s first anniversary with an exhibition
of rare photographs at a Diwali gala, which was attended by Armen
Baibourtian, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia,
and Ashot Kocharian, Ambassador of Armenia in India.
Indo-Armenian relations go back a long way: 2,500 years; the commercial
relationship between the two countries dates back to the medieval
period, the first recorded visit being that of the Armenian trader
Thomas Cana who came to the Malabar coast in 780 AD.
As of last year, some 50 firms operated in Armenia with Indian capital
and investments of about $1.1 million. The total trade between India
and Armenia in 2005 amounted to $15.8 million (exports from India,
$15.5 million and imports to India, $0.3 million). Next on the anvil,
says Mehta, is an Indo-Armenian Chamber of Commerce.
e/2006/11/10/stories/2006111000190400.htm

SIXTY PERCENT OF GEOGRAPHIC NAMES IN VAYOTS DZOR TO BE REPLACED
Armenpress
Nov 08 2006
YEGHEGNADZOR, NOVEMBER 8, ARMENPRESS: A special commission that was
set up in Vayots Dzor province to examine all geographic names of
the region has found that 60 percent of 2,861 such names need to be
changed because they are of foreign (mainly Turkic) origin and many
are not euphonic.
The commission has presented a list of new names to replace the old
ones. Local rural and urban communities gave their accord to changing
these names.
Now they are waiting for a special government decision to do it.
An official of the governor’s office said the proposed names are
either Armenian translations of Turkic names or the original names
of the places, rivers, lakes, mountains and other sites that were
replaced at one time by Turkic names.

BELARUS PREPARED TO PROVIDE EVERY ASSISTANCE ON FINAL DOCUMENT ON RESOLUTION
OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT IN MINSK – BELARUSIAN AMBASSADOR
Author: S.Agayeva
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Nov 8 2006
Nikolay Patzkevich, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador
of Belarus to Azerbaijan, stated on 8 November in Baku that Belarus
is prepared to provide every assistance to the final document on the
resolution of the [Armenian-Azerbaijani] Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
in Minsk.
We are deeply concerned about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We
understand the essence and outcome of the conflict, he noted. “As
a result of our experience of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station,
Belarus fully understands the problems of internally displaced people,”
the diplomat stated. It results in multi-million losses in funds,
moral and human losses for the Government and the State.
“We hope the conflict will be resolved on the basis of international
principles and are prepared to render every assistance on the signing
of a peace agreement in Minsk.”

TURKISH POLICY TRIED TO ARREST ARMENIAN MP FOR STATEMENTS ON GENOCIDE
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.11.2006 15:24 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The meeting of Newsxchange international forum
opened in Istanbul November 2.
Responsible for Haylur information program of the Public TV Company
of Armenia Harut Harutyunyan and Information Department Head
of Yerkir-Media TV channel, MP, ARF Dashnaktsutyun member Gegham
Manukyan took part in it. Turkish PM Erdogan addressing the meeting
reaffirmed Turkish official stand that there was no Genocide. In
response to Erdogan’s statement that owing to the war Armenians of
border regions of the Ottoman Empire were merely deported, Gegham
Manukyan asked a question how it could happen that Ottoman MP Grigor
Zohrap was arrested and killed. He also stated that Istanbul is a
city, symbolizing the beginning of the Armenian Genocide by arrests
of Armenian intelligentsia on April 24, 1915. Gegham Manukyan urged
the Turkish society and especially journalists to study these dark
pages of their history and recognize the fact of the Armenian Genocide.
During his speech he raised a poster, on which it was written in
English, “Turkey should find courage to recognize the Armenian
Genocide.” Then Gegham Manukyan was surrounded by policemen, who
wanted to take him out of the hall. However, journalists prevented
this by asking Manukyan for a news conference. Manukyan repeated his
urge in English and Turkish. The organizers of the session stated
that if Manukyan is arrested, they will join him, reports the Yerkir.

