Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
NGOS IN AZERBAIJAN CRITICIZED FOR CONTACTS WITH KARABAKH
By Fariz Ismailzade
Friday, September 15, 2006
Public protests have erupted in Azerbaijan after the chair of the
Azerbaijan branch of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly visited the
disputed Karabakh region and met with the leadership of the
unrecognized Karabakh republic. Arzu Abdullayeva and several young
activists from her organization went to Armenia’s Lori region as part
of their participation in the `Gugark’ youth summer camp from July 28
to July 30.
Several local NGOs, such as the pro-governmental youth movement IRELI,
the Forum of NGOs of Azerbaijan, and mass media outlets have lambasted
Abdullayeva for her `treasonous’ action and for her cooperation with
Armenians. The private TV stations ANS and ATV have even gone so far
as to accuse Abdullayeva of `mis-educating our youth and visiting an
Armenian cemetery after drinking with Armenian hosts.’
Public diplomacy, exchange visits by the media and NGO
representatives, are strongly condemned in Azerbaijan. This attitude,
mainly coming from the government and pro-government circles, is
derived from the belief that such reciprocal visits will help draw the
Karabakh republic out of its international isolation and eventually
legitimize its existence. `These visits only favor the interests of
Armenia and harm the interests of Azerbaijan,’ says Akif Nagi,
chairman of Karabakh Liberation Organization and a strong opponent of
such visits. Nagi believes that both the government and the public
must do everything possible to prevent such contacts.
The head of the Information and Press Department at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Tahir Tagizadeh, refuses to accept the
blame on the part of the authorities. He says it would be improper to
`put limits on the exchanges.’ But he suggested that the visits not
take place until after the first stage of conflict settlement is done;
that is, until the occupied territories are freed and the status of
Karabakh is being determined. Only then we will consider them as a
strong and important part of the peace process, he said.
Thus, any direct political and people-to-people contacts between
official Baku and the authorities of the unrecognized Karabakh
republic have been minimal throughout the past decade. The liberation
of the occupied territories is held up as a pre-condition for any
possible contacts between Baku and Khankendi. Contacts are allowed
for human rights activists and media representatives, who still are
branded traitors in Azerbaijan. Such individuals typically work in
collaboration with international organizations, often the donors
supporting such bilateral meetings, to allegedly aid the separatists.
Similarly, international sport and cultural events that include
participants representing Karabakh lead to protests in
Azerbaijan. Several days ago, Azerbaijani NGOs sent a protest letter
to the municipal government of the eastern Turkish city of Kars for
inviting folk groups from Karabakh to participate in the city’s
cultural festival. As a result, organizers withdrew their the
invitation to the Armenian delegation. Last year, official Baku
denounced chess tournaments and Independence Day concerts in
Khankendi. The Azerbaijan national soccer team even refuses to host
the Armenian team in Baku as part of the European qualification games
in order not to appear to be cooperating with the Armenian government.
There are, however, some politicians and activists who believe that
public diplomacy and the gradual build-up of trust between Armenians
and Azerbaijanis are vital for the peaceful resolution of the
conflict. `Visits to Armenia will produce dividends in five to ten
years,’ says Avaz Hasanov, the chairman of the Humanitarian Research
Center and a frequent visitor to Armenia.
With the peace process on Karabakh deadlocked and both sides using
bellicose rhetoric, conflict analysts around the world are once again
pushing the idea of public diplomacy. It is widely believed that the
political leadership of both Armenia and Azerbaijan understand the
benefits of the painful compromises and seek a way to settle the
conflict, but they are either unable or incapable of convincing their
respective publics. More than 15 years of war propaganda portraying
the opposite side as a mortal enemy make a peace-settlement process
based on compromise very difficult, because the Azerbaijan and
Armenian peoples do not want to accept anything less than what they
believe belongs to them. The longer this problem continues, the more
difficult it will be for the governments of both countries to open the
minds of their citizens.
(ATV, ANS TV, Musavat, Day.az, Trend, Olaylar, September 10-15)

