Category: News

Zaman, Turkey
Sept 25 2004
Now Commission Defends Turkey
Selcuk Gultasli
Brussels
The European Union (EU) said that the purported systematic killing of
Armenians by the Turkish Army would not be a criterion when
considering Turkey for membership. The EU Commission defended
Ankara’s attempts at curbing human rights abuses and said that the
country has passed a crucial threshold.
Jean-Christophe Filori, a Spokesman for the EU Enlargement
Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, said that Turkey’s efforts to include
Kurdish culture in its daily life is an example of Turkey’s
continuing success at human rights reform. He pointed out that
Kurdish people are now able to make TV and radio broadcasts in their
language. He added, “There are some things that still need to be
done; but the improvements are positive.”
Filori acknowledged the delicacy of the Armenia issue but firmly
stated that it would not influence the EU’s decision, nor would its
resolution be a condition for negotiations with Turkey.
When a journalist said that the future Commission President, Jose
Manuel Barroso, thought Turkey was not ready for the membership, but
the commission showed an inclination to release a positive progress
report, the Spokesman became angry and told the reporter that he was
confusing the two issues. Filori said that presently, Turkey is being
considered for negotiations, not membership.

Anadolu Agency
Sept 25 2004
Gul: Our Relations With The United States Cannot Be Reduced To Issue
Of Iraq
NEW YORK – Turkish Foreign Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah
Gul said late on Friday, “Turkey and the United States have been
cooperating with each other on many significant issues. Therefore,
Turkey-the United States relations cannot be reduced to the issue of
Iraq.“
Holding a news conference, Gul, who is currently in New York to
attend the 59th session of the United Nations, said, “as you know, I
met U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. It was a very constructive
meeting. We agreed to call each other whenever it its necessary to
resolve the issues immediately. Turkey and the United States have
been allies for a long time.“
“Turkey and the United States have been cooperating with each other
on many significant issues. First of all, the two countries have been
defending the same values of democracy, human rights and free market
economy. Therefore, Turkey-the United States relations cannot be
reduced to the issue of Iraq. The cooperation between Turkey and the
United States has spread to a vast area from Afghanistan to the
Balkans, from energy to fight against terrorism. It cannot be
considered only a military cooperation,“ he said.
Gul said that the Cyprus issue, the terrorist organization of PKK and
Turkey`s uneasiness about developments in Kirkuk city of Iraq were
high on agenda of his meeting with Powell.
Referring to his meetings with other officials, Gul recalled that he
had held talks with foreign ministers of Nigeria, Singapore, Russia
and Azerbaijan and with deputy prime minister of Bahrain.
“During the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, we
discussed the postponed state visit of Russian President Vladimir
Putin to Turkey due to the school siege in Beslan. Russian officials
will set a new date and inform us on the developments,“ he said.
Gul noted that he was scheduled to meet his Armenian and Chinese
counterparts on Monday.