PeaceJournalism.com, Nepal
Nov 3 2006
Reflections on Turks and Armenians, Nations and Society
Editorial Opinion Posted On: 2006-11-03 18:07:55
By: Greg Somerville Unsettled
It is unsettling to think about some matter after we have learned
that the words we were going to use are themselves in question, and
that we had best avoid them in order to speak truly. But it is a
constant possibility we must acknowledge.
In speaking about peoples located here and there, banded together as
nations, yet sharing across today’s borders most of the features
which enable us to recognize society and culture, we use words like
‘French’ or ‘British’ or ‘Irish’ or ‘German’ without much worry. You
have to start somewhere. But then you look a bit more deeply at
history and at conflict and you begin to wonder whether the conflict
has been misconceived, even by its participants. Nagging doubts begin
to complicate your life. Who shall we say was fighting? Who were
these people and what sort of a fight was that? And who should say?
Elizabeth Kolbert has written a short piece in the November 6, 2006,
edition of The New Yorker, describing the Armenians and the Turks and
a new history of this conflict by Taner Akcam, “A Shameful Act: The
Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility.”
Kolbert can be forgiven for starting somewhere and for writing a book
review rather than a tome. But it is all food for thought on the
table of life.
Who are these “Turks”? I will leave the corollary question regarding
Armenians aside for later delectation, anyway less pressing while we
address this course of our historical feast. The sentences of
Kolbert’s which piqued my interest are these, where she makes a claim
unremarkable among all the notions we entertain as facts concerning
the early twentieth century:
“As the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks had been fighting
against history; they had spent more than a century trying – often
unsuccessfully – to fend off nationalist movements in the regions
they controlled. Now, in defeat, they adopted the cause as their own.
In the spring of 1920,”…
And Kolbert goes on to sketch the establishment of the Ankara
government and their work to reject the Treaty of Sevres, just drawn
up by the Allies in 1920, and replace it in 1923 with the Treaty of
Lausanne recognizing the Republic of Turkey. And Kolbert draws our
attention to the pertinence of 1915 actions for the competing
treaties of five and eight years later. When a million Armenians lost
their lives at Ottoman hands in April of 1915, Kolbert (with Akcam,
we must presume) observes that it “changed the demographics of
eastern Anatolia; then, on the basis of these changed demographics,
the Turks used the logic of self-determination to deprive of a home
the very people they had decimated.” Thus a war crime is made
foundational as to boundaries of a nation and self-organization of a
people.
But what people are we talking about? Kolbert and many others when
describing the legal adventures of Orhan Pamuk bring up the Turkish
penal code which outlaws “insulting Turkishness” and I think most of
us wince or smile chidingly at such bald defensiveness inscribed into
criminal sanction. And when we hear that Kurds are routinely called
“mountain Turks” so as to avoid their right name, we roll our eyes at
stubborn, willful racism ill-suited to a civilized modern
understanding.
Our own context frames a beginning, maybe, for diluting our disdain
with modest realism, for stepping back from such easy superiority as
leads us to mock the Turks for foolishness. In her final paragraph,
Kolbert leans this way, pointing to the forty million indigenous
people living in the Americas before Europeans came and fewer than
ten million visible by 1650. Racism in the United States is marked,
certainly, by no less confusion and argument over the proper naming
of people than our conventional reading of Turkish history and
custom.
But if we step back from the fog of the Great War and perform the
slightest of reality checks, we will find that empire and nation and
people and ethnic identification are far from simple, and Turkey is a
wonderful place to start. We should look at Turkey through two
lenses: composition of empire and bonds between people. That is to
say, from the top down and the bottom up, we will try to answer the
question of how society organizes, and how it ought to organize, with
Turkey as our focus. Let me announce my findings right off the bat.
We are all amateur humans; there are no professional social
practitioners; there is no agreement as to how we form society.
