CIS INTERIOR MINISTERS UNDER ONE ROOF
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| 14:00:56 | 29-09-2005 | Politics |
The session of the Council of CIS Interior Ministers started in
Yerevan today.
The Ministers will discuss the ways of combating terrorism via
creation of international legal basis, harmonization of the country
legislation and unification of efforts of the legislative and executive
bodies. Organized crime, illegal circulation of drugs and weapons,
illegal migration and trafficking in people will be in the limelight
of the session participants, who realize that struggle against the
above-mentioned problems in impossible within one country.
“Today, when the world faces new challenges, we are charged wit the
task to elaborate a unified strategy and efficient counterblow against
the most dangerous demonstrations of crime”, Armenian Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan stated during the sitting.

ABUSE OF ELECTROSHOCK FOUND IN TURKISH MENTAL HOSPITALS
By Craig S. Smith
New York Times
Sept 29 2005
PARIS, Sept. 28- Turkey’s psychiatric hospitals are riddled with
horrific abuses, including the use of raw electroshock as a form of
punishment, according to a human rights report issued in Istanbul on
Wednesday, just days before Turkey begins formal talks to join the
European Union.
Photo: Mental Disability Rights International Patients languished on
the grounds of Bakirkoy Psychiatric Hospital
Photo: Mental Disability Rights International At the Saray
Rehabilitation Center, investigators from a human rights group saw
children with plastic water bottles taped over their hands to keep
them from biting their fingers. The group found abuses in Turkish
mental hospitals to include use of electroshock, without anesthetics,
as punishment.
The report, by Mental Disability Rights International, a
Washington-based group, came after several visits in the past year
by the group’s investigators to psychiatric hospitals and other
facilities for people with developmental or mental disabilities.
While the report details many types of abuses, it said the most
disturbing involved the use of electroconvulsive therapy without
anesthesia to treat a wide range of illnesses in adults and children.
The World Health Organization has called for a ban on “unmodified” or
“direct” use of the treatment and states that children should never
be subjected to it in any form.
The therapy, in which an electrical current is passed through the
brain, was developed in the 1930’s and continues to be used in
mainstream psychiatry to treat a limited number of ailments. But it
is normally administered with anesthesia and muscle relaxants.
Without them it can be painful, terrifying and dangerous. Patients
can break jaws or crack vertebrae during the induced seizures. The
report quotes a 28-year-old patient at Bakirkoy Psychiatric Hospital
in Istanbul as saying, “I felt like dying.”
The Health Ministry, which is responsible for psychiatric hospitals,
said it had not yet read the report and declined to comment, other
than to say that the director of the electroconvulsive therapy center
at Bakirkoy denied administering unmodified electroshocks there.
But on one day in April when the rights group’s staff visited the
center, 24 people received such treatments, the report said.
Technicians at the center told the group that only patients who
had broken bones, presumably from previous treatments, were given
anesthesia.
The human rights group estimated that unmodified shock treatment was
used on nearly a third of patients undergoing psychiatric crises at
the government-run hospitals, including children as young as 9. The
treatment is also administered for many illnesses, like postpartum
depression, that are not generally considered by the international
psychiatric community to warrant electroshock.
The investigators also found that the treatment was used as
punishment. The report describes patients being dragged to electroshock
therapy in straitjackets and forcibly held down during the procedure.
“If we use anesthesia the E.C.T. won’t be as effective, because
they won’t feel punished,” the report quotes the director of the
electroconvulsive therapy center as saying.
Referring to that statement, Eric Rosenthal, the founder of the rights
group, said in a telephone interview from Istanbul, “That was one
of most horrifying statements I’ve ever heard in 12 years of doing
this work.”
Turkey has been criticized for using unmodified electroshock before.
In 1997 the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture called on
Turkey to stop the practice, and the Health Ministry promised to do so.
Now, the new report is likely to complicate Turkey’s talks with the
European Union, because of the organization’s strict human rights
requirements for membership.
“There’s no question that what’s described in the report counts as
torture under the European convention and shouldn’t exist in Turkey
or anywhere in Europe,” said Richard Howitt, a British member of
the European Parliament who sits on the joint European Union-Turkish
parliamentary committee.
He said he would bring up the report as part of the membership
negotiations, because to join, a nation must be judged to follow
democratic principles, respect human rights and be on its way to
meeting certain economic and institutional standards.
