Author: Lilit Nahapetian

51% OF PEOPLE SUPPORT MILITARY ACTION: SURVEY
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Oct 6 2005
51% of the Azerbaijani citizens believe settlement of the long-standing
Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper Garabagh conflict is possible through
military action, while 32% via negotiations, according to a survey
held by the hard-line Garabagh Liberation Organization (GLO) among
2,100 respondents on Saturday.
54% of young men and 31% of women want the conflict to be settled
through military operations, while 29% and 49% respectively –
by peaceful means. Most of the elderly said they support conflict
settlement through military action.
According to the results of a similar poll conducted by the GLO in
September, 49% of people deemed resolution of the Garabagh conflict
through war possible, while 35% gave preference to peace.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EUROPARLIAMENT SAYS TURKEY MUST RECOGNISE CYPRUS, ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Cyprus News Agency, Cyprus
Sept 28 2005
CNA – Strasbourg-France – 28/9/2005 19:20
Strasbourg, Sept 28 (CNA) – The European Parliament backed Wednesday
the opening of EU entry talks with Turkey next week, but insisted
that Ankara recognise Cyprus and the genocide of Armenians during
the negotiations.
The European Parliament has also postponed a vote to ratify Turkey’s
extended customs union with the EU with 311 votes in favour, 285
against and 63 abstentions. The delay was demanded by the European
People’s Party (EPP), the biggest party in the EU parliament, due to
Ankara’s refusal to let Cypriot ships and planes use its ports and
airports, as required under the extended customs deal.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Burlington Free Press
Chris Bohjalian
Every family is interesting: Just ask
February 27, 2005
Idyll Banter
By Chris Bohjalian
My uncle died of lung cancer in December, and at his memorial service in
Florida last month, I learned two incredibly cool facts about him that I
wish I had known when he was alive.
Cool Fact No. 1: When he was in the Army in the Korean War, he was one of
the soldiers who escorted Marilyn Monroe through Korea on her USO tour there
in 1954.
Cool Fact No. 2: In the late 1970s, he owned a small chain of yogurt stands
in New York City called “Yeah, Yogurt!” and his Times Square store was
frequented almost entirely by young people watching their weight, which in
Times Square in the late 1970s meant mostly prostitutes. There were,
according to his children — my cousins — some young actors who frequented
the little store, too. But mostly it was prostitutes.
I also learned the considerably less cool fact that he liked Judy Garland.
This is not the first time that I’ve been surprised by minutiae from
someone’s life at a funeral. I even learned things about my own mother at
hers. But in the myriad discussions I had with my uncle over the four
decades that we knew each other, we never once talked about his experiences
in either Korea or Times Square.
Granted, in some of those years I was in diapers and so I probably wasn’t a
fabulous conversationalist.
And in all fairness I did know the basic facts that Uncle Fred had been a
soldier in the Korean War and that he had owned a couple of health food
stores when I was in high school. But when we spoke — and we spoke a lot
because he was one of those rare and wonderful people who actually liked
people half his age — we never spoke about these tidbits from his life and
so I didn’t know the details. Actually, because he was so generous of spirit
and interested in other people, we never seemed to speak about him at all.
When we talked, we were likely to discuss my wife and my daughter, his wife
and children and grandchildren, and football.
Football is, of course, the great life preserver to which all men cling in
times of conversational awkwardness. I don’t honestly know what women do
when there is an uncomfortable pause in a conversation, but men invariably
resort to football. When Uncle Fred was dying this autumn, we never talked
about his imminent mortality or the excruciating pain he was in, but we
talked a lot about the Giants and the Dolphins, which, given their seasons,
at least put us in an appropriately somber frame of mind.
You would think that by the time my uncle died I would have learned my
lesson and made the effort to ask him to tell me about his life. After all,
in the last quarter century I managed not to ask my two Armenian
grandparents a single thing about their lives in Turkey or Armenia or Paris
in the years surrounding the First World War. This was no small
accomplishment, since when I was a child their house always looked like the
Istanbul wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Likewise, I never asked my mother a single question about her sister who had
died of spinal meningitis when the two siblings were in elementary school.
And yet as a novelist and journalist, I ask these sorts of questions of
people who are strangers all the time.
