Author: Zargarian Hambik

Eurasianet, NY
Jan 11 2005

POLLS SHOW PRO-WESTERN SHIFT IN ARMENIAN PUBLIC OPINION
Emil Danielyan 1/11/05

Armenians, traditionally oriented toward Russia, are increasingly
losing faith in the benefits of a special relationship with Moscow
and are becoming more pro-Western in their outlook, according to
recent opinion polls.

Analysts in Yerevan say the pro-American shift in public perceptions
over the past year is connected with a host of factors, not the least
of them being the resounding success of Western-backed popular
revolts in Georgia and Ukraine. [For additional information see the
Eurasia Insight archive]. Popular views have also been greatly
affected by the discourse of large sections of the country’s
post-Soviet intellectual and political elites that regard the United
States and the European Union as the ultimate guarantors of their
country’s independence and prosperity.

The change is particularly visible among Armenia’s opposition
political activists, who are buoyed by the success of opposition
movements in Georgia and Ukraine, while continuing to seethe over
Russia’s ongoing support for President Robert Kocharian’s
administration. Some of them are now openly calling for an end to
Armenia’s military alliance with Russia and its accession to NATO and
the EU.

“In the past, no political forces would openly call for Armenia’s
membership in NATO, safe in the knowledge that they would not only
fail to get public support but also face harsh criticism. The
situation is markedly different now,” says Stepan Safarian, an
analyst at the Armenian Center for National and International Studies
(ACNIS), a private think-tank.

“It is the opposition that enjoys the greatest popular support in
Armenia. So naturally, its mood is being passed on to the general
public,” he adds.

This assertion seems to have been born out by a nationwide opinion
poll conducted by the ACNIS in December. Nearly two thirds of 2,000
respondents said they want their country to eventually join the EU
and only 12 percent were against. A similar survey conducted by the
Vox Populi polling organization in October found that 72 percent of
Yerevan residents preferred the expanding union to the
Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States.

Support for Armenia’s entry into the EU was practically unanimous
among 100 political and public policy experts separately questioned
by ACNIS. They were also overwhelmingly in favor of NATO membership.

The figures are remarkable for a small Christian nation that has for
centuries viewed Russia as its main protector against hostile Muslim
neighbors, notably Turkey and Azerbaijan. This sense of insecurity
has been key to Armenia’s heavy reliance on Moscow for defense and
security since the Soviet collapse. The conflict with Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh only reinforced it. [For additional information see
the Eurasia Insight archive].

“I think that over the past two or three years our society has become
much more realistic and is beginning to understand the external
challenges facing our state,” said Suren Sureniants, a senior member
of Armenia’s most radical opposition party, Hanrapetutiun (Republic).

Hanrapetutiun is currently in talks with two other opposition groups
over the formation of a new alliance that would not only strive to
force Kocharian from power, but also offer Armenians a pro-Western
alternative to policies pursued by incumbent authorities. Failure to
come up with such “ideological alternative,” in Sureniants’s words,
was the main reason for the opposition’s inability to topple
Kocharian with a campaign of street protests last spring. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Unlike its counterparts in Georgia and Ukraine, the Armenian
opposition found little support from Western governments, which
appeared to be wary of the Armenian opposition’s vague agenda and
past Russian connections. The oppositionists appear to have studied
the lessons of the “Orange Revolution” in Kyiv, and are now changing
tack. One of the most popular of them, Artashes Geghamian, was
calling for Armenia’s accession the Russia-Belarus economic union as
recently as two years ago. Geghamian now is an opponent of the idea.
His National Unity Party voted for the dispatch of Armenian
non-combat troops to Iraq during parliamentary debates in late
December.

The opposition leaders’ “vehement desire to demonstrate their
pro-Western stance” was denounced by a leading pro-Kocharian daily,
Hayots Ashkhar. The paper voiced confidence that the pending Armenian
troop deployment in Iraq should boost Kocharian’s pro-American
credentials in Washington.