The report, which includes testimony from former patients and videos
taken inside some institutions, reported other abuses as well.
Much of the documented abuse took place in orphanages and
rehabilitation centers for children with developmental or intellectual
disabilities. Investigators saw emaciated and neglected children,
many of whom had behavioral problems that were likely to have
been the result of mistreatment rather than pre-existing illness,
Mr. Rosenthal said.
“We saw children who were essentially abandoned, starving, tied down to
their beds,” he said, adding that investigators had not been allowed
to see the worst wards.
Photographs and videos taken at the Saray Rehabilitation Center,
the largest of Turkey’s government-run rehabilitation centers, show
skeletal children, some with plastic water bottles taped over their
hands to prevent them from biting their fingers. Other children with
only minor disabilities are mixed in with the rest.
Although the center keeps no mortality records, a footnote in
the report notes that the large number of admissions without a
corresponding number of discharges suggests that many children die
at the center.
“We believe there’s a very high death rate in these facilities,” Mr.
Rosenthal said.
Officials at Turkey’s Directorate for Social Services and Child
Protection could not be reached for comment.
The report said that there were no enforceable laws in Turkey to
protect mentally ill people from arbitrary detention or forced
treatment and that there were virtually no community services that
might keep them out of institutions. As a result, according to the
report, thousands are institutionalized for life.
Mr. Rosenthal founded Mental Disability Rights International in 1993.
It now has a staff of nine people, including one in Turkey.
Massacres of Armenians Recalled
STRASBOURG, France, Sept. 28 (Reuters) – The European Parliament gave
only a grudging blessing on Wednesday to membership talks with Turkey
starting next week and said Ankara must recognize the massacres of
Armenians during the years around 1915 as genocide before it can join
the Euopean Union.
The resolution, which is nonbinding, was a political slap for Turkey,
which insists that the killings, carried out by the Ottoman Empire,
did not constitute genocide.

GYUMRI TO BE CLEANED OF RUBBISH
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| 13:35:45 | 29-09-2005 | Regions |
Japan, the Armenian government and the Gyumri city administration
joined efforts to eliminate household rubbish by means of processing. A
Japanese delegation arrived in Gyumri for the purpose.
Armenia joint the Kyoto Protocol in 2004 and the first programs were
implemented in Nubarasgen community of Yerevan.
Similar program has been already launched in Gyumri. “Within the
protocol framework measures targeted at reduction of toxic agents in
the atmosphere will be undertaken”, member of the Japanese delegation
said.
In the opinion of specialists, the rubbish processing will give a
positive ecological result and can be also used as an energy source.
The implementation of the Gyumri program in will be initially financed
by Japan, then by the local self-government. The works will be carried
out jointly by the Armenian and Japanese specialists.
The initial stage of the program, which implies the investigation
of the area, has already started, Tsayg TV company reported. Later
assembly and construction works will be launched.

EU MINISTERS TO HOLD EMERGENCY TALKS ON TURKEY
Ireland online, Ireland
Sept 29 2005
European Union foreign ministers will hold emergency talks this
weekend to try to overcome Austrian objections to starting entry
talks with Turkey, after ambassadors failed to reach agreement today,
diplomats said.
Austria held to its position that Turkey be offered the option of a
lesser partnership rather than full membership in negotiations which
are scheduled to start on Monday.
All 25 EU nations have to agree on a negotiating mandate before talks
can begin with Ankara.
The deadlock will put further strain on ties with Ankara which is
growing increasingly restless over attempts by several EU nations to
put the brakes on opening negotiations.
A British EU presidency spokesman confirmed the EU foreign ministers
will hold talks on Sunday in Luxembourg, on the eve of the planned
opening of negotiations with Turkey. Bilateral talks will continue
in the meantime between London and Vienna to try and get Austria to
back down.
Austria says its people – and many others across the bloc – do not
support full membership for Turkey and is demanding Ankara be given
the option of a privileged partnership. Turkey firmly rejects anything
less than full membership talks.
Austria is also linking the Turkey talks with its wish to see the EU
do more to review Croatia’s now-frozen efforts to join the bloc.
Brussels has demanded that Zagreb cooperate more in handing over a
top war crimes suspect to the UN war crimes tribunal.