EurasiaNet, NY
Saturday, September 16, 2006

EURASIA INSIGHT

ARMENIA’S STRATEGIC LACHIN CORRIDOR CONFRONTS A DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS
Onnik Krikorian 9/15/06
The flag of the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh flies over
the local administrative buildings in the center of Lachin, the
strategic lynchpin connecting the disputed territory with the Republic
of Armenia. The town and surrounding area, regarded as vital for
Karabakh’s security, appear to be experiencing an unsettling
demographic shift.
Over the past 14 years, Lachin has been reshaped by the ebb and flow
of humanity. In May 1992, during the height of the Karabakh conflict,
Armenian forces captured Lachin. [For background see the Eurasia
Insight archive]. Typical of most military operations against towns
and villages during the war, buildings were razed and entire
populations forced to flee. Accordingly, at least 20,000 Azerbaijanis
and Kurds evacuated the area when Armenian forces approached the town.
Armenians remained in possession of the Lachin corridor, renamed
Kashatagh, and several other Azerbaijani territories after the signing
of a Karabakh cease-fire in 1994. Shortly thereafter, Armenia
implemented a resettlement policy. Robert Matevosian, head of the
department of resettlement for the region, says that the first
Armenian arrivals came to the region out of a sense of
patriotism. These territories, “regardless of the consideration of
diplomats, must be inhabited by Armenians,” he says.
The official line is that most of the Lachin corridor’s new residents
are refugees and internally displaced persons. The situation on the
ground, however, suggests otherwise. It seems many of the new arrivals
were socially vulnerable families from towns and cities such as
Yerevan, Sisian, Jermuk and Gyumri in Armenia proper, as well as from
Karabakh itself. They appear to have been recruited to relocate with
promises of land, livestock and social benefits.
Gagik Kosakian, deputy governor of the region, has no choice but to
stick to the official line. But he does admit that others came as
well. “There are those specialists that couldn’t find work in their
chosen profession in Armenia who also come here to find employment,”
he says from his run-down and cramped office in downtown Lachin, which
Armenians have renamed Berdzor.
Varouzhan Grigoryan, 48, is one of those professionals who sought a
new start in Lachin. The economic chaos associated with the 1991
Soviet collapse hit Grigoryan hard. In the late Soviet era, he
operated his own dance studio in the southern Armenian town of Sisian.
Yet, amid Armenia’s economic transition, he was forced to close his
business and seek other work.
Six years ago, he moved with his family to Lachin and now he teaches
traditional Armenian dance to school children in the town, while
living with his wife and five children in a newly renovated hostel on
the outskirts. With a combined income of 70,000 drams (about $177) a
month in addition to 20,000 drams (about $50) in benefits for his five
children, things are better than they had been in Armenia. He also
receives another 20,000 drams in disability allowances for his two
chronically ill sons.
But while life might be better for the Grigoryans, the situation is
very different for others. The Lachin corridor covers some 3,000
square kilometers and stretches from just below Kelbajar in the north
to the Iranian border in the south. Yet, while Lachin’s pre-war
[Azerbaijani] population stood at well over 67,000, Kosakian puts the
number of [Armenian] settlers in the entire region (that also includes
the former Azerbaijani regions of Qubatli and Zangelan) at 9,800
people, including 2,200 living in the town of Lachin itself.
Unofficial estimates, however, put the number far lower.
Because of poor social conditions, as well as a lack of investment and
the recent transfer of the regional budget from Armenia to the
Karabakh territorial government, both officials and activists in
Lachin say that many families are leaving. Indeed, while the region’s
population was estimated at 15,000 in 2002, there are concerns that
out-migration is now reaching epidemic proportions. Sources within the
local administration estimated the population to be in the 5,000-6,000
range in 2006.
In recent weeks, Armenian newspapers have reported that that families
living in the territory are complaining that initial promises have
been broken. Moreover, while a budget estimated at 2.2 billion drams
has been allocated to Lachin, nobody in the administration appears to
know how the money is being spent. Benefits averaging 4,000 drams
(about $10) per child a month on average are also reportedly paid
late.
At the outset of 2006, an incentive for new settlers — the provision
of free electricity of up to 200 kw per month for the first two years
of residency — was rescinded. Meanwhile, there are questions about
misappropriations and malfeasance, including allegations that of 750
million drams allocated for the construction of new homes, only 50
million drams have actually been spent.
“I think that the Karabakh authorities have no real understanding of
the importance of this region,” laments Samuel Kocharian, Director of
the AGAPE Children’s Home in Lachin. He is also one of the most vocal
critics of the local administration as well as the transfer of the
Lachin corridor’s budget from Armenia to Karabakh. He estimates the
regional population now at approximately 5,000 people.
Marine Petoyan, head of the village of Karegah, located a few
kilometers outside of Lachin, touts her village as one of the most
successful in the region. Nevertheless, she is concerned about the
future. “Sixty percent of residents don’t have water because of the
drought,” she says. “When the natural springs dried out, this became a
serious problem,” She also says that there are numerous cases of
residents in Karegah having their electricity cut off because they
have been unable to pay their bills.
Fears of a resumption of armed conflict between Armenians and
Azerbaijanis also seem to be influencing Lachin’s demographics. “The
process of resettlement started on a large scale at the beginning
because of patriotism,” says Kocharian, “but now [Lachin] is emptying
with the same enthusiasm and on the same scale. When people heard
[Armenian Defense Minister] Serzh Sarkisyan say on television:
“`People, is Aghdam ours? Do you want another war?’ they were
worried.”
Robert Matevosian does not deny that there has been an exodus in
recent years. While not disputing the allegations and articles
published in the Armenian media, he nonetheless reacts angrily to
them. “If these reports do not result in changes here, they will do
more harm than good,” he says. “Already they are having a negative
effect.”
“These articles do raise various issues that are of concern, and that
do exist here,” he admits. “These problems have affected
resettlement. … Our officials and national [political] parties need
to think about elaborating a strategic plan for this region.”
But with the international community still pushing for a Karabakh
peace agreement, few believe any national plan of action will
surface. Samuel Kocharian, for example, doesn’t. Indeed, he even
wonders if the situation is one by design. “How wide do they want the
Lachin corridor to be?” he asked rhetorically.
Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Onnik Krikorian is a freelance
journalist and photojournalist from the United Kingdom working for a
variety of local and international publications and organizations in
the Republic of Armenia. He maintains a blog from Armenia and the
surrounding region at
Posted September 15, 2006 © Eurasianet

