YEREVAN TO HOST RCC GATHERING
Armenpress
Oct 14 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS: Top officials from 12 CIS member
countries dealing with communication issues will gather in Yerevan
for a two-day 34-th meeting of the Regional Communication Cooperation
(RCC), slated for October 19-20 and also for the 8-th meeting of the
RCC coordinating committee.
Armenian transport and communication ministry said the gathering
will be attended also by representatives of a dozen of influential
international communications organizations. The RCC was founded
in 1991 to help CIS member countries’ cooperation in the areas of
communications and postal services.
It has 12 full members and 6 observers

PRIME MINISTER MEETS EBRD DIRECTORS
Armenpress
Oct 14 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS: Prime minister Andranik Margarian
met today directors from the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, who are in Armenia, after visiting Georgia, to learn
more about the state of reforms and transition in the region as the
Bank prepares its new two-year strategy for Armenia, due before the
end of 2005.
Both Georgia and Armenia participate in the Bank’s 2004 Early
Transition Countries (ETC) initiative, which aims to stimulate
market activity in the Bank’s seven lowest-income countries of
operations by using a streamlined approach to financing more and
smaller projects. Armenian government press office said EBRD directors
praised the government for its persisting efforts as a result of which
the economy continues to perform encouragingly in 2005, recording a
growth rate of 11.7 per cent in the first eight months of the year,
in line with the average of the past four years.
They also said the EBRD is considering a variety of new equity
investments and cooperation with Armenia’s strengthening banking sector
to bring more financing to smaller businesses and stressed the key
importance of establishment of a friendly business environment. Total
EBRD investment in Armenia was Euro 32.1 million in May 2005

ANCA WELCOMES AXA SETTLEMENT OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ERA INSURANCE CLAIMS
Pan Armenian
14.10.2005 20:31 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian National Committee of America welcomed
the settlement of a class action lawsuit against AXA Insurance company,
allowing descendents of Armenian Genocide era insurance policy holders
to seek the assets denied to them for far too long. The historic case
is the second of its kind, following the New York Life Insurance
class action case settled in February, 2004. In both cases, the
heirs of genocide-era claim holders were represented by Yeghiayan and
Associates, Geragos and Geragos, and Kabateck Brown Kellner. To place
this settlement in its proper context, it is important to note that,
while the heirs and grandchildren of Genocide-era policy holders will
now receive some small portion of those funds, we should remember that
those monies were not available when these orphans of the Genocide
needed them the most. Instead, they were collecting interest in AXA
coffers and remained there for some 90 years until this corrective
action was taken. The European affiliates of the ANCA played an
important role in educating the European citizenry in general and
the Armenian community in particular regarding the AXA case, through
a media outreach and a far-reaching email campaign. As part of this
effort, the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy
(EAFJD) initiated a petition campaign to AXA France Supervisory
Board Chairman Claude Bebear, urging the firm to accept a fair
settlement that would extend a measure of dignity and recognition
to the victims wrongfully denied their property for the past nine
decades. The Armenian American community expects a fair, effective,
and orderly claims process be put in place that fully accounts for
each policyholder and appropriately disburses funds to European
Armenian charities and organizations with a long-standing record
of fighting for the rights of the descendants of Armenian Genocide
victims. While the AXA case is significant in that it recognizes the
legitimacy of the insurance claims of Armenian Genocide victims, it
is by no means related to any claims for the deaths, thefts, bodily
harm, and real and personal property confiscation undertaken by the
government of Ottoman Turkey and the Republic of Turkey between 1915
and 1923, the liability and responsibilities for which continue to
be held by the modern day government of Turkey. Nor does the damages
calculation assigned in this case relate in any way to those claims,
which continue to remain outstanding

