CHIRAC’S GENOCIDE REMARKS INTIMIDATE FRENCH FIRMS
Zaman, Turkey
Oct 4 2006
Reactions to French President Jacques Chirac, who implied during
his Yerevan visit that Turkey should recognize the alleged Armenian
genocide to become an EU member, are growing.
French firms are now concerned that their investments in Turkey
would be negatively affected by the remarks. The draft law that would
penalize those who deny the alleged genocide has also deepened such
concerns. French paper Le Monde, drawing attention to the financial
difficulties of the French companies interested in Turkish bids,
stressed that the remarks could cause a substantial loss totaling
billions of dollars. A political advisor of Chirac stated that it
has become apparent the president needs to clarify his remarks.
Speaking to Le Monde, Chirac’s advisor noted that there was no
change in the president’s supportive position regarding Turkey’s
EU membership. The advisor, who stressed that Chirac’s remarks were
political, not legal, noted that it is now imperative for Chirac to
make an explanation to Turkey concerning his statements in Yerevan.
The draft bill that stipulates the punishment of those who deny
the alleged genocide will be discussed in the plenary of the French
parliament on Oct. 12. French firms are highly concerned that the
draft will be adopted because of the upcoming elections. Before
the parliamentary discussions held to review the draft bill in May,
the foreign trade ministry had sent a note to the deputies referring
to the economic risks for France in case of its adoption. The note
published by Le Monde stressed that the firms interested in Turkish
bids would have to face billions of dollars loss if the bill were
adopted. The French firms interested in Turkish bids include large
firms such as AREVA, Eurocopter, Alstom and Credit Agricole.
In a statement he made to Le Monde, French politician of Armenian
origin, Patrick Devedjian, recalling that Chirac has made a clear
point for the first time, cited his remarks as an historical turning
point. Devedjian noted that Chirac, by making the remarks, transformed
the 2001 genocide law, which is of legal character, into a political
action. Drawing attention to the analogy Chirac made between the
Holocaust and the alleged genocide, he further noted that Chirac is
the first leader who made a connection between the Jewish genocide
and the alleged Armenian genocide.

REPRESENTATIVES OF OSCE-BAKU HELD MEETING AT ISLAMIC PARTY’S OFFICE
Author: S. Ilhamgizi
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Oct 4 2006
Today, on October 4, representatives of OSCE Local Representative
Office Baku Kamen Ivanov and Berit Lindemann has held a meeting at
the office of Azerbaijan`s Islamic Party, the Party told Trend.
During the meeting, Head of the Party Hajiagha Nuri and his
deputies submitted the information of the Party`s activity as well
as information about problems the party faces with the registration
to the OSCE representatives. It was pointed out that the Party was
registered in 1992, but later its registration was annulled. Mr. Nuri
pointed out that
his party is engaged in the political propaganda, but not the
propaganda of the political movements and the religion. Therefore,
the Party considers the cancellation of its registration illegal. He
brought to the notice of the OSCE representatives the data that the
Party stands on a constructive opposition position. In their turn,
the representative of the Party also bring to the attention of the
OSCE representatives the information about social and economic problems
Azerbaijan`s population face, the uncertainty of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, and their concern over indifferent attitude of many
international organizations toward this issue.
In their turn, Mr. Ivanov and Mr. Lindemann pointed out that the
problem with the state registration of political parties in the
country headed for democracy causes only regrets. They also pointed
out that the problem the Party face will be included to the annual
report of OSCE.

LESSONS OF THE GAS PUMP
by Michael Klare
ZNet, MA
Oct 4 2006
Tom Paine
What the hell is going on here? Just six weeks ago, gasoline prices
at the pump were hovering at the $3 per gallon mark; today, they’re
inching down toward $2–and some analysts predict even lower numbers
before the November elections. The sharp drop in gas prices has been
good news for consumers, who now have more money in their pockets to
spend on food and other necessities–and for President Bush, who has
witnessed a sudden lift in his approval ratings.