American Chronicle, CA
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Rights & Concerns of the Lebanese Armenian Community
MustBbe Honored
Elias Bejjani
September 15, 2006
The LCCC (Lebanese Canadian Coordinating Council) strongly denounces
the Lebanese Government’s unjust refusal to call off the Turkish
Army’s participation in the UN Peacekeeping forces (UNIFIL) mandated
by the UN Security Council to deploy in South Lebanon in the aftermath
of the devastating 34-day long Israeli-Hezbollah war. The denied
request was made officially by Lebanon’s Armenian community in all its
denominational, political and social sectors and representatives. The
same appeal was made to the UN General Secretary, Mr. Kofi Annan.
The government’s refusal of the request is not merely a harsh response
of indifference and an act of condescendence in dealing with one of
Lebanon’s basic eighteen communities that make up the multicultural
and multiethnic Lebanese society, but it is in fact a blatant
infringement on a central article of the Lebanese constitution that
states: “No authority violating the common co-existence character
shall be legitimate”.
Alienating the Armenian community, ignoring its genuine concerns and
keeping a blind eye on its painful history hinders Lebanon’s national
unity, indicates plainly and sadly that the Saniora government is
ruling with the same oppressive strategies of marginalization and
discrimination inflicted by the Baathist Syrian regime on numerous
Lebanese communities during Syria’s 29-year long horrible occupation
that came to an end 16 months ago.
The Lebanese Armenian’s community cry for justice is well understood
and well supported by the majority of the Lebanese people. This
well-respected community does not believe that the Turks should be
allowed under any given circumstances to be a part in any peacekeeping
mission before their state admits publicly the genocidal massacres the
Turkish Ottoman rulers committed in 1915 against the Armenian people.
1.5 million Armenians were brutally murdered in cold blood by the
Ottoman Turkish Army in 1915 and many territories of their country
were confiscated and still are.
This is besides the fact that the Turkish Army is not qualified to
play a neutral role between the parties involved in the current
conflict unfolding on the Lebanese soil. The Turkish Parliament has
made the participation of its troops in UNFIL conditional on not
taking part in any assignment aiming to disarm Hezbollah.
Meanwhile the Lebanese people did not yet forget the hardships,
oppression, starvation, displacement, torture and humiliation
committed by the Ottomans during their 400 years of bloody and
criminal occupation of Lebanon and neighboring countries that ended
with World War I.
The LCCC appeals to both the Lebanese Government and the United
Nations to call off immediately the participation of the Turkish Army
in the peacekeeping mission of UNIFIL in Lebanon, and to block any
other UN similar task involving the Turks before the Turkish
Government publicly and officially admits the Genocide Massacres the
Ottomans committed in 1915 against the Armenian people and accepts all
ethical, moral and legal responsibilities.
The LCCC affirms the fact that any marginalization of any of Lebanon’s
eighteen distinct cultural, ethnic and religious communities is in
effect a flagrant infringement on the Lebanese constitution, the
principle of shared living, consensual democracy, national unity and
the UN Human Rights Charter .
We salute the Lebanese Armenian community in its longing for justice
and fully support its legitimate request submitted for both the
Lebanese government and the UN.
*Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail [email protected]
LCCC Web Site
CLHRF Website
—————————- ——————————————–
*Th e lccc is a Federal umbrella for the following nonprofit municipal,
provincial and federal Canadian registered groups:
Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation, (CLHRF), Canadian Lebanese
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM-Canada), Phoenician Club of Mississauga
(PCOM),/Canadian Phoenician Community Services Club (CPCSC),Canadian
Lebanese Christian Heritage Club (CLCHC),World Lebanese Cultural Union
(WLCU)-Canadian Chapter.