AXA INDEMNISE LES DESCENDANTS DES RESCAPES DU GENOCIDE ARMENIEN
La Presse Canadienne
Canadian Press
Oct 14 2005
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Le groupe d’assurance francais AXA s’est engage a
verser 17 millions de dollars aux descendants de victimes du genocide
armenien qui avaient souscrit des polices d’assurance-vie avant 1915,
a-t-on appris jeudi auprès des avocats des plaignants.
Cet accord, intervenu dans le cadre d’une action intentee devant un
tribunal federal de Los Angeles, fait suite a l’action collective
engagee depuis plusieurs annees par les avocats americains d’origine
armenienne Yeghiayan et Associes, Geragos & Geragos et Kabateck
Brown Kellner.
Un accord similaire avait ete conclu en fevrier entre des descendants
de victimes et l’assureur americain New York Life, pour un montant
de 20 millions de dollars.
Au terme de cet accord, AXA s’engage a verser 11 millions de dollars
a un fonds mis en place pour dedommager les descendants de victimes
qui avaient souscrit avant 1915 des polices d’assurance avec des
compagnies aujourd’hui integrees dans le groupe. En outre, 3 millions
de dollars seront reverses a des organisations caritatives armeniennes
basees en France.
De sources proches des plaignants, on rappelle que la compagnie
d’assurance l’Union-Vie, devenue UAP puis rachete par AXA, ne
s’est jamais acquitte du reversement des primes des assurances vie
souscrites dans l’Empire Ottoman et dont les souscripteurs ont peri
lors du genocide armenien de 1915.
Au total, la Compagnie Union Vie etaient detentrices de 10.899 contrats
d’assurance vie dans l’Empire Ottoman. Le president d’Union-Vie, dans
une lettre transmise au ministère francais des Affaires etrangères,
en date du 11 avril 1922, a reconnu que le decès de ces souscripteurs
armeniens etait dû aux massacres perpetres par les Turcs et non par une
mort naturelle. Dans ce meme courrier, il indique qu’il pourrait etre
prejudiciable pour le prestige de la compagnie de ne pas s’acquitter
des primes d’assurances vies. Pour autant, aucune d’entre elles n’a
encore ete reglee.
En juillet dernier, le Comite de defense de la cause armenienne
(CDCA) et la Federation euro-armenienne avaient appele la communaute
armenienne et ses amis a s’associer a la petition adressee au president
du conseil de surveillance d’AXA, Claude Bebear, afin de lui exprimer
toute l’attention et l’interet qu’ils portaient a la juste solution
de ce procès.
–Boundary_(ID_rOG6GLH5T8NzTm6QUA7j2w)–

ERDB TO DEVELOP COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA
Pan Armenian
14.10.2005 20:07 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan met today
directors from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
who are in Armenia, after visiting Georgia, to learn more about the
state of reforms and transition in the region as the Bank prepares its
new two-year strategy for Armenia, due before the end of 2005. To
note, Armenia participates in the Bank’s 2004 Early Transition
Countries (ETC) initiative, which aims to stimulate market activity
in the Bank’s seven lowest-income countries of operations by using a
streamlined approach to financing more and smaller projects. Armenian
government press office said EBRD directors praised the government for
its persisting efforts as a result of which the economy continues to
perform encouragingly in 2005, recording a growth rate of 11.7% in the
first eight months of the year, in line with the average of the past
four years. They also said the EBRD is considering a variety of new
equity investments and cooperation with Armenia’s strengthening banking
sector to bring more financing to smaller businesses and stressed
the key importance of establishment of a friendly business environment.

COORDINATING COUNCIL ON CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM FORMED
Pan Armenian
14.10.2005 18:59 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Yesterday Armenian President Robert Kocharian
held a working meeting with members of the council of the political
coalition to discuss matters referring to constitutional amendments,
RA leader’s press center reported. As result it was decided to
from a council for coordination of the preparatory works on the
constitutional referendum. The council will consist of representatives
of the political coalition and political forces supporting the
amendments. The work of the council will be coordinated by chairman
of the NA commission on defense, national security and home affairs
Mher Shahgeldian. The first sitting of the coordinating council will
be held on October 18.

