Category: News

El Correo Gallego
Sábado 27 de noviembre de 2004
Sólo Bielorrusia y las repúblicas de Asia Central siguen fieles a Moscú
Radiografía del ‘Telón de Acero’ en el siglo XXI
Las viejas formas soviéticas perduran también en Moldavia, Azerbaiyán
y Armenia, que viven una gran inestabilidad
Madrid. Fax Press, M.V.
Tras la caída del Muro de Berlín, todos los países ex comunistas
sufrieron las lacras de la desintegración del bloque comunista:
crisis económica, falta de instituciones democráticas, corrupción y
el auge del crimen organizado. Algunos países avanzaron más
rápidamente que otros en su transición hacia la economía capitalista
y la democracia pero dos objetivos se convirtieron en prioridad para
la mayoría: la OTAN, primero, y la UE, después. Los fieles a Rusia,
que tiene conflictos abiertos en cuatro de sus repúblicas (Chechenia,
Daguestán, Osetia del Norte, Ingusetia) son cada vez menos y ahora se
limitan a Bielorrusia y las repúblicas de Asia Central, aunque alguna
de estas no escatima en favores a EEUU. Las viejas formas soviéticas
perduran también en Moldavia, Azerbaiyán y Armenia, que viven una
gran inestabilidad
POLONIA, CHEQUIA, ESLOVAQUIA, HUNGRIA: La transición fue dura y
conllevó grandes esfuerzos económicos que se dejaron sentir en la
población pero han sido algunos de los países que más rápido han
avanzado. Entraron en la UE el 1 de mayo de 2004, con la gran
ampliación al Este y sus gobiernos son de los que dieron un apoyo
mayor a EEUU en la guerra de Irak con el principal objetivo, al
margen de los ideológicos, de satisfacer a un benefactor que querían
tener contento.
RUMANIA, BULGARIA: Aspirantes a integrarse en la UE en 2007 debido a
que su transición económica y política ha sido más lenta se
convirtieron en miembros de la Alianza Atlántica este año.
PAISES EX YUGOSLAVOS: Tras las guerras que desangraron la antigua
república, solo un país, Eslovenia, ha conseguido entrar en la UE en
la gran ampliación de 2004. La inestabilidad continúa en algunas
zonas de los Balcanes pero la apuesta por occidente parece clara en
todos los países excepto en Serbia, donde el ultranacionalismo está
en auge cuatro años después de la revolución de derrocó a Slobodan
Milosevic y que abrió el periodo de transición. Además, sigue sin
cerrarse definitivamente el conflicto de Kosovo y la inestabilidad
perdura en Albania. Croacia es el país que está más cerca de iniciar
negociaciones de adhesión a la UE.
BIELORRUSIA Y MOLDAVIA: Son los países europeos que continúan en la
órbita de Moscú. El primero, con Alexander Lukashenko en el poder, es
uno de los ejemplos más claros de autoritarismo post- soviético,
donde los males dictatoriales continúan y la democracia ni se atisba.
Es uno de los fieles de Moscú y su aliado más solido. Moldavia es un
país pequeño, el más pobre de Europa y el de mayor índice de tráfico
de personas y de contrabando de órganos. Gobiernan los comunistas al
estilo soviético y los grupos de la oposición han hablado incluso de
limpieza étnica de los moldavos. Vive un constante conflicto político
y social.
LITUANIA, LETONIA, ESTONIA: Son las primeras ex repúblicas soviéticas
que se adhieren a la UE, lo que junto con su incorporación a la OTAN
fue un batacazo para Moscú quien exigió ciertas limitaciones
militares para salvaguardar sus fronteras y que no hubiera bases
aliadas tan cerca de su territorio. La transición económica ha sido
bastante exitosa pero continúa la inestabilidad política.
GEORGIA, ARMENIA, AZERBAIYAN: Creyeron que la independencia de Rusia
sería la solución a todos los problemas, pero no. Las últimas
elecciones en Azerbaiyán y Armenia han sido notablemente fraudulentas
y las protestas de democratización y apertura se han reprimido. En
Georgia, un poco más afortunada, la revolución que echó a Eduard
Shevardnadze hace un año suscita ciertas esperanzas de que la
transición haya comenzado. Los intereses estadounidenses en esta zona
petrolífera son extraordinarios.
KIRGUIZISTAN, UZBEKISTAN, KAZAJISTAN, TURKMENISTAN, TAYIKISTAN: Las
repúblicas ex soviéticas de Asia central se mantienen fieles a Moscú
aunque algunas se hayan querido ganar el favor de Washington
(Kirguizistán tiene una base aérea estadounidense y Kazajistán apoyó
a EEUU en Irak). Los grandes males son la falta de libertades
democráticas, la inestabilidad, y en auge de grupos islamistas
radicales en Tayikistán.
–Boundary_(ID_DJ+pS9md0IGElJhRSlqpLg)–

The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
November 26, 2004 Friday
Final Edition
Faith, death and violence: A researcher seeks to determine why some
people turn to hatred
Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun
University of B.C. psychology professor Ara Norenzayan grew up in
Beirut, Lebanon, during a savage religion-fuelled war between
Christians and Muslims. As an altar boy in the Armenian Orthodox
Church, he sensed the power of religion for good and evil.
He also became familiar with death.
Now, 15 years after emigrating to North America at the peak of
Lebanon’s bloody conflict, Norenzayan is returning to his roots to
research the relationship between faith, thoughts of death and
violence.
The soft-spoken social psychologist has received a $105,000,
three-year grant from Canada’s national research council to deepen
his exploration into why people become religious and some turn to
hatred.
Devising unique psychological experiments, Norenzayan has already
discovered that the more people are exposed to the reality of death,
the more likely they are to believe in “supernatural agents,” like
God, angels or ancestral spirits.
