NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT POWS EXCHANGED AT INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS MEDIATION
Author: R.Agayev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 31, 2006
The POWs of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are exchanged at the mediation
of the International Red Cross Committee, Trend Special Correspondent
in Moscow reports quoting Anastasiya Isyuk, PR manager with Moscow
Delegation of Red Cross Committee, answering the questions as to
the reason why the public were not aware of the capture nearly 5,000
Azerbaijanis in Armenia.
“Red Cross works with the Government in both the Countries, compiling
reports and discussing these issues. These discussions are confidential
and I am not able to comment on this figure, perhaps we have different
figures to use”, said Isyuk.
She also said the Committee does its best to remain unbiased and
independent. “Naturally, the fact that we can work in 185 countries
world-wide, even in hot spots and hold discussions with conflicting
parties, proves that we are impartial. We work based on these
principles as these are our fundamentals”, said Isyuk.

DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION
By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Daily News, CA
Aug. 31, 2006
Felicia Montgomery used to hate traffic. But gridlock now occupies a
special place in the heart of the 40-year-old personnel clerk. If not
for a chance encounter during a bumper-to-bumper trip home last year,
she would not have found the man of her dreams.
“Some people complain about road rage. Well, I fell in love on the
freeway,” said a giddy Montgomery, who met her fiance while stuck in
traffic on the San Bernardino Freeway.
For L.A. commuters, who spend more than 93 hours a year in
rush-hour traffic – more than those in any other city in the U.S. –
the precious moments sitting behind the wheel are often spent doing
things authorities say they shouldn’t.
And a new study finds they’ll be looking for even more diversions.
The Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation predicts that by 2030, driving
during rush hour will take twice as long as it would take during
off-peak hours. Already, average speeds can slow to 13 mph during
rush hour on the Ventura Freeway through the San Fernando Valley.
“L.A. has now set the mold that is being followed by Atlanta, Miami,
Dallas, (Washington) D.C. and Chicago,” said Robert Poole, director
of transportation studies for the Libertarian think tank.
“This (behavior) really frightens me. There are accidents because
of this. But it’s completely understandable. People are desperate to
figure out something to do.”
So Angelenos – who spend an average of 23.4 minutes commuting one
way to work – are going to continue coping with the traffic in their
own way.
Stella Chalian, 31, blushes as she talks about her grinding, two-hour,
round-trip commute on the 134 and 101 freeways.
“I do all the calling – the doctor, the credit card companies,”
Chalian said. “I write bills. Because it makes you feel good that
you are not so stupid being stuck in traffic for so long.”
And, of course, she does her makeup, sometimes in the rearview mirror
of her 2006 BMW 325.
“I wake up five minutes later because I can put makeup on in my car,”
she said. “I am just sitting there idle. I would go crazy if I didn’t
do something. It saves me from insanity.”
Between the 134, 101 and 405 freeways, Officer Leland Tang, a spokesman
for the California Highway Patrol, has seen it all – couples kissing
while driving, men shaving and women flat-ironing their hair.
“The whole multitasking while driving is a recipe for disaster,”
Tang said.
“Rear-end collisions are the No. 1 type of collision encountered in
the Valley. A high number of them are from speeding and most of them
may have an element of distraction, but (drivers) are not going to
admit it at the time.”
But for all the finger-wagging at commuters, even Tang was impressed
by Montgomery’s commuter love connection.
With no air conditioning and the radio on the fritz, the personnel
clerk was just beginning to settle in to her daily, 45-minute commute
from downtown to the San Gabriel Valley. Then, her soon-to-be-fianc
called out, “Hey, pretty lady! Hey, pretty lady!”
“I just kept saying to myself, `Don’t turn around, don’t look. You
know how people get shot on the freeway.”‘
But after eight calls, she did. She gave Edward Bielucke her cell-phone
number, and three dates later, she started to fall in love.
Montgomery, a widow, said her deceased husband is the angel that must
have sent Bielucke.
Most Angelenos aren’t that blessed. Though Poole points out that
even dating patterns are determined by the couple’s proximity to one
another, most use the time for more mundane activities, like singing
or learning a language on tape.