Alexander the Great swept eastward signally, momentously. In making
his conquered lands Greek, he Hellenized their people. Language is
implicated mightily in identifying one people or another, and has
become the lasting tool of historians, albeit ethnicity and
nationality cannot quite conform to its marker. But language can be
rejected, secret, disused, forbidden or broken: like memory, of which
it is one token, one treasury. One primary fact we can state with
certainty is that none of Alexander’s conquered peoples spoke such an
Altaic language as Turkish is. That family, standing apart from
Indo-European, lurked behind mountains north of Alexander’s route and
of Ashoka’s after him, reversing some of the Hellenic conquests.
Kabul would come to hear both the Mongolian and the Turkic branches
of the Altaic family spoken, and so would Jerusalem. So would the
Viking princes who followed the Huns in Ukraine. But it took some
time for Constantine’s city to lose its Greek accent, and much
Western European connivance. Turkic tribes moved through, and named,
Turkistan over long, disputatious migrations strikingly similar to
the uncoordinated arrivals of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians on
Britain’s coast. Like those Germanic speakers we now call English,
Turks displaced a number of indigenous inhabitants along the way.
Romans had already laid claim to Celtic lands both in southern
Britain and in central Anatolia, fielding first pagan, and later
Christian legions. Very few descendants of Celtic Britons persisted
as landowners outside Wales, learning Old English, but Galatians
sheltered within the Roman Empire, a subject kingdom where Paul would
preach and which even Jerome found flourishing.
So, when Seljuk tribes encroached ever more successfully upon the
well-trodden soil of Anatolia, Greek-speaking inheritors of
Alexandrine and Roman imperial tenure resisted militarily and
demographically, leaving an ethnic crazy-quilt more brightly colored
than even Byzantium sported. China, Christendom, Islam and Tibet were
all predecessor empires to the Ottoman establishment which made
Istanbul its capital, and all diverse.
Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, Jews and Bosnians retained their identity
within the Ottoman framework, along with many other minoritarian
ethnicities. While Ottoman rule consolidated its bicontinental
holdings, Persia to its east recovered national integrity. This was
Europe’s Renaissance as well, and it birthed new commercial economies
under Italian, Spanish, Dutch and English leadership. Which way was
history trending? When did the winner become clear, if there was a
race to organize best?
Frankly, I think the organization of society is no more a settled
matter than the organization of business enterprises. My own
experience has been that in any large business, there are a certain
number of quite obvious operational chores to be done. And if we
leave that bottom-up reality and adopt the perspective of the chief
executives, there is a clear mission: make money. In between, middle
management struggles constantly to find synergistic arrangements of
medium-sized blocs of staff and function. Corporate history is
littered with unsuccessful efforts at this sort of integration. So is
the history of our social arrangements. If you study the changes in
political maps, over time, you will see that there is no optimal size
or shape for national definition. Even the definition of nationalism
flaps in the wind of experience.
Ottoman forces suffered major defeat at Russian hands. Some Armenians
participated actively, helping Russians resist a siege of Baku. New
“Bolshevik” Russia was not invited to Paris, where President Wilson
checked them and Turkish self-determination by proposing that
generous terms of Allied settlement be granted all Armenian subjects,
Russian and Ottoman. Sevres extended exceptional generosity to the
Kurds as well, declared sovereign in their mountain passes for only
the second interval in their national existence. In all this the
Greeks were surely complicit, receiving for themselves large
Anatolian territories to rule with a sovereignty which they must have
viewed as an acknowledgement of their undisputed historic tenure, in
such places as the port of Smyrna. And the bitterness of Greeks at
the eviction codified in Lausanne is with us still. Is that, too, a
historical trend? But what of those who intermarried down the years,
submerging an original ethnicity and learning languages they never
heard in the cradle? Are they trendy or traitorous?
No matter what mixture of ethnic extraction today’s Turkish citizens
enjoy, and what ancestral languages war has bloodied with bad
memories, people in Asia Minor and everywhere else must hope that
human efforts to build society do it peacefully.
hp?article_id=1136

ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR AND KING OF SWEDEN EXCHANGED OPINIONS ON
COOPERATION PROSPECTS BETWEEN SCANDINAVIA AND SOUTH CAUCASUS
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 3 2006
Today, Ara Ayvazyan, Ambassador of Armenia to Sweden, handed over
his credentials to Carl Gustav XVI, King of Sweden.
