Author: Vorskanian Yeghisabet

UNDP, ARMENIAN TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT MINISTRY LAUNCH UN REPORT ON THE
ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR PERISHED SOLDIERS FAMILIES
ArmenPress
25 Oct. 2004
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS: Today, at the Congress Hotel in
Yerevan Karen Chshmaritian, Minister of Trade and Economic Development
of Armenia, Kalman Mizsei, Assistant Secretary-General and UN
Development Program (UNDP) Assistant Administrator and Director of the
Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS), and Arsen Ghazarian, President of the Union of Manufacturers and
Businessmen of Armenia, launched the Unleashing Entrepreneurship report
prepared by a blue-ribbon commission at the request of Mr. Kofi Annan,
the UN Secretary-General. This important global report focuses on the
role of the private sector in development and calls on governments,
international organizations and businesses to work together to
help the private sector reduce poverty. The authors of the report,
prominent scholars and former senior state and business leaders,
analyze the links between entrepreneurship and attainment of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by world country leaders
in 2000. The main findings of the report are as follows: Domestic
private initiative and entrepreneurship have enormous potential but
are often trapped in disabling business environments.
To unleash the potential of the private sector, Governments need
to create enabling environments for competitive private sector
development by ensuring a strong rule of law and equal opportunities
for businesses.
Businesses can be major actors in the worldwide struggle to reduce
poverty and promote the environment by working through public-private
partnerships. The report is relevant for Armenia where the transition
from a planned state-owned economy to a market economy is progressing
rapidly. Today, 85 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is
produced by the private sector, and small and medium-sized enterprises
account for 35 percent of GDP. Despite significant economic successes,
however, the country still needs to ensure a more enabling environment
for the full unleashing of Armenia’s business potential. At the
ceremony, Mr. Mizsei noted: “UNDP is proud to present this report to
the major business leaders of Armenia. We strongly believe that through
pubic-private partnerships such the ones already initiated in your
country by our office in Yerevan and several major private companies,
we can achieve the Millennium Goals in Armenia and, importantly,
promote a better business environment in the country.” “Armenia’s
economic successes for the last years are noteworthy, but there is
still much to do in the country both in terms of reducing poverty as
well as upgrading business ethics and practices in line with the best
international standards,” Mr. Ghazarian pointed out. Mr. Kalman Mizsei
is on an official visit to Armenia from 23 to 26 October 2004. In
his current position, Mr. Mizsei oversees operations and programs of
UNDP field offices covering 30 countries in the region. Prior to his
current position, Mr. Mizsei has worked as a senior official in the
banking and financial sectors and as a senior advisor to governments
of the region on their economic transition and reform. He was born
in Budapest, Hungary. Mr. Mizsei holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the
Budapest University of Economics. He is fluent in Hungarian (native),
English, Polish and German, and speaks Russian.