Scotsman.com
Saturday, 16th September 2006
Writers on trial, state in the dock
ELIF SHAFAK IS A TURKISH NOVELIST WHO has spent much of her life in
Europe and the US. She fills her books with characters who defy all
orthodoxy, and in her journalism she lives by the same code, mixing
feminism and nuanced political analysis with a deep interest in
Ottoman culture. She is also unafraid of censorship, which is why this
Thursday she will come before the courts in a case the world would do
well to watch.
In her latest novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, already a bestseller in
Turkey, one character declares: “My father is Barsam Tchakhmakhchian,
my great-uncle is Dikran Stamboulian, his father is Varvant
Istanboluian, my name is Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian, all my family tree
has been Something Somethingian, and I am the grandchild of genocide
survivors who lost all their relatives in the hands of Turkish
butchers in 1915, but I myself have been brainwashed to deny the
genocide because I was raised by some Turk named Mustapha!”
These are strong words in a country whose official historians maintain
that the Armenian genocide at the hands of Turks is a fiction. In
February last year, when Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most famous novelist,
said in passing to a Swiss journalist that “a million Armenians had
been killed in these lands, and I am the only one who talks about it,”
he was branded a traitor and prosecuted for “denigrating
Turkishness”. Shafak must have known that she was risking the same, as
she has frequently challenged Turkey’s treatment of its minorities. A
year ago, she spoke at the first Turkish conference to challenge the
official line on the Ottoman Armenians , and though she went on to
state her own position in several newspapers, the censors left her
alone. But in July, Shafak learned that she was to be prosecuted for,
among other things, allowing a character of partly Armenian heritage
in her novel to utter the forbidden G-word.
Since its inception in 1923, Turkey has policed its writers
fiercely. Its penal code, taken from Mussolini’s Italy, puts serious
curbs on freedom of expression, but leading writers have never toed
the line. The great modernist poet Nazim Hikmet spent much of his
adult life in prison and died in exile. The novelist Yashar Kemal, for
many decades Turkey’s most famous writer, has been serially harassed
and prosecuted. Between the 1970s and 1990s, so many writers,
journalists and scholars were imprisoned that a prosecution became a
badge of honour.
But 18 months ago, the game looked set to change. The European Union
had at last set a date for talks on Turkish accession. The long
conflict with Kurdish separatists was apparently over, and the Kurds
had been accorded limited cultural rights. Encouraged by the prospect
of entry into the EU, other Muslim and non-Muslim minorities were
beginning to make themselves heard. It was finally possible to tap the
rich multicultural Ottoman legacies that nationalist ideology had so
long repressed. There was a new vogue for family memoirs. Some showed
how peacefully the empire’s diverse “nations” had coexisted. Others –
like Fethiye Cetin’s My Grandmother, in which she recounts her
discovery that her grandmother was Armenian – explored suppressed
histories. In Europe, a new generation of bicultural Turks were mixing
Turkish and Ottoman traditions with European forms and winning
prizes. As Pamuk’s star rose in the West, many other novelists –
Shafak, Latife Tekin, Asli Erdogan and Perihan Magden – had their
works translated. All refused to conform to national – or nationalist
– modes.
In so doing, they seemed to be reflecting the mood of the country as a
whole. An overwhelming majority wanted to join the EU. Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, the pro-market, pro-Europe Islamist prime minister, had
committed himself to a new penal code to bring Turkey into line with
Europe. However, Article 301 of the code recommends sentences of up to
three years for “denigrating Turkishness” or insulting the judiciary
or other state organs, while other articles make it an offence to
insult the memory of Ataturk or “seek to alienate people from military
service”. A recently revised anti-terror law is so broad that human
rights groups say it will make it a crime to espouse any view shared
by an outlawed group, or even to publish a statement by an illegal
organisation.
To date, there have been more than 60 cases against novelists,
publishers, journalists, scholars, politicians and cartoonists. Hrant
Dink, editor of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, currently has two
cases against him. The publisher Fatih Tas is on trial for a book that
looks critically at the Turkish army. Two eminent professors faced
charges for saying, in a never-published government-commissioned
report, that Turkey’s treatment of its minorities fell short of
European standards, while the magazine Penguen and one of its
cartoonists were prosecuted for portraying the prime minister as a
kitten and an elephant, among other animals.
So far, no-one has been sent to prison. Some defendants have been
acquitted; others, like Pamuk, have seen their cases dropped on
technicalities. Many were given suspended sentences that were then
converted to fines. However, it should not be assumed that writers
have nothing to fear.
Behind most of the high-profile prosecutions is an ultra-nationalist
lawyers’ group called the Unity of Jurists. Its main spokesman is a
lawyer named Kemal Kerincsiz. His rabidly xenophobic sound-bites have
turned him into a celebrity, and his words are echoed by the thugs who
have taunted and assaulted defendants in the corridors of the
courthouses, denouncing them as traitors and “missionary children” (a
reference to the foreign schools many of the defendants attended) and
spouting racist slogans that call to mind Berlin in 1935, while the
riot police look on .
There must be others within the state apparatus who believe, like
Kerincsiz, that “the European Union means slavery and a prisoner’s
chains for Turkey”. They must be pleased that the trials have damaged
the case for Europe inside Turkey, while also giving fodder to
anti-Turkish nationalists in Europe. They must be rejoicing that the
EU sees the 301 trials as serious impediments to accession. This is
not a tug of war between East and West as the West likes to understand
it: while some of Turkey’s ultra-nationalists are Islamists, most are
old-guard secularists. The battle is about democracy, with supporters
of EU membership hoping for peaceful change and opponents hoping for a
return to authoritarian rule.
How best to help the writers caught in the middle? Because Kerincsiz
and his colleagues have successfully labelled foreign trial observers
as spies and agitators, many in Turkey believe that non-Turkish human
rights groups should keep their mouths shut. But if the
ultra-nationalists are allowed to continue their campaign
unchallenged, they stand a very good chance of winning. And if they
do, the oldest stable secular state in the Muslim world will cease to
democratise, and a brave new literature will die.
– Maureen Freely is the author of five novels and the translator of
Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, Istanbul and The Black Book. She teaches creative
writing at the University of Warwick.
This article:
367812006
Last updated: 16-Sep-06 01:12 BST