UCLA International Institute, CA
Sept 25 2004
Discovering Primary Sources
A team of graduate students is working with the UCLA Library’s
Special Collections staff, Middle East Bibliographer and Digital
Library Coordinator to catalog the library’s extensive collections of
Arabic, Persian and Ottoman manuscripts.
Howard Batchelor
From Minasian ms 40, Nizam al-Din Nishaburi’s commentary on Ptolemy’s
Almagest
The UCLA Library’s Department of Special Collections has long been an
important destination for scholars of the post-classical Islamic
traditions of law, philosophy, science, religion and literature. The
library holds several important collections in this area, including
that of Caro Minasian, an Iranian physician who collected manuscripts
in Isfahan during the 1930s and 1940s, and who also gave the library
the Gladzor Gospels, an Armenian treasure dating from the early
fourteenth century. Minasian’s diverse collection included many
manuscripts of medical interest that are now stored in UCLA’s
Biomedical Special Collections. These have been extensively cataloged
and microfilmed, but the remainder of his collection is known only
through the brief descriptions of Muhammad Danish’pazhuh who
described UCLA’s Near East collections as part of an Iranian
scholarly project during the 1970s.
In 2000, the Library’s Middle East Bibliographer David Hirsch
proposed that access to the collections could be improved by creating
a digital version of the Danish’pazhuh catalog. The project then
became part of UCLA’s Digital Library Program, whereby graduate
students with the necessary language skills and scholarly motivation
were recruited to take on the task of examining each manuscript and
creating a record. The current team includes Ghazzal Dabiri (Persian
manuscripts), Ahmed Alwishah and Hassan Hussain (Arabic manuscripts),
and Mehmet Sureyya Er (Ottoman manuscripts), and has also benefited
from the work of Dalia Yasharpour and Lars Schumaker. The team is
working on both the Minasian Collection and Collection 896, a
repository of Ottoman Turkish poetry.
David Hirsch oversees the work of representing the names of authors
and the titles of works in romanized form and in their original
languages, while the Digital Library Program is preparing an online
catalog that will support searching and record display in Arabic,
Persian and Ottoman Turkish, using a Unicode-compliant Oracle 9-i
database and Java Enterprise2. Among the many and various challenges
posed by this project, the technical goal of creating a system that
can support the original languages stands out as a challenge for
library system architecture.
The project has very strong endorsement from UCLA’s new University
Librarian Gary Strong, who supports the goal of making resources
directly accessible in non-Western languages. The project has also
received guidance and encouragement from Professor Hossein Ziai,
Director of Iranian Studies at UCLA, noted for his contributions to
the study of Islamic philosophy, and from George Saliba, Professor of
Arabic and Islamic Science at Columbia University, who has written of
the role played by Arabic astronomers in the `Copernican Revolution.’
The goal of the project is to provide accurate manuscript description
in an online catalog that can also be used internally to capture
commentary by visiting scholars, and that can support the use of
primary sources in teaching at UCLA and other universities.
Digitization services can be provided to UCLA faculty and scholars
elsewhere who wish to investigate manuscripts more closely. Two mss
from the Minasian Collection are currently accessible to students in
Professor Michael Cooperson’s Arabic 250 course. The Digital Library
Program welcomes interest by Arabic and Persian specialists in all
disciplines.
The work is often justified by the excitement of discovery. Included
here is a page from Minasian ms 40, the autograph commentary of the
Persian astronomer Nizam al-Din Hasan Nishaburi, written in Arabic in
CE 1326, on Ptolemy’s Almagest (Sharh al-majasti). Here, as elsewhere
in the work, Nishaburi is teaching Euclidean geometry.
Howard Batchelor is UCLA Digital Library Coordinator.