Is this the result of some hidden conspiracy between the White House
and Big Oil to help the Republican cause in the elections, as some
are already suggesting? How does a possible war with Iran fit into the
gas-price equation? And what do falling gasoline prices tell us about
“peak-oil” theory, which predicts that we have reached our energy
limits on the planet?
Since gasoline prices began their sharp decline in mid-August, many
pundits have attempted to account for the drop, but none have offered
a completely convincing explanation, lending some plausibility to
claims that the Bush administration and its long-term allies in the
oil industry are manipulating prices behind the scenes. In my view,
however, the most significant factor in the downturn in prices has
simply been a sharp easing of the “fear factor” –the worry that crude
oil prices would rise to $100 or more a barrel due to spreading war
in the Middle East, a Bush administration strike at Iranian nuclear
facilities, and possible Katrina-scale hurricanes blowing through
the Gulf of Mexico, severely damaging offshore oil rigs.
As the summer commenced and oil prices began a steep upward climb,
many industry analysts were predicting a late summer or early fall
clash between the United States and Iran (roughly coinciding with
a predicted intense hurricane season). This led oil merchants and
refiners to fill their storage facilities to capacity with $70-80 per
barrel oil. They expected to have a considerable backlog to sell at
a substantial profit if supplies from the Middle East were cut off
and/or storms wracked the Gulf of Mexico.
Then came the war in Lebanon. At first, the fighting seemed to confirm
such predictions, only increasing fears of a region-wide conflict,
possibly involving Iran. The price of crude oil approached record
heights. In the early days of the war, the Bush administration
tacitly seconded Israeli actions in Lebanon, which, it was widely
assumed, would lay the groundwork for a similar campaign against
military targets in Iran. But Hezbollah’s success in holding off the
Israeli military combined with horrific television images of civilian
casualties forced leaders in the United States and Europe to intercede
and bring the fighting to a halt.
We may never know exactly what led the White House to shift course on
Lebanon, but high oil prices–and expectations of worse to come–were
surely a factor in administration calculations. When it became clear
that the Israelis were facing far stiffer resistance than expected,
and that the Iranians were capable of fomenting all manner of mischief
(including, potentially, total havoc in the global oil market),
wiser heads in the corporate wing of the Republican Party undoubtedly
concluded that any further escalation or regionalization of the war
would immediately push crude prices over $100 per barrel.
Prices at the gas pump would then have been driven into the $4-5 per
gallon range, virtually ensuring a Republican defeat in the mid-term
elections. This was still early in the summer, of course, well before
peak hurricane season; mix just one Katrina-strength storm in the
Gulf of Mexico into this already unfolding nightmare scenario and
the fate of the Republicans would have been sealed.
In any case, President Bush did allow Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice to work with the Europeans to stop the Lebanon fighting and has
since refrained from any overt talk about a possible assault on Iran.
Careful never explicitly to rule out the military option when it
comes to Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, since June he has
nonetheless steadfastly insisted that diplomacy must be given a chance
to work. Meanwhile, we have made it most of the way through this year’s
hurricane season without a single catastrophic storm hitting the U.S.
For all these reasons, immediate fears about a clash with Iran,
a possible spreading of war to other oil regions in the Middle East,
and Gulf of Mexico hurricanes have dissipated, and the price of crude
has plummeted. On top of this, there appears to be a perceptible
slowing of the world economy–precipitated, in part, by the rising
prices of raw materials–leading to a drop in oil demand. The result?
Retailers have abundant supplies of gasoline on hand and the laws of
supply and demand dictate a decline in prices.
How long will this combination of factors prevail?
Best guess: The slowdown in global economic growth will continue for
a time, further lowering prices at the pump. This is likely to help
retailers in time for the Christmas shopping season, projected to
be marginally better this year than last precisely because of those
lower gas prices.
Once the election season is past, however, President Bush will have
less incentive to muzzle his rhetoric on Iran and we may experience a
sharp increase in Ahmadinejad-bashing. If no progress has been made
by year’s end on the diplomatic front, expect an acceleration of
the preparations for war already underway in the Persian Gulf area
(similar to the military buildup witnessed in late 2002 and early
2003 prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq). This will naturally lead
to an intensification of fears and a reversal of the downward spiral
of gas prices, though from a level that, by then, may be well below
$2 per gallon.