But for some, the car doubles as a boardroom or a rolling office.
Garen Vartanyan, a 47-year-old gas station owner and Glendale real
estate broker, stores his files in his trunk, where he can always
grab them before the next meeting.
“My car is a second office. I have everything I need here. I have my
files, my suit, my appointment book,” he said, pointing to the trunk
of his 2002 BMW X-5.
There are also routines developed around time in the car – from
choosing the right traffic report to buying a single cup of coffee
before kicking off the Prada stilettos to ensure they aren’t scratched
by the gas pedal.
Identities form or are reflected by one’s vehicle. Vartanyan, who can
sometimes spend up to four hours a day in his car, wears his identity
on his license plate – HIBROKR. “Hi” means “Armenian” in Armenian.
Radio is formatted for car listeners, and doctors even have special
names for a condition caused by anger behind the wheel – road rage.
Traffic patterns and shortcuts become the topic of water-cooler
conversations and cocktail party chats.
But Poole said if Angelenos are going to live their lives outside
their SUVs, convertibles and clunkers, transportation officials need to
dedicate more money to freeway infrastructure – double-decker freeways
and toll roads that would allow motorists to travel farther faster,
rather than investing in short-range public transit.
Local and state officials say developing a balanced approach –
making highway and public-transit improvements as well as building
transit-friendly development – is the best way to reduce congestion.
For now, many of the freeways remain a parking lot.
The latest figures show that during the most congested time during
the evening rush hour, the 405 near the 101 interchange slows to
an average 16.7 mph. The 101 near the 405 interchange grinds to an
average 13.2 mph.
By 2030, with no infrastructure changes, the Southern California
Association of Governments predicts that average rush-hour speeds
along the same stretch of the 405 will slow to 4.1 mph and the 101
to 6.2 mph.
Steve Ries says he’s already become accustomed to the idling. He
commutes for more than two hours round-trip – sometimes three –
from his home in Valencia to his job as an elevator serviceman in
Warner Center.
To pass the time and distract him from the stresses of traffic,
he catches up with his colleague via phone.
“He’s my driving buddy. We talk on the walkie-talkie while sitting.
We talk about family, complain about work, a little bit about
everything,” he said. “So I don’t get overly stressed.”
Ries, who can wind up driving for four or five hours in a day, said
it keeps his temper cool and him from becoming too focused on the road.
“Everyone is in a hurry,” he said. “People are constantly cutting
each other off. They don’t use turn signals. Then you will see the
person that gets cut off cut somebody else off to get to the car
that cut them off. Then you see arms flailing and you think they are
cursing. It’s just terrible.”
Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of Southern
California, said to de-stress, people should allow enough time to
get to their destination.
“Listen to your favorite music,” he said. “It sounds simplistic,
but those are key things.”
Caroline Miceli, a college fundraising specialist for Scripps College,
has her own solution – books on tape.
“I am going through a self-help topic right now. It’s amazing how
many books I have gone through,” said the 27-year-old, who commutes
for about an hour and 15 minutes from Hermosa Beach to Claremont in
her Toyota Prius. “I only wish I could exercise in my car.”
[email protected]

4,000 MISSING AFTER KARABAKH WAR
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Aug. 31, 2006
According to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), 4,132
people are included on the list of missing people from the Karabakh
conflict and events after the ceasefire.
According to ICRC, 3,286 Azerbaijanis, 834 Armenians and 12 foreign
soldiers and civilians are considered missing. Since the beginning
of conflict, through ICRC’s mediation, 659 military servants and
civilians have been liberated.
In 2005 ICRC passed to authorities of the conflict’s sides a Memorandum
on people lost in military actions. The adoption of this document
will improve the effectiveness of measures to locate missing people.
ICRC plans to expand, jointly with the Azerbaijani Red Crescent
Society, activities to gather information about missing people. ICRC
started talks to locate the remains of missing people.