He’s also concluded prominent scientists, such as Richard Dawkins,
are off track when they argue belief in God is, along with the atomic
bomb, the greatest danger to world peace.
Norenzayan’s studies suggest antagonism toward outsiders is not a
result of belief in God. It’s the byproduct of people finding a sense
of identity in a religious group.
To find out if there is a link between thoughts of death and belief
in the supernatural, Norenzayan devised two series of tests, one
involving hundreds of students at UBC and another involving subjects
in Malaysia.
He asked one group to write essays about death, reflect on pain in
the context of mortality and read a short story about a boy who dies.
He asked the control group to think about pain in relation to
visiting a dentist and read a story about a boy who doesn’t die.
Norenzayan and his team found subjects asked to contemplate death
were much more likely than those who weren’t to report they strongly
believe in supernatural agents.
Norenzayan says his experiments are the first to provide “solid
empirical evidence” to back up theories by Soren Kierkegaard and
Ernest Becker that humans become religious because they’re capable of
recognizing they will die.
“One of the definitions of religion is it’s a way of dealing with
anxiety-provoking thoughts,” Norenzayan says in his tidy third-floor
office overlooking the forest and ocean surrounding UBC, as quiet
classical music plays.
“All religions say death is not literally death, that mortality is
not the end of our being.”
Norenzayan — who maintains he’s not a “strict” religious believer,
despite maintaining ties to the Armenian Orthodox Church — says it’s
shocking how little research psychologists have done into the origins
and effects of spirituality.
“Most academics are blind to the power of religion.”
A typical psychology textbook, he says, contains virtually no mention
of religion, despite the 19th-century American founder of psychology,
William James, devoting a great deal of energy to the subject.
“Most psychologists have no idea why two people who are probably
equally religious — the Dalai Lama and Osama bin Laden — could end
up being so different, with one teaching peace and one preaching
violence.”
– – –
With his grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council, Norenzayan plans to make his first trip to Lebanon since he
left at age 18.
He’ll explore more deeply the impression he developed as a young man
in the war-torn country that spiritual beliefs can be exploited by
leaders to foment aggression against outsiders.
And he’ll continue his experiments into why religion can breed both
peace-loving tolerance and intolerant fury, in the Middle East and
North America.
Norenzayan recognizes religion isn’t the only cause of violence, but
he also believes it “is at the top of the list of ideologies that can
kill.”
How exactly does religion lead to mayhem?
Norenzayan and his graduate student, Ian Hansen, have discovered it’s
not spiritual devotion that causes violence.
Norenzayan’s work builds on studies of Palestinian Muslims by his
alma mater, the University of Michigan, where researchers found the
more often Palestinian Muslims attended mosque, the more they
supported suicide terrorism. There was no link, however, between
Palestinians’ support for violence and how often they prayed at home.
The goal of one of Norenzayan’s experiments was to test North
Americans on their tolerance of religious pluralism. In effect, he
wanted to explore how subjects would respond to someone like the main
character in Yann Martel’s book, The Life of Pi, who claims he’s a
Hindu, a Muslim and a Christian.
Norenzayan’s team discovered Buddhists were most tolerant of
followers of other religions. Christians were less tolerant and
Muslims were the least tolerant.
Norenzayan believes that may be because Christianity and Islam
provide more group cohesion, leading to a belief there’s only one
true religion.
So how does thinking about death relate to religious tolerance?
For one thing, Norenzayan found study participants who were reminded
frequently about death were more likely to believe in supernatural
agents from not only their own religion, but from other religions.
In other words, a Christian contemplating death would become more
open to the Asian idea of revering ancestors.
“There’s an old saying: ‘In a storm, voyagers will believe in any god
to rescue them.’ To some extent, it’s hopeful that people facing
death will consider addressing other supernatural agents,” says
Norenzayan.
But his research also led him to a more negative side-effect tied to
when people think often about death: They become less accepting of
people who don’t belong to their culture.
Many Christians, for instance, became less tolerant of Jews and less
tolerant of prostitutes. More intense thoughts about death “seemed to
make people draw stronger cultural boundaries.”
Norenzayan is also wondering what the ramifications of his research
are for North America since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
which made a lot more North Americans anxious about their mortality.
He believes the terrorist attacks created a unique experimental
condition for a study of how increasing consciousness of death
affects religious tolerance.
“Sept. 11,” he says, “was one humongous manipulation of North
Americans’ thoughts about death.”
[email protected]
GRAPHIC: Color Photo: Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun; Ara Norenzayan:
‘Most psychologists have no idea why two people who are probably
equally religious — the Dalai Lama and Osama bin Laden — could end
up being so different, with one teaching peace and one preaching
violence.’

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
November 26, 2004, Friday
TALKS ABOUT PEACE
SOURCE: Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kuryer, No. 45, November 24-30, 2004, p. 5
by Samvel Martirosyan
Despite Yerevan’s and Baku’s statements about the necessity of
solving the Karabakh problem peacefully, Armenia and Azerbaijan
continue increasing expenditure on defense. The leading world powers
interested in strengthening their influence in the Trans-Caucasian
region support militarist trends in this region.
Yerevan and Baku recently reported the increase of the budgets of the
security structures in 2005. Pavel Safaryan, Armenian Deputy Finance
and Economy Minister, stated that the Defense Ministry will receive
around $91 million next year; this is by 10% more than in 2004
(around $83 million). The national security service will receive
$12.5 million ($11.2 million in 2004). Police will get $19.8 million
($18.5 million in 2004).
Azerbaijan’s expenses are more substantial. Finance Minister Avez
Alekbberov said that it is intended to allocate around $240 million
to the Defense Ministry from the 2005 draft budget. This is by a
third more than this year.