Now that we’ve come this far, does the recent drop in gasoline prices
and the seemingly sudden abundance of petroleum reveal a flaw in the
argument for this as a peak-oil moment? Peak-oil theory, which had
been getting ever more attention until the price at the pump began
to fall, contends that the amount of oil in the world is finite;
that once we’ve used up about half of the original global supply,
production will attain a maximum or “peak” level, after which daily
output will fall, no matter how much more is spent on exploration
and enhanced extraction technology.
Most industry analysts now agree that global oil output will eventually
reach a peak level, but there is considerable debate as to exactly when
that moment will arise. Recently, a growing number of specialists–many
joined under the banner of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil
–are claiming that we have already consumed approximately half the
world’s original inheritance of 2 trillion barrels of conventional
(i.e., liquid) petroleum, and so are at, or very near, the peak-oil
moment and can expect an imminent contraction in supplies.
In the fall of 2005, as if in confirmation of this assessment, the CEO
of Chevron, David O’Reilly, blanketed U.S. newspapers and magazines
with an advertisement stating, “One thing is clear: the era of easy
oil is over … Demand is soaring like never before … At the same
time, many of the world’s oil and gas fields are maturing.
And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where
resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically, and
even politically. When growing demand meets tighter supplies, the
result is more competition for the same resources.”
But this is not, of course, what we are now seeing.
Petroleum supplies are more abundant than they were six months ago.
There have even been some promising discoveries of new oil and
gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico, while–modestly adding to global
stockpiles–several foreign fields and pipelines have come on line
in the last few months, including the $4 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(BTC) pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast,
which will bring new supplies to world markets. Does this indicate
that peak-oil theory is headed for the dustbin of history or, at least,
that the peak moment is still safely in our future?
As it happens, nothing in the current situation should lead us to
conclude that peak-oil theory is wrong. Far from it. As suggested
by Chevron’s O’Reilly, remaining energy supplies on the planet are
mainly to be found “in places where resources are difficult to extract,
physically, economically, and even politically.” This is exactly what
we are seeing today.
For example, the much-heralded new discovery in the Gulf of Mexico,
Chevron’s Jack No. 2 Well , lies beneath five miles of water and rock
some 175 miles south of New Orleans in an area where, in recent years,
hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita have attained their maximum strength
and inflicted their greatest damage on offshore oil facilities. It
is naive to assume that, however promising Jack No. 2 may seem in
oil-industry publicity releases, it will not be exposed to Category
5 hurricanes in the years ahead, especially as global warming heats
the Gulf and generates ever more potent storms.
Obviously, Chevron would not be investing billions of dollars in
costly technology to develop such a precarious energy resource if
there were better opportunities on land or closer to shore–but so
many of those easy-to-get-at places have now been exhausted, leaving
the company little choice in the matter.
Or take the equally ballyhooed BTC pipeline, which shipped its
first oil in July, with top U.S. officials in attendance . This
conduit stretches 1,040 miles from Baku in Azerbaijan to the
Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, passing no less than six
active or potential war zones along the way: the Armenian enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan; Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia; the
Muslim separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia;
and the Kurdish regions of Turkey. Is this where anyone in their right
mind would build a pipeline? Not unless you were desperate for oil,
and safer locations had already been used up.
In fact, virtually all of the other new fields being developed or
considered by U.S. and foreign energy firms–ANWR in Alaska, the
jungles of Colombia, northern Siberia, Uganda, Chad, Sakhalin Island
in Russia’s Far East–are located in areas that are hard to reach,
environmentally sensitive, or just plain dangerous. Most of these
fields will be developed, and they will yield additional supplies of
oil, but the fact that we are being forced to rely on them suggests
that the peak-oil moment has indeed arrived and that the general
direction of the price of oil, despite period drops, will tend to
be upwards as the cost of production in these out-of-the-way and
dangerous places continues to climb.