JOINT STATEMENT CONNECTED WITH OFFICIAL VISIT OF ALIYEV TO THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA, AUGUST 28-29, 2006
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Aug. 31, 2006
Official visit of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic to the
Republic of Slovenia pursued the purpose of development of relations
between two states in political, economic, cultural and humanitarian
spheres.
Both sides have noted importance of development of political dialogue
at the highest level and necessity of strengthening of cooperation
between legislative and executive authorities of the countries,
expansion of legal base for achievement of higher level of present
contacts between the states, and have once again emphasized intention
of all-around development of mutual relations in all fields.
The sides came to the arrangement on strengthening of the relations
all areas of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Slovenia. The
special attention will be given in this connection to development of
cooperation in questions of economy, trade, tourism, communications,
public health services, science, education, culture, environment
and humanitarian questions. Azerbaijan and Slovenia will continue
development of conditions for business cooperation.
The sides agreed on realization of wider cooperation at practical
level and have expressed adherence to the idea of setting up of the
Azerbaijani-Slovenian Economic Commission. The Slovenian side has
especially emphasized importance of economic reforms in the Azerbaijan
Republic and welcomed the progress reached by Azerbaijan in realization
of mentioned reforms.
Both sides have emphasized support of the admission of Azerbaijan by
Slovenia to the European Neighborhood Policy and have noted positive
influence of the given policy on process of the further rapprochement
of Azerbaijan with the European structures. They also have expressed
support for quick correlation of all three states of Southern Caucasus
to the European Neighborhood Policy. The European Neighborhood Policy
defines the global purposes, based on common values as sovereignty,
territorial integrity and inviolability of the borders of each state
recognized at the international level. It also includes norms and
principles of the international and European law, mutual obligations
of the European Union, the states-participants and Azerbaijan on
such principles, as support of effective realization of political,
economic and institutional reforms.
Azerbaijan and Slovenia will continue strengthening the relations
directed on creation of good opportunities for more detailed
consultations to expand contacts with the European Union and NATO. In
this connection, Azerbaijan welcomed the initiative of Slovenia to
give recommendations based on own experience, as a member of the
European Union and NATO, and process of integration into the European
and Euro-Atlantic structures.
Taking into account the intention to carry out fruitful cooperation
between the states during presidency of Slovenia in the European
Union in 2008, as it was during its presidency in OSCE in 2005,
the sides have emphasized that would attach special significance to
mutual cooperation and joint activity with a view of maintenance of
international peace and stability in regional, European and global
level.
Referring to long efforts in the frame of OSCE in the cause of peace
settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh conflict,
including activity of the Minsk Group, the parties have once again
declared importance of acceptance of more substantial and drastic
measures in this area.
The parties have noted growing value of energy safety of the Europe and
have expressed support to development of projects of diversification
of lines of power supply leading to Europe and transportation of
energy carriers to connect the Caspian basin resources with the power
network of the Europe. Both sides have noted value of opening and
operation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and importance
of realization of the projects of Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas main and
Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway.
The parties agreed on importance of dialogue between religions and
have stated the positions in connection with development of contacts
and mutual understanding between Christian, Islamic and other cultures
and civilizations with the purpose of creation of necessary conditions
to establish in harmonious form peace, freedom, the rights and justice.

OSCE OFFICE IN YEREVAN VISITS PENAL COLONY FOR WOMEN AND JUVENILES
Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE)

Aug. 31, 2006
YEREVAN, 30 August 2006 – OSCE Office representatives and board members
of the Public Monitoring Group for Penitentiary Institutions today
visited the Abovian Women and Juvenile Colony to present school-related
items for the new academic year to children in detention, as well as
provide OSCE publications to the library.
The visitors met with prison administration, detainees and the only
child born in prison, who will go to a regular school for the first
time this year. Board members also observed physical conditions and
the overall protection of detainees’ rights.
“This is my fifth visit to this criminal executive institution, and
I can see some progress in the area of arranging visit s and cell
space allocation,” said Michael Baghdasaryan, Chairman of the Board.
“However, there is still obviously room for improvement in the sanitary
and hygiene conditions of the institution.”