Houston Chronicle, United States
Sept. 15, 2006, 1:45PM
Russia fears increase in ethnic violence
By STEVE GUTTERMAN Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
MOSCOW – Fighting involving ethnic Armenians and others in a Volga
River town left one person dead and at least three injured this week,
officials and news reports said Friday, fueling fears of a rise of
ethnic violence across Russia.
The violence came about a week after clashes and rioting targeting
Chechens in the northern town of Kondopoga left two people dead and
underlined the potentially explosive tension between ethnic Russians
and often darker-skinned people from the Caucasus and Central Asia, in
some cases migrants.
One ethnic Russian man was killed and three were injured in a brawl
with ethnic Armenians at a cafe in the town of Volsk early Sunday,
said Alexei Yegorov, police spokesman in the Saratov region, where the
town is located.
Yegorov said the fight was not motivated by ethnic bias, but Ekho
Moskvy radio reported that it was followed Monday by an attack on
ethnic Armenian students at a technical college in the town that left
one student with a knife wound.
Yegorov denied the attack took place and also denied what Ekho Moskvy
reported was further ethnic tension early Friday in the town some 700
kilometers (450 miles) southeast of Moscow. He said two ethnic
Armenians had fled the town following Sunday’s fight and were being
sought by police.
Ekho Moskvy said that in addition to the three Russians injured in the
cafe fight, one ethnic Armenian was also injured. It said the man who
was killed was a 25-year-old former paratrooper who had served in the
conflict in Chechnya.
While authorities sought to downplay the ethnic element in the
violence, it has raised fears that similar rampages could spread to
other Russian cities where increasingly aggressive nationalist groups
bristle at people from Russia’s Caucasus provinces and neighboring
ex-Soviet nations.
Russia has seen a marked rise in xenophobia and racist attacks in
recent years and rights groups say authorities do little or nothing to
combat xenophobia, often treating hate crimes as hooliganism.
Asked about the violence in Volsk, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander
Buksman said his office is gathering information about such incidents
around the country to try to determine whether there is a common
cause, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
Dozens of nationalists demonstrated Thursday in Moscow, demanding
tighter controls over migrants from the Caucasus living in university
dormitories and the cancellation of provisions encouraging students
from other ex-Soviet nations to study in Russia.
About 150 were detained and some were fined for minor infractions, the
Interfax news agency quoted Moscow police spokesman Yevgeny Gildyev as
saying, but several dozen were allowed to hold a rally _ a soft
approach by the Russian authorities who usually move quickly to
disperse unsanctioned demonstrations.
The pro-tolerance group SOVA said 11 young people were sentenced in
the western city of Belgorod this week to prison terms ranging from 1
1/2 to 5 years for attacking a Roma family with knives and metal rods,
seriously injuring two people.
SOVA said it was just the fourth time that a Russian court has ruled
that defendants organized and participated in an extremist
organization. Court officials in Belgorod could not immediately be
reached for comment.

noticias.info (press release), Spain
OSCE Office supports launch of Armenian Chamber of Advocates website