Some peak-oil theorists have, however, done us all a disservice by
suggesting, for rhetorical purposes, that the peak-oil moment is …
well, a sharp peak. They paint a picture of a simple, steep, upward
production slope leading to a pinnacle, followed by a similarly neat
and steep decline. Perhaps looking back from 500 years hence, this
moment will have that appearance on global oil production charts. But
for those of us living now, the “peak” is more likely to feel like a
plateau–lasting for perhaps a decade or more–in which global oil
production will experience occasional ups and downs without rising
substantially (as predicted by those who dismiss peak-oil theory),
nor falling precipitously (as predicted by its most ardent proponents).
During this interim period, particular events–a hurricane, an outbreak
of conflict in an oil region–will temporarily tighten supplies,
raising gasoline prices, while the opening of a new field or pipeline,
or simply (as now) the alleviation of immediate fears and a temporary
boost in supplies will lower prices. Eventually, of course, we will
reach the plateau’s end and the decline predicted by the theory will
commence in earnest.
In the meantime, for better or worse, we live on that plateau today.
If this year’s hurricane season ends with no major storms, and we get
through the next few months without a major blowup in the Middle East,
we are likely to start 2007 with lower gasoline prices than we’ve seen
in a while. This is not, however, evidence of a major trend. Because
global oil supplies are never likely to be truly abundant again,
it would only take one major storm or one major crisis in the Middle
East to push crude prices back up near or over $80 a barrel. This is
the world we now inhabit, and it will never get truly better until we
develop an entirely new energy system based on petroleum alternatives
and renewable fuels.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies
at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts and the author of Blood
and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency
on Imported Petroleum . This piece originally appeared in TomDispatch.

ARMENIANS VIOLATED CEASEFIRE 32 TIMES IN JULY-SEPTEMBER
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 3 2006
Armenian Armed Forces violated ceasefire 32 times in the third quarter
of the year and totally 192 times during nine months of the year.
According to monitoring results by Defense Ministry Azerbaijan Armed
Forces lost 13 soldiers in July-September. The army lost 46 servicemen
and one civilian and 15 were wounded in the nine months of the year.
Armenian Armed Forces fired at Azerbaijan’s positions 10 times in
January, 14 in February, 50 in March, 65 in April, 10 in May, 11
in June, eight in July, 19 in August and eight in September. The
ceasefire was recorded most in April and least in September.
The most fired territories are Gazakh, Tarter, Aghdam and Fuzuli
regions. According to the results of the monitoring one was killed
in mine explosion, four in fire, one for act out of regulation,
seven for careless use of gun, two of drowning, 10 in car accident,
four in suicide, two in snow-slip, two of disease, one for strike
by lightning and 12 by the enemy. Seven of the killed servicemen are
officers, three ensigns and one sergeant. The rest are soldiers.
Twenty of them killed outside the battlefield. Azerbaijan Armed Forces
lost 11 servicemen in January, two in February, five in March, six
in April, three in May, five in June, seven in July, five in August
and two in September. Three of them served in Border Troops, one in
Interior Troops, one in State Special Defense Service and the rest
in Defense Ministry’s military units. Nine of the wounded servicemen
were fired by the enemy, two for careless use of gun, two in mine
explosion and two in car accident.

INSPIRED IN ARMENIA, PLAYED IN L.A.
By Richard S. Ginell, Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times
Oct 3 2006
The Dilijan series, which blends European pieces and works by Armenian
composers, begins a second season.
Dilijan is a forested Armenian resort town not far from Lake Sevan
that has attracted composers and musicians over the decades. It is
also the inspiration for the Dilijan Chamber Music Concert Series
in faraway Los Angeles, which began its second season in the Colburn
School’s Zipper Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon.
So far, the launch seems to have taken hold. The series has a concept –
mixing standard European repertoire with works by Armenian composers –
a marvelously warm-sounding acoustical space, top-notch guest artists
and a built-in audience from the L.A. area’s vast, loyal Armenian
community that filled most of the seats Sunday. And as the lineup of
musicians indicated, you don’t have to be Armenian to play.