In other words, Azerbaijan’s defense spending will be three times as
big as Armenia’s defense budget. However, there are some other
factors. Firstly, in Baku and Yerevan the actual allocations to the
military differ from official reports. As a rule, the military
budgets of the republics are twice higher than official reports. In
addition, no one knows how much Nagorny Karabakh spends on its
defense. It should be noted that the number of armored combat
vehicles, which Nagorny Karabakh has, can be compared with Armenia’s
arsenals.
In addition, Yerevan and Baku can add $8.75 million to their military
budgets. This money will be allocated by the US to its
Trans-Caucasian partners in 2005. Judging from a project presented by
George W. Bush’s administration, it was intended to allocate over $2
million to Armenia, and over $8 million to Azerbaijan. However, the
Congress managed to convince the government to make military aid to
the republics equal.
In the meantime, Russia started selling weapons to member nations of
the Organization of the collective security treaty at domestic
prices. Armenia used this opportunity. Yerevan received two Il-76
military-transport planes in late May. Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov said: “The military-transport planes were sold at
domestic prices – this scheme works. Armenia purchased two very good
military-transport planes.”
Militarization of Azerbaijan and Armenia takes place against the
background of the problem of Nagorny Karabakh. Ilkham Aliyev came to
power a year ago. He promised to solve the Karabakh problem using
force if Yerevan and Stepanakert refused to make concession. He
announced plans to reform the Azerbijani Army in May 2004. The
president of the republic stated at the opening of a military unit in
Nakhichevan that “the defense budget will be increasing along with
strengthening of Azerbaijan’s economic potential”.
Baku tried to add the issue of the state of Azerbaijan’s occupied
territories to the agenda of the UN General Assembly. Azerbaijan
considers Armenia as aggressor in this document. Nine members of the
general committee, which compiles the agenda of the General Assembly,
supported this document. The General Assembly decided to consider
this issue (42 members voted for discussing this problem). No one
voted against this topic.
It should be noted that Kazakhstan, which is Yerevan’s partner in the
Organization of the collective security treaty, supported
anti-Armenian feelings. Russia and the US did not vote against this
topic despite the fact that this subject is “unconstructive”. In the
meantime, representatives of Moscow and Washington opposed the idea
to consider the Karabakh conflict within the framework of the UN. The
Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its opinion regarding Azerbaijan’s
move: “Russia abstained from voting, as well as other co-chairmen of
the Minsk OSCE group. We think that the initiative to consider this
issue at the UN General Assembly and the OSCE on parallel tracks will
not contribute to the progress of negotiations. By the way, the
results of voting show that the majority of members of the
international community support this opinion.”
The US ambassador to Baku stated that the US does not approve of
Azerbaijan’s decision either. The diplomat stated: “Washington does
not support the idea to discuss the issue of occupied territories at
the UN General Assembly.” He noted that the US the Karabakh problem
can be solved by means of frequent peaceful negotiations between the
conflicting sides.
However, it’s an advantage for Baku to discuss this problem in the UN
because it distracts attention from a very important factor of the
problem: participation of Nagorny Karabakh in negotiations. Yury
Merzlyakov, co-chairman of the Minsk OSCE group, intended to invite
representatives of Nagorny Karabakh to negotiations. Baku cannot put
up with it.
Azerbaijan’s plan is obvious. If the General Assembly passes the
clause on occupied territories Baku will be able to start a
full-scale military operation against Nagorny Karabakh. The passage
of this resolution will invalidate the results of negotiations held
under the aegis of the Minsk OSCE group, and the problem will be
solved by the military.
Translated by Alexander Dubovoi

Financial Times (London, England)
November 27, 2004 Saturday
London Edition 1
The night is always young: Having risen from the ashes of its dark
past, Pico Iyer finds Lebanon’s chaotic capital buzzing with
pleasure:
By PICO IYER
Iwalked through the streets of East Beirut on a Saturday evening, and
felt like a yokel suddenly transplanted to a cosmopolis. Sushi bars
and tapas bars, and a cafe where girls with glitter around their eyes
were deep in this month’s copy of Vanity Fair; boites bathed in blue
light, and cigar bars, and dance clubs that should have been in Soho.
Rap music was pounding out of the late-model Mercedes and BMWs that
jammed the narrow streets, and on every side couples were walking
towards the Che lounge, he in black leather jacket, with an air of
savoir-faire, she in high white boots, with midriff bare, reminding
one that Cleopatra more likely came from Beirut than from Cairo.
In the distance, I could see the heart of downtown Beirut, and
illuminated churches and boutiques and palm trees lit up as in a
museum display case. People were still buzzing in and out of the
huge, mock-ancient Virgin Megastore (open till 1am), and across from
it the spot-lit mosque seemed at once place of worship and unlikely
fashion statement.
I had heard, like many others, that Beirut keeps rising from the
ashes of its latest civil war, which ended in 1990, after 15 years,
with 150,000 dead. I had grown up thinking of the city as one of
those weathered places, driven by the worldliest of wisdoms, that had
managed to survive every change in political climate by bending to
the times and making a killing out of chaos.
But after hearing about Beirut’s reconstruction, I had thought
foolishly that it had managed to recreate the recent gilded past in
which Brigitte Bardot and Marlon Brando took in the sun in Byblos
nearby and the wealthy of the world sauntered down the Corniche, from
the Phoenicia Hotel to the Bain Militaire, in the city that provided
the entire Middle East with its nightlife and its dreams. I had never
guessed that Beirut, characteristically, would be trying to design
the future.
What I was seeing might have made New York or London seem retro by
comparison, fuelled though it was by something of the jumped-up
energy of a boy joyriding in his parents’ Porsche and determined to
take things fast because the escapade could end at any moment. The
parents, in this scheme of things, are history and geography, and
they have left Lebanon a tiny slice of a country, only three hours by
car from end to end, that is made for people from elsewhere.
