ARMENIAN-AZERI TALKS AGAIN INCONCLUSIVE
By Harry Tamrazian in Prague
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 24 2006
The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Paris
Tuesday for talks that again produced no breakthrough but kept
open the possibility of a crucial Armenian-Azerbaijani summit on
Nagorno-Karabakh before the end of this year.
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said he and his Azerbaijani opposite
number Elmar Mammadyarov discussed “new ideas” on how to break
the current deadlock in the peace process that were suggested by
international mediators during their previous talks held in Moscow
on October 6. He told RFE/RL that they agreed to hold yet another
meeting three weeks later.
Oskanian said he and Mammadyarov presented their governments’
responses to the unspecified ideas put forward by the American,
French and Russian co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. “I can’t say
that there is full congruence in positions,” he said. “There are
differences. But there are also possibilities to bring our positions
closer. So we need to continue to work on it.”
“That’s why we agreed to hold another round of talks, most probably
in Brussels around November 13, so that we continue our discussions
to narrow down the differences,” continued Oskanian. “If that
materializes, it will make possible a meeting between our presidents
during this year. There is also a possibility that the co-chairs may
come to the region in preparation for the presidents’ meeting.”
Mammadyarov and other Azerbaijani officials did not immediately
comment on the Paris talks that began in the presence of French
Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.
According to Oskanian, the talks continue to center on the basic
principles of a Karabakh settlement that were discussed by Presidents
Ilham Aliev and Robert Kocharian during their two face-to-face meetings
this year and were disclosed by the mediators afterwards.
They call for the conflict’s gradual resolution that would culminate
in a referendum on Karabakh’s status.
Oskanian said the mediators’ “new ideas” are aimed at bridging Baku’s
and Yerevan’s differences on some key elements of the proposed peace
deal. He did not give details, saying only that he visited Stepanakert
following the Moscow talks to discuss the issue with Karabakh’s ethnic
Armenian leadership. “In Karabakh, we managed to formulate a common
position on those new ideas,” he said.
Karabakh officials have repeatedly expressed serious misgivings about
the proposed peace formula, unlike official Yerevan which seems to
find it largely acceptable.

WATCHDOG FINDS LACK OF PRESS FREEDOM IN ARMENIA
By Heghine Buniatian in Prague
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 24 2006
Armenia continues to rank below most other countries of the world in
terms of the protection of press freedom, a Western media watchdog
group said on Tuesday, citing continuing attacks on local journalists
and widespread “self-censorship.”
The annual Worldwide Index of Press Freedom released by the Paris-based
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rates 168 nations on indicators such
as censorship, intimidation and violence against journalists. Armenia
shares a lowly 101st place in the rankings with the southern African
state of Malawi, up from 100th rank it occupied last year.
The RSF director for Europe and the former Soviet Union, Elsa Vidal,
downplayed the slight change, saying that it does not indicate an
improvement of press freedom. She argued that the country has lost
12 places in the RSF rankings in the past three years.
Speaking to RFE/RL, Vidal said that Armenian journalists working for
private media continue to routinely exercise “self-censorship” and
that government censorship of state-owned broadcasters remains the
norm. She also cited fresh instances of violence and intimidation
of Armenian journalists reported during the period covered by the
latest RSF survey. “Two journalists have been threatened, and five
others attacked since September 2005,” she said.
The most recent of those attacks occurred less than two months ago
when unknown men ambushed and beat up Hovannes Galajian, editor of
the opposition newspaper “Iravunk.” It was strongly condemned by
leading Armenian media associations and human rights campaigners.
Armen Harutiunian, the state human rights ombudsman, warned last month
that violence against local reporters seems to becoming “systematic”
and poses a serious threat to freedom of expression. The New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists added its voice to those concerns,
saying that the Armenian authorities “do little to apprehend and
prosecute the perpetrators.”
Another New York-based group, Freedom House, branded the Armenian media
“not free” for a fourth consecutive year in its annual survey of press
freedom around the world that was released recently. The Freedom House
ratings of Armenia have markedly worsened since the April 2002 closure
of the country’s sole television station not loyal to the government.