In the field of new or overlooked repertoire, Dilijan scored big with
the powerful Violin Sonata of Arno Babajanian (1921-1983), who may be
the best-known Armenian composer in the West after Aram Khachaturian.
Like Khachaturian, Babajanian was a nationalist who was never
fashionable among the new-music gatekeepers, despite his embrace of
serial ideas late in life. But this piece has universal substance
amid the Armenian flavor, with its turbulent first movement themes and
development, its ghostly interludes in the second and third movements,
its laconically singing passages that recall Shostakovich.
Violinist Movses Pogossian – who is also the artistic director of
the Dilijan series – audibly identified with this piece to his core,
producing a particularly striking, thin yet taut steel-wire tone in
the muted passages of the second movement. Pianist Robert Thies was
his sympathetic partner.
The chief marquee name on the program was violinist Ani Kavafian,
who with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra violist Roland Kato and cellist
Antonio Lysy offered a bustling rendition of Beethoven’s String Trio,
Opus 9, No. 1, whose skittering, whirlwind finale seems to anticipate
the scherzos of Mendelssohn.
Then all five musicians came together in Brahms’ mighty Piano
Quintet in F minor – conventionally paced, with enough virile weight,
lush symphonic textures in the lower middle range, and streaks of
vehemence in the scherzo and finale. Understandably, after this heavy
main course, there were no encores.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

WORKPLACE BIAS AGAINST MUSLIMS, ARABS ON RISE, ADVOCATES SAY
By Alana Semuels, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
Oct 3 2006
A tally of complaints jumped in 2005. Some victims may fear reporting
to authorities.
The restaurant manager from Morocco, the Armenian caterer from Syria
and the Yemeni sailor aren’t all Muslims and hail from different
homelands. But all three say they suffered discrimination at work
after Sept. 11, 2001, because of their national origin or perceptions
that they were Muslim.
Now, they are among those who have filed lawsuits through the
California offices of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission –
reflecting increasing discrimination against people of Middle Eastern
and South Asian descent, according to advocacy groups.
ADVERTISEMENT”I did not think this would happen when I came here,” said
Abdellatif Hadji, who moved from Morocco to the United States in 1989
and recently filed an EEOC suit against a Mendocino County restaurant
where he was a manager. “America is the land of opportunity.”
Reports of workplace discrimination against people perceived to be
Muslim or Arab soared after the Sept. 11 attacks and then declined,
government statistics indicate. But some advocates say they’ve seen
a resurgence in the last year that corresponds to global political
events.
“Anytime there’s anything in the news … that is related to the
Middle East, you see a spike in hate-motivated and employment-related
incidents,” said Kareem Shora, director of the legal department of
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
After 9/11, the EEOC introduced a category of employment discrimination
against people who are or are perceived to be Arab, Muslim, Middle
Eastern, South Asian or Sikh. Nationwide statistics from the EEOC
indicate that such complaints – so far exceeding 1,000 – have decreased
each year since 2002.
However, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations
says it processed more civil-rights and workplace discrimination
complaints in 2005 than ever before. The annual total jumped to 1,972
in 2005 from 1,522 in 2004. The discrepancy may indicate that victims
fear reporting discrimination to the government.
“We only see the tip of the iceberg,” said Joan Ehrlich, district
director of the EEOC office in San Francisco. “It’s probably not even
reflective of the amount of discrimination going on because people
are afraid to come to the government for help.”
One of Ehrlich’s cases involves Hadji, the Moroccan restaurant
manager. He filed suit Aug. 31 against the Albion River Inn.
Hadji said that in late 2004, he reproached a customer for harassing
a Tunisian waiter. Hadji said he asked the customer to leave after
the diner said, “If you don’t like it, go back to your country,” and
“I fought two wars to get rid of people like you.”
The restaurant’s owners ordered Hadji to apologize to the customer
or resign, Hadji said. Hadji left the restaurant and moved to San
Francisco.
“All I was trying to do was protect my staff from racial harassment,”
he said.
Ray Erlach, an attorney for the restaurant, said the evidence didn’t
support the allegations. “The Albion River Inn has had a perfect
record for 25 years of inclusivity of all races and religions,”
he said. “No one has ever complained.”