Over the past 4,000 years the descendants of Phoenicia have seen the
Greeks, the Romans, the Assyrians, then the Crusaders, the Ottomans
and the Europeans, among many others, pass through, and been home to
the longtime exiles of Armenia, Palestine and Iran. For traders, this
all means opportunity; for the young it can mean severe rootlessness.
When I looked in on the American University of Beirut, I saw that six
students were putting on a play they had written called Fragments. On
the striking, ice-cool poster, they had written, “We are ourselves
geological sediments, left with no ancient concepts which will come
to our rescue”.
Lebanon’s way of coping with this absence seems to be to seek
pleasure and have faith in accommodation. When I got into the city,
at 3am on a wet winter evening, a red light beckoned down the steps
of the Godfather bar downtown, and the lights all around offered
Sushi Xpress, X-rated “super-night clubs” and a shop that said
simply, “Me and Me: A Life Philosophy.” When my Lufthansa plane had
landed, teams of smooth young men with designer stubble and expensive
jackets had shuffled off into the immigration hall, and in their
midst had stood a tiny blonde girl, no older than 10, travelling
alone with a Goldman Sachs backpack and a carrier bag from the
Ritz-Carlton Millennium Singapore.
I took myself down to the aged Mayflower Hotel, a monument to raffish
insouciance and resilience, and my dark room came with a love seat
and pictures of dallying French nymphs. The kind man told me not to
use the hotel phones, because they were expensive.
I e-mailed an old friend in California who had once taught at the
American University nearby, to tell him of my arrival, and he
e-mailed back that the Mayflower was where a colleague of his had
been found, with his throat slashed, during the war.
Beirut is not a beautiful city – or, rather, its beauty is that of a
Monaco or Macao, where shrewd developers have seen that they can
construct a time-share offering on paradise.
When you draw back the curtains, much of what you see is concrete,
whole forests of international style high-rises that almost block the
snowcaps in the distance, where you can ski, as the brochures always
boast, the same morning that you swim in the Mediterranean.
Adaptability, you could say, has become the central feature of the
city’s landscape. When I stepped out of the Mayflower my first
morning in Beirut, I was greeted by a man sitting on the pavement,
amid a blast of honking horns and construction cranes, placidly
taking in the day’s newspaper over his brioche and “Guatemalan
Coffee”.
Beirut at night may be a blonde in a mini-skirt sipping a water-pipe
in one of the lavish cafes downtown, but by day it is more like one
of the rumpled men you see shouting out numbers in English, French
and Arabic into a cellphone outside his money-changing stall. And in
the years that Rafiq al-Hariri, a construction tycoon, has been prime
minister till he resigned last month, he tried to yoke these two
sides together making of the city’s ruins a tabula rasa on which to
draft a vision of 21st century post-modernism. The Beirutis I met
often muttered that he was sacrificing history to theme-park in
building up a glittery display-city with the private company,
Solidere; after all, when I wandered across the street from the
trendy Hotel Monroe, I came upon a trade-fair from the Islamic
Republic of Iran, all dour looks and obligatory beards.
To get a clearer picture of the city’s recent divided past, which
could yet become its near future, I drove 20 minutes from the
downtown area of Starbucks’ and The Body Shop to the southern
suburbs, where cardboard-cutouts of Khomeini guard the streets, and
pictures of suicide-bombing “martyrs” promise revenge.
My image of the city was ultimately coloured by its taxi-drivers,
disarming, quick-witted and likeable, who drove me through the city,
offering me sips of their expressos as they drove or delivering a
gallant “enchante” as I got out. My very last evening in Beirut, I
looked for a cab to take me to the airport.
An aged Mercedes slowed down, and I walked into a blast of
heavy-metal music. “I’m sorry,” said the young driver, quickly
turning it off. “I am a Christian, so I don’t listen to the words
about the Anti-Christ. But the music helps me when I’m feeling down.”
Like many people in the city, he had a harrowing story of growing up
Palestinian in Saudi Arabia and driving a car now to put himself
through college. But like most people in Beirut, too, he seemed eager
to learn from his suffering, and there was no self-pity in his story,
only determination.
“Please, if you’d like me to change,” he said, turning the radio dial
down again, “I can. I know many people find this disturbing.” Then,
for the duration of the trip, he offered a definitive disquisition on
the difference between heavy metal, black metal and death rock.
“Thank you,” I said, when I got out, “for explaining this strange
passion.” He put a finger to his lips. “If they hear you talking
about this music, they will arrest you. For being a follower of
Satan.” Somehow, it didn’t seem quite a joke. Pleasure in Beirut is
never without its shadows.
Pico Iyer’s novel about Islam and the west, ‘Abandon’, is available
from Vintage (US). His next book of travels, ‘Sun After Dark’, is
published by Bloomsbury in January
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

How Kiev adds to bear’s sore head ;analysis
by Douglas Fraser
The Herald (Glasgow)
November 26, 2004
THE great Russian bear has a sore head, with the turmoil in Ukraine
simply adding to the nagging pain. Having watched its empire
disintegrate and economy crumble, it has found that the ability to
throw its weight around is strictly limited, and mainly to its near
neighbours.
Not only does it face the intrusions of an assertive hyperpower in the
US, but the European Union has become a much more serious player on its
border since eight of its former Warsaw Pact satellites signed up for
membership and shifted their political allegiances to far-off Brussels.
There is also other satellites lining up to join the EU, including
Bulgaria and Romania. So Moscow wonders: would a westward-leaning
Ukraine be far behind in the EU queue?