US President George W. Bush recently signed a proclamation
authorizing the immediate implementation of “normal trade relations”
with Armenia. The presidential action is the reflection of a steady
improvement in US-Armenian ties in recent months. The proclamation,
signed January 7, said that normal trade ties were made possible by
the fact that Armenia had “made considerable progress in enacting
market reforms” and had “demonstrated a strong desire to build a
friendly and cooperative relationship with the United States.”

Other Kocharian loyalists are less sanguine. Vahan Hovannisian, a
leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a traditionally
pro-Russian party represented in government, warned of a potential
“dangerous” export of Western-backed revolutions to Armenia. “I don’t
think that Armenian voters are today prepared to trust extreme
anti-Russian forces,” Hovannisian said at a recent news conference.
“Having said that, it is evident that anti-Russian sentiment in
Armenian society is growing and there are objective reasons for
that.”

According to Safarian, the analyst, Russia’s hasty endorsement of a
rigged presidential ballot in Ukraine and its ensuing humiliation is
one of those reasons. “There is a growing number of events testifying
to Russia’s weakness, and the Armenian public does not fail to notice
them,” he says.

Safarian believes that Moscow’s unequivocal acceptance of Kocharian’s
disputed reelection nearly two years ago, its hard bargain on
Armenia’s debts and the closure last fall of Russia’s borders with
Georgia also alienated many Armenians. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive]. Indeed, the two-month transport blockade,
ostensibly aimed at preventing cross-border attacks by Chechen
militants, hit landlocked Armenia hard by cutting off one of its main
supply lines. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. The Russians faced an unprecedented barrage of criticism
from Armenian politicians and media at the time.

“The Russian factor is now one of the key challenges that threaten
the sovereignty, security and democratization of our country,”
Sureniants charged. He claimed that a key element in the Kremlin’s
strategy of maintaining Russian foothold in the South Caucasus and
elsewhere in the former Soviet Union is to prop up illegitimate
regimes and thwart the resolution of ethnic disputes.

The changing popular mood means that such views are not considered
extreme and marginal in Armenia anymore.

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.

Expert rules out “velvet revolution” in Azerbaijan

MPA news agency, Baku
10 Jan 05

BAKU

“Even if there is an increased level of political activity in
Azerbaijan in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, I do not
believe that these processes will take a revolutionary nature and lead
to a change of power,” the director of the Institute for Political
Innovations and Technologies, Mubariz Ahmadoglu, said, while
commenting on the possible “import” of the “velvet revolutions” into
Azerbaijan from Georgia and Ukraine.

All the post-Soviet countries have passed the period of velvet
revolutions in this or other way, he said. It occurred in Azerbaijan
on 15-16 October 2003 [post-election riots in Baku]. Only after that,
did a similar situation unfold in Georgia and Ukraine. The difference
is that the opposition in Azerbaijan proved to be weak and incapable
despite financial support from outside.

Taking into consideration the failure of the revolutionary idea in
Azerbaijan, the political analyst does not see any revolutionary
prospects for Azerbaijan, especially before the parliamentary
elections.

Touching upon the prospects, Ahmadoglu said that a “velvet” coup is
expected in Armenia soon, where the process of preparing and
structuring a revolutionary situation has started. Ex-President Levon
Ter-Petrosyan and the former foreign minister, now US citizen Raf
Ovanesyan, have set up a single bloc. Four leading parties of the
Justice bloc are also expected to join this bloc. Since Armenia is
considered to be a “mini-Russia” of the CIS, these principles may be
applied in Russia in the future if the velvet revolution is successful
in Yerevan. Russia is the ultimate goal of the velvet revolutions in
the post-Soviet area, which will then, under the US plan, move to the
Middle East, the expert said.

10.0% GDP GROWTH REGISTERED IN ARMENIA IN JAN-NOV, 2004

YEREVAN, JANUARY 10. ARMINFO. 10.0% GDP growth in Armenia was
registered in Jan-Nov, 2004. ARMINFO was informed in the press service
of the National Statistical Service of Armenia, according to
preliminary data, in Nov as against Oct the economic drop made up
22.1%. By the end of Nov 2004 the GDP totaled 1,672.1 bln drams or
($3,1 bln).