Hadji’s case is similar to one filed Sept. 25 by the Los Angeles EEOC
office in which a caterer who worked for the Monterey Hill restaurant
alleged that she was called “Mrs. Bin Laden,” even though she’s
Christian. The suit said the woman was told she watched too much Al
Jazeera, the Mideast-based news channel, and was subjected to other
discrimination because of her Syrian background. The eatery, located in
Monterey Park, is owned by Anaheim-based Specialty Restaurants Corp.,
operator of nearly 40 outlets, including Castaway in Burbank.
“They say that discrimination doesn’t happen in America anymore, but I
have something to say to that,” said the 29-year-old Glendale resident,
who asked that her name be withheld for fear of trouble at her new job.
A representative of Specialty Restaurants said the company hadn’t
seen the lawsuit and couldn’t comment.
In 2005, the Council on American-Islamic Relations received more
discrimination complaints in California than any other state – 378,
or 19% of all complaints. The council’s L.A. office said 68 of those
complaints were workplace-related, up from 56 in 2004.
The large number of California complaints partly reflects the state’s
sizable Muslim population. Still, civil rights lawyers said they were
taken aback by the volume.
“I have been surprised by the number of calls coming from the Bay
Area because we have this perception of the Bay Area being a very
accepting place,” said Shirin Sinnar, an attorney with the Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights who represents Hadji.
Anna Park, an attorney in the EEOC’s Los Angeles office, said diverse
cities still saw a great deal of discrimination as demographics
shifted. “The cases that we bring now are not just between blacks
and whites,” she said.
Research by the nonprofit Discrimination Research Center suggests
that much employment-related bias has focused on Muslims.
In a 2004 study, the center sent out 6,000 fictitious resumes to
employment firms throughout California. All applicants were similarly
qualified, but the resumes included 20 names “identifiable” as white,
Latino, African American, Asian American, Arab American or South
Asian. The name Heidi McKenzie got the highest response rate, 36.7%,
and Abdul-Aziz Mansour got the lowest, 23%.
In a case filed recently by EEOC attorney Park, seven Yemeni sailors
working for Norwegian Cruise Line were fired in rapid succession
“because they looked Muslim,” Park said.
The firings occurred after the FBI began investigating a report that
a crew member had asked about the location of a cruise ship’s engine
room, arousing suspicions. The men were fired before the investigation
was completed, the suit alleged.
Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement that its actions were
“completely proper.” In another instance, Ali Golchin, a San Diego
attorney who is well-known in the Iranian community, said he was
approached by seven Muslims interested in filing discrimination
lawsuits against their employers. Five were Iranians. Some were
government and university employees whose security clearances were
revoked or not renewed because of their country of origin, Golchin
said, a trend that lawyers in the California EEOC also are seeing.
Golchin said it was not just Muslims who were encountering
discrimination: A Latino friend was stopped by airport security in
Los Angeles because he looked Middle Eastern.
Since the London bombings in July 2005, tensions have worsened,
he said. “It seems like the fabric of society is falling apart.”

KLO ATTEMPTS TO PROTEST AGAINST OSCE CO-CHAIRS’ ARRIVAL IN AZERBAIJAN
Today, Azerbaijan
Oct 3 2006
Some members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) attempted
to stage a protest action against the arrival of the co-chairs of
OSCE Minsk Group outside the Foreign Ministry.
KLO protests against the co-chairs’ mediating activity in the
settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
Baku police prevented the protesters. Several KLO members have been
taken to the police station. Necessary action will be taken about
the detained. So far, KLO members are being inquired.
The KLO also issued a statement in protest against the co-chairs’
visit to Azerbaijan. The statement criticizes the co-chairs for their
pan-Armenian activity and visit to the region for this purpose. It
denounces their intention to arrive in Khankendi (Stepanakert) from
the aggressor Armenia not from Azerbaijan again.