Diplomats said Britain and other member states were unlikely to yield
to demands to drop guarantees of full membership.
The draft mandate states the “shared objective of the negotiations
is accession,” but adds they are “open-ended.” It does not mention
a partnership as an alternative.
Membership talks would be a major milestone for Europe and
predominantly Muslim Turkey, which has been knocking on the EU’s door
since 1963.
The EU nations secured Cypriot support last week to start the talks,
after Nicosia agreed to plans that the EU push Turkey to recognise
the Mediterranean island during entry talks, leaving Austria as the
only hold up.
EU diplomats have been negotiating for nearly two months to agree on
a joint negotiating mandate and a declaration demanding that Turkey
recognise EU member Cyprus.
The declaration warns that non-recognition could paralyse the
negotiations. The EU issued the demand after Turkey said it still
refused to recognise the island’s government, which effectively
controls only the Greek Cypriot south.
Ankara said an agreement it signed in July to widen its customs union
with the EU to include Cyprus and nine other new EU members did not
amount to recognition of the Greek-Cypriot government.
Yesterday, the European Parliament added to tense EU-Turkey ties,
voting to postpone a vote to ratify Turkey’s customs union with
the EU, a requirement of membership. The politicians also called on
Ankara to recognise the 1915-1923 killings of Armenians as genocide,
which Turkey vehemently denies.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately dismissed the
non-binding European resolution on the extremely sensitive Armenian
issue.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ACTION OF GRATITUDE
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| 14:23:37 | 29-09-2005 | Politics |
Today at 18.30 an action will be held next to the European Commission
building in Tbilisi to support the passage of a compulsory condition
for Turkey’s accession to the EU, which lies in Turkey’s recognition
of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
The action will comprise some 100 participants with gratitude words
written in all state languages of the EU member states, as well as
in Georgian and Armenian. Candles will be lit to commemorate the
Genocide victims. To note, the event was initiated by Nor Serund,
the union of Armenians of Georgia.
On behalf of the action participants and Armenians of Georgia a
letter will be handed to head of the EU delegation to Georgia Torben
Holtze. The letter says, in part, “This move once again proved that the
European Union is the bastion of democracy and human rights protection
throughout the globe. The Armenian Genocide is an outrage not only
against the Armenian nation but also against humanity. We think that
the Genocide recognition is of utter importance not only for Armenia,
Armenians but also for the whole world.
Only through condemnation of such crimes we can prevent their
repetition. We welcome the position of the European Union and hope that
it will help Turkey to resign to its past and overcome the complex,
which being conveyed from generation to generation poses problems
between the neighbors.”

ARMENIA 79TH IN COMPETITIVE STRENGTH WORLD RATING
Pan Armenian News
28.09.2005 08:50
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia is 79th in the annual world competitive
strength rating of the World Economic Forum (WEF), says the Report
on Global Competitive Strength in 2005-2006 published in Geneva. The
economy of Finland is at the top of the rating for the third year
successively, the US is the second, while Sweden is the third. They are
followed by Denmark and Taiwan. The top ten also includes Singapore,
Island, Switzerland, Norway and Australia. Russia is 75th in the
rating, while Ukraine is 84th and Georgia is the 86th. The rating
included Azerbaijan (69th position), Kazakhstan (61), Kyrgyzstan (116),
Moldova (82) and Tajikistan (104) for the first time this year. The
WEF rating is being composed on the basis of inquiry of business
community leaders in 117 countries, as well as official statistics.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RA PRESIDENT MET HEIKKI TALVITIE
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| 15:00:42 | 29-09-2005 | Official |
Today Armenian President Robert Kocharian received EU Special
Representative for the South Caucasus Haikii Talvitie to discuss
cooperation within the New Neighbors EU Program.
The parties also touched upon the Karabakh conflict settlement,
some regional problems and development programs. The process of
constitutional reform was as well considered.
Robert Kocharian and Mr. Talvitie stressed the importance of the
constitutional amendments rating them as a new possibility for
developing and strengthening democracy in Armenia.

THE MYTH OF THE SHI’ITE CRESCENT
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times, Hong Kong
Sept 29 2005
TEHRAN – A specter haunts the Middle East – at least in the minds
of Sunni Arabs, especially Wahhabis, as well as a collection of
conservative American think tanks: a Shi’ite crescent, spreading from
Mount Lebanon to Khorasan, across Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf and
the Iranian plateau.