In Jan-Nov of 2004 the GDP growth was accounted for by 16.2% increase
in the construction volumes ($426.5 mln or 229.3 bln drams), 16.0%
increase of the income of the population ($2.074 bln or 1,115.3 bln
drams), 14.3% growth of the volume of agricultural produce ($767.1 mln
or 412.5 bln drams), industrial produce – 1.4% ($881.4 mln or 473.9
bln drams), energy generation – by 9.1% ($5,371.0 mln kw/h), 4.5%
growth of foreign trade turnover ($1.3 bln or 1,001.5 bln drams),
retail trade turnover by 9.2% ($1.3 bln or 699.9 bln drams), cargo
traffic by 16.4% (1,796.8 mln tons/km) and average wages by 28.0% ($76
or 40,961 drams). The expenses of the population in Jan-Nov increased
by 15.5% totalling $2.083 bln or 1,120.2 bln drams.

According to the statistical service, in Nov as against Oct 2004 the
GDP fall made up 22.1%, which was accounted for by 41.5% reduction of
the gross agricultural produce and 11.8% reduction of the services
provided to the population. At the same time, in Nov 2004 as against
Oct the volume of foreign trade turnover increased by 6.3%, energy
generation – by 23.9%, industrial produce – by 1.1%, cargo turnover –
by 9.5%, construction – by 9.1%, incomes and expenses of the
population by 3.3% and 4.5% respectively, retail turnover – by 2.5%
and average monthly wages – by 0.5%.

In the structure of the foreign trade turnover the exports increased
by 3.2%, and in Nov as against Oct 2004 it decreased by 9.4%m
totalling $645.9 mln. The imports increased by 5.3% in Jan-Nov 2004
as against the same period of 2003, and in Nov as against Oct it
increased by 16.2%, totalling $1,219.3 mln. It should be noted in
Jan-Nov, 2004 the AMD/USD exchange rate was in average 537.74 drams
against one U.S. dollar, and in Nov – 502.71 dram against one USD.

New Law Set To Help Students With Asthma

Asthma Is Leading Chronic Illness For Children, Adolescents

NBC4.tv
January 3, 2005

LOS ANGELES — When classes resume Monday, California schools will be
required by law to allow students — with written permission from their
doctors and parents or guardians — to carry and use asthma inhalers.

The law, which went into effect Saturday, is designed to help reduce the
impact of asthma, an inflammatory lung disease characterized by
recurrent breathing problems, in children.

“This can be a life or death issue for the estimated 1 million children
in California with asthma,” said Dr. Timothy A. Morris, president of the
American Lung Association of California’s medical section, the
California Thoracic Society. “Asthma symptoms can come on quickly and
instant access to prescribed medications can literally save lives.”

Before the law’s passage, school districts were not required to permit
students with asthma to carry and self-administer their medications.

Some students had to leave classrooms or playgrounds to seek the help of
the school nurse or other designated school personnel.

The state Department of Health Services recently approved an asthma
action plan for schools and families including the consent and
authorization language required by the law.

The department’s Asthma Action Plan can be downloaded for free at:

In partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the plan
has been translated Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Armenian.
These versions will soon be available at

About one in seven California children between the ages of 6 and 17 has
been diagnosed with asthma, according to the Lung Association.

Asthma is the leading chronic illness for children and adolescents,
according to the Lung Association.

The Department of Health Services has also released a set of guidelines
to assist school personnel in dealing with students with asthma. It is
available online on the Web sites of the California School Nurses
Organization, , and the California Asthma Public Health
Initiative, and the Department’s Health Public
Information Finder,

CENTRAL BANK DEPRIVED NINE EXCHANGE POINTS OF LICENSES

YEREVAN, December 30 (Noyan Tapan). According to the press service of
the RA Central Bank, by the decision of the Board of the RA Central
Bank of December 28, nine exchange points were deprived of licenses
for the violation of the demands of the currency legislation of the
Republic of Armenia.