“The latest option offered by the co-chairs meets Armenian interests
unambiguously and justifies Armenia’s aggressive actions. If this
option is accepted, Azerbaijan will lose Nagorno Karabakh together
with Lachin forever. Armenian terrorist president Robert Kocharian
has stated that they agree to the latest option unconditionally,”
the statement reads.
The KLO demands stopping the co-chairs’ visit to the region and their
activity at all.
URL:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN MP: IT’S BEEN NOT THE FIRST TIME WHEN RUSSIA DISCARDED ARMENIA’S INTERESTS IN SORTING OUT ITS RELATIONS WITH GEORGIA
Regnum, Russia
Oct 3 2006
Introducing economic sanctions against Georgia will hardly affect
Armenia, Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Vahan Hovhannisyan has told
reporters. “Unfortunately, it’s been not the first time when sorting
out relations with Georgia, Russia discards Armenia’s interests. They
expect us, probably, to treat this issue with understanding, but I
personally do not have such understanding, as it turns out that our
strategic ally, wishes it or not, joins the blockade of Armenia,”
he says.
At the same time, Vahan Hovhannisyan notes that there is no necessity
in revising allied relations with Russia. “Allied relations suppose
diplomatic work instead of hectic, hysterical moves,” he notes. The
deputy speaker also informs that in two weeks a session of the joint
Armenian-Russian interparliamentary commission will take place;
its agenda includes discussion of the Russian-Georgian relations in
the context of Armenia’s communication problems. He also notes that
contacts with the Russian side concerning this issue already exist.
Vahan Hovhannisyan expresses hope that after Russian officers are
released the positions will alleviate. “The matter is, how the Georgian
side reacts to it: it can well try to gain revenge in other front. It
is rather difficult to predict today,” Armenia’s deputy parliamentary
speaker says.

POLL: 71% RESPONDENTS BELIEVE LOCAL ELECTIONS IN GEORGIA WILL BE FALSIFIED
Regnum, Russia
Oct 3 2006
Transcaucasian branch of Caucasian Democracy Institute Foundation
conducted a public opinion poll of population in Samtskhe-Javakheti
(Javakh) – three Georgian areas, inhabited by ethnic Armenians –
Ninotsminda, Alkalkalaki, and Akhaltsikhe on September 18 – October
2 concerning people’s attitudes to local elections on October 5, 2006.
450 respondents were questioned, i.e. 150 in each region both in
centers of the areas and in villages. 100% of the respondents stated
to be members of no Georgian political parties.
REGNUM received following outcomes of the poll:
82.5% respondents assess negatively new legislation and mechanisms of
elections to local governing institutions; 7.5% assess them positively.
6.5% respondents consider the new election legislation and mechanisms
to be “democratic;” 84.5% believe they have been created and are
being used to guarantee fulfillment of central authorities’ will,
as well as infringement of national minorities’ rights.
30.5% of respondents stated about their wish to participate in the
elections; 32% – about their unwillingness to do it; 39.5% found
difficulty in answering. 18.5% believe that the elections to local
governing bodies will be conducted on October 5 “honestly ” and
“democratically;” 71% are sure they will be conducted “with gross
violations and falsifications.”
Following problems were called major ones for Armenians of
Samtskhe-Javakheti: social and economic problems – 26.5%; ones,
connected with discrimination politics of Georgian central authorities
– 72%. 21.5% of respondents are going to vote for those, who haves
connections with Georgian central authorities; 74% – for those,
who support the Armenian autonomy in Georgia.

AZERBAIJAN POSTS HIGHEST CIS INDUSTRIAL GROWTH IN 8 MTHS
Interfax, Russia
Oct 3 2006
MOSCOW. Oct 3 (Interfax) – Azerbaijan had the highest year-on-year
industrial growth among CIS countries – 40.5% – in January-August,
the CIS Interstate Statistical Committee said.
Growth was 12.7% in Belarus, 6.6% in Kazakhstan, 5.7% in Tajikistan,
5.4% in Ukraine and 4.3% in Russia, the committee said.
Industrial output fell 9.6% in Kyrgyzstan, 5.7% in Moldova and 0.9%
in Armenia.
The committee did not give figures for Georgia, Turkmenistan or
Uzbekistan.