MODERN HARDSHIPS CATCH UP WITH KARABAKH OLD-TIMERS
By Ashot Beglarian in Stepanakert
Institute of War and Peace Reporting
Oct 14 2005
Mountain air and good food used to keep people living well past a
hundred, but the stresses of war and poverty are now hitting home.
Elizaveta Pogosian celebrated her 100th birthday last week in
grand style – inviting more than a hundred relatives including her
great-grandchildren to a lavish feast in Stepanakert, the capital of
Nagorny Karabakh.
Time has not slowed Elizaveta down. At the party, paid for by her
grandson Ashot, a Moscow businessman, she was still sprightly enough
to perform a traditional Armenian dance and her family says she can
thread a needle without glasses.
Nor has she lost her sense of humour. She likes to tell people that
she is “under 90”.
Elizaveta says she has led a happy life, and when asked if she plans
to go on for another 50 years, she exclaimed, “Have pity on me! There
is a time for everything!”
Born in the village of Nngi in 1905, Elizaveta has lived through
three wars and two revolutions, and seen the end of two empires.
In Karabakh, centenarians are no rarity, and Elizaveta was not the
only one celebrating a birthday last week: a woman called Zara from
the Martuni district turned 105.
This mountainous region boasted one of the world’s highest rates
of longevity during the Soviet era. But it was just one of several
areas in the Caucasus famed for its “dolgozhiteli” or “long-livers”
as they are known in Russian. There are also disproportionately high
numbers of nonagenarians and centenarians in Ajaria, Abkhazia and
Lenkoran in the south of Azerbaijan.
In Karabakh, war and hard times now seem to be taking their toll on
the oldest generation. Precise figures are hard to come by, but the
number of people aged 90 or over is probably around 160, compared
with well over 200 when the last census was recorded in 1989.
Population movements over a turbulent decade-and-a-half may have
affected the figures.
What is certain is the life here has become a great deal more
difficult, for older people in particular. Changes in diet, health
problems, war, meagre pensions, and stress caused by uncertainty
about the future have had an effect on what was once a remote mountain
community.
David Karabekian, a sociology professor, says that in the last 15 years
alone, the elderly have experienced a lifetime’s-worth of troubles.
“The break-up of the Soviet Union, the [Karabakh] war, the continuing
animosity with Azerbaijan, economic hardship, adaptation to new
lifestyle, a change in mentality – all this has had a disastrous
effect on people’s health and life expectancy,” said Karabekian.
“Many old people lost their life savings overnight during the Soviet
monetary reform of 1991, and many of them never recovered from the
blow. Now they can barely afford food on their miserly pensions,
let alone medicines.”
The secret of longevity in Karabakh – as in any place with a
higher-than-average number of very old people – is a mystery, although
many experts attribute it to the mountain climate, mineral-rich water
and healthy, fresh produce.
“Our examinations have shown that Karabakh residents have a healthy
cardiovascular system, as well as solid peripheral and central nervous
systems,” said David Babayan, a local environmental expert.
“Their motor system is in excellent condition, and they have no
serious digestive tract problems.”
Diet is believed by many to be the main contributory factor to a long
and healthy life.
According to Babayan, residents tend to avoid spicy foods, and instead
eat natural dairy products, vegetables, fruit, wild berries and herbs,
all of local origin.
The region’s favourite dishes include soups made from beans, berries
or yoghurt; “hashil” – boiled wheat with butter; “kchakhash” – boiled
wheat, beans and peas; and rice pilaf. Perhaps the most popular item is
“tanav”, the local sour-milk yoghurt.
Many Karabakhis avoid eating fat, believing that it accelerates
ageing. Instead, they consume green grapes, and drink wine as well
as grape juice. They also go through large amounts of mulberries,
from which they make a sugar-free syrup. Some scientists believe
mulberries can prevent or cure heart, stomach and liver illnesses.
Aida Saakian, a nonagenarian who was in charge of Karabakh’s medical
system in the Soviet period, believes that it is specifically a decline
in food quality that has had a negative impact on public health.
“The environment as well as food quality was much better before –
everything was natural and pure,” she said. “Now people for the most
part buy low-quality products, there’s no quality control, and all
these concentrates are bad for people’s health.”
Karabakh families tended to cook more often during the Soviet era,
when few ready-to-eat meals or canned foods were available.
Nonna Musaelian, who chairs a medical panel at Karabakh’s
social-security ministry, says that post-war syndrome, stress,
economic hardship and inferior quality foods have lowered average life
expectancy. Moreover, she says diseases such as cancer, diabetes and
heart complaints are now more common than before.
Diabetes, which Musaelian says is often associated with poor diet,
is now particularly widespread in Karabakh, with 700 people registered
as diabetics, most of them pensioners who cannot afford the medication.
Tsovinar Javadian agrees that life has got harder in many respects.
The 90-year-old Stepanakert native, who has lived on her own since her
son was killed in the 1992-94 Karabakh war and her husband’s death a
few years later, thinks that as a result, there are fewer people of
her age around than there used to be.
“Back then [in the Soviet period], there was much that was good,
although people worked hard on the collective farms and aged quite
fast – but they lived for a long time nonetheless,” she said. “We
were taken care of, everyone had money, and no one was in need. That
was best for older people.
“Now we’re more free, but you can’t enjoy life unless you have money.”
Tsovinar watches every penny of her pension, which is just over 30
US dollars a month. She spends about a third of it on housing and
utilities, one-third on bread, and the remainder on noodles and
vegetable oil. Occasionally she treats herself to some biscuits
or sweets.
“Now there’s plenty of everything, but you can’t be sure about the
quality. You never know what you’re buying,” she said.
“I don’t feel old. I could live to 100, but illnesses, worries and
bad memories do take their toll.”
Ashot Beglarian is an IWPR contributor in Stepanakert.