But facts on the ground are much more complex than this simplistic
formula whereby, according to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait, Tehran
controls its allies Baghdad, Damascus and parts of Beirut.
Seventy-five percent of the world’s oil reserves are in the Persian
Gulf. Seventy percent of the Gulf’s population is Shi’ite. As an
eschatological – and revolutionary – religion, fueled by a mix of
romanticism and despair, Shi’ism cannot but provoke fear, especially
in hegemonic Sunni Islam.
For more than a thousand years Shi’ite Islam has been in fact a galaxy
of Shi’sms. It’s as if it was a Fourth World, always maligned with
political exclusion, a dramatic vision of history and social and
economic marginalization.
But now Shi’ites finally have acquired political representation in
Iraq, have conquered it in Lebanon and are actively claiming it in
Bahrain. They are the majority in each of these countries. Shi’ism is
the cement of their communal cohesion. It’s a totally different story
in Saudi Arabia, where Shi’ites are a minority of 11%, repressed as
heretics and deprived of their rights and fundamental freedoms. But
for how much longer?
The Shi’ite sanctuary Shi’ism has been the state religion in Iran
since 1501, at the start of the Safavid dynasty. But with Grand
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic revolution, for the first
time in history the Shi’ite clergy was able to take over the state –
and to govern a Shi’ite-majority society. No wonder this is the most
important event in the history of Shi’ism.
Asia Times Online has confirmed in the holy Iranian city of Qom that
as far as major ayatollahs are concerned, their supreme mission is
to convert the rest of Islam to what they believe is the original
purity and revolutionary power of Shi’ism, always critical of the
established social and political order.
But as a nation-state at the intersection of the Arab, Turk, Russian
and Indian worlds, as the key transit point of the Middle East, the
Persian Gulf, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Indian sub-continent,
between three seas (the Caspian, the Persian Gulf and the sea of
Oman), not far from Europe and at the gates of Asia, Tehran on a more
pragmatic level has to conduct an extremely complex foreign policy.
Diplomats in Tehran don’t say it explicitly, but this is essentially
a counter-encirclement foreign policy. And not only because of the
post-September 11 American military bases that today encircle Iran
almost completely.
Iran rivals Turkey for influence in Central Asia and rivals Saudi
Arabia for hegemony in the Persian Gulf – with the added complexity
of this being a bitter Sunni-Shi’ite rivalry as well. Rivalry with
Pakistan – again for influence in Central Asia – subsided after the
Taliban were chased out of power in Afghanistan in 2001. But basically
Tehran regards Pakistan as a pro-American Sunni regional power, thus
not exactly prone to be attentive to Shi’ites. This goes a long way
to explain the Iran-India alliance.
It’s impossible to deal with Iran without understanding the complex
dialectics behind the Iranian religious leadership. In their minds,
the concept of nation-state is regarded with deep suspicion, because
it detracts from the umma – the Muslim community.
The nation-state is just a stage on the road to the final triumph of
Shi’ism and pure Islam. But to go beyond this stage it’s necessary to
reinforce the nation-state and its Shi’ite sanctuary, which happens to
be Iran. When Shi’ism finally triumphs, the concept of nation-state,
a heritage from the West, will disappear anyway, to the benefit of
a community according to the will of Prophet Mohammed.
The problem is that reality often contradicts this dream. One of the
best examples was the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Saddam Hussein
invaded Iran first. Iranians reacted culturally – this was a case
of Persians repulsing an Arab invasion. But Tehran at the same time
also expected Iraqi Shi’ites to rebel against Saddam, in the name of
Shi’ism. It did not happen.
For the Shi’ites in southern Iraq, the Arab nationalist impulse was
stronger. And still is. This fact undermines the neo-conservative
charge that Iran is fueling a guerrilla war in southern Iraq with
the intention of breaking up the country. The Ba’athist idea of
integration of Iraqi communities under a strong state, in the name
of Arab nationalism, persists. Few in the Shi’ite south want a civil
war – or the breakup of Iraq.
Azerbaijan and Afghanistan Azerbaijan – where 75% of the population is
Shi’ite – could not be included in a Shi’ite crescent by any stretch of
the imagination, even though it was a former province of the Persian
empire that Russia took over in 1828.