Voice of America, DC
Sept 25 2004
Iodine Deficiency Disorders Plague Europe, Central Asia, says UNICEF
Lisa Schlein
Geneva
The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, says Iodine Deficiency Disorders,
which cause mental retardation, are a huge problem in Europe and
Central Asia. UNICEF says this disorder can be solved for as little
as five cents per person per year by iodizing salt.
In this video clip, UNICEF’s regional ambassador and 16-time world
chess champion, Anatoly Karpov, tells children they must have iodine
in their diet, if they want to be smart. He repeats this message in a
joking manner to a group of journalists.
“I can answer you like a joke that I believe that, when we solve the
problem, every child will play chess,” said Anatoly Karpov. “I
believe that this is extremely important, and this is a problem we
know how to solve. One of the few problems we know how to solve.”
Mr. Karpov comes from Russia, located in one of the regions of the
world most seriously affected by iodine deficiency. UNICEF statistics
show that more than half of the people in Western and Central Europe
live in iodine-deficient countries. Surprisingly, some of the most
developed countries, such as Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany
suffer from a lack of iodine. However, the problem is most severe in
countries such as Russia and the Ukraine.
UNICEF says these two countries account for 1.3 million newborn
babies a year, who are not protected from iodine deficiency. This out
of five million iodine deficient babies born in all of the region’s
22 countries.
Mr. Karpov says the babies suffer because their mothers did not
include iodine in their diets when they were pregnant. He says,
unfortunately, the mental retardation that results from iodine
deficiency in the womb is not reversible in later life.
“We believe that the cheapest, simplest and general message, to avoid
iodine deficiency, is to have general iodization of salt,” he said.
“And, it does not cost too much. It is about five cents per year, per
person-very cheap.”
Mr. Karpov says governments should pass legislation to make iodized
salt mandatory. He says, in countries with such laws, iodine
deficiency disorders have decreased. He notes this can be seen even
in poor countries, such as Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Armenia and Georgia.
UNICEF says governments often do not promote iodine in food out of
ignorance or widely-held misconceptions. For example, it says India
rescinded legislation on iodized salt under pressure from consumer
groups. It says these groups claimed that iodine in salt causes a
variety of health problems. Tragically, it says, by eliminating
iodine from the diet, mental retardation among children in India,
once again, is on the rise.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PanArmenian News
Sept 25 2004
MONITORING OF CONTACT LINE BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND AZERI ARMED FORCES
HELD WITHOUT INCIDENTS
25.09.2004 14:48
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The OSCE monitoring of the contact line between the
Armed Forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Ghazakh direction was
held without any incidents on September 24. Personal Envoy of the
OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk and his field assistants
Kenneth Picles and Peter Kigh conducted the monitoring from the
Armenian side, while the Azeri contact line was monitored by field
assistants of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Imre Palatinus and Miroslav
Vimetal.

PanArmenian News
Sept 25 2004
CEREMONY IN MEMORY OF ARMENIAN OFFICER KILLED DURING NATO COURSE IN
BUDAPEST TO TAKE PLACE IN YEREVAN PANTHEON TOMORROW
25.09.2004 13:59
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ September 26 – on the birthday of Gurgen Margarian
– the ceremony in commemoration of the Armenian officer will take
place in Yerablur Pantheon in Yerevan. To remind, lieutenant Gurgen
Margarian, born in 1978, who was attending English courses organized
within the frames of Partnership for Peace NATO Program in Budapest,
was brutally killed with an axe on February 19. The murderer, Azeri
senior lieutenant Ramil Safarov, who was also participating in the
course, had been arrested by Hungarian Police.

PanArmenian News
Sept 25 2004
WITHIN NEXT THREE DAYS ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT NOT TO VIEW ISSUE OF
SENDING ARMENIAN MILITARY SPECIALISTS TO IRAQ
25.09.2004 13:44
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The issue of sending Armenian medical officers and
combat engineers to Iraq is not on the agenda of the forthcoming
3-day session of the National Assembly, chairman of the commission
for defense, national security and home affairs Mher Shahgeldian
reported. At the same time the agenda includes 23 bills and 16
international conventions. To note, according to the statement made
by Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian on September 22, the
issue of sending the Armenian servicemen to Iraq is exclusively
within the frames of humanitarian aid assigned for the reconstruction
of the country.

PanArmenian News
Sept 25 2004
ARMENIANS OF SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHETIA COMPLAIN OF DISCRIMINATION POLICY OF
GEORGIAN AUTHORITIES
25.09.2004 15:21
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Representatives of the European Center for Minority
Issues (ECMI) met with the public and political figures of the
Armenian-populated Samtskhe-Javakhetia region of Georgia in
Akhalkalaki September 22. The Center founded its office in
Akhalkalaki to carry out the program of integration of the region
with the Center. ECMI manager for the Samtskhe-Javakhetia integration
program M. Hertovt expressed concern over the issues of integration,
then Javakhetia residents presented their problems, such as the
discrimination policy pursued by Georgian authorities to change the
demographic situation in the region, subjective personnel policy,
ignoring of Armenian non-governmental organizations when awarding
international grants, and imposing the obligation on studying the
Georgian language without providing corresponding conditions. Upon
completion of the meeting the participants expressed hope that all
the problems will be solved with mutual understanding.