MFAs OF RA AND SINGAPORE DISCUSS POSSIBILITY OF DEVELOPMENT OF BILATERAL RELATIONS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 14 2005
YEREVAN, October 14. /ARKA/. The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of
the RA and Singapore Vardan Oskanian and George Yeo discussed the
possibility of development of bilateral relations, beginning from
exchange of consulting between the Ministries and formation of the
contractual -legal field. According to the RA Ministry’s Press Service
Department, the sides discussed the possibility of sharing Singapore’s
experience of development. Positively evaluating the experience of
interaction between the countries in international organizations,
especially in the UN, the Ministers expressed their readiness to
enlarge their cooperation field in the future.
In the course of the meeting Oskanian told about the position of
Armenia in the modern geopolitical environment, regional possibilities
and trends of development. The sides discussed issues referring
to conflicts in various parts of the world. Oskanian introduced to
his colleague the current stage and prospects of the negotiations
on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Oskanian visited the Armenian Church in Singapore and met the local
Armenians. The same day in the evening Oskanian met the State Secretary
of Singapore Zainul Abidin Rasheed.
According to the press release, Oskanian left Singapore for Yerevan
last night.

EBRD THINKS TO INCREASE NUMBER OF PROGRAMS IMPLEMENTED IN ARMENIA
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 14 2005
YEREVAN, October 14. /ARKA/. EBRD is going to increase the number of
programs implemented in Armenia, as it was mentioned at the meeting
of the members of the Board of the EBRD with the RA Premier Andranik
Margaryan, according to the RA Government’s Press Service Department.
The members of the Board congratulated Margaryan on high economic
indicators of the past years, achieved due to consistent policy pursued
by the government. Noting that a favorable investment environment is
important for any country, the members of the delegation discussed
with the Premier the activities done in the republic in that direction
as well as further plans.
In his turn Margaryan highly appreciated the work of the EBRD in
Armenia. According to Margaryan, the programs implemented by the EBRD
in the banking, energy and insurance sectors, as well as work with
entrepreneurs of the private sector had a positive influence on the
economy of the country. Margaryan attached importance to further
development of cooperation in those directions, suggesting the
possibility of long-term crediting with low interest rate in further
programs that would develop the private sector. The premier introduced
to guests the process of privatization in the republic, as well as
steps done to stimulate export, implement the strategic program on
poverty reduction and anticorruption strategy, introduce reforms in
the customs and improve legislative field to develop economy.
The delegation of the Board of the EBRD that visited Armenia includes
Terens Braun, Michael Neumaer, Gonzalo Ramos, Zhohe Veiga de Masedo,
Scot Clark, Igor Podolev, Pier Stanchina, regional director Michael
Davy, Head of EBRD Yerevan Office Michael Winstin.