The Messenger, Georgia
Dec 31 2004

Resisting authoritarian regimes in Russia and Armenia

According to the Armenian newspaper Aravot (Morning), the Russian
president Vladimir Putin sometimes excites admiration with his
ability to cut to the chase without beating around the bush.
For example, answering a question at a recent press conference
regarding the freedom of speech in Russia, Putin cited an Italian
joke that a true man should always try, but a true woman should
always resist. According to the paper, when speaking of a true man
Putin was referring himself and his power in the country; while a
true woman was a reference to the press, which should resist
everything.
“How cynical is Putin’sanswer,” the paper writes, “but at least it is
honest.”
Putin did not answer the provocative questions regarding the
independence of the country and freedom of speech and did not promise
anything as other politicians usually do, the paper reports, adding
that if the president of Armenian Robert Kocharian were as honest as
Putin was, instead of preferring to dupe the people regarding freedom
of speech in Armenia, then the situation would be better.
“This is the most surprising thing regarding our authorities’
attitude to the media. The true media should always resist its
suppression by the government,” the paper concludes.

New York Times
Dec 28 2004

Broadcasters Struggle to Make Sense of a Disaster
By DAVID CARR

Published: December 28, 2004

An earthquake that sent walls of water tumbling inland through South
and Southeast Asia left television news networks sifting through
thousands of images sent from around the region as they struggled to
make sense of the largest earthquake in 40 years.

The massive scope of the disaster touched on more than six different
countries, many of which have the kind of technological
infrastructure that allowed vivid imagery to be transmitted before
the dimensions of the disaster were actually known.

Video compression technology, fed by digital cameras and enabled by
satellite and videophones, along with laptops with uplink
capabilities, meant that people all over the world saw the deadly
aftermath of the earthquake just hours after it ended. And by
yesterday morning, real-time video footage of the tidal wave striking
the shores, much of it taken by tourists on or near the beaches in
Thailand began showing up on network broadcasts.

Because of the ubiquity of the footage, there was little competition
for good pictures, with the television operations of both Reuters and
The Associated Press finding themselves awash in video feeds from the
region.

“Like many natural disasters, there was not anything live actually to
begin with,” said Sandy MacIntyre, director of news at APTN, the
video arm of The Associated Press in London. “But now, a day after,
some of the most vivid images, the ones of the waves hitting the
beaches, were filmed by the people most affected.”

Still, Mr. MacIntyre said, “this has been one of the most
geographically and logistically challenging stories to cover in a
generation because of the sheer scale of it.” He added, “When I was
woken and told of what happened, I got the atlas open and I looked at
the mass of the Indian Ocean rim and realized what a big story we
were looking at.”

Robert Muir, the acting news editor of Reuters Television in
Washington, said there had been no scarcity of video imagery. “It is
not as if there was a single plane crash where someone had exclusive
footage,” he said. “This was happening many places at once, and we
found many people who were willing to part with video just so the
story could be told.”

It is a far cry from the 1988 earthquake in northern Armenia where
tens of thousands of people also died; it took more than two days for
images of the devastation to emerge.

Bill Wheatley, vice president of NBC News, said that at that time the
network had to charter a 300-seat Soviet aircraft because it was the
only one available to get images of the Armenian disaster back to
Moscow so they could be transmitted.

“It’s amazing how much things have changed,” he said. “We now have
the ability to feed our pictures from virtually anywhere. In fact,
the ability to feed pictures sometimes outpaces the ability to get
extensive editorial information to go with them, although in the
instance of this story, the pictures almost speak for themselves.”

Yesterday the airwaves were full of pictures of the aftermath, but
stringers in the area are now finding bystanders who shot video of
the disaster and lived to tell the tale.

“We knew right away that we needed to get to the beaches of Thailand
because that’s where the tourists were,” said Chuck Lustig, director
of foreign news for ABC, who immediately dispatched the network’s
Hong Kong correspondent to the Thailand.

