Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku railway project will strengthen regional and international integration
The Messenger, Georgia
July 27, 2006
As reported in Svobodnaya Gruzia, the Minister of Transport of
Azerbaijan, Namik Gasanov, stated before the meeting of the heads of
the transport ministries of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Kazakhstan,
which is due to take place on July 27 in Astana, that the construction
of Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku railway project will strengthen regional
and international integration.
“The project will make Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey like a united
organism, and in this sense it has great importance at least from
the regional standpoint,” he stated, noting that “being a unit of
the infrastructure-transport chain, which links Europe and Asia,
this project has very great importance in view of international
integration as well.” Gasanov highlighted that realization of the
project will lead Azerbaijan to Europe via Turkey.
According to him, experts’ assessments show that the project is very
profitable from the economic standpoint also. “It will bring large
profits from freight and passengers transportation,” he said. Gasanov
also said that money invested in the project would be recovered in
two or three years of the railway’s operation.
The Azeri minister also said that the project has great political,
as well as economic, importance. “This project is also important in
regard of the settlement of interstate relations,” he said.
Touching upon obstacles the project faces, Gasanov stressed that
attempts are being made in this direction by Armenia. “Armenia is
making every effort, even with the help of the U.S. Congress, to impede
this project and prevent its implementation.” According to him, Armenia
will not be involved in one of the greatest regional projects because
of their “destructive policy” and “occupation of Azeri territories.”
Gasanov also commented on the cost of the project and said that,
according to preliminary data, the cost of this project is USD 400
million. At prior negotiations, the Turkish side agreed to allot USD
200 million for the realization of the project. “The parties have
been continuing negotiations on this issue. Georgia also expresses its
readiness to finance this project, but clarity in this issue will be
made at the negotiations in Kazakhstan,” Gasanov stated. According
to him, construction of the project will start in 2007 and will be
completed within two to three years.

UN Resident Coordinator at National Assembly
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
July 27, 2006
On July 26 the RA NA President Tigran Torosyan received Ms. Consuelo
Vidal, UN Resident Coordinator and newly appointed UNDP Resident
Representative in Armenia.
The issues on the cooperation between the NA and the UN organization
were on the pivot of the meeting. Ms. Consuelo Vidal expressed
readiness to promote the organization of the upcoming election
processes through development programs to ensure free and fair
elections. In this regard the NA President Tigran Torosyan highlighted
both: reform of the Electoral Code and the establishment of necessary
atmosphere among political forces. The agreement on debates of
introducing clarity into cooperation programs in the election processes
was reached.
Ms. Consuelo Vidal, UN Resident Coordinator and newly appointed
UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia wished to clarify from the NA
President the fate of the draft on Lobbying in the development of which
the UN has participated as well. And in this regard they referred to
the support of international organizations to law creation works. It
was noted that some cases of non-effective use of allocated sources
were registered in the work with international organizations. The
agreement was reached to debate steps directed to the increase
of effectiveness of the support of international organizations in
legislative works.
The other issues of mutual interest were debated during the meeting.

In the Parliament
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
July 27, 2006
On July 25 the representatives arrived from different regions who
were in Yerevan within the framework of young people’s civil education
program visited the National Assembly.
Hranush Hakobyan, the Chairwoman of the NA Standing Committee on
Science, Education, Culture and Youth,familirized young people with
the parliamentarism and the history of the Armenian parliament. The
procedure of the legislative body formation, the main functions and
activity were presented to the participants. Mrs. Hakobyan detailed
legislative initiative-lawsystem, noting, that first initiation
deliberated in the Committees before becoming law, gets relevant
conclusion, and only after that it is presented to the ratification
of the Parliament. The head of the Committee answered the questions,
which related to twelve-year education, preservation of national
culture, problems of science development.
The activity of the sub-divisions of the NA staff was presented to
the young people, visited the Parliament. Maro Asatryan, the head of
Information Department, accompanied the guests to the sitting hall,
where they got familiar with the work of the electronic system of
the hall, walked through the parliament visiting official and working
meting halls.
“The draft laws, submitted to the NA , undergo an examination “,
– informed Ashot Khachatryan, the head of Legislative Analysis and
Development Department. He also noted that his department provide
MP’s with professional advice, implement research and analytic works.
Anahit Adamyan, the head of Public Relations Department, presented
functions of the department, the content of its work, kinds of its
organization and answered the questions.
” All the materials of information character prepared by the department
of public relations, and also all materials concerning structural
divisions of the staff, texts of laws in function are placed on the
website of electronic page “, – says Tatul Soghomonyan, the head of
Secretariat. According to him the functions of Secretariat are various:
applications and letters from citizens are registered, then handed to
the NA governing bodies or the MP’s direct through Secretariat. Lusine
Hovhannisyan informed details about the work of the website.
Hovhannes Zargaryan , Deputy head of the staff, summing up the day
passed in the Parliament,
expressed gratitude to young people for active participation and
wished them good luck.
He noted, that as a result of the programs which were carried out
by USAID and other international organizations during last yearsthe
NAreceived both technical and consulting assistance which promoted
increase of the effectivness of works. Mr. Zargaryan noted, that the
doors of the National Assembly are open before youth, and they always
can address questions interested them to the staff. They can also
get information about activity of the Parliamentthrough Internet site
adding their fund of knowledge. He expressed hope, that the day which
had been passed in the National Assembly, will have its continuation
and become the basis for deeper knowledge of functions of system of
the state management.