Kurdistan Observer
Oct 23 2004
KurdistanObserver.com
Old Habits Die Hard!
By: Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
The President:
The Iraqi interim president Sheikh al-Yawar must thank the Kurdish
people and Kurdish leadership for the tremendous support they have
given him during the thorny process of electing an interim President.
As usual the Kurdish leadership’s rivalry made them prefer an Arab
president instead of uniting and agreeing among themselves on a
Kurdish candidate. The new president is an Iraqi tribal chief who is
wearing an Arab robe and head dress is apparently adamant on his
identity, ignoring the fact that he is supposed to be a president( ad
interim) of all constituents of Iraqi mosaic( Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen,
Christians) and not emphasizing the Arab domination of Iraqi destiny.
The shocking interview of Mr. Al-Yawar to the Arab satellite
television station ( Al-Arabiya) lately, in which he labeled the
Kurdish demonstrators of the Kurdish Referendum Movement, who were
calling for the right of self-determination of Kurdish people in
Iraq, as traitors and threatening to crush any such movement with
force has sent shock waves through Iraqi Kurdistan (and I hope
through the Kurdish leadership too!), and reminded them of the ugly
Arab chauvinism in Iraq which was too often expressed and implemented
by previous Iraqi presidents like Abdulsalam Arif , Ahmad Hassan
Al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Al-Yawar ( being newly wed into a
prominent Kurdish woman minister) could not hide his true
chauvinistic nature and his contempt for the right of Kurdish people
to express openly and in a democratic way their ambitions and
aspirations. Mr. President actually should have congratulated the
Kurdish people for resorting to democratic means of expression. This
is certainly not the model of democracy the Kurds and Iraqi peoples
are looking for in the new post-Saddam Iraq!.
The Governor:
The governor of Diyala province in the north east of Iraq, is bitter
that the Kurds in parts of Kurdistan annexed to his governorate(
Khanaquin, Mandali, Shahraban, Saadiah) are adamant on redressing the
ill effects of the ugly Arabization campaigns of Saddam Hussein, he
wants the Arab settlers who fled the region after the downfall of
their Godfather Saddam Hussein to be allowed back into Kurdish lands
and is antagonizing those Kurds who reclaim their lands and
properties which were confiscated by the Baath regime and given to
Arab settlers brought from central and south Iraq. Ten young Kurdish
recruits from Khanaquin were lured to the building of Diyala
governorate by the cronies of Diyala governor and were brutally
murdered under the watching eyes of Arab police forces there. The
governor is continuing the Arabization policies of Saddam Hussein
there, he is refusing to appoint Kurdish citizens for the public
posts, he is depriving the Kurdish towns from any reconstruction
projects, he has even refused to open Mortgage Banks in the Kurdish
towns of his province although it was opened in all the other Arab
towns in the same province, just to deprive the Kurds from any
chances to build new homes. The central Iraqi government is
apparently endorsing such discriminatory actions of the governor. How
could we allow such an affront to continue!.
The Neighbour:
Our northern neigbours apparently haven’t wake up from the joy of
their barbaric massacres against Armenians and Kurds at the onset of
the last century, which the world even today is hesitant to condemn
and acknowledge as they did for example for the Holocoust of the Jews
during the Nazi reign in Germany. The Turks did get away almost
unscathed and that encourages them to continue their ultranationalist
and backward ideology of one state-one nation-one culture-one
language, depriving the Kurdish children of having Kurdish names and
learning their mother tongue in schools, still ignoring the existence
of a second major ethnic group in Turkey ( the Kurds) which
constitutes more than one third of the population with own
distinctive culture and language which is entirely different from
Turkish culture and language. The Turks are not satisfied with the
immense oppression and discrimination they perpetrated on their
Kurdish citizens in Northern Kurdistan, they are trying to extend
their hatred towards Iraqi Kurds in South Kurdistan and keep meddling
in in the internal affairs of South Kurdistan, they have nominated
themselves as the godfather of Iraqi Turkmen and are shedding
crocodile tears about the fate of Turkmen in the Kurdistani city of
Kirkuk, and how some of the 300,000 Kurds deported from Kirkuk during
Arabization campaigns of Saddam Hussein are returning back to Kirkuk
to claim their homes and properties und to the Turkish taste
upsetting the demographic realities of Kirkuk, deliberately ignoring
the facts that the Turkmen have never been better as their current
situation in Iraqi Kurdistan (including Kirkuk). The Turks want the
Kurdish victims of Saddam Hussein to relinquish their rights to go
back to their ancestral hometown , just to satisfy the chauvinistic
kamalistic ego of the sick Turkish republic. The Turks are giving
themselves the right to interfere in the future of Kirkuk, they are
still behaving with the Ottoman colonialist mentality. The Destiny of
Kirkuk and the procedures to settle the disputes about Kirkuk is an
Iraqi issue and is elaborated in detail in the Transitional
Administrative Law (TAL), the interim constitution of Iraq. Iraqi
peoples certainly does not need the greedy neighbors, the previous
collaborators of Saddam regime to interfere in the affairs of the new
Iraq. The events in Iraq shows that foreign adventures could cost
them dearly.
The Super Power:
Since the artificial establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921 and the
subsequent forcible annexation of Iraqi Kurdistan to Iraq against the
will of Kurdish people, Iraq has been dominated by the Arab Sunni
minority subjecting the other main constituents of Iraqi society
mainly the Arab Shiite and the Kurds to all kinds of discrimination
and oppression culminating in use of WMD against Kurds in Halabja
1988, genocidal Anfall campaigns against Kurds 1986-1988, the
indiscriminate murdering of Shiites in 1991. The fall of Saddam
regime on the 9th April 2003 has caused the fall of the old Iraqi
establishment and with it the new forces are now trying to remodel
the Iraqi state on a federal basis or in worst case scenario the
alternative is to disintegrate into 3 states, Kurdish in the north
and north east, Sunni in central and west Iraq and Shiite in South
Iraq. The only way to keep Iraq as a unitary state seems in building
a democratic federal Iraq which is equally shared between Kurds,
Sunnis and Shiites, and this constitutes a huge insurmountable task
taking into consideration the restrictive and intolerant mentality of
the Middle East peoples. The American administration so far is
clinching to the prospect of keeping Iraq united at any cost , not
the least to satisfy its neighbors, such a policy could be impossible
to implement considering the current turmoil in Iraq, the Americans
must be ready to sketch plan B and that is to divide Iraq into 3
states, a conference between those different groups should decide the
division of Iraqi wealth between those states. Times are changing ,
old policies and doctrines must also change.
Dr.Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
Switzeralnd
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