/noticias.info/ YEREVAN, 15 September 2006 – The official website of
the Armenian Chamber of Advocates was launched today with support from
the OSCE Office in Yerevan.
The website, , will ensure everyone who needs qualified
legal aid will be able to receive it. Information on the website will
be available in Armenian, English and Russian. It will feature legal
documents, membership opportunities, links to international and local
organizations, contact details of all registered advocates, as well
as, public defenders who can provide free legal aid.
“Raising public awareness of the activities of the Armenian Chamber of
Advocates will give citizens the opportunity to benefit from
professional legal assistance, in line with OSCE commitments and
European standards,” said Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin, Head of the
OSCE Office.
Ruben Sahakyan, Chairman of the Armenian Chamber of Advocates, added:
“The website will serve as a useful tool for informing the public
about our activities and enhancing our co-operation with other similar
organizations abroad.”
The Chamber was established in 2005, and is the only professional
legal association in Armenia, currently bringing together 476
advocates and 28 public defenders.

ArmeniaNow.com, Armenia
Peak Experience: Climber says `Masis’ at top of mountaineering achievements

By Gayane Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

Karo Hovasapyan has followed Noah. And when he reached the Biblical
hero’s landing site, the mountain climber fell to his knees.

The climber.

`When I reached the summit of Masis, I was dead on my feet so I fell
to my knees with tears of delight burning my eyes.’ says mountaineer
and polar explorer Karo Hovasapyan, who fulfilled his dearest dream by
hoisting the Armenian tricolor on the snow-white top of the Mount
Ararat, now the property of the Turks, but the spiritual peak of every
Armenian.
Climbing Ararat was not Hovasapyan greatest mountaineering
experience. He has reached the highest peaks of the six continents,
including Mount Everest and the North and South Poles.
Toping `Masis’ (as it is known by Armenians), however, was his
greatest joy.
`I have felt excitement and pride each time I climbed the mountains,
but standing on the top of the Mount Ararat symbolizes something very
special that I think every Armenian should feel,’ says the mountain
lover.
Hovasapyan and 10 others launched their Ararat expedition on September
3, and reached the peak 5,165 meters later, on September 6.
He says climbing Masis (the bigger Ararat) was not a complicated task
in terms of mountaineering. However it was difficult to get
permission.
A citizen of the US and Russia, Hovasapyan had been denied permission
to climb in Turkey, three times. His fourth application succeeded
because Hovasapyan had joined Russian mountaineer Shataev’s
expedition. Shataev has been making expeditions on Mount Ararat in
search of the Noah’s Ark for the last seven years.
Hovasapyan has been the only Armenian who has reach the North Pole and
the South Pole and will soon become one of only 11 alpinists who have
been able to conquer the highest points in seven parts of the world.
`I have only the Mount Winson peak in Antarctica to reach. I think I
will manage it this December,’ he says.
A carpenter by background, and a native of Tehran (then Russia, Canada
and, finally the USA), Hovasapyan, age 47, has been enchanted by
alpinism since childhood, when the heroes of the books about mountain
climbers became his everyday friends.
`I dreamt of passing the same route, of overcoming all those
difficulties. It seemed to be a challenge. You take the dare, you
overcome and ask nature to help you, to make you its part,’ says
Hovasapyan.
Hovasapyan got acquainted to the whims of nature in the Geghama
Mountains and on Mount Aragats (the highest peak in Armenia), which he
climbed six times.
But the idea of overcoming Everest would haunt him. `I had been
dreaming of reaching Everest for 23 years but I managed to do it only
last year.’
Hovasapyan reached the roof of the world at first attempt losing 14
kilograms of his weight in two months.
He reached the summit of Everest on May 30th 2005 at 6:15 a.m. seeing
the sunshine on the whole world’s panorama in front of him.
Hovasapyan’s two dreams of reaching the tops of Ararat and Everest
have coincided in time: he has reached both summits at 6:15 a.m. and
it has become a symbolic time for him.
`I am lucky. The weather on the summit was perfect that day and I
managed to stay there for 30 minutes and enjoy the wonderful view of
the dawn,’ the mountaineer says.
Staying on the top of Ararat for so long turned impossible because of
the strong wind, when the climber was forced to go down in ten
minutes.
Hovasapyan says the weather on Masis is difficult to forecast. It
changes quite frequently and unexpectedly.
And still, no weather has ever hindered Hovasapyan to climb the
mountain he wanted to and to hoist the flag of independent
Armenia. Until last Friday (September 8) Hovasapyan himself hadn’t
been in Armenia since 1988, when he came to be a rescue worker after
the Spitak earthquake.
He does not live in Armenia but its flag is with him even in the most
difficult moments.
`In the future I will give the flag that has overcome all the
difficulties with me as a gift to Armenia. That will be the first
flag that has been hoisted on the highest peaks of seven parts of the
world,’ says Hovasapyan.