HUMANITARIAN PROGRAM TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN ARTSAKH ON THE INITIATIVE OF BARONESS COX
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
July 27, 2006
Vice-speaker of the House of Lords of the UK Parliament Baroness Cox
will visit Artsakh, this time with a new humanitarian program.
Her partners are a representative of The Children’s Hospital Trust Fund
Daniel Liles, the responsible of the Birth Links Company Cathy Malone,
who will render humanitarian and technical aid to the Center of the
Newborns’ Reanimation that will be opened in Stepanakert within the
program’s frames. The Center being opened in Artsakh will become a
branch of the Center of the University Hospital N 3 in Yerevan.
Baroness Cox informed that a representative of Birth Links Company
Cathy Malone had been to Karabakh six years before and was implementing
various programs there at present. “My goal is to bring to Armenia and
Karabakh as many people as possible, as they will tell the truth about
the Armenians and Karabakh in the future”, Caroline Cox underscored,
Noyan Tapan reports.

Summer reading blowout
Hour.ca, Canada
July 27, 2006
Brett Hooton and MJ Stone
After Pride, you’ll need some recuperation time! Make the most of
summer’s potential for relaxation by picking your favourite park
bench, poolside, beach or hammock and curling up with one – or five –
of these summer reading critics’ picks.
[parts omitted]
Sosi By Linda Ghan (Signature Editions), 222 pp.
Okay, it’s not exactly the lightest of summertime books, but Sosi is
worth the serious effort. Marked forever by the loss of her Armenian
mother and Turkish father, Sosi is raised by Jewish relatives. Events
in Turkey inspire Sosi, who’s haunted by the Armenian genocide,
to flee to Jerusalem with her family. There she falls in love with
a young photographer named Ara and begins to think she’s finally
putting her past behind her. But when Ara disappears under mysterious
circumstances, Sosi seeks sanctuary in Montreal, fuelling her sorrow
with gin and jazz until fate finally provides her with an opportunity
to heal. (MJS)
cle=9847

Pilot Error Blamed In Armavia A320 Accident
Aero-News Network, FL
July 27, 2006
Russian investigators say it was pilot error that caused the crash
of an Armavia Airlines Airbus A320 back in May… killing all 113
people on board the plane.
As Aero-News reported, the accident happened during foul weather as
the Armenian aircraft was on approach to the airport in Sochi… a
Russian seaside resort.
A spokeswoman for the civil aviation authority that links Russia with
eleven of its former republics says a terrain avoidance alarm sounded
in the cockpit shortly before the crash… but the crew was unable
to add power and pull up in time to avoid crashing into the Black Sea.
Of the 113 people on board that flight… 26 were Russian citizens.
Their families will receive about $3,800 from the state… on top of
the $8,900 already paid out by the airline.

Crew blamed for Armenian air crash
Western Mail, UK
July 27, 2006, Thursday
First Edition
RUSSIAN air safety officials said the crash of a commercial airline
in May that killed 113 people was due to pilot error.
The pilots of the Airbus-320 operated by Armenia’s Armavia airline
allowed the plane to descend too low as it faced bad weather on its
approach to the airport outside the Russian resort town of Sochi.
Tatyana Anodina, the head of the region’s civil aviation agency,
said an automated system warned the two pilots that the plane was
flying dangerously low, but that a last-ditch effort to gain altitude
failed to head off the crash into the Black Sea.
‘The human factor in bad weather played a role,’ Russian Transport
Minister Igor Levitin said. Most of the victims were Armenian, but
there were also 26 Russian citizens.