BY JOINING EU, TURKEY LOSES CONTROL OVER ITS BORDERS – FRANCE’S AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA
Regnum, Russia
Oct 24 2006
“I have no right to comment on a draft legislation adopted by the
French parliament lower house,” Ambassador of France to Armenia Henri
Cuny told journalists about the legislation criminalizing public
denial of Genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
According to the Ambassador, Armenian society has in general highly
appraised adoption of the legislation that is regarded as a step that
makes Armenia “feel not so lonely.” At the same time, he says, many
argue that the future of the country depends on improving relations
with Turkey, which could be achieved by way of dialog rather than by
direct conflict.
Henri Cuny said when meeting with students that once Turkey joins
the EU, the issue of its borders will be decided not by itself but
by the central EU headquarters in Brussels. “This is the order. And
entering the EU suggests open borders.” The question is, when this
is to happen, says Cuny.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PAMUK’S BATTLES
Partha Chatterjee
Frontline, India
Oct 24 2006
Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a master
at mixing known genres and styles.
ORHAN PAMUK’s winning the Nobel Prize this year for literature will
neither enhance nor diminish his reputation. The sales of his novels
shall increase a bit in his native Turkey and, of course, in the
occidental world where his works are well known.
His eight novels, the most famous amongst them, My Name is Red, The
Black Book, The New Life, The White Castle and Istanbul are available
in English translation and reveal palpably his evolution as a writer.
He is, to be sure, a product of the modern and not unsurprisingly,
postmodern world. That he is Turkish is no surprise.
Turkey has been a bone of contention between Europe and Asia in
the last 100 years or more. While being Islamic it has drawn freely
from Europe and adapted this knowledge to suit its requirement both
political and social. It has struggled heroically with the clergy
and the military after the Second World War for nearly 40 years and
it has always had a rich cultural life.
Pamuk the writer is the outcome of this domestic tussle for power
between religion and naked military force both of which have tried,
for entirely tenuous reasons, to chain the cultural worker. Among
the prime victims were poet Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) and film-maker
and actor Yilmaz Gunney (1934-1983). Of them later. Pamuk, at 54,
finds himself hugely popular amongst the Turkish literati despite his
critical opinion of the governments’ handling of the Kurdish problem
and the massacres that took place to rout out the separatist movements
of the ethnic minority groups. Moreover, his refusal to forget the
killings of tens of thousands of Armenians in 1912 at the hands of
the Turks, while not exactly endearing him to the establishment, has
not affected his popularity even with the conservatives, who admire
his books but not his opinions.
Official Turkey while struggling with an increasingly raucous clergy
is also keen to project itself as a tourist paradise. The mullahs
there are by far more liberal than their counterparts in Iran or
worse still, Saudi Arabia, although they cannot take criticism from
Pamuk who they regard as a man with radical views.
His projection of the self in an individual has created problems for
the conservatives, who despite a fair exposure to European ideas
of liberalism, seem to believe that salvation lies in service to
the community, albeit without a critical understanding of what it
entails. Pamuk’s understanding of his world and the role of the
individual in it is poetic.
“In one of Uncle Rifki’s stories for children, there is an intrepid
hero, who, like myself, takes to the disconsolate streets of his
own childhood in search of the land of gold, harkening to the call
of obscure venues, the clamour of far away countries; and the roaring
sound in trees that remained invisible. Wearing on my back the overcoat
my dead father who retired from the state railroads left me, I walked
into the heart of darkness” (The New Life)
In this one virtuoso passage where time and space overlap effortlessly
linking past and present traditions of storytelling, Pamuk makes clear
his aesthetic, and dare one say, political predilections. There are
echoes in this paragraph of Joseph Conrad, strangely enough, William
Saroyan, an American-Armenian raconteur, and that treasure trove of
stories, A Thousand and One Nights.
Mixing genres and styles
He is a master at mixing known genres and styles. He arrives almost
by accident at illuminating moments. Dr. Fine, the half mythical half
real figure speaks of himself, a certain type of Turkish male and,
inadvertently of shifting values within a seemingly static cultural
tradition.
“Others observe nature, Dr. Fine said, “only to see their own
limitations, their own inadequacies, their own fears. Then, fearful of
their own frailties, they ascribe their fear to nature’s boundlessness,
its grandness. As for me, I observe in nature a powerful statement
which speaks to me, reminding me of my own will power that I must
sustain; I see there a rich manuscript which I read resolutely,
mercilessly, fearlessly.”