John Paxson, London bureau chief of CBS News, sent two crews, one
from Beijing and one from Tokyo, as soon as he got word of the
disaster.

“One of our producers sat down and began looking at the many, many
images from so many different places and said, ‘I don’t know where to
start,’ ” Mr. Paxson said. “This isn’t a race for pictures, this is
an attempt to tell a massive story.”

As recently as 1998, when there was a huge tsunami that landed on the
coast of Papua New Guinea, the networks found themselves scrambling
to get pictures out of the disaster area, in part because the wave
landed in a technologically underdeveloped place.

“We didn’t get pictures from that until days later, because it was
such a primitive area,” said David Rhodes, director of news gathering
at Fox News in New York. “This has been nothing like that. There is a
lot to work with and a lot to try and make sense of.”

Bob Calo, an associate professor at the graduate school of journalism
at the University of California, Berkeley, said that there had been
something of a reversal in the news-gathering process. “If you think
back, news gatherers would get the story and then commission a
photographer to go and get the pictures,” he said. “Now we have
flipped it around to where reporters are chasing the pictures, trying
to create some context for what viewers are seeing.”

Mr. Paxson of CBS said that it was axiomatic that most of the
coverage was coming from areas that had been hit the least hard.

“The story now moves to what happened in places that are more remote
and less connected, places like the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” he
said. “No one really knows what we are going to find out there.”

Turkey, the EU and religion

Faith in Europe

Dec 16th 2004
The Economist print edition

The Turkish republic is not as secular as it seems. To become
European, it will have to change

AN EVER closer partnership between Turkey and the European Union,
culminating in full Turkish membership, can only be good for relations
between Islam and the West. It will show that western nations have no
insuperable prejudice against Islam-and it will confirm Turkey’s role
as a nation whose Muslim heritage is fully compatible with democracy.

Those are the main reasons why European leaders were expected on
December 17th to endorse the opening of talks to make Turkey the EU’s
first mainly Muslim member. The Turks have worked hard to groom
themselves for Europe. But the negotiators from Brussels and Ankara
will be deceiving themselves, and perhaps riding for a fall, if they
underestimate the amount of ground they still need to travel. Among
the trickiest issues is the existence in Turkey of a relationship
between religion and the state that differs from the varied, and often
bizarre, arrangements of western Europe.

Paradoxically, the aspect of Turkey’s system that Europeans find
strangest is the curb it places on its own prevailing religion. Turkey
is often called a secular state, whose citizens happen to be
Muslim. In fact, Turkey is far from secular, if that implies an
arm’s-length relationship between faith and politics. The masters of
Turkey’s 81-year-old republic have always felt that religion is too
sensitive to leave to clerics alone. A vast state bureaucracy oversees
spiritual life; it hires imams, tells them what to preach, and runs
religious schools.

 One size fits all The effect is to steer most Turks down a narrow
religious path; they are taught to be devout Muslims, but they may not
push their piety further thanthe state allows. By banning headscarves
in universities as well as all government premises, the state imposes
a far harsher restriction on devout Muslim women than the ban on
scarves (and other obvious signs of faith) in French schools. As a
result, some Turkish women get no higher education. Nor is life easy
for millions of Turks who follow the liberal Alevi form of the Muslim
faith, not the Sunni Islam taught in schools. For the state, all
Muslims are the same; too bad for Alevis who want to opt out of Sunni
education.

What about Turkey’s tiny non-Muslim communities? Here again, history
weighs heavily. As Turks learn at school, the avoidance of any special
status for religious minorities was a master-stroke by their state’s
founders: the western powers wanted such privileges, but the republic
resisted their wiles. Those negotiations ended in the 1923 Treaty of
Lausanne, which promises limited cultural and religious rights for the
Greek Orthodox, the Armenians and Jewsâ=80’with the result that
Turkish policy still distinguishes `Lausanne minorities’ from
others. When some Turks argued recently that the treaty, properly
read, implied fair treatment of all minorities, this triggered a
furious row-and dark murmurings from the military.