Investor’s Business Daily
Modern Chattel
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 9/15/2006
Immigration: In its latest jab at America, the United Nations is
touting the supposed economic benefits of immigration. It needs to
start looking at why people are leaving their home countries in the
first place.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid some lip service to
the ill effects of immigration, but concluded “governments are now
beginning to see international migration through the prism of
opportunity, rather than fear,” Reuters said.
That’s just ducky. And in a way, Annan’s right. Some governments do
benefit from immigration. Just not the ones he thinks.
Some 200 million people, or 3% of the world population, have fled
their countries, sending $250 billion in remittances in 2005,
according to World Bank estimates.
That doesn’t particularly benefit the Western nations they live
in. But it’s a great deal for lousy Third World governments.
“Remittances are the largest source of external financing for
developing countries,” said Dilip Ratha, a World Bank official, as
quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle. “They tend to be more stable
than other types of external financing.”
In other words, emigration substitutes for economic opportunity, and
bad governments enjoy the incoming cash as a reward for irresponsible
governance. Remittances beef up their foreign reserves, giving the
effect of export and tourism earnings, or foreign investment. It also
lets them spend freely.
That’s why in places like Mexico remittances have reached record
highs, often exceeding foreign investment, and siphoned off the best
and brightest from their countries.
In both Mexico and the Philippines, governments hail overseas workers
as “heroes.”
Alone, Mexico is on course to take in $24 billion in remittances in
2006, a 20% increase from 2005, from about 5 million immigrants
sending cash back.
That’s great, as far as the Mexican government’s concerned. “We’re
going to live with these increases for the next few years because for
many Mexicans it’s very attractive to emigrate to the U.S.,” said
Foreign Minister Ernesto Derbez.
The Philippines is expected to take in almost $12 billion in
remittances from 8 million emigres, 11% higher than last
year. Congratulating itself, the central bank attributed the rise to
better-educated workers leaving the country and sending their earnings
back – something known as brain drain. A survey showed one in three
Filipinos want to emigrate, and 21% consider their government “totally
hopeless.”
The failures don’t stop there. Indeed, they’re found around the world.
In the Dominican Republic, the $2.4 billion in remittances it receives
are 50% larger than total exports, distorting the nation’s economy.
“This is so significant that many consider remittances as one of the
fundamental pillars of the Dominican economy,” gushed U.N. Development
Program resident representative Niky Fabiancic.
Meanwhile, Annan’s home of Ghana expects $8 billion in remittances
this year. The nation’s president cordially thanked Ghana’s overseas
workers for their largess.
Armenia also is seeing a big jump in cash from workers abroad this
year – so much that Armenia’s currency, the dram, has been driven up
in value, hurting Armenian exports.
“According to the central bank, the country has a trade deficit of $1
billion, but gets $1.3 billion in remittances,” said ex-Prime Minister
Hrant Bagration. The country fears that all that extra cash sloshing
around in its banking system could turn into inflation.
Zimbabwe has 80% unemployment, 1,200% inflation and as many as 90% of
its college graduates working abroad. Remittances are the only thing
keeping the odious Marxist regime of Robert Mugabe afloat. Half the
population depends on remittances, and Zimbabweans have told the local
press that without them, they would die.
As the report shows, the U.N. seems to think the West has a duty to
provide jobs for every citizen in a failing country that refuses to
develop itself in wealth-creating ways. This is essentially a wealth
transfer from the West that props up failing states with little regard
for economic development or human rights.
The only real beneficiaries of Annan’s endorsement of this new global
slave trade are the worst governments on earth.
Related Resources:
Continue your investing education at the IBD Learning Center.
For a wealth of detailed investment insights and successful investor
profiles, go to Investor Education.

ArmeniaNow.com, Armenia
Lessons in Change: `Exceptional’ school year starts with confusion for
parents of first graders