The OSCE has been supporting criminal justice reform in Armenia
since 2001, among other ways through helping to establish the Public
Monitoring Group, which began operating in 2004. The Group monitors
the rights of detainees in criminal executive institutions and provides
recommendations to the Justice Ministry to improve the situation.
Besides day-to-day support provided to the group, the OSCE Yerevan
Office provides regular training for the members of the Group,
jointly with OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights,
and invites experts in the field from other participating States to
exchange experiences with their Armenian colleagues.

WAR IMPOSED BY AZERBAIJAN CAUSES HUGE DAMAGE TO NKR’S ECONOMY: GHUKASYAN
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Aug. 31, 2006
STEPANAKERT, August 31. /ARKA/. The war imposed by Azerbaijan caused
huge damage to the NKR’s economy by destroying its almost entire
infrastructure, NKR President Arkady Ghukasyan reported Thurdsday,
answering the questions of readers of Azat Artsakh republic electronic
newspaper in connection with the 15th anniversary of the NKR’s
independence.
He said that the national economy of Karabakh in the soviet period,
which is frequently referred to while comparing with the current
situation, had a totally different direction; it was a planned economy
and was fully dependent on the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic.
That is why, after the war the NKR should have developed its economy
in a totally different direction, starting from the very beginning.
Ghukasyan pointed out that starting from 1995, the annual growth of the
GDP remains at the stable level of 10%. Over this time, cash income
of the population increased no less than eight times. In general,
in the post-war years, 50 new schools have been built due to all
the funding sources, and 64 schools have been repaired, more seven
schools are still under construction.
Over 170 km of gas pipelines of high pressure and 250 km of medium
pressure, and also about 380 km of low pressure were launched; as a
result, gas supply in Stepanakert, Askeran, Martuni, Shushi and 43
villages has been completed. The full gas supply in the NKR is to be
completed in a few years to come.
“Over the period mentioned above, the overall length of the built
highways has exceeded 250 km. Construction works for improvement of
central streets 120 km long have been completed in the capital and
regional centers of the country. The water supply infrastructure has
been restored in more than 80 settlements,” the NKR president reported.
The president said that thanks to the establishment of an attractive
investment climate, over the last seven years alone, the amount of
foreign investments to the NKR exceeded $80 mln.
“This is considerable money. However, it is not enough for a complete
development of Karabakh economy and solution to the entire complex
of existing social problems,” the president reported.
“Unfortunately, due to its unrecognized status, the NKR is still
deprived of a possibility to receive investments from international
financial structures, and that is why, we should further develop the
private sector of economy that will allow new working places to be
created, sustains small and medium business. The NKR top authorities
does and do everything possible to facilitate the difficulties of
the socioeconomic transformation that the citizens encounter at the
current transition period,” NKR president said.

AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN FMS MAY MEET IN SEPTEMBER IN PARIS OR LONDON – AZERI FM
Author: A.Ismaylova
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug. 31, 2006
The information about the meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign
ministers in Slovenia doesn’t correspond to reality, Azerbaijani
foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov told ion August 31, Trend reports.
It was a meeting related to the program “European good neighbourliness
policy” and the meeting was attended noy only by the foreign minister
of the two countries, Mammadyarov underlined.
Speaking about the upcoming meeting with Armenian foreign minister
Vardan Oskanyan, Mammadyarov stressed that today he held a relevant
telephone conversation with the French co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group
Bernar Fase. “He offered to hold the meeting on September 12-13 in
Paris or September 14-15 in London. I expressed my consent to this
meeting. At the moment, their format is being discussed. Ant several
days later, we will contact them and specify the date and place of
the meeting,” Mammadyarov underlined.
Speaking about the reports of the personal representative of OSCE
chairman Andzey Kasprzyk on the fires in Azerbaijan’s occupied
territories, the minister stressed that this document once again
confirms that the fact of fires exit and the separatists cannot afford
to extinguish them.