Azeris speak a language close to Turkish, but at the same time
they are kept at some distance by the Turks because they are in the
majority Shi’ites. Unlike Iran, the basis of modern, secular Turkey is
national – not religious – identity. To complicate matters further,
Shi’ism in Azerbaijan had to face the shock of a society secularized
by seven decades of Soviet rule. Azeris would not be tempted – to
say the least – to build an Iranian-style theocracy at home.
It’s true that Azeri mullahs are “Iranified”. But as Iran and
Azerbaijan are contiguous, independent Azerbaijan fears too much
Iranization.
At the same time, Iran does not push too hard for Shi’ite influence
on Azerbaijan because Azeri nationalism – sharing a common religion
on both sides of the border – could embark on a reunification of
Azerbaijan to the benefit of Baku, and not of Tehran.
And if this was not enough, there’s the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
an enclave of Armenian people completely within Azerbaijan, where
Iran supports Armenia for basically two reasons: to reduce Turkish
influence in Azerbaijan and to help Russia counteract Turkey –
perceived as an American Trojan horse – in the Caucasus.
A fair resume of this intractable equation would be that Azerbaijan
is too Shi’ite to be totally pro-Turkish, not Shi’ite enough to be
completely pro-Iranian, but Shi’ite enough to prevent itself from
becoming a satellite of Russia – again.
On Iran’s eastern front, there are the Hazaras of Afghanistan,
the descendants of Genghis Khan. In the 17th century Hazarajat, in
central Afghanistan, was occupied by the Persian empire. That’s when
it converted to Shi’ism. Hazaras have always suffered the most in
Afghanistan – totally marginalized in political, economic, cultural
and religious terms. Under the Taliban they were massacred in droves –
as the Taliban were surrogates of Saudi Wahhabism: that was a graphic
case of rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia being played out in
the heart of Afghanistan, as much as a case of pro-Pakistan Pashtuns
against pro-Iranian Hazaras.
Hazaras compound a significant 16% of the Afghan population. As far
as Tehran is concerned, they are supported as an important political
power in post-Taliban Afghanistan. But once again it’s not a case of
a Shi’ite crescent.
Iranian military aid flows to the Shi’ite party Hezb-e-Wahdat. But
there are more important practical issues, like the road linking
eastern Iran with Tajikistan that goes through Mazar-e-Sharif in
northern Afghanistan and bypasses Hazara territory. And there’s the
strong Iranian political influence in Herat, in western Afghanistan –
the privileged fiefdom of warlord Ishmail Khan. When Khan was jailed
by the Taliban in 1997 in Kandahar, he was liberated thanks to Iranian
mediation. Khan is now energy minister in the Hamid Karzai government,
but he still controls Herat. The road linking Herat to the Iranian
border was rebuilt and paved by Iranian engineers. People in Herat
can’t get a single TV program from Kabul, but they get three Iranian
state channels. Western Afghanistan is as much Afghan as Iranian.
Meanwhile, in South Asia …
The Moghul empire in India was heavily Persianized. The Moghuls
had been speaking Persian since the 14th century – it was the
administrative language of the sultans and the empire’s high officials
in Delhi, later carried as far away as Malacca and Sumatra.
India – as much as Central Asia – was extremely influenced by Persian
culture. Today, Shi’ites concentrate in northern India, in Uttar
Pradesh, around Lucknow, and also in Rajastan, Kashmir, Punjab, the
western coast around Mumbai and around Karachi in Pakistan. Most are
Ishmalis – not duodecimal, like the Iranians. Pakistan may have as
many as 35 million Shi’ites, with a majority of duodecimal. India
has about 25 million, divided between duodecimal and Ishmalis. The
numbers may be huge, but in India Shi’ites are a minority inside a
minority of Muslims, and in Pakistan they are a minority in a Sunni
state. This carries with it a huge political problem. Delhi sees the
Shi’ites in Pakistan as a factor of destabilization. That’s one more
reason for the close relationship between India and Iran.
Trojan horses in the Gulf Seventy-five percent of the population
of the Persian Gulf – concentrated in the eastern borders of Saudi
Arabia and the emirates – is Shi’ite, overwhelmingly members of a
rural or urban proletariat.