By Marianna Grigoryan
ArmeniaNow reporter

When the new school year started two weeks ago in
Armenia, the opening bell rung sour notes for some
parents confused by republic-wide changes in the
education structure.
Beginning this year, Armenia converts from a 10-year,
to a 12-year program (see
;AID=1577&lng=eng&IID=1087).
Unaware of the new reforms in education, disbelieving their children
are ready for school life, or taking into account the unhygienic
conditions in some schools, many parents have kept children at home
who should be enrolling for the first time.
As the situation became apparent, the Minister of Education and
Science, Yerevan Municipality officials and other representatives of
the education discuss to how they can overcome this `exceptional year’
and the difficulties and problems that the new educational system has
created.
(To accommodate the conversion, this year should see two kinds of
`first graders’ – junior and senior – 5.8-6.5 year olds, and 6.5-7
year olds.)
`We have schools this year that have no first grade pupils or have
just a few, which causes problems. This is unprecedented,’ says Narine
Hovhannisyan, the Head of the General Education Department at the
Ministry of Education and Science.
Since Soviet times and until this year, children began school at 7. A
World Bank credit program has provided for the systemic changes,
however the mental shift has not yet penetrated.
The 12-year education is a requirement for all the countries that have
joint the Bologna Treaty. Armenia has joined the Treaty in 2005. The
purpose of the Bologna process in Europe is to create a joint
educational system. Armenia is the last among the CIS countries to
join the 12-year education system.
`This is based on international experience,’ says Nurijan Manukyan,
head of the General Education Supervision Department at the RA
Ministry of Education and Science. `The 10-year education system is
still operative in the African and Asian countries. And we are
committed to striding evenly with the world, we are committed to
advancement and every failed year will keep Armenia back from world
developments.’
Many Armenian parents, however, have chosen to be out of stride,
believing that six year olds should be concerned with toys instead of
books.
According to the data of the Ministry of Education and Science, the
number of first graders this year should have grown from about 40,000
pupils registered last year to at least 52,000 as the schooling was to
include also children aged 5.8 and older.
However, unlike the estimations of the experts who supposed to have
nearly 15,000 children of 5.8 and older, the preliminary surveys have
shown the number of children under 6 going to school so far, at nearly
10 times less.
`Many parents believe if they don’t take their children to school this
year but take them the next year the children will learn 11 years
instead of the 12,’ says the education department’s Hovhannisyan.
`Besides, many parents who were aware of the changes took their
children to school earlier, which also caused problems.’
Narine Hovhannisyan says there have been schools even in the central
part of the capital that have had just one or two applications for
admission to the first grade.
In Yerevan and particularly in the Kentron community, 10 of the 36
schools did not have a single `junior’ first class pupil on September
1.
`The law provides opening first grade even if there is just one pupil
registered, but in practice it is more suitable to encourage parents
to take their children to other schools if there are only 2 or 3
applications,’ says Deputy Mayor of Yerevan Kamo Areyan.
School principals disagree. They believe having no first grade and
sending children to other schools discredits their schools.
The experts at the Ministry of Education assert they need to take
measures to overcome the situation, adding that they have anticipated
problems that must be worked out over the coming years.
`If the school lacks first grade this year, it will not have graduates
either. If it does not have applications next year, it will lead to
its self-liquidation,’ says Manukyan. `The principals and the teachers
should care for attracting pupils to their schools.’
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmeniaNow.com
Sport Roundup: Pyunik showing championship form
(again)

By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

Football
FC Pyunik (Yerevan) with 50 points remain a clear leader and top title
contender after round 19 of Armenia’s national football
championship. The defending champions are followed by the capital’s FC
Banants and Ashtarak’s FC Mika.
FC Ararat also has real chances to contest a medal this season. Under
the new coach Varuzhan Sukiasyan the Yerevan footballers have not lost
a single point yet.
Meanwhile, footballers playing in Armenia’s top league continue to
sign for foreign clubs. Artashes Baghdasaryan has left Yerevan’s FC
Kilikia to join Austrian Superfund, and Banants striker Vahe
Tadevosyan will play for Switzerland’s FC Arau.
FC Pyunik midfielder (and of the National and youth teams), Levon
Pachajian has been given on loan to Israel’s FC Hapoel (Petah Tikva)
until spring 2007.
(Source: based on Armenian Football Federation reports and information
from A1 Plus’ website)
Judo
At the European youth championships in the Estonian capital of
Tallinn, Armenia’s Anush Hakobyan (52 kg) won the silver
medal. Another Armenian athlete participating in the event Paylak
Vardazaryan became a bronze medalist.
(Source: Armenpress news agency)
Wrestling
Armenian wrestlers will take part in the Greco-Roman and freestyle
wrestling world championships due to be held in China from September
22 to October 1.
Armenia’s team of Greco-Roman wrestlers includes: Roman Amoyan (55
kg), Karen Mnatsakanyan (60 kg), Artak Harutyunyan (66 kg), Movses
Karapetyan (74 kg), Tigran Sahakyan (84 kg), and Yuri Patrikeev (120
kg).
The freestyle wrestling team includes eight wrestlers, including one
woman: Vahan Simonyan (55 kg), Armen Karapetyan (60 kg), Zhirair
Hovhannisyan (66 kg), Ruslan Kokaev (74 kg), Vadim Laliev (84 kg),
Shamil Gitiev (96 kg), Ruslan Basiev (120 kg), and Karine Shadoyan (63
kg).
(Source: Armenpress news agency)