“OSCE offers that the international organizations are engaged in
extinguishing the fires. It doesn’t satisfy us. I wrote letters to
then international organizations and offered to make joint efforts
to prevent them and rehabilitate the land,” the minister emphasized.
The arrival of the international experts in the territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh is being discussed in level of co-chairs and chairman
of OSCE and UNO.
“These fires are very big damage and we are ready to co-operate with
Armenian sides to prevent them,” Mammadyarov stressed.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THEY IN BAKU CALL “A CANARD” THE REPORT OF ARMENIAN SPECIAL SERVICES THAT THEY HAVE CAUGHT AN AZERI SPY
Regnum, Russia
Aug. 31, 2006
“The reports of the press center of the National Security Service
of Armenia is one more canard and is due to the starting electoral
campaign in that country,” the head of the Center for Public Relations
of the National Security Ministry of Azerbaijan Arif Babayev says in
an talk with a REGNUM correspondent.
To remind, on September 5 the court of the first instance of Gegarkunik
region of Armenia will start the trial of Rustem Valiakhmetov, who
is facing the charge of espionage. They in the press center of the
National Security Service of Armenia have told REGNUM that Valiakhmetov
was arrested on December 28, 2005.
“He is an agent of the Service for Special Missions of Azerbaijan and
was sent to Armenia for spying. He is facing the charge of espionage
under Article 302 of the Criminal Code of Armenia,” reports the
press center.
Meanwhile, Babayev says that neither the National Security Ministry
nor any other ministry of Azerbaijan has “Service for Special
Missions.” Babayev says that he hears the name of Rustem Valiakhmetov
for the first time.

WAR EXHIBIT FURTHER STRAINS GERMAN-POLISH RELATIONS
By Mark Landler
The New York Times
August 31, 2006 Thursday
Late Edition – Final
To say there is baggage in the German-Polish relationship does not
begin to account for the scars left by the war, bloodshed, persecution
and humiliation of the last century — a stream of abuse that Germans
acknowledge has flowed mainly from west to east. So it is perhaps no
surprise that a new exhibit here, devoted to the suffering of more
than 12 million Germans expelled from Poland and other countries
at the end of World War II, has touched a raw nerve with Poles,
straining a relationship that had already fallen into disrepair.
“Nothing good will come out of it for Poland, Germany or Europe,” said
the Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who marked the exhibit’s
opening this month by visiting the site of a Nazi concentration camp
in Poland.
True, he said, ethnic Germans who were driven from their homes in
Eastern Europe endured great hardship. But it is important to remember
“who was the perpetrator and who was the victim,” he added.
Such talk has been common during this summer of suspicion. From a
dispute last month over a satirical article in a German newspaper about
Mr. Kaczynski and his twin brother, Lech, who is Poland’s president,
to a spat last week over German naval maneuvers that encroached on
Polish waters, Poland and Germany cannot seem to avoid antagonizing
each other.
“Ordinary Poles feel more resentful and suspicious toward Germany,”
Marek Ostrowski, an editor at the weekly magazine Polityka, said.
“The Polish government has put this issue high in people’s minds.”
German officials say they have tried to take the high road, but
privately they express deep frustration with Warsaw, which they
contend is exploiting anti-German sentiment to fuel a new wave of
Polish nationalism.
While there are a few genuine conflicts between these neighbors —
Poland was outraged by Germany’s deal with Russia to build a gas
pipeline under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland — the friction
between Berlin and Warsaw is mostly about how to treat their painful
shared past.
In Germany, many people defend the exhibit as part of an overdue
effort to honor the wartime suffering of their grandparents. In Poland,
however, some see a shift in the German national conscience, away from
an acceptance of unqualified culpability for the evils of that time.
The privately financed exhibit, called “Forced Paths,” does not seem
intended as a provocation. Its organizers say it is designed to offer
an overview of the phenomenon of expulsion in 20th-century Europe.
In addition to focusing on dispossessed Germans, it documents the
plight of Poles and Jews deported by the Nazis, Armenians slaughtered
by Ottoman Turks, Greeks and Turks displaced by the conflict in Cyprus,
and Muslims and Croats persecuted by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Critics in Poland contend that this equal-opportunity approach suggests
a moral equivalence between the methodical persecution undertaken by
the Nazis and the woes of Germans in a war they started.