No Longer Just Nordic
washingtonpost.com
Oct 22, 2004
Keith B. Richburg

MALMO, Sweden — In one of his most popular songs, Swedish hip-hop
artist Timbuktu sings of two strangers warily eyeing each other on a
Stockholm subway, one a white Swede, the other an immigrant, each with
his own thoughts and prejudices.
“I wonder why he’s eyeing me like this,” the white Swede asks
himself. “Maybe he’s planning to follow me and rob me at knife tip. I
bet he’s a drug user that beats his kids, forces his wife to wear a
veil.”
Timbuktu knows something about racial prejudice — as a black man born
in Lund, Sweden, whose first language is Swedish, but who for most of
his life has had to deal with the stares, the taunts, the curiosity
and the inevitable question: “But where are you really from?”
>From first grade through sixth, he recalled, he fought frequently
during recess with a group of three boys who taunted him with racial
insults. Even though he’s a celebrity in Malmo, which he calls home,
he says he is still followed by security guards when he enters a
department store. And while his DJ sessions can pack the house, he
finds he is denied entry to some clubs.
“I’m Swedish, definitely, and more and more so now,” said Timbuktu,
whose real name is Jason Diakite. He is the son of a black American
man from Harlem and a white American woman from Scranton, Pa. “But
Sweden still has a very clear picture of what a Swede is. That no
longer exists — the blond, blue-eyed physical traits. That’s
changing. But it still exists in the minds of some people.”
Across Europe, societies that were once solidly white and Christian
are being recast in a multicultural light. The arrival of large
numbers of people from the Middle East, East Asia and Africa — many
European countries now have minority populations of around 10 percent
— is pushing aside old concepts of what it means to be French or
German or Swedish.
In Sweden, nowhere is the change happening faster than in Malmo, the
country’s third-largest city behind Stockholm and Goteborg. It is a
gritty shipyard town of about 265,000 people. Once a major industrial
center that drew people from abroad with the prospect of jobs, Malmo
has lately fallen on hard times as factories have closed.
About 40 percent of Malmo’s population is foreign-born or has at least
one foreign-born parent. The bulk of foreign-born people come from the
former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq and the Horn of Africa. Among school-age
children, 50 percent have at least one foreign-born parent, and
analysts project that the number will soon reach 60 percent.
The city’s official Web site boasts that its inhabitants come from 164
countries and speak 100 languages.
A walk through the Mollevangstorget area of Malmo, where Timbuktu
lives, shows how much immigration has changed this city. The Middle
East restaurant sits across the street from a falafel shop, down the
road from an Indian shop and the Tehran Supermarket, which is filled
with nuts, dates, dried fruits and banana-flavored tobacco imported
fresh from Iran.
“Immigrants like being here, because they can find things from their
own country,” said a man working behind the supermarket counter, who
gave his name only as Rahim. “Four thousand Iranians live here. But
there are Swedes shopping here as well.”
The ethnic diversity is part of what drew Timbuktu, 29, here to make
his music. “Malmo is a quite interesting town for the way Sweden may
look in the future,” he said in an interview over coffee at the city’s
Hilton Hotel, as two female fans ogled him from a table nearby.
Almost 12 percent of the roughly 9 million people living in Sweden as
of this summer were foreign-born, government statistics show. Sweden
has long hosted white immigrants from Finland and the Baltic
countries. But according to the latest figures, about 7 percent of the
population comes from outside Europe, most of them nonwhite.
Elsewhere in Europe, immigration has caused significant social
turmoil, giving rise to political parties with anti-immigrant
platforms, such as the National Front in France, the Freedom Party in
Austria and the Pim Fortyn party in the Netherlands. But in Sweden,
the process has flowed more smoothly. Though immigrants here