The truth is that too few of us take the time to access these remarkable
sources of history all around us. We might know, for instance, that ol’
Auntie Em liked ice fishing and smelt, but somehow we missed the detail that
she was part of a civil rights march in Selma, Ala., in 1965.
It’s already the end of February, and so I’m a little behind with my New
Year’s resolutions. But here’s one I’ll make before it’s really too late:
This year I’m finally going to sit down with my father and my aunt and ask
them to tell me about their lives.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

US AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO GUARANTEE NEW SHORT-TERM DEBENTURE
By Aghavni Harutyunian
AZG Armenian Daily #154, 31/08/2005
Economy
The US Agency for International Development and Kaskad-Kredit
Corp. signed an agreement of credit guarantee, according to which AID
will guarantee 50 percent of short-term debenture of Kaskad-Kredit
Corp. As executive director of Kaskad Capital Holding, Jonathan Stark,
put it, such an agreement is a great event for Armenia.
Emphasizing the importance of the event, US ambassador to Armenia
John Evans stated that preparation for this agreement lasted 2
years. Gerald Gefestchian is its initiator. The ambassador noted
that the US does not simply invest in such countries like Armenia
but works to stimulate export in Armenia. Amb. Evans said also that
the president of Kaskad-Kredit Bank, Garegin Gevorgian, studied in
the United States by Muskie program.
President of the Central bank of Armenia, Tigran Sargsian, pointed out
that Garegin Gevorgian’s main plus is the fact that he had studied
in the USA but that he had work experience at Central Bank. In view
of the new bonds coming into circulation the CB is making relevant
changes to put the agreement in use.
The executive director of Kaskad-Kredit said that they will issue
debenture for one year with a nominal dimension of $6 million. The
first debentures will be issued till the end of the year through the
Armenian stock exchange.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

90 PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS WORK IN ARMENIA
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, NOYAN TAPAN. “I am calling upon you to use your
knowledge in Armenia as best as you can.” The US Ambassador to Armenia
John Evans stated this during his opening address at the August 15
event at the Armenia Marriott Hotel dedicated to the American Peace
Corps volunteers’ activities in Armenia and the swear-in ceremony of
43 new volunteers. The ambassador appreciated the work carried out by
the volunteers in the spheres of education and health, and expressed
hope that they will continue serving efficiently in Armenia. Country
Director of the Peace Corps Armenia Patrick Hart said that at present
the Peace Corps volunteers are collaborating with the Armenian
counterpart organizations in the areas of English language education,
business and community development, and health and environmental
education. He noted that Peace Corps Armenia was established in
1992 at the invitation of the Armenian government. Since that time,
more than 500 Peace Corps volunteers have served in Armenia. With
the addition of this new group, 90 volunteers will work in schools,
universities, NGOs and health facilities throughout Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE MISSION MONITORED CONTACT LINE BETWEEN NKR AND AZERI ARMED FORCES
PanArmenian News Network
Aug 4 2005
04.08.2005 07:09
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today the OSCE Mission held a regular monitoring of
the Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan armed forces’ contact-line on the
south-eastern section of the NKR Martouni region. From the positions
of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring mission was led by Field
Assistants of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office’s Personal Representative
Miroslav Vymetal (the Czech Republic) and Olexandr Samarsky
(Ukraine). The monitoring passed in accordance with the planned
schedule, no violations of the cease-fire regime were registered.
>>From the Karabakh party, representatives of the NKR Ministries of
Foreign Affairs and Defense accompanied the OSCE monitoring mission,
reported the NKR MFA Press Service.

Istanbul’s isle of diversity
A vestige of Turkey’s multicultural past, Muslims, Jews, and Christians
coexist happily on the Princes Islands
The Christian Science Monitor
July 28, 2005
By Yigal Schleifer
Burgaz lies less than an hour’s ferry ride from the urban sprawl of
Muslim-dominated Istanbul, but the unspoiled island teems with ethnic
diversity.
Part of an archipelago known as the Princes Islands, Burgaz and its
sister islands have for decades been a summer home for Istanbul’s
minority communities, especially Jews, Greeks, and Armenians. Indeed,
the hilly islands are probably one of the world’s few places where a
church, synagogue, and mosque happily coexist within walking distance of
each other.