Hasa, in Saudi Arabia, stretching from the Kuwaiti border to the
Qatar border, has been populated by Shi’ites since the 10th century.
That’s where the oil is. Seventy percent of the workforce in the
oilfields is Shi’ite. The potential for them to be integrated in a
Shi’ite crescent is certainly there.
Another historical irony rules that the bitter rivalry – geopolitical,
national, religious, cultural – between Iran and Saudi Arabia has to
played out in Saudi territory as well. A Shi’ite minority in the land
of hardcore Sunni Wahhabism – and the land that spawned al-Qaeda –
has to be the ultimate Trojan horse. What to do?
Just as in Iraq under Saddam, the Saudi royal family swings between
surveillance and repression, with some drops of integration, not as
much promoting Shi’ites in the kingdom’s ranks but heavily promoting
the immigration of Sunnis to Hasa. Deeper integration has to be the
solution, as the access to power of Shi’ites in Iraq will certainly
motivate Saudi Arabian Shi’ites.
Kuwait lies north of Hasa. Twenty-five percent of Kuwaitis are Shi’ite
– natives or immigrants, and they provoke the same sort of geopolitical
quandary to the Kuwaiti princes as they do to the Saudis. Although
they are a religious, social and economic minority as well, Shi’ites
in Kuwait enjoy a measure of political rights. But they are still
considered a Trojan horse. South of Hasa, in Qatar, where also 25%
of the population is Shi’ite, is the exact same thing.
And then there’s Bahrain. Sixty-five percent of Bahrain is Shi’ite.
Basically they are a rural proletariat. It’s the same pattern –
Sunnis are urban and in power, Shi’ites are poor and marginalized.
For decades, even before the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran had
insisted that the Shi’ites in Bahrain were Iranians because the
Safavid dynasty used to occupy both margins of the Persian Gulf.
Tehran still considers Bahrain as an Iranian province. The Shi’ite
majority in Bahrain is prone to turbulence. Repression has been
inevitable – and Bahrain is helped in the process by, who else,
Saudi Arabia.
But there are some encouraging signs. The small Bahrain archipelago
is separated from Saudi Arabia by just a bridge. Every weekend in the
Muslim world – Thursday and Friday – Saudis abandon Wahhabi suffocation
in droves to relax in the malls of Manama and its neighboring
islands. Women in Bahrain are closer to women in Tehran than to
Saudi. They wear traditional clothes, but not a full black chador,
they drive their own cars, they go about their business by themselves,
they meet members of the opposite sex in restaurants or cinemas. For
them, there are no forbidden places or professional activities.
The locals tend to believe this is due to the relative modernity of
the al-Khalifa family in power. Even the South Asian workforce is
treated much better than in the neighboring emirates.
Bahrain is not particularly wealthy – compared to the other
emirates – and unlike Dubai it does not strive to become an economic
powerhouse. There are plenty of schools and a good national university
– although most women prefer to study in the US or Lebanon. But all
this can be illusory. Shi’ites won’t stop fighting for more political
participation. Six months ago there was a huge demonstration in
Bahrain, demanding a new constitution. Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei are extremely
popular in Bahrain.
There are only 6% of Shi’ites in the wealthy United Arab Emirates.
But they can compound a problem as acute as in Kuwait or Qatar because
of the enormous trade and business Iranian influence in Dubai.
The whole equation of Persian Gulf Shi’ites has to do with a
tremendous identity problem. The key argument in favor of them not
being an Iranian Trojan horse is that first and foremost they are
Arabs. But the question remains in the air. Are they most of all
Arabs who practice a different form of Islam, which the Sunni majority
considers heretic? Or are they Shi’ites bound to pledge allegiance to
the motherland of Shi’ism, Iran? The answer is not only religious; it
involves social and political integration of Shi’ites in regimes and
societies that are basically Sunni. Shi’ism in the Arab Gulf may be
“invisible” to the naked eye. Only for the moment.
Sooner or later the sons of Imam Ali will wake up.

NEW TWIST PREDICTED TO NOBEL PRIZE
Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa
Stockholm, Sweden
29 September 2005 07:20
The Nobel Literature Prize has for decades gone to fiction writers
and poets, but just days before this year’s winner is revealed,
some say the prestigious prize could be awarded within a different
genre altogether.