frequently experience prejudice and rejection, it appears to be less
institutionalized than in other European countries; an anti-immigrant
party in Sweden got just 1.4 percent of the vote in elections two
years ago.
That result occurred partly because the Swedish majority populace has
gone about the business of absorbing the newcomers with the famous
Scandinavian seriousness of purpose. There are programs to help new
arrivals learn Swedish. There are programs to help them find
housing. And there are generous subsidies for those who aren’t
working.
In France, black and brown faces are largely nonexistent in politics,
government, the news media and the top echelons of business —
anywhere outside of sports and music. But in Sweden, immigrants have
assumed a much higher profile.
Foreign-born Swedes hold a significant number of parliamentary
seats. The top Swedish chef, Marcus Samuelsson, is an ethnic
Ethiopian. Some of the most popular comedians on television are
foreign-born, including Ozz Nujen and Shan Atci, both Kurds. One of
Sweden’s top filmmakers, Josef Fares, came to Sweden from Lebanon. And
Sweden’s silver medal-winning Olympic wrestler, Ara Abrahamian, was
born in Armenia.
“We have a news anchor who is mixed, black and white,” noted Timbuktu.
But Sweden’s quiet transformation has not been without problems. In
Malmo, the biggest problem is unemployment. In Rosengard, the most
heavily immigrant district of Malmo, the unemployment rate is around
65 percent, said Jahangir Hosseinkhah, division head of the district’s
employment and training office, and an ethnic Azerbaijani who
emigrated from Iran.
Hosseinkhah said Sweden’s generous welfare system is partially to
blame. “We have a welfare system in Sweden that is usually a help to
people, but it is also a problem,” he said. For some immigrants, he
said, “they don’t need to get a job, because they get an allocation
from the state.” He said his office has handled immigrants who had
lived in Sweden as long as a decade and had never worked.
The influx has also forced the Malmo school system to adapt. At the
Borgarskolan high school, 30 percent of the 1,400 students are from
immigrant families; other public schools have an even higher
percentage. One problem is that the school does not have enough
interpreters available for parent-teacher meetings.
Some students interviewed at Borgarskolan said they felt no
discrimination at the school, because the classes are so heavily
mixed. But in the wider community, they said, they sometimes feel
caught between two worlds.
“They don’t assume me to be Swedish,” said Kamelia Tadjerbashi, 17,
who has lived in Sweden since she was 6 months old, the child of an
Iranian mother and a Turkish father. “Swedish people get impressed
that I speak Swedish so well.”
Another 17-year-old student from Iran, Honey Ghaffari, agreed. “They
look at you and see dark hair and assume you can’t be Swedish,” she
said. Ghaffari has also lived in Sweden almost her entire life.
“Sometimes, in small stores, if there’s an old lady, she’ll look at me
like I’m shoplifting something,” said Charles Anderson, 18, who came
here from Cameroon to play soccer for a Swedish team. “I think people
have a problem with other cultures. It’s a problem of time. People
haven’t been to Africa. They travel to Thailand, and maybe Spain.”
But the biggest problem in Malmo, and in other parts of Sweden, is
what people here call “ghettoization”: White Swedes typically live in
certain areas, in this case the city center, while immigrants are
increasingly clustered on the outskirts in their own communities. As
Hosseinkhah put it: “People physically live in this area, but they
mentally live in their former countries.”
“They don’t feel they are a part of this community,” he said. “They
don’t know this society. They don’t know the codes. . . . There’s that
feeling of ‘we’ and ‘them.’ ” He said he has met refugees who have
traveled thousands of miles to get to Malmo, but once settled, have
never visited the city center.
Ghettoization is a problem that also unsettles Timbuktu.
“Will it be like the United States,” he asked rhetorically, “where all
the Somalis live in one part of town, and all the Koreans in another?”
He added, “I get the feeling that tension is going to increase in
Sweden over the next 25 years.”