Despite their dwindling presence in Istanbul, ethnic minorities continue
to flock to the islands during the summer, preserving perhaps the last
vestige of the cosmopolitan multiculturalism that once typified Turkey’s
capital.
In a country that has struggled with minority issues in recent decades,
these oases in the Sea of Marmara offer a rare glimpse of a way of life
that is slowly disappearing.
“They represent the multicultural aspect of Turkey in one small spot,”
says Robert Schild, an Istanbul businessman and amateur historian who is
working on a documentary about Burgaz.
“The islands are probably the only spot in Istanbul where you can still
hear Greek and Ladino [Judeo-Spanish] spoken on the street.”
Mr. Schild calls the islands “a living ethnographic museum.” On little
Burgaz, less than a mile from end to end, Schild says he has so far
counted 20 different ethnic groups represented among its 5,000 summer
residents, from Jews and Greeks, to Alevi Muslims, Chaldean Christians,
and even some Austrian nuns who live in a residence belonging to a
Catholic-run Istanbul hospital that dates back to the late 19th century.
It’s not hard to grasp why visitors flocked here. The islands dazzle
with pristine greenery. Wooden Victorian-style mansions line the
islands’ streets, while horses pulling colorful fringe-topped carriages
compete with pedestrians and cyclists for space. Cars are not permitted.
In a book about Istanbul, historian John Freely relates this florid
account by a 19th century European traveler: “….nowhere does the
delighted eye repose on coasts more lovely, on a bay more gracious, on
mountainous distances more grandiose … nowhere in short do bluer
waters bathe more gently a thousand shady coves, a thousand poetic cliffs.”
Many denizens concede, however, that the island’s character is changing.
As Istanbul’s minority communities shrink, the Princes are also losing
their diversity. Burgaz has only one Greek fisherman left, and Buyukada
– the largest of the islands – just a lone Jewish fishmonger.
Indeed, Greeks wereonce a major part of Istanbul’s ethnic fabric; today
less than 2,000 remain in the city. Even fewer make it out to these
islands where several defunct Orthodox monasteries still stand.
Sotiris Varnalidis, born in Istanbul but living in Greece for more than
30 years, comes back to Heybeli Island every summer to help maintain the
buildings of the shuttered seminary where he once studied.
“It’s very depressing to see the number of Greek people going down every
day,” says Varnalidis. “Compared to today, the island used to be much
more crowded.”
Tiny Kinali, however, remains home to a bustling summertime Armenian
community. On the island’s main strip, the Sirin Sarkuteri delicatessen
does brisk business selling homemade eggplant salad and stuffed peppers.
Behind the counter, Zafer Cukur, a mustachioed man in a short-sleeved
white shirt, says the shop moves to the island for the summer, closing
down its store in Istanbul’s Armenian district.
“The island has more of a feeling of the typical Armenian lifestyle,”
says Tamar Kac, a young advertising executive who grew up spending
summers on Kinali.
“When the afternoon comes, you can smell everyone cooking their stuffed
vine leaves and other typical Armenian foods,” she adds.
“Parents are choosing Kinali because their kids can make friendships
with other Armenians. In terms of community it’s a beneficial place.”

Raffles Hotel, then and now, evokes colonial era
By Nur Dianah Suhaimi
Malaysia Star, Malaysia
July 19 2005
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Author Somerset Maugham penned novels under
the frangipani trees at Raffles Hotel in the 1920s. Ernest Hemingway
sipped Singapore Slings at the Long Bar. And in 1967, the hotel was
the backdrop for the movie Pretty Polly.
But if it once was an artists’ haunt, the present-day Raffles Hotel —
made a national monument in 1987 — is a far cry from its former self.
A view of Raffles Hotel in Singapore July 18, 2005. U.S. investment
firm Colony Capital is to buy the entire business of Raffles Holdings,
owner of Singapore’s landmark Raffles Hotel and the Swissotel brand,
for S$1.45 billion ($859 million). (REUTERS/Luis Enrique Ascui)
“The hotel is nothing more than a kitschy icon of Singapore’s colonial
past,” said Cyril Wong, a Singaporean poet. “Its romantic surroundings
are no longer relevant to today’s writers who wish to be inspired by
contemporary issues,” he said.