In any case, joining the EU will oblige Turkey to be far more decent
in its treatment of religious minorities than the Lausanne treaty
ordains. As evidence for a lack of decency, witness Turkey’s de facto
ban on training for Christian clergy; and the recent Turkish-American
row over the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul. As Turkey’s government
reaffirmed, it disputes the right not just of its own citizens, but of
Christians in America, to accord the patriarch his `primacy of honour’
in the Orthodox world: this is a curious act of discourtesy to a
religious leader who warmly backs Turkey’s European hopes.

Whatever Turkey’s failings, do Europeans have any right to lecture the
Turks? Europe’s religious scene is full of weird anachronisms. The
British prime minister still chooses the senior prelate of the
Anglican Church. In one part of Greece, Muslim muftis exercise
judicial powers, while in Athens, Muslims cannot get official
recognition for a single mosque. Denmark is one of Europe’s most
secular societies, but its Lutheran church enjoys huge
privileges. Allthese arrangements are likely to be challenged as
Europe grows more diverse.

Where does that leave Turkey? It would be nice, but naive, to regard
its system as simply one small variation in a colourful religious
scene. It is one thing for a state to give privileges to a particular
church, which then governs itself; quite another for a state to
micro-manage the whole of religious life.

Given its own diversity, it would be silly for the EU to impose on
Turkey some precise model for religious affairs. But Turkey won’t be a
liberal democracy in the European sense until state interference in
the world of faith becomes the exception, not the rule-and unless all
religious communities can worship, own property and form associations
freely.

486 APARTMENTS SOLD IN DISTRICTS OF ARMENIA IN NOV OF 2004

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 27. ARMINFO. 486 apartments were sold in the regions
of Armenia in Nov 2004, it has increased by 9.5% in Nov 2004 as
against Nov 2003, and in Nov as against Oct it increased by
0.4%. ARMINFO was informed in the State committee of cadastre of real
estate.

According to the state committee of the cadastre of real estate, the
prices for apartments in the district centers of Armenia increased by
2.4% from Oct to Nov. According to the data, in Nov the average price
of 1 sq/m of the apartments in Ashtarak was $72, in Artashat – $59.5,
in Vagharshapat (Echmiadzin) $109.9, Gavar $33.6, Vanadzor $65.8,
Abovian $110.5, Hrazdan $47.8, Tsakhkadzor $92.5, Yeghvard $55.8, Nor
Hachn $80.5, Gyumri $77.6, Goris $40, Vayk $43.7, Jermuk $62.8, Ijevan
$58.2, Dilijan $45.

342 bargains on purchase and sale of private houses were registered in
the republic in Nov 2004, growing by 0.6% as against Nov, 2003, and as
compared with Oct 2004 – it increased by 3%. The average price of one
square meter of private house in Ashtarak was $87.2, Artashat $62.3,
Vagharshapat $111, Gavar $39.9, Vanadzor $70.9, Abovian $114.3,
Hrazdan $49.7, Tsakhkadzor $98.6, Yeghvard $57.5, Nor Hachn $81.6,
Gyumri $91.8, Goris $43, Vayk $44.8, Jermuk $44.3, Ijevan $59, Dilijan
$57.

The highest growth of the number of bargains on real estate was fixed
in Kotayk region – 10.4% of the bargains, then follows Ararat, Armavir
and Shirak regions – 9.5%, 8.4 and 6.1% respectively. The least number
of bargains was registered in Vayots Dzor region – 1.6%.

French mediator change not to affect Karabakh talks – Armenian spokesman

Arminfo
23 Dec 04

Yerevan, 22 December: The replacement of the co-chairmen of the OSCE
Minsk Group will in no way affect a settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict, the press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry,
Gamlet Gasparyan, told Arminfo, commenting on the appointment of a new
co-chairman of the Minsk Group from France. Bernard Fassier replaced
Henry Jacolin in this post.

The appointment of the new Russian and US co-chairmen earlier did not
influence the resolution of the Karabakh problem, he said [Passage
omitted: background information].