One injured as Armenia violates cease-fire in western Azerbaijan
Assa-Irada, Baku
20 Oct 04

BAKU
On the night leading to 20 October, the Armenian armed forces based in
Samsaddin [Azeri name for Armenia’s Tavush District] opened fire on
the village of Alibayli in Azerbaijan’s Tovuz District. As a result, a
30-year-old resident of the village, Azar Nagiyev, was wounded to his
abdomen.
According to a report circulated by the Tovuz District executive
authorities, Nagiyev, a policeman with the Agstafa District police
department, has been placed in the hospital of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs in Baku.
Eight villages of Tovuz District are situated along the front-line and
Alibayli is the closest to the Armenian positions.

Viet Nam News, Vietnam
Oct 21 2004
Today in History
October 20 in History

2000
Turkey praises the US Congress’s abandonment of a resolution
accusing Turks of genocide against the Armenians 85 years before,
removing a major threat to Turkish-US relations.

1524
Death of Thomas Linacre, the British physician and the first
president of the Royal College of Physicians, London.

1616
Birth of Danish physician and mathematician Thomas Bartholin. In
1652, he became the first to fully describe the human lymphatic
system.

1632
Birth of English architect and mathematician Sir Christopher Wren
(died 1723). He designed and built over 50 churches in London. His
most famous designs are St. Paul’s Cathedral, Greenwich Hospital and
the Pembroke College chapel at Cambridge university.

1728
A huge fire ravages Copenhagen, destroying most of the city.

1740
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor and pretender to the throne of Spain,
dies.

1818
In an agreement between the United States and Britain, the US-Canada
border is set at the 49th parallel, with joint occupation of Oregon
for 10 years.

1822
Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper is first published.

1879
The governor of Cochinchina (South Viet Nam) approves the
establishment of the Municipalite de Cho Lon (now part of HCM City).

1883
Peru and Chile sign the Treaty of Ancon, under which Tarapaca
Province is ceded to Chile.

1890
Death of Sir Richard Burton born 1821, the British scholar and
explorer. He was the first European to locate Lake Tanganyika in
Africa and he translated the Arabian Nights tales.

1891
Birth of Sir James Chadwick; the British physicist who won the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1935 for his discovery of the neutron.

1898
Viet Nam’s King Thanh Thai gives township status to Thanh Hoa in
Thanh Hoa Province, Vinh in Nghe An, Hue in Thua Thien, Faifo (now
Hoi An) in Quang Nam, Quy Nhon in Binh Dinh and Phan Thiet in Binh
Thuan.

1921
The Franco-Turkish agreement is signed at Ankara.

1930
Establishment of Viet Nam Anti-Imperialist Women’s Association which
then became the Viet Nam Women’s Union in 1946. The first chairwoman
was Nguyen Thi Minh Khai.

1930
Birth of Vietnamese soldier-writer Nguyen Minh Chau (died 1989). His
famous works include Co Lau (Reeds) and Dau Chan Nguoi Linh
(Soldiers’ Footsteps).

1950
Viet Nam’s Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People’s Army) newspaper is first
published.

1960
Penguin Books goes on trial in London, charged with contravening
Britain’s Obscene Publications Act by publishing D.H. Lawrence’s
novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

1973
In Australia, Queen Elizabeth officially opens the Sydney Opera
House.

1989
Sir Anthony Quayle, the English actor best remembered for his roles
in Lawrence of Arabia, Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone,
dies of cancer.

1991
An earthquake strikes the Himalayan foothills in India, killing at
least 341 people and destroying tens of thousands of homes.

1995
Inauguration of the Viet Nam Women’s Museum in Ha Noi.

1999
Moslem leader Abdurrahman Wahid wins Indonesia’s first contested
presidential election, beating the favourite Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Megawati was elected vice president the next day.