Dr. Fine goes on in the same vein, “… when history gets rewritten,
this great power moves as pitilessly and decisively as the great
man who has been mobilised. Then fate is also set mercilessly into
motion. On that great day, no quarter shall be given to public
opinion, to newspapers, or to current ideas, none to petty morality
and insignificant consumer products like their bottled gas and Lux
soap, their Coca Cola and Marlboros with which the West has duped
our pitiful compatriots.”
Literary journey
Pamuk’s deft, sly putdown comes immediately when Dr. Fine calls
himself a genius. Every megalomaniac in history has felt the same.
His literary journey has also been facilitated by the relative
political freedom that Turkey has had to offer. There is room now
for an individual and his dilemmas.
Not very long ago before Pamuk began writing Nazim Hikmet,
a considerable people’s poet, dismissed as a pamphleteer by his
adversaries in the Army and the government – the former ran the latter
– spent 13 years in prison intermittently for criticising the decadent
Turkish way of life and its politics.
In this age of globalisation poets such as Hikmet are easily, unjustly
forgotten. Then there is the famous case of Ilmaz Gunney, senior by
many years to Pamuk, a popular actor-turned political activist who
opposed the junta at every step and found himself in prison ever so
frequently. That he became a director of rare sensitivity and made
films like Herd and Yol amongst others from prison through his faithful
assistants outside, most gifted among them Sheriff Goren, is a feat
unparalleled in cinema. Gunney died of cancer in exile in France.
Pamuk was lucky to come at a time when Turkey was changing for the
better and was thus spared the psychological, and sometimes physical
battering that Hikmet and Gunney had been subjected to in their times.
Post-modern credentials
In The New Life the following passage signals Pamuk’s post-modern
credentials. Here he teeters between Khalil Gibran and Eric Segal.
“Love is submitting. Love is the cause of love. Love is
understanding. Love is a kind of music. Love and the gentle heart
are identical. Love is the poetry of sorrow. Love is the tender soul
looking into the mirror. Love is evanescent… Love is a process of
crystallisation. Love is giving. Love is sharing a stick of gum.”
Gibran, no matter what the lost-it-all Western existentialists say,
was a genuine lyric poet more in tune with the yearnings of the
human heart than most and Segal, despite being the king of schmaltz,
to use an American Jewish colloquialism for high sentimentality,
may possibly have had something to say about human relations.
Pamuk’s sly wit comes into play here. Ingredients: glucose, sugar,
vegetable oil, butter, milk, and vanilla.
New Life Caramels are a product of Angel Candy and Chewing Gum, Inc.
18 Bloomingdale St. Eskisehir.
It is a pleasure to see him put down the American fetish of providing
the consumer with accurate information on the product sold without
necessarily saying anything as in this case, truthful about its
“health giving qualities”.
If The New Life is a metaphysical thriller about the art of living,
then My Name is Red is at least to this writer an artist’s testament
of faith and has a poignance akin to Umberto Eco’s Name Of the Rose,
which also has the quest for knowledge as its theme despite being a
whodunit in a medieval setting.
Pamuk extends the art of the daasthan, storytelling, by attributing
to the narrator certain transformative qualities that impinge upon
the consciousness of the reader. “I appeared in Ghazni when Book of
Kings poet Firdusi completed the final line of a quatrain with the
most intricate of rhymes besting the court poets of Shah Mahmud,
who ridiculed him as being nothing but a peasant… I became the
blood that spewed forth when he cut the notorious ogre in half with
his wondrous sword; and I was in the folds of the quilt upon which
he made furious love with the beautiful daughter of the king who
received him as a guest.”
His vision of a socially conscious writer comes to the fore while
relating to the present by quoting from the past. This quote from
My Name is Red for example does duty both to illustrate the conflict
between the artist and the patron and the citizen and the state.
“Why did Shah Tahmasp send this terrifying needle with the book he
presented to Sultan Selim? Was it because this Shah who as a child
was a student of Bihzad’s and a patron of artists in his youth, had
changed in his old age, distancing poets and artists from his inner
circle and giving himself over entirely to faith and worship? Was this
the reason he was willing to relinquish this exquisite book, which
the greatest masters had laboured over for 10 years? Had he sent this
needle so all would know that the great artist was blinded of his own
volition or, as was rumoured for a time, to make the statement that
whosoever beheld the pages of this book even once would no longer
wish to see anything else in the world?”
Ibne Sena, said to be the father of medicine, a doctor, philosopher,
was reviled during his lifetime for his ideas. It took several
centuries before Ibne Rashd came along to vindicate him. Today both
are forgotten by the West or at best regarded as oriental curiosities
despite having contributed in no small way towards the evolution
of medicine.
But Orhan Pamuk has made a place for himself as a writer in a world
where both information and knowledge are much more easy to access
and preserve.
Photo: A RIGHT-WING protester holds a poster outside the French
Consulate in Istanbul on October 14. The poster, which reads, “Nobel
for the person who says there was genocide, prison for the person
who says no genocide”, protests against a Bill approved by the French
Lower House of Parliament and criticises Pamuk, who was tried at home
in January for commenting on the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
061103002209800.htm

INTERNATIONAL TRADE BANK ARMENIA TO ENTER MORTGAGE CREDITING MARKET SOON
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Oct 24 2006
YEREVAN, October 24. /ARKA/. ITB – International Trade Bank (Armenia)
will enter the mortgage crediting market soon. The ITB press service
reported that the bank has already become one of the participants of
the KfW credit program “Development of Stable Market of Housing Loan”.
Executive Director of the ITB Ara Kitabalyan reported that the KfW
program will become an important incentive for new qualitative
rise of this segment of the financial market in the country,
and encourage local banks to the next improvement of the terms on
crediting for clients, reduction of interest rates and extension of
payment deadlines.
“Implementation of this program will raise the quality level and
culture of the very process of provision of crediting. The technology
of crediting provision will be considerably improved that is very
important for further development of this segment of the market,”
Kitabalyan said.
Under this program, the bank will give opportunity to the middle
class of Armenia to take the opportunity of housing loan.
Besides this, the ITB intends to provide mortgage loans from the owned
funds, and also it is planned that it will participate in various
international programs. The bank has elaborated its own program on
mortgage lending and will announce it’s entering this markret.
The bank will provide mortgage loans for no less than 10 years. At
the initial stage, the loan will not exceed AMD 12mln. The start of
the program implementation has been scheduled for November-December
2006. The refinancing will be carried out in the mid of February 2007.
International Trade Bank (Armenia) was created on the basis of
“Bank-Menatep-Armenia” in 1992 as the Yerevan branch of the Russian
bank Menatep. In April 2000, the bank’s share were purchased by
foreign companies, later joined in the Makarios (MG) Holdings GMBH,
and bank itself was renamed to ITB – International Trade Bank. In 2005,
the bank’s 99.91% shares were purchased by Makarios (MG) Holdings GMBH.
ITB’s total assets made up AMD 5.1bln as of 30 June, 2006, the credit
portfolio totaled AMD 2.98bln. The bank currently operates four
branches The Makarious Group Holdings GMBH joins about 60 companies
that are registered in Austria, Great Britain, Ireland, Switzerland,
Cyprus, and in a number of CIS countries. The group consists of banks,
leasing, investment and consulting organizations, the activity of
which is aim at implementing large-scale investment programs in the
spheres of construction, metal mining, timber, woodworking and textile
industries, and also trade and high technologies.
The economic interests of the Makarios group are not limited in Armenia
only by the banking sphere. The group has made large investments for
$22.5mln in the program of construction of the Northern Avenue of
Yerevan. ($1 – AMD 382.47).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY-EUROPE: THE WIDENING GAP
Prepared by: Carin Zissis
Council on Foreign Relations, New York
Oct 24 2006
A supporter of the True Path Party marches under a giant Turkish flag
during an anti-France protest. (AP/Murad Sezer)
The possibility of Turkish EU accession appears increasingly
uncertain. In recent weeks, European leaders have voiced unease over
Ankara’s membership bid, citing concerns over Turkey’s infringement
on freedom of expression and its embargo on Cypriot ships and planes
(AP), the latter a manifestation of a long-standing dispute over
division of the Aegean Sea with Greece. Some EU members, including
France and Germany, have suggested Turkey seek “privileged partnership”
rather than full membership. Olli Rehn, commissioner of EU enlargement,
opposed this idea, but warned the Turkish accession process that began
in October 2005 has been slowed by Ankara’s failure to repeal Article
301, which gives the government free reign to arrest journalists
and activists for disparaging Turkey. In an interview with the BBC,
EU President Jose Manuel Barroso said it could take twenty years for
Turkey to become a member nation.
Recent events have done little to ease growing EU-Turkey tensions
and Europe seems hesitant to absorb the overwhelmingly Muslim nation
of more than 70 million people. France’s parliament recently angered
Ankara when it decided to make criminal the denial of mass killings of
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. The law was condemned by Turkish
author Orhan Pamuk (Reuters), who was previously indicted under Article
301 for raising the issue of the genocide and who received the Nobel
Prize for Literature the same day the French rule passed. Europe-Turkey
relations also took a hit last month when Pope Benedict XVI’s comments
about Mohammed sparked widespread Muslim protests and temporarily
put the pope’s November visit to Turkey in doubt.
Experts say such obstacles to Turkey’s EU membership could lead
to missed opportunities for making inroads in Christian-Muslim
relations. Denis MacShane, Britain’s former Europe minister, writes
in the Financial Times that the Armenian genocide had little to do
with modern Turkey and warns against Europe’s increasingly demeaning
attitude toward Ankara. He asks, “How much longer will this secular,
democratic, Muslim country look westwards to a European future,
instead of turning east?” Sedat Laciner, director of Ankara-based
think tank International Strategic Research Organization, criticizes
“unsuccessful politicians” in Europe for condemning his country, and
argues that EU accession would help “erode the unilateral policies”
of the United States and Israel in the Middle East by drawing Europe
closer to the region.
The problems in Europe coincide with a breakdown in U.S.-Turkey
relations, despite Washington’s support for the country’s EU
membership. This Council Special Report from June describes the
“fractured alliance” and says that although Washington and Ankara
agree that an Iraq splintered into three independent states is not in
either country’s interests, Turkey is frustrated by the U.S. handling
of the Iraqi war. Tensions also exist over America’s failure to
support the Turkish fight against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK). In an August interview, CFR Fellow Steven A. Cook said
the United States is unwilling to go after PKK cells in northern
Iraq because “it would be foolhardy from a military perspective…to
go after the PKK and destabilize the one region where people really
aren’t shooting at Americans.” Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise
Institute says the United States is too soft on Turkey’s government
(WSJ) and U.S. diplomats should stop delivering “PC platitudes” that
fail to address the “anti-secular agenda” of Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party.

SAIPANPRENEURS OF THE WEEK: VICTOR AND LINDA BALIAN
By Walt F.J. Goodridge
Saipan Tribune, Micronesia (Federated States of Micronesia in S. Pacific)
Oct 24 2006
The Saipanpreneur Project: Creating economic success for the CNMI
The only way to take control of your life, raise your standard of
living and move beyond merely surviving is to create your own unique
product or service that you offer to increasing numbers of people in
exchange for the things of value that you desire. This simple formula
applies to countries as well as people. A self-sufficient economy
has its own products or services of value to export to the world.
Similarly, a self-sufficient individual has something of value to
exchange in the global marketplace. That thing of value is based on
your natural talent, skill, or interest-in other words, your passion!
In last week’s column, I made the suggestion that Saipan (and of
course, the entire CNMI) could achieve a brand identity as a place
of health, healthy lifestyle and/or eating. As a result, I received
quite a few suggestions to meet and get to know a special couple who
already seem to be leading the movement to achieve just that.
Meet Victor and Linda Balian, owners of the Golden Lobster Restaurant,
located on the Chalan Lau Lau end of Middle road opposite the NMPASI
building, a few yards down from TicToc. Syrian-born Victor, and his
wife Linda, originally from Iraq, are now proud U.S. citizens who
took over the Golden Lobster in May of this year.
(They’ll be changing the name of the restaurant very soon to the
Magic Lamp to reflect its new Mediterranean menu.)
So, how and when did the two of you meet?
Victor: “My sister is good friends with Linda. She introduced us
back in 1986. I think we met in a hospital for about 10 seconds. But
she was married to the “other guy,” [Linda smiles] so we were just
acquaintances. We didn’t get to know each other better until after
Linda divorced. So I’d say we really met and started getting serious
in 1995.
How did you end up on Saipan?
Victor: It was business initially. In 1996, I was made a great job
offer by a major construction company. So we’ve been here for 10
years now.
You mentioned you’re Armenian, born in Syria. Would you explain
that please?
Victor: “Armenian is an ethnicity I’m very proud of. It’s just like
here someone might be of Chamorro or Carolinian blood, but born on
Saipan, I’m of Armenian blood, born in Syria.
Why a restaurant? Is that a mutual passion?
Victor: My wife is a very good cook. It’s her passion to cook.
Linda: A few months ago, we were sitting home. We had both lost our
jobs, and were deciding what we were going to do next. Should we leave
the island? Should we stay? We love Saipan, so we decided to stay.”
Now even though you serve a wide range of meals including chicken and
beef, yours is the first I’ve seen with such an extensive vegetarian
menu. Why is that?
Victor: My wife has been vegetarian for six years now. Since we’ve
been here on Saipan, it’s been a little difficult to find restaurants
that really understand what that means. I remember once we were in a
restaurant and ordered vegetable soup. When the soup came, we saw it
had shrimp in it. Linda is also allergic to seafood. So we told the
waitress that we ordered a vegetable soup and showed her the shrimp.
She took it back to the kitchen. A few seconds later, she came back,
put the soup on the table, and we noticed that the shrimp was still in
the soup. She said, “Chef says, ‘don’t worry, no charge for shrimp!'”
So what makes YOUR restaurant special?
Linda: What we serve in here is very unique. You cannot find it
anywhere on the island, and nowhere in the Pacific for that matter.
Nobody has what we have here. We’re representing Mediterranean food,
from our countries, so we go to special lengths to make our food
taste just right.
Victor: See those 50lb bags of there? That’s bulgur wheat. I import
it myself. It’s a regular part of people’s diet where I come from.
Linda: Bulgur wheat is very low in carbohydrates. No starch, so it’s
great for people who are diabetic. It comes in different sizes, so you
can use it for many types of dishes, including as a rice substitute.
Victor: We get exotic Mediterranean spices for our dishes, many that
you can’t find anywhere even in the states. And my wife mixes her
own spices.
Linda: There’s no MSG in our food either.
Victor: My wife makes a homemade chocolate yogurt that kids really
like; kids really like the chocolate, and there’s no sugar in it,
and it’s healthy. We also make homemade pickles.
Linda: And if there’s any cheese or butter in any of the dishes,
I make sure the saturated fat is less than 3 percent.
Speaking of saturated fat, you mentioned something very impressive
about that when we spoke earlier. Could you share that with our
readers?
Linda: Well, I brought my cholesterol level down myself without any
medication. It was 260; now it’s 190.just by eating pretty much what
we serve here.
Victor: My wife also has a diploma in Fitness and Nutrition, AND
she’s a Herbalife distributor, so if anyone needs it, she can put
them on a diet and help them make money at the same time! [Laughs]
Anything else?
Linda: Let’s see..Our pita bread is home-made. I mix my own baking
powder.
Victor: And we make our own ketchup! With low sugar!
Now Victor, you’re not vegetarian. How do manage at home?
Victor: Well it’s just like on our menu, there’s food for the
vegetarian and food for the meat eaters. We’re not out to change
anyone, but just want to give people different choices every now and
then that they might find tasty.
Linda: Being vegetarian is just my personal choice. We started
raising animals here on Saipan. And as I got closer to the animals,
I just couldn’t chew on them anymore! Everytime I think about it,
I hear our goat crying in my mind.
Victor: My wife asks me ‘how can you eat that? Don’t you remember
Bambi? Don’t you hear the goat crying?’ I say, ‘yes, I’m crying too,
but I’m hungry!’
And just in case people think a healthy diet isn’t just as delicious
as what they eat now, tell us some of the feedback you’ve gotten.
Victor: We had a group come in the other day, and when they had our
Shawarma [Mediterranean dish popular throughout Asia.], they said
they never tasted Shawarma like ours!
Most of our clients who are doctors from CHC and other places are
regular customers.
Linda: People taste our hummus, and say, ‘We never ate humus like
this.’ That makes me happy, because I give the dish as much as it
takes to be perfect. If I cut back on the lemon, or on the tahini,
it won’t taste the same.
[On their way out, two diners from NMC complimented Victor on the
food. Just then, another customer, Jack Stokes of the TSA, came in
and greeted us. I decided to find out for myself what people liked
about the Golden Lobster. I asked Mr. Stokes:] Why do you come here?
Jack: “I love the Shawarma! It’s different, tastier.. the lunch
specials are reasonable, I like the atmosphere, and the customer
service is fantastic.”
And I understand you do all the cooking yourself, Linda? Wow, talk
about passion!
Linda: I’ll give the food as much as it takes. There is a big
difference in the food whether you spend 10 minutes or two hours
preparing like I do. There’s a difference whether you use canned
vegetables or fresh like we do, soy sauce or real spices like we do.
I only use virgin olive oil, and balsamic vinegar in our salads. If
it is expensive, it doesn’t matter. The quality of the food is what
comes first in my list. This is how I am. If it takes expensive,
exotic spices, that’s what I use. What I’m sharing is a traditional
and cultural way to cook. I cannot just make shortcuts.
[During the interview, Linda got up a few times to go the kitchen.] I
notice how involved you are in the cooking. Are you training anyone
to take over for you?
Linda: In my country, we say, “It’s the hand.” The unique way the
food tastes is in the cook’s “hands”; it’s the spirit of the cook
that you taste. It’s a talent, passed from one person to another. I
got it from my mother, and she got it from her mother. When I cook,
I don’t even have measurements, my measuring cup is my hand. And I
don’t even taste the food. I know how it tastes just from the smell.
So I cannot train someone. I’m not trying to be selfish, but it’s
just that the quality of the food will suffer, because they have
different hands.
[While I was there, a couple walked in, sat down, looked at the menu,
but left shortly afterwards. I asked Victor about it.] Why did that
couple leave?
Victor: She [Angel, the waitress on duty] told me they wanted a certain
pork dish. We don’t serve pork. Not because of religious reasons,
but because it’s not healthy. That’s been proven.
Linda: I come from a different corner. I cannot change my quality
or serve certain dishes just to get more customers. I can prepare
a dish of humus much cheaper but I would rather close. These are my
principles in the kitchen, and I cannot change it.
Follow your passion and stick to your principles. That seems like
great advice for everyone. Victor, any advice for other entrepreneurs?
Victor: Pay attention to every detail in your business. You may need
to alter your expenditures in hard times, but be patient for better
times to come!
Experience Linda’s Mediterranean cooking passion every day from 8am
to 2pm, and from 6pm to 10pm. (Lunch specials start at 11am). Contact
Victor and Linda at the Golden Lobster (soon to be Magic Lamp) at
670 234-765. Visit for more information.
* * *
Until next week, remember, success is a journey, not a
destination!–Walt
(Walt F.J. Goodridge is author of 12 books including Turn Your Passion
Into Profit. Walt offers coaching and workshops to help people pursue
and profit from their passions. Originally from the island of Jamaica,
Walt has grown several successful businesses in the US, and now
makes his home here in Saipan. To learn more about the Saipanpreneur
Project and Walt’s philosophy and formula visit
and Send article suggestions, entrepreneur
nominations and feedback about this article to [email protected].) .com/newsstory.aspx?cat=3&newsID=62362

RUSSIA’S PUTIN PLEDGES TO ATTRACT 300,000 BACK TO RUSSIA BY 2010
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
October 24, 2006 Tuesday 4:28 PM EST
DPA x Russia Society Russia’s Putin pledges to attract 300,000 back
to Russia by 2010 Moscow Amid an unprecedented demographic crisis,
Russia proposed Tuesday to repatriate 300,000 Russians living abroad
as President Vladimir Putin vowed to make it easier for all foreigners
to live and work in the notoriously immigrant-unfriendly country.
Putin, speaking Tuesday at the opening ceremonies of the so-called
Congress of Compatriots in St. Petersburg, promised measures to
increase immigration, to be introduced January 15.
His comments followed a pledge by Federal Migration Service head
Konstantin Romodanovsky to spend nearly 200 million dollars to lure
50,000 native Russians to the country in 2007. The following years
would respectively see 100,000 and 150,000 return.
To attract people back to Russia, Romodanovsky told government-
controlled newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Tuesday, the service would
try to concentrate immigration in 12 of Russia’s 89 regions and open
a number of offices in countries including Germany.
The migration service’s five existing representative offices,
in contrast, are all in former Soviet countries: Armenia, Latvia,
Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan and Turmenistan.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians have immigrated in droves
to the West. An estimated 200,000 Russian natives live in Germany.
Many of the regions designated special resettlement zones are in
Siberia, and others like the Tver region, north-west of Moscow, are
suffering from rampant depopulation. None of the 21 ethnic republics –
inhabited by non-Russian indigenous groups – was on the list.
Russia’s population has fallen to 142 million from 149 million in
the last 14 years. Losing 700,000 people per year, the UN says Russia
could be home to a mere 80 to 100 million by 2050.
Siberia and the Far East have always been among Russia’s least-
populated areas, and many here fear China will overflow into Siberia,
overwhelming the Russian population. The ethnic republics, on the
other hand, have seen positive growth in recent years.
Putin noted that to sustain an economy Russia needed to see immigration
numbers jump, no matter the ethnicity of the newcomers.
“In the modern world, a country’s economy, not its military, determines
its power and potential for development,” the Russian leader said.
“Leading Russian companies will have to draw qualified workers without
regard to their ethnicity.”
But with a surge in racially-motivated violence in recent years,
Putin’s hopes conflict with present realities. This year alone has
seen over 20 hate killings, and a St. Petersburg court last week
acquitted 17 in the 2004 murder of a Vietnamese student.
The Russian president, however, promised to simplify legalization
procedures and improve social benefits for all immigrants in Russia,
beginning January 15.
The speech came the same day figures showed that 5,000 Georgian
immigrants had been deported back to the Caucasus nation this year.
Putin also said the government would step up its efforts to protect
the Russian language and its speakers across the former Soviet Union.
On Tuesday, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered his country’s
parliament to consider switching from the Cyrillic alphabet, which
is used in Russia, to Latin letters.
“I think we have to return to the question of moving to the Latin
alphabet,” Nazarbayev said, Interfax reported.
But Nazarbayev, one of Putin’s closest allies, also said students
should be taught three languages in Kazakh schools: Kazakh, English
and Russian.

TURKISH MPS ANNOUNCE ‘SHAME LIST’
By Cihan News Agency
Zaman, Turkey
Oct 24 2006
On Thursday, the Turkish parliament took a new step in condemnation
of the French parliament’s acceptance of a bill criminalizing any
denial of an Armenian genocide.
It compiled a “shame list” of massacres committed by European
countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands.
The necessary study for the list was conducted by the parliament’s
justice sub-committee as part of its debates over a bill that would
recognize the Algerian genocide committed by France.
The commission is researching the past massacres and tyrannies of
countries that accept the Armenian genocide.
The members of the commission listened to Turkish History Society
President Professor Yusuf Halacoglu and decided that announcing the
European list to the world would be more efficient than recognition
of an Algerian genocide.
In this context, the commission requested that the Turkish History
Society and foreign affairs department carry out extensive studies
into the history of countries recognizing an Armenian genocide.
The “shame list” is expected to be announced following the Ramadan
holiday.
Deputy Mustafa Nuri Akbulut announced that the parliament would
publish the list rather than recognize an Algerian genocide.
Akbulut also asserted that this study would enable the international
community to better see the objective attitude of the Turkish
parliament and added human rights, freedom of speech and the process
that this method was subject to would be discussed extensively in
the document.
Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Akbulut also said the
document would include a text that will explain the circumstances
under which Turkey decided to deport Armenians in 1915.
Akbulut noted that while Ottoman soldiers were deployed in the
Dardanelles and the Caucasus during World War I, Armenians committed
massacres in Anatolia and betrayed Ottomans.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Belgium,
Slovakia, Greece, Latvia and Greek Cyprus have all made decisions
so far about an Armenian Genocide in different years, and some have
issued declarations and reports on the issue.
For further information please visit
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKS IN FRANCE SELF-CRITICAL OVER ARMENIAN BILL
Zaman, Turkey
Oct 24 2006
Turkish businessmen in France have admitted their failure in handling
the situation with the French parliament’s controversial Armenian
genocide bill.
Murat Ercan, chairman of the Union des Entrepreneurs Franco-Turcs,
a group for Turkish entrepreneurs in France, said that Turkish
businessmen were not concerned with the Armenian bill passed in the
French parliament.
Even the reactions against the law proposal remained weak and
ineffectual, said Ercan, who focused attention on the need for the
formation of a lobby.
Forming a lobby would require organization, said Ercan. “The French
news media did not even ask Turks living here in France to express
their opinions. We have to have full awareness of our position.”
There was a lack of coordinated action among Turkish people living
in France against the Armenian bill, said Ercan.
“The parliamentary approval of the Armenian bill came as a blow to
the reputation of Turkish people in France. Even the Turkish reaction
against the law proposal was very weak,” said Ercan.
Ercan blamed inexperience and a lack of knowledge on the part of some
Turkish companies, who in turn perhaps harmed all.