The Times (London)
September 25, 2004, Saturday
Art of the Armenians
(Photograph) – A selling exhibition of Armenian art from the 12th to
the 18th centuries opened at the Sam Fogg gallery in Clifford Street,
London W1, on Wednesday. Those present included Bishop Nathan
Hovhannisian, with Sam Fogg, above; and Dr Vrej Nersessian, left, of
the British Library, and his wife Leila.
PHOTOGRAPHERS: DAFYDD JONES (Fashion events); SUSAN GREENHILL
(Michael Winner; Greg Dyke); DOMINIC O’NEILL (Art of the Armenians);
CAPITAL PICTURES (Layer Cake).

The Standard
September 25, 2004
FIT FOR A KING
by Graham Lees
If Thomas Leonowens hadn’t inconveniently died on the Malaysian
island of Penang, Hollywood could never have made the film musical
classic The King and I starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.
It was Leonowens’ untimely death in 1859 which forced his
impoverished young widow, Anna, to pack her bags and her two children
and head north to Bangkok to become governess to the King of Siam’s
82 children. The rest is Hollywood _ but not, by the way, Thai _
history, resurrected most recently in 1999’s less memorable remake
Anna and the King.
In the 19th century, Penang was a fashionable place to be for a
young, adventurous couple of the British empire like the Leonowens,
who moved to the island’s capital Georgetown from India.
The world has changed enormously since those times, but perhaps more
than most places once painted red on the British imperial map,
Georgetown has retained an exotic, cosmopolitan flavour found in the
town’s rich mix of architecture and even richer cuisine.
In many respects, it’s reminiscent of Singapore in its more
swashbuckling days, before both the streets and local vice were swept
clean.
The port town was named after Britain’s 18th-century King George III,
who helped lose the 13 colonies of America but gained this tiny
substitute when Captain Francis Light went looking for a safe port
for East India Company shipping between India and China. Light
induced the local sultan with offers of money and protection to hand
over Penang in 1786.
Such was the opportunist entrepreneurial entourage that followed in
the British wake in those days that Light was able to write in his
log a few months later: Our inhabitants increase very fast. They are
already disputing the ground, everyone building as fast as he can.”
Light had a knack of inducing people. He filled a ship’s cannon with
gold coins and fired them into the waterfront jungle to encourage
rapid land clearing.
Penang was the first British acquisition east of India and it quickly
became the new home of Hainan and Hokkien Chinese, Bengalis, Tamils,
Pathans, Armenian Jews and remnants of Portuguese and Dutch
communities abandoning Siam in the wake of a devastating war with
Burma.
That exotic melting pot is still reflected in Georgetown today, home
to some of the richest mix of street food in East Asia, and a
pot-pourri of religious and colonial architecture which has survived
the buffeting of economic slumps and war.
Light’s original street layout, named after notable Englishmen of the
day, such as Buckingham, Pitt, Hutton, Greenall and Farquhar, is
still much in evidence, although one or two late 20th-century
multi-storey blocks poke into the sky.
Trishaw driver Harun, my two-hour pedalling guide, insists that the
only significant change he has noticed in 30 years of cycling around
Georgetown is the introduction of a one-way road system. It is more
work for the legs, sir,” the 51-year-old ethnic Tamil says with a
wry smile.
A leisurely tour with the wiry Harun, or one of his dozens of
pith-helmeted colleagues, takes in many of the sights and smells of
the town _ from the esplanade’s Victorian City Hall, which looks more
like a grand hotel on the seafront of England’s Brighton resort, to
the bubbling curry pots of Little India. There is the simple
white-painted St George’s Church on Bishop Street, built in 1818;
mosques, Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist temples _ notably the Chaiya
Mangkalaram with its large reclining gold Buddha _ and the Chinese
shophouse at 120 Armenian Street where Dr Sun Yat Sen is said by
local historians to have lodged and plotted his 1911 revolution in
China. He certainly did a lot of plotting around Southeast Asia.