2000
Turkey praises the US Congress’s abandonment of a resolution
accusing Turks of genocide against the Armenians 85 years before,
removing a major threat to Turkish-US relations. – VNS/REUTERS/AP

VLADIMIR PUTIN: RUSSIA INTENDS TO CONTINUE INTENSIVE PEACEKEEPING AND
NEGOTIATION FOR SETTLEMENT OF PROBLEMS IN CAUCASUS
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19. ARMINFO-TURAN. Russia is going to continue active
peacekeeping and negotiation activity for the resolution of the
problems in the Caucasus, said the president of Russia V. Putin at the
congress of the Azeris in Russia. “Russia and Azerbaijan closely
cooperate for resolution of the complicated contradictions in the
Caucasus, Russia is very interested in peaceful and stable development
of this region. And for achieving of our strategic purpose we are
going to continue active peacekeeping and negotiation activity with
you and with the other partners in the CIS”, he noted.
Putin supports reforming of the legal basis of the Russian-Azeri
immigration and labor relations. He treats opening of broad equal
right opportunities for study in both states as an important strategic
task. For this it is necessary to form “together” modern legal basis
of immigration and labor relations, the president of Russia
said. Russia really wants to see Azerbaijan a stable, safe and
economically strong state, he noted. Only economically independent
states can form and carry out influential , what is very important for
Russia, independent policy , as the policy of good-neighbor , mutual
respect and friendship”. “Russia is interested just in such neighbors,
in such Azerbaijan”, the president said.

Azeri opposition party pickets US embassy over Armenian MPs’ visit to Baku
ANS TV, Baku
19 Oct 04

[Presenter] An anti-Armenian protest action has been staged in
Baku. The United People’s Front of Azerbaijan Party [UPFAP] staged the
action protesting against a visit by Armenian MPs to Baku for the
Rose-Roth seminar of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly. The protest action
was held outside the US embassy in Baku.
[Correspondent, over video of the action] The UPFAP continues its
protest actions against the [planned] involvement of Armenian MPs in
the 58th Rose-Roth seminar of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly due in
Baku. Members of the party picketed the US embassy in Baku today.
The protesters demanded that an end be put to pressure on Azerbaijan
to ensure the participation of the Armenian MPs in the Rose-Roth
seminar and to unfair attitudes towards the Azerbaijani people. They
demanded that pressure be put not on Azerbaijan which was subjected to
aggression but on aggressor Armenia instead.
To recap, the UPFAP sent a letter to the Baku mayor’s office to get
permission to hold a series of protest actions. However, the mayor’s
office did not authorize the actions. The party members are set to
continue their pickets. Another picket protesting against the visit
by Armenian MPs to Baku will be held outside the Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry on 26 October. Moreover, the party members will stage pickets
outside embassies of numerous NATO member countries.
[Passage omitted: reported details]
[Video showed protesters chanting Karabakh outside the embassy, police
officers dispersing the picket]
Ceyhun Asgarov, Emil Babaxanov, ANS.

Taipei Times, Taiwan
Oct 18 2004
Jerusalem’s Christian’s decry attacks by Jews
RELIGIOUS DISPUTE: Christians say they are being harassed by a few
fanatical Jews — and that the problem is being ignored by religious
leaders
THE OBSERVER , LONDON
Monday, Oct 18, 2004,Page 6
“The problem is the very religious. It’s a question of education.
What must these people be learning to behave like this?”

Bishop Aris Shirvanian of the Armenian church

Jerusalem’s Christian community has demanded that Jewish leaders and
the Israeli government take action against what they claim is growing
harassment of their clergy by religious Jews.
Christians say ultra-Orthodox Jewish students spit at them or at the
ground when they pass. There have also been acts of vandalism against
statues of the Virgin Mary.
The harassment came to a head last week when a Jewish student spat at
Armenian Archbishop Nourhan Manougian and ripped off his crucifix,
whereupon the archbishop slapped him. The police questioned both men.
Mainstream Israeli opinion has been revolted by the revelations of
the abuse of Christian clergy. Avraham Poraz, the interior minister,
condemned the trend of spitting at the cross and those wearing it,
saying it was “intolerable” and that he was “revolted” by it. A
former chief rabbi also voiced his outrage.
All the Christian groups complain of harassment, but the Armenians
bear the brunt. Armenian clergymen said that, when they complained to
the interior minister seven months ago, he told them: “Most Jews have
a big problem with them as well.”
The 3,000-strong community live in the Armenian quarter and many Jews
walk through it on their way from west Jerusalem to the Wailing Wall
or Western Wall.
Father Pakrad Bourjekian, a spokesman for the Armenian church, said
the attack was an extreme example of the harassment they receive
every day. “Every day the fanatical Jews turn their face to the wall
or spit on the ground or at us when they see the crucifix,” he said.
The Christians admit that it is only a minority who carry out the
abuse, but they feel that the issue is being ignored by religious
leaders.
Bishop Aris Shirvanian of the Armenian church said: “The majority are
courteous or indifferent. The problem is the very religious. It’s a
question of education. What must these people be learning to behave
like this?”
The old city of Jerusalem is buzzing with rumors that young Armenians
will take revenge for the attack and the daily indignities suffered
by their priests.
Aris acknowledged that there was a danger of reprisals. “We are
trying to control our young people and we are succeeding. But the
question is that there is no one in the Jewish community trying to
control their fanatics,” he said.
Jerusalem has always been a city of conflict. Even the old Christian
churches — the Armenian, Orthodox, Coptic, Syrian, Ethiopian and
Catholic — are known for their disputes, which regularly result in
brawls.