HOW CAN A COUNTRY THAT VICTIMISES ITS GREATEST LIVING WRITER ALSO JOIN THE EU?
Salman Rushdie
The Times, UK
Oct 14 2005
THE WORK ROOM of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus,
that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these
things, separates or unites – or, perhaps, separates and unites –
the worlds of Europe and Asia. There could be no more appropriate
setting for a novelist whose work does much the same thing.
In many books, most recently the acclaimed novel Snow and the haunting
memoir-portrait of his home town, Istanbul: Memories and the City,
Pamuk has laid claim to the title, formerly held by Yashar Kemal,
of Greatest Turkish Writer. He is also an outspoken man.
Explaining his reasons for refusing the title of “state artist”,
he said, in 1999: “For years I have been criticising the State for
putting authors in jail, for only trying to solve the Kurdish problem
by force, and for its narrow-minded nationalism . . . I don’t know why
they tried to give me the prize.” He has described Turkey as having
“two souls” and has criticised its human rights abuses.
“Geographically we are part of Europe . . . but politically?” He is
not sure.
I spent some days with Pamuk in July this year, at a literary festival
in the pretty Brazilian seaside town of Parati, and for those few
days he seemed free of his cares even though, earlier in the year,
death threats made against him by Turkish ultranationalists had
forced him to spend two months out of his country. But the clouds
were gathering. The statement he had made to the Swiss newspaper
Tages Anzeiger on February 6, 2005, which had been the cause of
the ultranationists ‘ wrath, was about to become a serious problem
once again.
“Thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in
Turkey,” he had told the Swiss paper, adding: “Almost no one dares to
speak out on this but me.” He was referring to the killings by Ottoman
Empire forces of thousands of Armenians in 1915-17. (Turkey does not
contest the deaths, but denies that they amounted to genocide.) Pamuk’s
reference to “30,000” Kurdish deaths refers to those killed since 1984
in the conflict between Turkish forces and Kurdish separatists. Debate
on these issues has been stifled by stringent laws, some leading to
lengthy lawsuits, fines and in some cases prison terms.
On September 1, 2005, Pamuk was indicted by a district prosecutor for
having “blatantly belittled Turkishness” by his remarks. If convicted,
he faces up to three years in jail. Article 301/1 of the Turkish
penal code, under which Pamuk is to be tried, states that “a person
who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand
National Assembly, shall be sentenced to a penalty of imprisonment
for a term of six months to three years . . . Where insulting being
a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a foreign country, the
penalty shall be increased by one third.” So, if Pamuk is found guilty,
he faces an additional penalty for having made the statement abroad.
You would think that the Turkish authorities might have avoided
so blatant an assault on their most celebrated writer’s fundamental
freedoms at the very moment that their application for full membership
of the European Union – an extremely unpopular application in many
EU countries – was being considered at the EU summit.
However, in spite of being a state that has ratified both the United
Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and
the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which see freedom
of expression as central, Turkey continues to have and to enforce a
penal code that is clearly contrary to these very same principles,
and, in spite of widespread global protests, has set the date for
Pamuk’s trial. It will begin, unless there is a change of heart,
on December 16.
That Pamuk is criticised by Turkish Islamists and radical nationalists
is no surprise. That the attackers frequently disparage his works
as obscure and self-absorbed, accusing him of having sold out to
the West, is no surprise either. It is, however, disappointing to
read intellectuals such as Soli Ozel, a professor of international
relations and a newspaper columnist, criticising “those, especially
in the West, who would use the indictment against Pamuk to denigrate
Turkey’s progress toward greater civil rights – and toward European
Union membership”.
Ozel wants the charges against Pamuk thrown out at the trial in
December, and accepts that they represent an “affront” to free speech,
but prefers to stress “the distance that the country has covered in the
past decade”. This seems altogether too weak. The number of convictions
and prison sentences under the laws that penalise free speech in
Turkey has indeed declined in the past decade, but International PEN’s
records show that more than 50 writers, journalists and publishers
currently face trials. Turkish journalists continue to protest against
the (revised) penal code. The International Publishers Association,
in a deposition to the UN, has described this revised code as being
“deeply flawed”.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, says
that Turkey’s entry into the EU is by no means assured, that it
will have to win over the hearts and minds of the deeply sceptical
EU citizenry. The Turkish application is being presented (most
vociferously by Tony Blair and Jack Straw) as a test case for the EU.
To reject it, we are told, would be a catastrophe, widening the gulf
between Islam and the West. There is an element of Blairite poppycock
in this, a disturbingly communalist willingness to sacrifice Turkish
secularism on the altar of faith-based politics. But the Turkish
application is indeed a test case for the EU, a test of whether the
Union has any principles at all. If it has, its leaders will insist
on charges against Orhan Pamuk being dropped at once – there is no
need to keep him waiting for justice until December – and on further,
rapid revisions to Turkey’s repressive penal code.
An unprincipled Europe, which turns its back on great artists and
fighters for freedom, will continue to alienate its citizens, whose
disenchantment has already been widely demonstrated by the votes
against the proposed new constitution. So the West is being tested
as well as the East. On both sides of the Bosphorus, the Pamuk case
matters.