WORLD BANK CITES WIDESPREAD CORRUPTION IN ARMENIA
AssA-Irada, Azerbaijan
July 26, 2006 Wednesday
Corruption and bribery in Armenia has increased compared to previous
years, the World Bank said in a recent report. A survey conducted
among representatives of numerous private companies of the country
suggests that Armenian companies continued to give bribes last year,
the WB Yerevan office said. Armenian customs and taxation bodies
are the most corrupt, as businesspeople and potential investors
continue to face serious problems in this area and are regularly
prompted to give bribes, according to the study. Corruption is also
ingrained in the judiciary field, although its levels remain unchanged
compared to 2002, the WB said. The World Bank experts indicated that
corruption poses serious risks to business in Armenia, Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan. The reforms in Armenia, Russia and Albania carried
out in 2002-2005 to solve the problem were very slow. The cases of
corruption are widespread in the registration of companies in Armenia,
Russia and Moldova, the report said. The WB research of this kind is
conducted in 26 countries and Turkey three times a year.
From: Baghdasarian

Elmar Mammadyarov: “We are rather speaking of a poll”
Today, Azerbaijan
July 27, 2006
Elmar Mammadyarov comments the Minsk Group member countries’ positions.
Basic elements suggested by the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs and
discussed during the last negotiations “are acceptable if the basics’
essence is preserved that the conflict should be resolved gradually,
based on the principles and norms of international law,” Day.Az quotes
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov to comment
on the Minsk group member countries’ positions.
According to Mammadyarov, the international community has a clear
understanding that “when we speak of international law, the factor
of territorial integrity is primary,” whereas “the self-determination
principle does not imply breaking territorial integrity.” He brought
in this regard a number of examples of state structures where
nations determine themselves in the framework of states’ territorial
integrity. “I have continually spoken out of the examples of Tatarstan,
Bashkiria; there is Trieste and other instances,” Mammadyarov said.
As regards the acceptability of the Trieste model in solving the
Nagorno Karabakh issue, Mammadyarov was told that the model presumes
the existence of many elements that had been at some points offered to
the official Baku and were rejected, particularly, the availability
of an autonomy’s own army, state symbols, passports, currency,
etc. Azerbaijani minister said that there is a huge difference between
the Trieste in 1950s and in the 21st century.
Mammadyarov said that “thanks to the economic development and
normalization of the everyday life, the Trieste society starts to
react differently to sensitive issues. In this context, the problem
of Nagorno Karabakh was perhaps a problem of the Soviet totalitarian
regime under which all the population of the Soviet Union was in a
grave state.”
Mammadyarov says that in this context, taking into account Azerbaijan’s
building a law-abiding society, democracy, and market economy, the
situation changes drastically, therefore, one should look at the
prospect. On the first stage, it is necessary, of course, to solve
the issue of displaced persons, for the problem is serious enough,
as well as issues of security, economy, and communications.
Azerbaijan, co-chair countries, and EU member countries “explain
to the Armenian side that prolonging the destructive policy in the
region will make it difficult for them to expect a lively development
in the future.” “If they in Armenia think that they will be able
to preserve control over the occupied territories, this, I suppose,
would be equal to a suicide,” Mammadyarov claimed.
“We will persist in continuing our policy of developing Azerbaijani
economic and political systems, all its institutions, including
military ones,” Mammadyarov says. “To move forward, one needs to
understand the situation in the region, which will come at some point.”
Speaking of the possibility of holding in Nagorno Karabakh referendum
on its status, the minister said: “We are rather speaking of a poll.”
He specified that “this will become possible after the life of both
Azerbaijani and Armenian communities is normalized in Nagorno Karabakh
itself, after the Azerbaijani displaced persons have returned.”
What questions are to be asked in the poll, is, in his words, still a
matter of negotiations, “for if a question posed disputes territorial
integrity, the question can only be solved based on the Constitution
of Azerbaijan.”
Touching upon the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry position on journalists’
visits to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, the minister said; “Considering
that Nagorno Karabakh is an inseparable part of Azerbaijan, I do
not see a problem in the country’s representatives’ visiting the
region. But naturally, this depends on the level of cooperation. If
a need arises for citizens to visit journalists, NGO workers, even
official representatives we have no objection to it.”
“I think we have to overcome the barrier of hatred that exists between
Azerbaijan and Armenia on some issues. We are neighbors, and we will
have to deal with each other,” Elmar Mammadyarov concluded.
/Regnum/
URL:

The turbulent march of history past Beirut woman’s window
Agence France Presse — English
July 27, 2006 Thursday 6:48 AM GMT
By Haro Chakmakjian
>From the evacuation of Yasser Arafat in 1982 to the current foreign
exodus, Makrouhie Yerganian has seen the troubled history of Lebanon
unscroll in front of her eyes at her vantage point in front of Beirut
port.
Just last week, two truck drivers having coffee were killed when
their parked and apparently empty vehicles were blown apart in an
Israeli air strike on the edge of the port, just 50 metres (yards)
away from her modest home in a three-storey apartment block.
“It was a very strange noise that rattled our nerves. We thought we
had heard all sorts of explosions but this was something new even for
us,” says the Lebanese Armenian schoolteacher who has lived in the
Mar Mikhael area for more than half a century.
Her 85-year-old mother was just about to water the flowers on the
window ledge, until Yerganian changed her mind. Many of the windows
in her building were shattered, but the women escaped unharmed from
Israel’s latest salvo in its war on Hezbollah.
“I believe it is written on your forehead. If it is written, you can
die wherever you are. But that day, the Lord protected us,” says the
60-year-old woman from her sitting room where sheets cover the
furniture, as the shutters slam from the sea breeze.
A vivid memory still stencilled into her head came in 1976 when
militiamen massacred Shiites, Druze and Palestinian refugees in the
nearby Karantina camp, now closed.
“A boy whose voice had not even broken kept pleading: ‘Don’t kill
me’. They dragged him off to the corner of the street and shot him,”
she says. “I can still hear his voice in my head, begging for his
life, as they dragged him off.”
Two years later, in another of the multiple wars within a war which
devastated Lebanon between 1975 and 1990, the Phalange, a Christian
militia, battled Syrian forces.
“The Syrians were parked right in front of our windows, and the
Phalange behind. They started fighting and we were caught bang in the
middle,” she says.
During the brief deployment of the Multinational Forces sent to
oversee the Palestinian evacuation after Israel’s invasion and
supposedly to protect the refugees, they had new neighbours in the
shape of American, French and Italian troops.
“They were all clean, except the Israelis. The Americans and the
others used metal shacks and they would burn their waste,” she says.
“We would be hanging the washing and they (Israeli troops) would be
doing their dirty business or relieving themselves in full public
view. We had to move away for a while,” says a grimacing Yerganian.
“The Italians were friendly and we even learnt a few words of
Italian. The Americans and the French would hand out chocolates to
the neighbourhood kids,” she says. “People would come from far to see
them from our house. We had a lot of guests in those days.”
But things went sour yet again. President-elect Bashir Gemayel was
assassinated and “the radios tried to reassure the people by saying
he had survived the bomb blast”, Makrouhie recalls.
“At midnight, we heard the marching of boots. We looked out of the
window and saw the Jewish soldiers heading toward west Beirut”, on
the eve of the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra
and Shatila by Phalangist militiamen.
Before the massacres, French soldiers had been posted with huge guns
on the rooftops, including Yerganian’s, to protect the evacuation of
late Palestinian leader Arafat and his PLO fighters in 1982.
In 1984, west Beirut fell to Muslim militias and the US and European
troops withdrew through the port after their barracks were blown up
by suicide bombers at a cost of some 300 lives.
The Lebanese army posted heavy artillery outside the house to bombard
the mostly Muslim western sector, opening up with 55-mm rounds that
rocked the building to its very foundations.
“I was going mad, with pillows on each ear to muffle the horrific
noise. I was going to go out and tell them to stop, please, please.
My mother told me: ‘Don’t worry, this will pass too’,” says
Yerganian.
Despite everything, “I love Lebanon. I was born here and this is my
country. Anything that happens to our poor Lebanon, it breaks our
heart.
“We were so happy seeing the new bridges and the revival of the
downtown thanks to Hariri after the civil war, but they won’t allow
us to have any joy,” she says, referring to the 2005 murder of former
premier and architect of Lebanon’s revival, Rafiq Hariri.
While the tens of thousands of foreigners were fleeing the Israeli
air strikes across from her window, “at least we had hopes for a
little calm in our area. But after the last US evacuations (on
Wednesday), we fear the worst for Lebanon”, she says.