The Anglican cemetery on Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah street is the last
resting place of Captain Light and Thomas Leonowens, whose gravestone
describes him as an army officer struck down by sunstroke.
Penang also was a favourite stopping off place for later characters
of the British empire, notably authors Rudyard Kipling and Somerset
Maugham and the entertainer Noel Coward. They all stayed at the
waterfront Eastern and Oriental Hotel, which in its heyday was said
to be the British empire’s best hotel east of the Suez Canal. It
boasted the world’s longest seafront garden lawn which stretched 280
metres.
After a sad period of decline and closure the hotel has now re-opened
following a US $ 16 million (HK$ 124.8 million) renovation. The E&O,
as it’s known, was founded by the Sarkies brothers, the Armenian
family who also created Singapore’s Raffles Hotel and The Strand in
Rangoon before losing their shirts in the Great Depression of the
1930s.
Today, the E&O is again a match for Raffles _ among other luxuries it
boasts a personal butler service for guests _ but is now owned by the
Malaysian property company Eastern & Oriental Berhad.
The street hawker life that disappeared 25 years ago in Singapore is
still alive and well here. Few trishaw drivers manage to steer
through the street food stall congestion of Chinatown and the silk
shops of Little India without a passenger stop.
By accident rather than design, probably the greatest asset the
British left behind in Georgetown is not the English language, still
spoken widely, nor the architectural edifices of imperial power, but
the exotically diverse cuisine. It’s no exaggeration to say that at
any one time half of Georgetown seems to be cooking for the other
half. The added delight for everyone, residents and visitors, is that
only a stone’s throw separates the street woks of Chinatown from the
Malay and ethnic Indian and Thai cooking pots. Cooks here have rubbed
shoulders for more than 150 years, leading to a kind of fusion
cuisine known as nyonya or nonya. It’s primarily a mix of Chinese and
Malay ingredients and methods. Nyonya cuisine is linked to the old
Portuguese-British colony of Malacca in southern Malaysia, where it’s
influenced by Indonesian cooking, and Penang where it’s influenced by
Thai ingredients.
A classic example is Penang laksa: a thick sweet-and-sour fish soup
with rice noodles, tamarind, onion, chilli, cucumber and pineapple.
Another Georgetown culinary delight is mamak, an adaptation of
southern Indian Muslim dishes which include the pancake-like murtabak
stuffed with mutton, vegetables and plenty of spices.
And the garlic or onion naan breads cooked to order before your eyes
at Kasim Mustapfa’s on Chula Street are the freshest I’ve tasted
anywhere. Much of this exquisite dining is in the much lived-in old
quarter of Georgetown, with its narrow streets of single-storey
houses.
The Malaysian government in Kuala Lumpur likes to promote Penang as
Silicon Island” because of the concentration of international high
technology industries on the southeast coast, but Georgetown has one
of the biggest concentrations of pre-1945 buildings in the region _
the result of a quirky rent control law which had the effect of
deterring property owners from redevelopment binges. The law was
abolished recently and now the city authorities are scrambling to
secure long-term protection by acquiring United Nations World
Heritage Site status.
If the heat of the town becomes oppressive in the early afternoon,
instead of retreating into hotel air-conditioning you can still do
what generations of sahibs and memsahibs did _ head for the cool of
the nearby hills. The peak of Penang Hill, 800 metres high, is
reached by a funicular railway built in 1924. Macaque monkeys swing
from trees alongside the track.
The British began building their weekend bungalows up the hill in
1800, and Penang historians insist that this was the first hill
station” of the British empire _ the cooler mountain retreats common
later in India among the colonial elite.
Much of the interior of the 24-kilometre long island remains
undeveloped, but the northern coast has several large beach resorts,
notably Batu Ferringhi, 18 kilometres from Georgetown. But a beach is
a beach wherever the sea washes up, whereas Penang’s capital is
unique.
Source: The Standard.