But being economically weak should not mean Russia, and its influence
on such as the Ukraine, should be forgotten. The coming issue in
geopolitics is energy security. Emerging economies, such as China’s,
are demanding more oil to fuel growth rates. Europe is looking beyond
declining North Sea reserves for its oil and gas, and, along with
America, everyone wants to become less dependent on the volatile
Middle East.
So the vast expanse of Siberia and the newly independent nations around
Russia are becoming ever more important to international politics
and economics. The key questions are who and which companies get to
the oil and gas reserves, and how they get them to the markets. That
brings together the tricky game of mixing diplomacy, multi-national
oil majors and pipeline supplies. At the heart of this question is
that Russian bear, still nursing a sore head and wanting to make sure
no-one is going to take it for granted, especially as the EU expands.
According to Brussels, the EU’s next era of diplomatic developments
will be to tie together the competing concerns of the 25 members.
While the western countries want to open up links to Russia, both
for their oil firms and to secure future supplies, the eight former
Soviet satellites want to keep Moscow at arm’s length.
America wants oil supply lines from the former southern Soviet
republics of Armenia and Georgia to be piped and freighted via a
route that by-passes both Russia and Iran. The key aim of any energy
security policy in the region is to leave options open, so that if
Russia turns off the taps then they can be turned on elsewhere. This
is not far removed from the US involvement in Iraq.
For hawks in Washington and Moscow, there is the easy familiarity
of a return to the cold war days, using client states and puppet
administrations to fight over this large eastern European and central
Asian turf.
The past Soviet policies of moving ethnic Russians into many of
its then client republics has left a complex politics of ethnic
tension in many, as with Ukraine. Its removal as the superpower
dominating the region has allowed local ethnic rivalries to threaten
instability. Ukraine’s tensions are only one part of a much messier
geopolitical battlefield.

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
November 26, 2004, Friday
LET’S WAIT UNTIL MONDAY
SOURCE: Vremya Novotei, November 26, 2004, pp. 1-2
by Svetlana Stepanenko, Denis Zaitsev, Alexander Tomofeyev
The situation in Ukraine remains uncertain. Even if the candidates
for president are prepared to reach a compromise, their foreign
supporters only want victory.
Vladimir Putin again congratulated Viktor Yanukovich on his victory –
he sent an official message after the official voting results were
announced. The leaders of Kazakhstan, Armenia and Uzbekistan joined
the Russian leader.
However, forces which refuse to acknowledge the validity of the
election have not given up. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter
Balkenende, said in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President
Leonid Kuchma that the results of the presidential election are
unacceptable. In other words, the European Union has taken the same
stand as the US, Britain, and Canada, which do not recognize the
election results.
It should be noted that all sides emphasize the necessity of settling
the situation using legal mechanisms. The Ukrainian Supreme Court has
banned the Central election commission from publishing the official
results of voting “until it considers all complaints and lawsuits.”
The Central Election Commission recently said that 49.46% of voters
supported Viktor Yanukovich in the second round of the election, and
46.61% voted for Yushchenko. However, the opposition submitted a
complaint about the decision of the Central Election Commission to
the Supreme Court yesterday.
The Supreme Court will consider the complaint on Monday. The Supreme
Court’s decision means that the winner of the election will not be
able to hold the inauguration until all complaints have been
considered, and Leonid Kuchma will remain the president of Ukraine.
Ukrainian law does not make it possible to invalidate the overall
election results. However, it is possible to invalidate the results
of voting at several electoral districts. It is not ruled out that
the Supreme Court will try not to use this measure, and advise the
Central Election Commission to consider the second round of voting as
invalid. If this happens the Central Election Commission will have to
start making preparations for another election.
Alexander Zinchenko, Yushchenko’s campaign manager, says the
opposition will only discuss the possibility of holding another
election if it’s monitored by the OSCE and international
organizations. In addition, the opposition will insist on the Central
Election Commission being replaced, the government being dismissed,
and three television debates between the candidates.
Mr. Yushchenko said that negotiations with Yanukovich can only start
if both candidates refuse to acknowledge the results of the election.
He threatened to organize a national walkout if government refuses to
make concessions. The people blockade international roads in the
Volynsk, Lviv, Kharkov, Zakarpatye, Sumsk, Ivano-Frankovsk and
Chernigovsk regions. Yushechenko said: “We show that the geography of
the opposition’s influence goes beyond the center and Western
Ukraine.”
Sergei Tigipko, Yanukovich’s campaign manager, warned: “Some people
say the opposition is seeing to create a south-eastern autonomy in
Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Yushchenko has established a national salvation commission
and issued his first decrees. Decree No. 1 asks the people to defend
the constitutional order. Other decrees concern the creation of the
committee consisting of 30 people and an organization called “the
people’s self-defense.” The opposition asked local government bodies
to join the national rescue committee. The city councils of Boyarka,
Irpen, Vishnesoi and Borispol joined the committee yesterday.
Meetings in support of the opposition and the committee were held in
Sumy, Khrakov, Krivorozhye and Dnepropetrovsk. Deputy Economy
Minister Oleg Gaiduk resigned, saying that this is his “civic
stance.” An orange flag was raised over the building of the Ukrainian
National Bank (Yushchenko headed the bank in 1993-99).
Yushchenko acknowledged that he needs “a very substantial
international intermediary in negotiations with the government in
order to resolve the political crisis in Ukraine.” Leonid Kuchma says
Lithuania could act as such intermediary. Yushchenko’s team trusts
Poland. Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski agreed to come to Kiev
as an intermediary after lengthy telephone talks with Kuchma. He
said: “Negotiations are better than tanks on Independence Square.”
Former Polish President Lech Walensa arrived in Kiev yesterday. He
was invited by Viktor Yushchenko. He warned: “I received the Nobel
Peace Prize, and I can only use peaceful methods.” However, he did
not prove to be a neutral intermediary. At a rally in Kiev, he said:
“Your emotions and passion are needed for defending democracy! I
believe you will win!” Meanwhile, Walensa was told that Yushchenko
and Yanukovich are prepared to negotiate, and do not want to use
force.