In such a toxic atmosphere, what could have been a civilized debate has
degenerated into a tiff. The mayor of Warsaw, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz,
a former prime minister, canceled an unrelated visit to Berlin,
saying his presence would have been misconstrued and exploited.
Polish institutions that lent artifacts to the exhibit demanded them
back, under pressure from their government. The most prominent is a
bell recovered from the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German liner
that sank in the Baltic Sea in January 1945 after being torpedoed by
a Soviet submarine.
At least 9,000 people, most of them German refugees, were killed
in what ranks as the deadliest maritime disaster in history. Gunter
Grass, the Nobel laureate, memorialized the tragedy in his 2003 novel
“Crabwalk.” The bell, which has not been returned, had sat in a Polish
seafood restaurant until it was lent to the exhibit.
A Warsaw museum asked for and obtained the return of a book taken
from a Polish family by a German soldier, and an identification card
issued to a child by the Polish authorities.
“It frightens me that in a modern European Union country, independent
cultural institutions can be intimidated in this way by their
government,” Wilfried Rogasch, the curator of the exhibit, said.
Mr. Rogasch and his colleagues said that after some initial resistance,
they had received good cooperation from Polish institutions while
they were researching the exhibit. They said they took suggestions
from the Poles on how to bolster the Polish section of the exhibit.
“We’ve reached out to Poland with both hands,” said Erika Steinbach,
the leader of the Federation of Expellees, a group that lobbies for
Germans forced out of Eastern European territories and that sponsored
the exhibit. “That’s why I don’t understand the Polish reaction.”
The involvement of Ms. Steinbach, however, is a major part of the
problem. Her ultimate goal is to establish a permanent research
center in Berlin devoted to victims of expulsion. Many Poles fiercely
oppose the idea because they fear it would further muddy the issue
of responsibility.
The German government has said it is open to Ms. Steinbach’s
proposal. She has a seat in Parliament and belongs to Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Mrs. Merkel has brushed aside
Polish criticism of the exhibit, saying, “Germany is aware of its
historical responsibility.”
Domestic politics play at least as big a role in Poland’s sulfurous
reaction. The Kaczynski brothers, analysts say, are exploiting
antipathy toward Germany to shore up their still shaky government.
When the German paper Die Tageszeitung published a column lampooning
the twins as “young Polish potatoes,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski demanded
that Berlin crack down on it. Lech Kaczynski then skipped a summit
meeting with Mrs. Merkel and the president of France, Jacques Chirac.
With local elections this fall, “it will be relatively easy for them to
play this anti-German card,” Mr. Ostrowski, the editor from Polityka,
said. “They will say they were not personally offended, but that the
Polish people were offended.”
Amid the chill, there were a few signs of a thaw. Poland sent the
speaker of its Parliament to meet his German counterpart this week.
Polish leaders also resisted a tempting target: the recent disclosure
by Mr. Grass that as a young man he had joined the military branch
of the SS.
“They have been silent about this,” said Adam Krzeminski, a columnist
for Polityka. “That already means something.”

VTB ARMENIA CO-OWNER MAY SELL STAKE TO VNESHTORGBANK
SKRIN Market & Corporate News
August 31, 2006 Thursday 11:50 AM GMT
Armenian entrepreneur Mikhail Bagdasarov is planning to sell his 30%
stake of VTB ARMENIA (former ARMSBERBANK), the Banki.Ru information
portal reported. Bagdasarov is currently negotiating the sale
with VNESHTORBANK (VTB), which owns 70% of the bank and holds the
priority right to buy the shares. In addition, talks are under way
with other potential investors. Earlier in March 2004, VTB bought 70%
of ARMSBERBANK shares. VTB ARMENIA equity capital stood at $18 mln at
the end of 1H2006. Bagdasarov owns the ARMAVIA air company in Armenia,
the MICA CEMENT plant and the MICA LTD oil trader.