Press service of Foreign Ministry of Armenia told Arminfo that after
the ceremony they discussed issues of Armenia-Sweden historical
relations and development of the bilateral relations. Armenian
Ambassador told Carl Gustav XVI about political and economic situation
in Armenia and its regions. The sides exchanged views on cooperation
prospects between Scandinavia and South Caucasus.

MORE DETAILS OF RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN GAS DEAL RELEASED
By Anna Saghabalian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 31 2006
New details emerged on Tuesday of the latest Russian-Armenia energy
deal that will give Russia’s state-run Gazprom monopoly a commanding
share in Armenia’s natural gas distribution network and, most probably,
the incoming gas pipeline from Iran.
Karen Karapetian, director general of the ArmRosGazprom (ARG) network
operator, said Gazprom will pay $118.8 million to raise its share in
ARG from the current 45 percent to 58 percent.
The takeover was officially announced by the Russian energy giant
on Friday and confirmed by President Robert Kocharian on Monday. It
appears to be part of a broader Russian-Armenian agreement reached last
April. That deal allowed Armenia to temporarily avoid a doubling of
the price of imported Russian gas in exchange for ceding more energy
assets to Moscow. Those include the incomplete Fifth Unit of the big
thermal power plant in Hrazdan.
Karapetian revealed that Fifth Unit formally belongs ARG, another 45
percent of which has until now been owned by the Armenian government.
That stake will be diluted to approximately 30 percent as a result
of the latest deal.
“This is the sum needed for buying the Fifth Unit,” Karapetian said
of the $118.8 million to be paid by Gazprom. “Who is buying it?
ArmRosGazprom. By what means? By means of the issuance of additional
shares [in ARG]. Who is buying the new shares? Gazprom.”
“Why not the government of Armenia? Ask the government,” he added.
The government announced in April that the Russians will pay $248.8
million for the modern facility and spend an additional $180 million on
completing it in the next few years. The lump sum may well be including
the cost of the first Armenian section of the under-construction
pipeline from Iran which is widely expected to be incorporated into
the ARG network.
Armenian officials for months denied reports that Russian control of
the Iran-Armenia pipeline is another, unpublicized provision of the
April deal. Still, Prime Minister indicated last week that this is the
case, arguing that “it would be illogical to have two gas distribution
networks in Armenia.” A leading Moscow daily, “Kommersant,” described
on Tuesday the anticipated Russian takeover of the pipeline as the
Kremlin’s “main, if not the sole, geopolitical victory in the region
registered in the last several years.”
Karapetian claimed, however, that the government in Yerevan has
not yet decided who will own the pipeline. “Gazprom is right to be
willing to buy the pipeline,” he said. “But I don’t know whether or
not Armenia will agree to sell it.”
The overall deal will reinforce Russia’s already pervasive presence
in the Armenian energy sector which government critics in Yerevan
say is turning into an economic stranglehold. But Karapetian strongly
defended it, downplaying the fact that the bulk of the Armenian gas
infrastructure is now owned by Gazprom and another Russian energy
firm, ITERA.
“We remain an Armenian company not only because we pay taxes and are
registered in Armenia but because you will find few companies that
have invested $83 million here in the last four years,” he told a
news conference.
Armenia’s severe energy crisis of the early 1990s disrupted
centralized gas supplies to virtually all individual consumers. ARG,
which currently employs some 6,000 people, began slowly but steadily
restoring them shortly after its establishment as a Russian-Armenian
joint venture in 1997. The process gained momentum in 2002 and seems
to be nearing completion.
According to the ARG chief executive, 84 percent of the country’s
households now have access to gas, saving at least $160 million in
combined expenditures on winter heating each year.