Events in Ukraine have become a headache for Russian politicians and
an advantage for their Polish counterparts. Poland is tired of
political conflicts, the threat of dissolution of the parliament and
reshuffles in the government. The problems of its eastern neighbor
are a very good opportunity to forget about Poland’s own problems.
Polish media reports are saying that Warsaw is interested in what is
happening in Ukraine, and concerned about Ukraine’s political drift
towards Russia before the election.
Translated by Alexander Dubovoi
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

City News Service
November 25, 2004 Thursday
Armenian Telethon
GLENDALE
Armenia Fund Inc. is holding its annual Thanksgiving telethon, “Make
It Happen,” today to raise funds to complete the remaining 56 miles
of the North-South “Backbone” Highway in Karabakh, Armenia. Once
completed, the $25 million, 105-mile highway will link 150 towns and
villages and provide economic, trade and development opportunities.
Proceeds will also benefit continued assistance in the areas of
health care, education and infrastructure development in the Republic
of Armenia. The 12-hour event is being televised live from Glendale
throughout the United States, South America, the Middle East, Canada
and Armenia.

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
November 26, 2004
CAUCASO: GEORGIA CHIEDE A ITALIA DI MEDIARE CON MOSCA/ANSA ;
BONIVER: PRESTO IN RUSSIA PER BUONI UFFICI
BAKU
(dell’inviata Elisa Pinna)
(ANSA) – BAKU, 29 NOV – La Georgia ha chiesto all’Italia
“una mediazione” con la Russia per risolvere i cosiddetti
“conflitti congelati” interni, ovvero le crisi secessioniste
dell’Abkhazia, dell’Ossezia meridionale e dell’Adhzara, regioni
dove gli irredentisti chiedono indipendenza dal governo di
Tbilisi contando sulle simpatie di Mosca. E’ questo un impegno
prioritario su cui il sottosegretario agli Esteri con delega per
l’Asia, on. Margherita Boniver, di ritorno da una missione nel
Caucaso meridionale, lavorera’ immediatamente.
“Penso di programmare, nel piu’ breve tempo possibile, una
visita a Mosca – ha spiegato ai giornalisti -. La richiesta di
‘mediazione’ da parte delle massime autorita’ georgiane, a
partire dal presidente Micheil Saakasvili, e’ stata veramente
pressante, ma io – ha precisato – parlerei piuttosto di ‘buoni
uffici’ presso il governo russo”. “I georgiani – ha proseguito
– contano sul momento eccezionale nelle relazioni tra Roma e
Mosca, caratterizzate, oltre che dalla profonda amicizia
personale tra Berlusconi e il presidente Putin, anche da una
presenza di 20-30 mila imprese italiane in territorio russo”.
Il governo georgiano,nato dalla ‘Rivoluzione della Rosa’
capeggiata da Saakasvili esattamente un anno fa e presa a
modello dall’opposizione ucraina in questi giorni, e’ composto
per lo piu’ da ministri trentenni filooccidentali, che chiedono
alla Russia di smantellare le proprie basi militari, circa 3
mila soldati, dal territorio della Georgia.
Nella regione del Caucaso meridionale, l’on. Boniver ha
visitato anche l’Armenia e l’Azeirbagian. “Il bilancio della
missione e’ piu’ che positivo. E’ la terza che compio nel giro
di tre anni, e cio serve a creare una continuita’ di dialogo e
un rapporto di fiducia essenziali al miglioramento delle gia
ottime relazioni bilaterali”. “Anche se il governo italiano –
ha detto scherzando – ha gia’ cambiato quattro ministri degli
esteri in pochi anni, il sottosegretario per l’Asia e’ rimasto
lo stesso”.
Nelle tre capitali dell’area (Tbilisi, Ierevan e Baku), l’on
Boniver ha firmato accordi economici bilaterali, ed ha parlato
anche di quell’altra sanguinosa guerra “congelata” del Nagorno
Karabakh, l’enclave armeno cristiana che si e’ separata
unilateralmente dall’Azeirbagian a maggioranza musulmana, tra
decine di migliaia di morti e quasi un milione di profughi.
“Sia a Ierevan (capitale armena) che a Baku (capitale azera) –
ha riferito l’on. Boniver – ho trovato chiusura e astio
reciproci. Ai miei interlocutori ho ribadito che l’unica
soluzione possibile passa per la via negoziale e, innanzitutto,
per la trattativa bilaterale, pur se affiancata da iniziative
internazionali come quella dell’Osce e del gruppo di Minsk, che
si possono tradurre anche in aiuti finanziari”.
Da Baku, ultima tappa ieri della missione italiana, e’ venuta
una seconda richiesta, stavolta di tipo economico: quella di
diversificare i rapporti economici, attualmente dominati dal
commercio energetico. L’Italia, infatti, e’ il principale
importatore di petrolio dall’Azeirbagian, con 214 mila barili di
greggio al giorno per un miliardo di dollari all’anno. La firma,
ieri nella capitale azera, di un accordo per la creazione di un
“Forum consultivo per i rapporti economici bilaterali” e la
nascita di una Camera di Commercio italo-azera, “apriranno la
strada – ha osservato Boniver – a nuovi investimenti nel settore
agro-alimentare, delle infrastrutture, delle costruzioni”.
(ANSA).