While the list of usual suspects appears to be largely the same as
in recent years, featuring United States novelists Philip Roth and
Joyce Carol Oates, Ismael Kadare of Albania, Israeli Amos Oz and
Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer, the Swedish Academy might just have
a surprise in store this year.
“The academy has spoken of wanting to broaden the prize, which could
open the door, for instance, for literary journalists like Polish
Ryszard Kapuscinski,” said Eva Bonnier, head of Sweden’s Bonnier
publishing house.
“Kapuscinski is a possibility. It would be very exciting if the academy
decides to go in that direction,” agreed Ola Larsmo, a freelance
literary critic who writes for Sweden’s paper of record Dagens Nyheter.
He acknowledged, however, that “there are no clear-cut signs that this
will happen”, pointing out that the academy has been tight-lipped
about this year’s laureate ahead of the announcement, expected on
October 6 or the Thursday after.
If the academy does decide to embrace a new genre, Larsmo said a
prominent literary critic might also win.
“Someone like Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot or Susan Sontag. But
they are all dead now [and the prize cannot be awarded posthumously],
so I’m not quite sure who would be the most appropriate candidate
today.”
The head of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, acknowledged that
“it is important that the prize develops as literature develops”.
And if the award ends up going to a non-fiction writer, it would not
be the first time, he said, pointing out that Alfred Nobel did not
specify in his will that it had to go to a fiction writer.
Since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901, several non-fiction
writers and non-poets have won, including Bertrand Russell in 1950
for his philosophical writings and Winston Churchill three years
later for his historical texts.
“It’s been a long time since the prize has gone to someone like that.
Aesthetic literature has dominated because, I think, the modernist
trend has been to frown upon scientific literature,” Engdahl said,
adding that it might be time to re-evaluate the scope of the award.
Once prone to leaks, the academy has in recent years been careful
not to let the laureate’s name slip out in advance.
“We have a very strict discipline now. No documents leave the building
and the [academy] members are not allowed to discuss the choice by
e-mail or with members of their family. So far this year, I have not
seen any sign that there is a leak,” Engdahl said.
As an indication that the system works, controversial Austrian author
Elfriede Jelinek’s name was not even mentioned among the possible
laureates before she won the prize last year.
“I think this year’s choice will be a much more expected choice than
last year. Jelinek was extremely unexpected,” observed Svante Weyler,
the former head of Sweden’s largest publishing house, Norstedt.
“The academy tends to like to mix the expected with the unexpected
choices,” he said, putting his money on the likes of Roth and Oz,
as well as Algerian novelist, poet and filmmaker Assia Djebar.
Other clear candidates, according to Bonnier, include Dutch-language
authors Cees Nooteboom and Hugo Claus, Somalia’s Nuruddin Farah and
Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri.
Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, who was recently charged in Turkey with
“public denigration of the Turkish identity” for remarks he made
about the country’s massacre of Armenians, might also win the award,
Weyler said.
“Pamuk is an obvious candidate,” he said, but the 53-year-old author’s
young age may count against him.
“The academy may not want to give the prize to another young author”
after honouring 57-year-old Jelinek.
Also making an older winner more likely is an academy rule that it
never gives the prize to someone figuring for the first time on its
shortlist of five potential winners.
“Candidates must figure on the shortlist at least two years running
to win,” Engdahl said, insisting that the final vote is not influenced
by considerations such as gender or geography.
“Fortunately it’s not about such silly demands for fairness and
balance but about good books,” Larsmo said.
“The academy is a bit unpredictable, and that’s a good thing. The
more unpredictable they are, the better it is for literature,” he
added. — Sapa-AFP

ANKARA DID NOT LIKE EP RESOLUTION
Pan Armenian News
29.09.2005 03:16
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “The Europarliament Resolution does not have
obligatory,” Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, when commenting
the EP passage of a resolution providing for recognition of the
Armenian Genocide by Ankara as a “compulsory conditions” for Turkey’s
EU accession. “No matter what a resolution they have passed, we
will not surrender our position,” the Turkish PM said. It should
be reminded that the resolution “gave OK” to the launching of the
talks on Turkey’s accession to the EU October 3. It should also be
noted that the resolution was passed with 356 MPs for, 181 against,
and 125 abstained.