Azeri speaker, Norwegian minister discuss Karabakh settlement
Trend news agency
13 Oct 04
Baku, 13 October: Azerbaijani Speaker Murtuz Alasgarov received the
Norwegian foreign minister and chairman of the Council of Europe
Committee of Ministers, Jan Petersen, on 13 October. Alasgarov said
that the visit is of great importance to Azerbaijan and the talks
will give impetus to the development of Azerbaijan’s relations with
Norway and the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.
He said that Azerbaijan has fulfilled most of its commitments to the
Council of Europe and will soon resolve the issues of alternative
military service, ethnic minorities and others.
Talking about the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, Alasgarov said that
the settlement of the problem has been delayed due to international
organizations and leading countries’ wrong approach to the problem. It
is amazing that visiting experts from the Council of Europe and other
international bodies show interest not in the flagrant violation of
the rights of 1m refugees, but in the fate of three or five people
convicted for the crimes they have committed, Alasgarov said.
He went on to say that Azerbaijan will not cede even an inch of
its land and that the country’s policy is aimed at restoring its
territorial integrity within international legal norms. I hope that
the international organizations and leading countries will understand
our position and defend us, he said.
In turn, Petersen said that his visit will contribute to the
development of bilateral relations. He went on to say that Statoil and
other Norwegian companies want to make investments in Azerbaijan and
expressed the hope that Azerbaijan will create conditions for that. As
for the Karabakh conflict, Petersen said that he can empathize with
Azerbaijan over the conflict which has not been resolved so far. We
hope that [the country] will find a fair solution to it in the near
future, he said. Petersen stressed that the basis for this is the
fact that the conflicting sides have sat at the negotiating table.

2004 BUDGET SURPLUS TO EXCEED FORECASTS SIXFOLD
RIA Novosti, Russia
October 12, 2004
MOSCOW, October 12. (RIA Novosti) – At its session on Tuesday the
Russian government will consider a bill on introducing amendments to
the federal law On the Federal Budget for 2004 and invalidating some
clauses of legislative acts of the Russian Federation.
According to a source in the government, the Finance Ministry forecasts
that the federal budget surplus will this year amount to 505.7 billion
roubles ($1 equals 29.22 roubles). At first the surplus was projected
at 83.4 billion roubles.
“The Finance Ministry has submitted to the government the budget
forecast till the end of the year. It expects revenues to grow by
531 billion roubles, expenditures by 108.6 billion,” the source said.
Revenues grow due to increased collection of the mineral extraction
tax of 430 billion roubles and export duties.
As to expenditures, interest-bearing expenditures will be cut by 40.9
billion roubles, while others will rise by 149.6 billion roubles.
Thus, the total revenues of the budget by the end of the year will
amount to 3.2738 trillion roubles, while expenditures will total
2.7681 trillion, the source said.
Target allocations to the Stabilization Fund by the end of the year are
expected to amount to 397.4 billion roubles, exceeding the forecasts
by 313.9 billion.
According to the source, international cooperation will also
receive increased financing. For example, a loan of $175 million
will be provided to Belarus to partly finance Russian gas supplies
and balance mutual trade. Also, the loan to Armenia will be increased
by $31 million.