ARKA News Agency
Nov 26 2004
Armenian officially receives the status of observer in International
Francophone Organization
New coin of AMD 10 value to be put in circulation since December 1
2004 by CBA
Over AMD 7 mln. is collected in NKR for the construction of North
–South highway
Trade turnover between Korea and Armenia for 10 months 2004 makes $2
mln
*********************************************************************
ARMENIAN OFFICIALLY RECEIVES THE STATUS OF OBSERVER IN INTERNATIONAL
FRANCOPHONE ORGANIZATION
YEREVAN, November 26. /ARKA/. Armenia officially received the status
of observer in International Francophone Organization. According to
the Press and Information Department of RA Foreign Ministry, the RA
Foreign Minister noted in his thankful speech that the decision to
confer the status of observer to Armenia will even more strengthen
the adherence of the republic to values and principles of
francophone.
The official Armenian delegation headed by Vardan Oskanian took part
in the 10th summit of francophone states on November 24-27 in the
capital of Burkina-Faso Uagadugu. The official delegation of Armenia
was for the first time represented at the summit of International
Francophone Organization, which includes 51 countries. The status of
observers was granted to Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia,
Slovenia and Poland. L.V.–0–
*********************************************************************
NEW COIN OF AMD 10 VALUE TO BE PUT IN CIRCULATION SINCE DECEMBER 1
2004 BY CBA
YEREVAN, November 26. /ARKA/. Cba will put in circulation a new coin
of AMD 10 value since December 1 2004 in Armenia, as stated Gevorg
Toumanyan, the Head of Cash Operations Department of CBA. He noted
that the objective of the new issue is to bring the design of the
coin in accordance with the previously issued new series of coins.
The coins are cut in Poland as before. He noted that the cost of
cutting of the new coin is somewhat less than the prime cost of the
coin; it does not exceed AMD 5 for one coin. The coins of the old
issue can be exchanged with new ones in any commercial bank of the
country.
The new coin is much smaller than the coin of 1994 sample; however is
cut from the same metal- aluminum.
The coin of AMD 10 value was the first coin, which has been put in
circulation ion Armenia since 1994. According to the estimates of
CBA, currently there are about 150 mln AMD 10-value coins in Armenia.
($1=AMD 501,01). L.V. –0–
*********************************************************************
OVER AMD 7 MLN. IS COLLECTED IN NKR FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF NORTH
–SOUTH HIGHWAY
STEPANAKERT, November 26. /ARKA/. Over AMD 7 mln. Is collected in NKR
for the construction of North –South highway. According to ARKA’s
reporter in Stepanakert, collecting money in NKR was conducted
simultaneously with the TV marathon held in the USA. At present over
AMD 7 mln. 200 thsd is sent to the account of Artsakhbank. Most
donations were done by individuals and legal entities of Martakert
region (NKR) totaling AMD 1 mln. 800 thsd.
To remind, to complete the construction of the highway worth AMD 25
mln. about USD 12,5 mln is required. ($1 – AMD 501,01). A.H. –0–
*********************************************************************
TRADE TURNOVER BETWEEN KOREA AND ARMENIA FOR 10 MONTHS 2004 MAKES $2
MLN
YEREVAN, November 26. /ARKA/. Trade turnover between Korea and
Armenia for 10 months 2004 made $2 mln., as sted by the President of
Korean Trade Center in Moscow Lee Kwang-Hee. According to him, the
speed of trade turnover slowed down a bit as compared to 2003. During
the last year it made $3,7 mln. According to Lee Kwang-Hee, the list
of goods imported and exported is not big. Armenia mainly imports
tobacco goods, various electronics, refrigerators, boilers from
Korea, and exports transistors and components for optic and medical
devices. “Armenian and Korean entrepreneurs don’t know one another
well yet”, he said noting the importance of the Armenian-Korean
business forum held these days in Yerevan. A.H. –0—
*********************************************************************
–Boundary_(ID_tf0rCN4HBf4sDohorZlu4w)–

Twist of Fate
By Libby Copeland
washingtonpost.com
Nov 28, 2004
This is where it starts and ends, with the red Jeep, which on the
passenger side looks completely fine, like something you could drive
away, like any other car on the road, except caked in pale mud and
pine needles. From this angle, the car doesn’t seem to belong here,
in a Gaithersburg lot devoted to abandoned vehicles, in a section
where the police put all the cars that have been in fatal crashes.
This is where it starts and ends, with the story of a boy and his
car. He is 16 years old. He is in love with the car, a four-door
sport-utility that his mother shares with him, a privilege he exploits
every chance he gets. He asks his mother if he can tint the windows
and she says no and he does it anyway, and she gets mad and forgives
him. He outfits the Jeep with a new sound system, a subwoofer in
the back so his friends can hear him playing Tupac blocks away.
He hangs his Sunday school graduation tassel and a cross on the
rearview mirror, and he takes the car to school and to work at his
parents’ ice cream shop, where they are proud that he helps out so
often, so ably. Damn if he doesn’t love that car.
The other side of the story is the other side of the car. The
driver’s side. Where everything ended in the early hours of Saturday,
Nov. 13. The tires are blown out, soft and shrinking off the rims,
and the headlight is gone and this side of the hood is dented and
the windshield is veined with cracks, and “BIO-HAZARD” is scrawled
across the car’s side. And on the driver’s seat are more pine needles
and a substance that has pooled, thick and black, into the seams.
And below the seat, near the gas pedal, is a disposable camera and
a white sneaker for the left foot of a boy who was barely 5 feet
7 and had just recently outgrown his father’s size 9 shoes. And on
the back seat is a stick of deodorant and a red cap that says NFL,
covered in pale mud, and a can of Budweiser.
There it is from start to finish, so much of what it means to be
an adolescent boy, the car and the cap and the deodorant and the
beer. Curiosity and callowness and everything that comes with it. Two
16-year-old passengers in this car were hardly injured at all when
the Jeep hit a tree in Potomac, but the driver died. He was Sarkis
George Nazarian Jr., whose name you probably would not have known a
month ago, only now you recognize it from the news and where it sits
in the nexus of tragedy and all those suburban teenagers and crashes
and deaths so young.