Some think the 118-year-old hotel, which was sold this week to
U.S.-based Colony Capital, is just another self-important colonial
structure of the past.
“It started off as a colonial enterprise and is now another foreign
enterprise,” said Yasmine Yahya, researcher for the Economist Group.
“There has never been anything particularly Singaporean about the
Raffles Hotel identity. Now that it has been sold to Westerners,
I guess the Raffles Hotel story has come full circle,” she said.
The hotel, formerly an Arab merchant’s bungalow, was opened by Armenian
hoteliers in 1887. In 1933, after the death of its last Armenian owner,
Raffles Hotel was made a public company called Raffles Hotel Limited.
MAGIC
But many of today’s writers and artists would rather draw inspiration
from buildings being torn down than from the old colonial landmark
itself, Singapore poet Wong said.
“If there’s a writer who gets his inspiration from Raffles Hotel today,
I’d tell him ‘Go to Little India — talk about the real thing’,”
28-year-old Wong said.
Little India is one of Singapore’s ethnic enclaves which has managed
to resist much of the urbanisation that has overtaken the area
around Raffles.
Tony Watts, editor of a magazine for expatriates, believes says
the hotel’s former reputation as a writers’ haunt may have been a
bit overblown.
“It was probably not the hotel which inspired writers at the time but
the tropical, undeveloped surroundings of Southeast Asia,” said Watts,
an expatriate of eight years. “Back then, Raffles Hotel might just
be another one of those exciting places to be in this exotic region.”
Indeed, “Pretty Polly”, stars Haley Mills and Trevor Howard in a Noel
Coward romantic comedy about a young lady who spends a few months as
a travelling companion with her wealthy aunt.
The hotel today is largely frequented by wealthy tourists who don’t
mind splurging on hospitality and food.
Despite its central location, very few locals frequent the hotel.
“It’s not for teenagers like me,” said Gan Ruben, an 18-year-old who
works at the Raffles Cafe. “Prices here are too expensive. I’d rather
go to Starbucks because it’s more hip.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IF THE REQUIREMENTS ARE MET, “JUSTICE” WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE DISCUSSION
A1+
15-07-2005
Analyzing the revised draft constitution sent to the Venice
Commission on July 7, the Justice bloc came to the conclusion that
that some steps have been taken to take the offers of the opposition
into account, but they cannot be evaluated as the full realization of
the 3 principle approaches represented on January19, 2005.
Some conditions necessary for the participation of the bloc in the
Constitutional reforms process are missing.
Proceeding from this, the “Justice” bloc a n n o u n c e s:
1. In case of the full realization of the principles put forward they
are ready to participate in the Constitutional reforms process and
represent offers to improve the draft.
2. The party reconfirmed all the previous demands and finds that
their non-realization will deepen the distrust of the society for the
process of Constitutional reforms, and will put at results of the
referendum in doubt.
In particular:
a. In order to prevent possible forgery, before the Constitutional
referendum to revise the Electoral Code, to punish those responsible
for forgery during previous elections, and the revise the electoral
roll.
b. In order to raise public awareness about the draft Constitution,
to secure the presence of different opinions, especially by the
Public TV Company and the return air to the TV Company “A1+”.
To take steps in the realization of the mentioned demands before the
second reading of the draft.
3. The party is decisive to achieve system reforms in the country and
legal authorities.
The announcement has been signed by the leader of the Justice bloc
Stepan Demirchyan.
P.S. We also tried to learn the point of view of the National Unity.
Member of the fraction Aghasi Arshakyan informed that they do not
want to engage in empty talks and as soon as they have the final
variant of the Constitution they will discuss it and give their
opinion. And now they do not even intend to discuss something they
have not even seen.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZG Armenian Daily #123, 06/07/2005
Poll
60 PER CENT OF YEREVANNERS UNAWARE OF CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS
The public polls held by Vox Populi center testified to the fact that only
13 per cent of the capital’s population is ready to participate in the
constitutional referendum, if it were held the coming Sunday. According to
their data, 60 per cent of Yerevanners is still unaware of the
constitutional reforms. The polls were held among 624 residents of the city
in late June and early July.
The referendum of constitutional reforms is expected to take place till
November 2005.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress