BLACKBERRY CONFESSIONS
by G.E. Mortimore, Alberni Valley Times
Alberni Valley Times (British Columbia)
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
Final Edition
Don’t try this at home. One day long ago, the grown-ups turned us kids
loose to pick blackberries. As they disappeared indoors to socialize
over glasses of home-made wine, I hatched a dumb idea.
“Let’s shock ’em by bringing in a giant blackberry, as big as an
apple,” I suggested. “Get some paper and a jug of water, mush the
paper into one big blob, and stick bits of berries on it, so it’s
like a jumbo berry.”
The other kids agreed, I don’t know why. The monster berry looked
convincing. We lodged it in one of the containers, covered it with
a layer of regular berries, and left the full baskets in the kitchen.
Then we went home, each family carrying a share of the harvest.
That was the last we heard. I think I see the reason for the silence.
The fake berry must have been in a basket that stayed with our hosts,
the owners of the blackberry thicket.
They had no children. There was nobody to prattle about this
badly-planned joke. Our concoction probably squashed down into a
pulpy mess. They dismissed it as an overripe harvesting failure,
and threw the slurry in the compost.
No adult knew about the plot, which was a real-life kid-conspiracy,
not a “conspiracy theory.” So the truth never came out.
That tiny event still buzzes in my mind during blackberry season,
along with the memory of two different sense-inputs that gave me a
sentimental twinge when I made an August return visit to Vancouver
Island from a long residence in Toronto.
One sensory kick was the sight of the green mountain-shaded water
of Cameron Lake on the road to Port Alberni, a scene that has no
counterpart in Ontario.
The other was the lush flavour of blackberries. I never found
blackberries in Ontario either. It takes a warmer winter to sustain
rubus armeniacus, the broad-leaf kind that prevails in B.C.
Scientists who sort out Latin names have applied that label, because
the plant comes from Armenia. The ragged-leaf species, r. laciniatus,
grows in some places.
Blame for bringing Eurasian blackberries to western North America is
rightly or wrongly assigned to plant-breeding wizard Luther Burbank.
The designer of the disease-resistant Burbank potato had no sense of
unintended consequences.
He did not regard himself as a scientist. After he had invented a
new kind of vegetable, he always threw away his notes, leaving other
horticulturalists at a disadvantage.
However, I don’t worry about plant history in blackberry time, which
can continue through the first week of October in a year of dry sunny
air and damp soil.
St. Mary’s Anglican Church, in the rural Victoria suburb of Metchosin,
prolongs the season with its Blackberry Festival on September 30; but
compulsive calendar-watchers put blackberries out of mind on August 31.
All the more berries for us eccentrics who hate to let go of summer,
and continue with our picking under hardship conditions.
The hardship is real. There are no more sweet juicy fruit in plain
sight. You have to hunt among clusters of red berries that are never
going to ripen, and if you find a likely prospect, it has red grains
among the black.
Even in July and August, when normal people do their
blackberry-picking, the job calls for courage and careful observation.
The vine throws out fast-growing thorny claws to grab the picker
and draw blood as the price for the vitamins it pumps up from muck
or gravel.
Nothing seems to bother the blackberry bush – neither soil quality,
weather, nor the attacks of harvesters who carve paths with shears.
The blackberry plant flourishes, spreads and adapts. But it changes
gear for its own benefit, not for the convenience of humans.
Pickers must find bushes that have absorbed the correct amount of
moisture – not too much, which turns the fruit mouldy, and not too
little, which converts them into shrivelled blackberry prunes.
After crowds of pickers have stripped the bushes, a smart berry-gleaner
seeks out specimens hidden behind the most vicious thorn barriers.
I visited the Metchosin blackberry festival, and found myself sitting
at a table beside a woman who took a hostile view of such invasive
species as the blackberry and the Scotch broom.
I feel badly about the places where armeniacus has crowded out
its tasty cousins, the native trailing blackberry, salmonberry and
thimbleberry. I hold anti-invader views myself, but I am ready to yield
some virtue to the blackberry vine, which sends its roots as deeply
into my personal experience as it does into garden beds and drainpipes.
“Maybe the blackberry is partly a benign invader,” I suggested,
making small talk with the judgemental woman. “Isn’t it a kind of
people’s food bank?”
No, the blackberry is absolutely not a benign invader, she retorted.
It is a tough, troublesome weed. Blackberry-bashing total war is the
only civilized response.
The conversation ended there, as my table companion ate the last
piece of her blackberry pie with cream.

OPPRESSING DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS
Zerkalo, Baku,
26 Sep 06 pp 1,2
Or another phase of Russian-US political intrigues
A regulatory legal base has been formed in Azerbaijan, real conditions
exist for the operation of opposition parties and civil society,
freedom of expression and the press has been ensured. There cannot be
any talk of oppressing democracy with these institutions in existence,
the head of the public and political department of the Azerbaijani
Presidential Executive Staff, Ali Hasanov, has told Turan news agency.
At the same time, he admitted that there were some problems in the
application of the laws. “But such occurrences are not a tendency,”
he noted.
Hasanov said that the authorities are ready to accept all the
proposals which contribute to democratic elections. He recalled that
the most disputed issue while adopting the Electoral Code was about
the organization of the electoral commissions.
[Passage omitted: Hasanov favours current make-up of the electoral
commissions]
“There are conditions to hold a democratic election in Azerbaijan. It
is possible to hold democratic, free and fair elections with the
existing Electoral Code,” Hasanov said.
“Democracy is developing in Azerbaijan, the process of building
a law-based state is intensifying and everyone, including state
officials and journalists, must be able to act within the framework
of the law.” [Passage omitted: comment on lawsuits against journalists]
Thus, the topic of democracy in Azerbaijan is again on the agenda.
But this time the war does not seem to be going on between democrats
and anti-democrats. Most probably, the interests of super powers
continue to clash in the region and this clash is embellished with
democratic shades. The recent developments illustrate that Russia’s
influence in Azerbaijan remains huge. Washington has not managed
to neutralize the pro-Russian forces in the Azerbaijani authorities
following the parliamentary election [in 2005].
It is interesting that Russian media are again circulating reports
alleging that the USA intends to oust undesirable officials in
Azerbaijan and Armenia. Russian analysts believe that the USA will try
to resurrect “constructive opposition” in Azerbaijan soon and help
it demand the resignation of undesirable officials (if US interests
are ignored).
However, the USA understands that deprived of financial resources and
the electorate, the opposition is incapable of offering resistance
to the authorities. According to some information, high-ranking US
diplomats are looking for politicians in [Azerbaijani President] Ilham
Aliyev’s entourage who are promising for Washington and capable of
guaranteeing an irreversible shift in Baku’s policy towards the West.
But Russia has already enough support among Azerbaijani MPs, something
that worries US policymakers. There is recently an open war in the
ruling circles between “Westerners” and pro-Russian politicians. The
pro-Western opposition, which is actually at death’s door, is still
performing the role of a passive observer.
Nevertheless, Western circles have again started to reinforce
recommendations in the area of fighting corruption. It involves
public associations, students and individual representatives of the
government in joint anti-corruption efforts in education, health,
judicial authorities and law-enforcement bodies. It also calls for
an increase in public control over the government’s anti-corruption
measures and cover cases of corruption in the media. All this heralds
a new stage of the struggle started by Washington emissaries.

RA FM: MILITARY WAY OF KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT IS TRIED AND FAILED
ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
The Government of Azerbaijan has lost the moral right to advance
proposals regarding assurance of security and future of Karabakh, not
to mention the tutorship over the NKR people, RA FM Vardan Oskanyan
said during the UN General Assembly session.
“Azerbaijan did not behave responsibly or morally with the people
of Nagorno Karabakh, who it considered to be its own citizens. They
sanctioned massacres in urban areas, far from Nagorno Karabakh; they
bombed and displaced more than 300,000 Armenians; they unleashed the
military; and after they lost the war and accepted a ceasefire, they
proceeded to destroy all traces of Armenians on their territories. In
the most cynical expression of such irresponsibility, this last
December, a decade after the fighting had stopped, they completed the
final destruction and removal of thousands of massive hand-sculpted
cross-stones – medieval Armenian tombstones elaborately carved and
decorated. Such destruction, in an area with no Armenians, at a
distance from Nagorno Karabakh and any conflict areas, is a callous
demonstration that Azerbaijan’s attitude toward tolerance, human
values, cultural treasures, cooperation or even peace, has not changed.
One cannot blame us for thinking that Azerbaijan is not ready or
interested in a negotiated peace. Yet, having rejected the other two
compromise solutions that have been proposed over the last 8 years,
they do not want to be accused of rejecting the peace plan on the
table today. Therefore, they are using every means available –
from state violence to international maneuvers – to try to bring
the Armenians to do the rejecting. But Armenia is on record: we have
agreed to each of the basic principles in the document that’s on the
table today. Yet, in order to give this or any document a chance,
Azerbaijan can’t think, or pretend to think, that there is still
a military option. There isn’t. The military option is a tried and
failed option. Compromise and realism are the only real options. The
path that Nagorno Karabakh has chosen for itself over these two
decades is irreversible. It succeeded in ensuring its self- defense,
it proceeded to set up self-governance mechanisms, and it controls
its borders and its economy. Formalizing this process is a necessary
step toward stability in our region. Dismissing, as Azerbaijan does,
all that’s happened in the last 20 years and petulantly insisting that
things must return to the way they were, is not just unrealistic,
but disingenuous. Nagorno Karabakh is not a cause. It is a place,
an ancient place, a beautiful garden, with people who have earned the
right to live in peace and without fear. We ask for nothing more. We
expect nothing less”, V. Oskanyan said.

ELMAR MAMEDYRAOV ACCUSES ARMENIA OF REFUSING FROM DIRECT TALKS ON KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT
ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
-TURAN. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov accused Armenia
of refusing from direct talks on the Karabakh conflict settlement. He
said yesterday at the 61st session of UN General Assembly that Armenia
occupies an unconstructive position toward resolution of the problem.
He said the conflict’s parties and mediators have accepted a
stage-by-stage approach to conflict settlement as “the only possible
option.” The minister said “there are two main questions – the status
of self-government of the population of occupied Nagorno Karabakh
and the withdrawal of Armenian troops from occupied Azerbaijani
territories, which causes disagreements between the two sides.”
“We proceed with the assumption that the status cannot be resolved
today. It must be resolved through peaceful democratic and legal
processes and direct participation of the Azerbaijani side and Armenian
community of the Nagorno Karabakh region,” said the minister. He also
added that occupants must leave Azerbaijani territories and it is
necessary to create conditions for the safe return of Azerbaijani
internally displaced people to Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding
Azerbaijani regions.
“Such a logical succession of events will create necessary conditions
for the next stage of the conflict settlement. The next stage includes
the improvement of living conditions on the territory that has
suffered as result of the conflict, the restoration of relationships
between communities, socio-economic development and working out of
the model of self- government of the population of the region within
Azerbaijan. Our position is based on resolutions of the UN Security
Council and an OSCE decision, both of which demand unconditional
withdrawal of occupying troops from all occupied territories, and the
restoration of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,”
stressed Mamedyarov.

RA PM RECEIVED PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE “GLOBAL STEAL HOLDINGS”
Public Radio of Armenia
Sept 26 2006
RA Prime Minister Andrani Margaryan received today President of the
Board of Directors of the British “Global Steal Holdings” Company
Promad Mitali.
Mr. Mitali told the Prime Minister about the long-term programs in the
sphere of mining the Company is implementing in Armenia, Government’s
Information and PR Department reports. He noted that there are good
opportunities for accomplishment of serious prospective programs in
Armenia, which is rich in stones and metals.
Welcoming the initiative of the “Global Steal Holdings” Company,
Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan mentioned that it is consistent
with RA Government’s Policy of promoting ore mining in the country.
The parties turned to the issue of development of infrastructures
necessary for the successful accomplishment of long-term programs.

PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR ADMITS HIGH LEVEL OF MONOPOLIZATION OF ARMENIAN ECONOMY AND FORECASTS 5% INFLATION
ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
Inflation in Armenia may total 5% as against envisaged 3%, Vahram
Nersisyan, Advisor of Armenia President, told journalists, Tuesday.
He explained the excess of the envisaged indicator by the high growth
of economy and transfers. He said that 3% inflation was forecasted in
case of a 7% economic growth, while the latter is much higher already
now. (11,6% economic growth was fixed in Jan-Jul 2006). Majority of
transfers are from Russia (70%) and the USA (20%). (Private transfers
to Armenia are expected at $1.5 bln in the current year -ed.) At
the same time, Vahram Nersisyan said no one could forecast that
apartments in Armenia would be so highly in demand among Armenians
from Diaspora. It has led to rather a high growth of construction,
which has a tangible share in GDP, he said. He believes that the
5% inflation in 2006 forecasted by IMF is not a bad indicator
for Armenia’s economy. In addition, the authorities hoped that in
conditions of dram appreciation, importers could create additional
demand in the domestic commodity market, which could led to reduction
of consumer prices. “However, it did not happen as the country’s
economy is monopolized. Several big investors are able to control
over the market prices, which is a great problem,” he said.
V. Nersisyan added that the high growth of economy and transfers
have led to appreciation of the Armenian dram. Many exporters are
dissatisfied with this circumstance. However, they must rise the
productivity and become more competitive in the world market in
conditions of globalization, he said. Nevertheless, to soften the
consequences of the surplus appreciation of dram that may lead to
economic shocks, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance and
Economy of Armenia have issued $100 mln state bonds in the current
year. It was estimated that interest rates of credits could rise in
case of issue of more state bonds.

NKR FM CONCERNED OVER AZERBAIJAN’S ATTEMPTS TO TRANSFER KARABAKH PROBLEM FROM OSCE MINSK GROUP TO UN
ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
Foreign Minister of Nagorny Karabakh Republic Georgy Petrosyan
received Vice Speaker of the House of Lords of the British Parliament,
Chairman of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, Baroness Caroline Cox,
Tuesday. Baroness Cox heads a delegation of British and American
philanthropists to Stepanakert.
The NKR Foreign Ministry press-service reports Georgy Petrosyan
as expressing readiness to support the program implemented by the
philanthropists in NKR. At the request of the guests, he dwelled
on the current stage of the Karabakh peace process. Particularly,
Minister Petrosyan expressed concern over Azerbaijan’s attempts to
transfer the problem from the OSCE MG to the UN. He stressed that
it is impossible to determine the fate of a people without taking
into account its will. “We have participated in the establishment of
cease-fire, so why we are now deprived of the right to strengthen the
peace,?” he said. Asked about the relations with Armenia, Minister
Petrosyan said that Armenia is a guarantor of NKR’s independence and
security. As regards the political sphere, he said the countries
are observing the principle of noninterference. Touching upon the
continuing information war, the minister mentioned the recent fuss
about the forest fires in the bordering zone. “We proposed OSCE to
monitor the situation, The country’s authorities are ready to receive
international experts,” he said.

TURKEY’S OBSTINACY IN KEEPING THE BORDER WITH ARMENIA CLOSE FREEZES THE MEMORIES OF THE PAST: ARMENIAN FM
ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
Unlike other states where bordering regions are cooperation and
partnership points, the western and eastern borders of Armenia
are still close, which hinders the development of the region, said
Vardan Oskanyan, Foreign Minister of Armenia, at the session of the
UN General Assembly.
The Foreign Minister said in the case of Turkey, the damage is not only
economic. It holds the two people from dialogue. Turkey’s obstinacy in
keeping the border close, avoiding direct contacts and communications
freezes the memories of the past instead of bringing a new experience
which would create new memories, the minister said. At the same time,
he said that Armenia still hopes that one day Turkey will realize
that striving to avoid relations before forming an atmosphere of
harmony and mutual understanding is not a sober policy, he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ROBERT KOCHARYAN AND JACQUES CHIRAC ADDRESS ARMENIAN AND FRENCH PEOPLE
ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday
Armenia and France will mark the centuries-long friendship of the
two countries through a number of exclusive events starting from
September 21 2006 to July 14 2007, says the joint message of the two
countries’ presidents on the occasion of the opening of Armenia’s
Year in France. The message, particularly, says that while Armenia is
celebrating its 15th independence anniversary, the Year of Armenia
in France will contribute two deepening of the countries’ exclusive
relations. It will introduce the world community to the Armenian
civilization prospering between the West and the East, the presidents
say. Over 400 events will take place throughout the territory of France
to inform the French people of the ancient Armenian civilization. The
events will also present the fate of the Armenian people that has
participated in the world developments for centuries.
The presidents express satisfaction that the Year of Armenia in
France will officially start in Yerevan with a concert by Charles
Aznavour. Robert Kocharyan and Jacques Chirac express confidence
that the year of Armenia in France will not only deepen the cultural,
but also the economic and scientific cooperation.

EU OFFICIAL HOPES “UNJUST” REPORT ON TURKEY WILL BE MADE MORE BALANCED
Anatolia news agency, Ankara,
26 Sep 06
Strasbourg, 26 September: Joost Lagendijk, copresident of the Joint
Parliamentary Commission between the Turkish parliament and the
European Parliament, expressed his hope that the report on Turkey,
which would be debated today and approved by the European Parliament
tomorrow, would be made more balanced.
At a news conference prior to the debates on the report, Lagendijk
said that the report became tough, unjust and unbalanced as a result
of proposals on the Armenia and Cyprus issues, which were approved
by the Foreign Affairs Commission.
Supporters of the EU in Turkey would suffer the most if the report
was approved without any changes, he said.
Meanwhile, Cem Ozdemir, a member of the Greens Group, said that forcing
Turkey to recognize the socalled Armenian genocide as a precondition
for its EU membership was unacceptable.
“We also criticize that while Turkey is expected to fulfil its
commitments stemming from the Ankara Treaty, no one calls on the
EU to lift isolation of the Turkish Cypriots. Turkey has legal
responsibilities to fulfil the Ankara Treaty while the EU has political
responsibilities to lift the isolation,” Ozdemir added.