His mother says she wants the car back no matter what. If she can
drive it again, she wants it back, and if the car can’t be repaired,
she wants it back. She wants it back because he loved that car. And
because everything ended there.
Learning to Drive
It was a 1997 Grand Cherokee Laredo, bought new, never in an
accident. The boy wanted to drive badly and he got his license as
soon as he could, a month after his 16th birthday. And when Sarkis
Jr., known as Sako, drove with his dad, sometimes it would rain or
snow and he’d offer the wheel to his father, who would tell his son
to keep driving, “because these are the times I want you to drive,
because I am sitting next to you.” And the father, Sarkis George
Nazarian Sr., thought he taught his son well, thought his son was a
conscientious driver.
Now the father blames himself, because this is what fathers do when
they lose a child.
“Now you don’t know how bad I feel,” Nazarian says, sitting in his
large living room in Potomac last Monday night with his wife and
daughter and several of Sako’s friends, who are over at the house a
lot these days. “I feel like I failed.”
Sako’s 16-year-old friend Eliza Kanovsky comforts Nazarian because
that’s what kids do when adults fall apart.
“I really don’t think you failed Sako,” she says.
“Two of them walked away. One of them died instantly,” says
Nazarian, who doesn’t understand the physics of what happened that
night. Nazarian has tried to picture how his son died, piecing together
bits of information from the crash site and from one of the kids who
was in the Jeep with Sako. Nazarian has sat in his own car, a Mercedes
SUV, and twisted from side to side to figure out how his son’s body
moved. At the viewing, he studied his son’s face in the casket —
the bruise on his right cheek, the cut on his right ear. How?
Last weekend, Nazarian’s sister-in-law was in an accident. Her car was
totaled and she was sent to the hospital, but she lived. Why not Sako?
That night, the road was wet. From the beginning, the police said
Sako was driving too fast along a curvy stretch of Travilah Road,
a few miles from his house. Days later, the state medical examiner’s
preliminary report indicated that Sako had alcohol in his system when
he died. Nazarian doesn’t know what to think of that. It could be true.
“I know that he was a good kid,” Nazarian says. “But human beings is
human beings.” He sighs. “I know how much I loved him.”
On Wednesday, police spokeswoman Lucille Baur added something else:
that Sako was not wearing a seat belt when he crashed. She said the
two passengers were.
A Shrinking Family
Sarkis Nazarian Sr. and his wife, Hermine, both of Armenian heritage,
immigrated from Syria decades ago. They had a son, Sako, and daughter,
Tamar, who is 12, in addition to Sarkis’s four sons from a previous
marriage. He used to say he had five sons, but then he had only four,
because just over a year ago one died of cancer at age 32. Now he
says he has three.
He has been a developer, a mortgage banker, an operator of nursing
homes. After he and Hermine got out of the nursing home business,
she wanted to keep busy, so they bought the Wow Cow, an ice cream
shop in Bethesda. Sako was the only person his dad trusted more than
himself to run it.
Sarkis is a small man, about an inch shorter than Sako. He wears a
gray shirt and black pants. Hermine wears all black, including a black
poncho, and she looks across the living room at dozens of photographs
of Sako on posterboard, and cries. There are a few photos from the
last time Hermine saw him, at Dulles Airport on Nov. 8, when she
left for Armenia to be with her sister, who was having triple-bypass
surgery. In those pictures, Sako has grown his hair out, and dark
curls pop from under his Redskins cap. He has his father’s thick
eyebrows and he is experimenting with a goatee.
The news that was relayed to Hermine in Armenia was that Sako had
been in an accident, but that he was okay. Sarkis was afraid that
if Hermine heard the truth, she might have a heart attack. She took
the next flight back and on the layover, in Amsterdam, bought Sako a
bottle of his favorite cologne. Relatives picked her up at the airport,
and she peppered them with questions about her son, and they tried to
change the subject, and when she saw dozens of cars outside her house,
she started screaming.
Since then, there have been many cars in the driveway — relatives, and
friends from Winston Churchill High coming to comfort the Nazarians. On
Monday evening, eight of Sako’s friends. The girls kiss his father
on the cheek. They talk about Sako’s impishness, how he managed to
get friends to believe his far-out tales. They talk about the way he
loved surfing and soccer and backyard football. He did gymnastics,
too, when he was younger.
“He had that routine when he was graduating from Potomac Elementary,
remember?” Nazarian says to his wife. “I got an e-mail from his
coach, Kevin.”
“Kevin,” she says. She stares off toward the far end of the room,
toward the photographs.
The kids talk about how Sako loved his car, how he kept it clean,
how he wanted new rims, how he bragged once about pampering it with
premium gas. They talk about how driving is such a part of their
lives, how it means the power to decide where they want to go and
when. They talk about how the act of driving in volves a physics
they didn’t think about before the accident, involves forces that now
seem mysterious and great, and how cars now seem a little bit like —
well, Nazarian calls them guns.
“I used to, like, race around, didn’t care,” says Trevor Davies,
17. Now, “first thing I say when I get in the car is ‘Seat belts!’ ”
Nazarian talks about waking up in the middle of the night, and about
God’s will. His wife talks about the car, about being able to hear
Sako down the road when the big subwoofer pounded the bass lines of
his rap music.
“He loved his car,” she says.
“Oh, he loved those subs,” one of the girls says.
“I’m going to take it to the cemetery and put the loud music,”
Hermine says.
“Blast the loud subs,” one of the girls says.
“Maybe he’ll say, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m here. I hear you,’ ” Hermine says.
She cries. One of the girls crawls over on her knees and touches the
mother’s shoulder.
Washington Post Staff Writer