CANADA: ARMENIA JOINS INTERNATIONAL DAIRY FEDERATION
just-food.com, UK
Sept 20 2005
The International Dairy Federation has announced the accession of
Armenia, its 42nd member, at its General Assembly in Vancouver.
Armenia is a country with a very ancient dairying history, the IDF
said. The famous tradition of dairying in the Caucasus region began
some 2000 years ago with the preparation of fermented milk mainly on
the basis of ewes’ milk.
Armenia, as a former Soviet republic, participated in the activities
of IDF for many decades. The country suffered from a major earthquake
that destroyed large parts of the infrastructure, including the dairy
sector, almost completely in 1988. It took several years to rebuild
infrastructure and electricity supply.
The newly formed Armenian National Committee comprises members
representing dairy production, processors, education, consumers and
government. Ashot Apoyan, has been appointed to take the lead and will
occupy the position of the first president of the Armenian National
Committee IDF.
Armenia also gains access to IDF’s worldwide network of 1200 leading
experts in all aspects of dairying.

LABOR PARTY LAUNCHES A DO NOT PURCHASE SWISS GOODS CAMPAIGN
The Anatolian Times, Turkey
Sept 20 2005
ANKARA – Turkish Labor Party (IP) deputy leader Mehmet Bedri Gultekin
has indicated today that his party has launched a campaign titled
“Do Not Purchase Swiss Goods” that will be effective until the Swiss
Parliament revokes a decision it adopted earlier on the so-called
Armenian genocide.
Members of the IP convened in capital Ankara’s main square Kizilay and
carried banners and shouted slogans encouraging Turks not to purchase
Swiss made goods due to the decision of the Swiss parliament vis-a-vis
the so-called genocide of Armenians.
Gultekin pointed out that IP leader Dogu Perincek was called by the
Lausanne Prosecutor’s Office. Perincek was warned by the Swiss police
officers before he gave a speech on the so-called Armenian genocide.
“The acts of the Swiss police have hurt the democratic image of
Switzerland. Despite the warnings, Perincek delivered his speech,”
told Gultekin.
Gultekin said Perincek will be questioned tomorrow by the Lausanne
Prosecutor.

MUCH ADO ABOUT TURKEY
By Tulin Daloglu
Washington Times, DC
Sept 20 2005
TODAY’S COLUMNIST
Last Thursday in the House International Relations Committee, Rep.
Dan Burton, Indiana Republican, opposed two resolutions dealing with
the alleged Armenian genocide. “This thing happened almost 100 years
ago, and we’re still beating on it 20 some years after I first got
involved in the debate on the floor of the House,” he said. “We ought
to get on with problems facing this country and the world today:
terrorism, Katrina, and other things, instead of rehashing this
thing over and over and over again at every anniversary of it.” Yet
both resolutions passed, and once again, Turkey’s present and past
“image problem” in the United States resurfaced.
In New York the next day, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
called the bills “completely political,” and Rep. Tom Lantos –
California Democrat, the ranking Democrat at the committee – admitted
as much. Mr. Lantos voted against a similar bill five years ago. This
time, although he explained in detail that what had happened to
the Armenian people is not technically genocide, he said he changed
his position because Turkey refused to open its northern front to
U.S. troops going into Iraq.
While committee Chairman Henry Hyde, Illinois Republican, said the
alleged genocide was the work of the Ottoman Empire, which was and is
distinct from the Republic of Turkey, Rep. Adam Schiff, Californian
Democrat, the sponsor of both measures, wrote, “The resolution urges
Turkey to go beyond recognition of genocide and reach a just resolution
with the Armenian people.”
The efforts on behalf of these congressional resolutions are not
solely about a duty to the past, but about demands from the present
and the future of Turkey. The question, then, is what exactly makes a
“just solution.” Armenian activists have over the years made their
three goals clear: recognition of the genocide, reparations for the
victims and return of the land.
If so, Gunay Evinch, a Turkish-American lawyer and Fulbright scholar,
compares the matter of compensation and return of property to the
Japanese-American relocations during World War II. In Korematsu
vs. United States, the Supreme Court held that treating all Japanese
Americans as a security threat and interning them was constitutional
for national security purposes. Fifty years later, however, the
Supreme Court reversed Korematsu (in Korematsu II), and held that
U.S. authorities did not have sufficient information to justify such a
relocation. But not only did the United States not return property to
the wrongfully relocated and dispossessed, it also did not compensate
them at the properties’ real value.
In the meantime, Mr. Schiff discussed the case of Turkey’s most popular
novelist in the West, Orhan Pamuk. Mr. Pamuk has been charged with
insulting Turkey’s national character and could be imprisoned for his
comments on Turkey’s killing of Armenians and Kurds. “Thirty thousand
Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody
but me dares to talk about it,” Mr. Pamuk was quoted as saying in an
interview with a Swiss newspaper in February. Yet, Mr.
Schiff forgot to mention that Mr. Pamuk is neither a historian nor
an expert on the matter.
But in June, a Swiss prosecutor started investigating comments made
by Yusuf Halacoglu, president of the Turkish Historical Society,
who in a speech in the Swiss city of Winterthur last year denied the
“genocide.” As denial of “Armenian genocide” is a crime according
to Swiss law, Mr. Halacoglu also faces possible imprisonment. Both
cases look equally disturbing and absurd.
Stanford Shaw, a lecturer at Ankara’s Bilkent University, called the
accusation against Mr. Halacoglu a “violation of academic freedom
and freedom of expression.” Mr. Shaw learned first-hand about the
consequences of denying the “Armenian genocide” when a bomb exploded
in front of his house in Los Angeles in 1977, and an Armenian terrorist
group called for his assassination.
Congress forgets in these bills that the Secret Army for the Liberation
of Armenia (ASALA) has killed more than 50 Turkish diplomats, and
makes no mention of the Muslims killed during the Armenian revolt.
Clearly, Mr. Lantos made a bad judgment call last Thursday if his
priority is the U.S. national interests. No one should forget the
challenge of history to the Turkish Republic in the region and its
geostrategic location in this very rough neighborhood. Iran is a
serious matter in terms of world peace, and no country would be happy
about a neighbor’s emerging nuclear power. The United States should
also realize that this is not the time to send the message that
Congress may allow Armenians to use the Diaspora to get what they want.
The people who believe that genocide occurred will believe it no
matter what. This is not about recognizing whether there was an
Armenian genocide; but this is about whether to seek compensation
and land from Turkey.
One should no wonder why every U.S. administration opposes similar
bills. But now, when the future of Iraq’s territorial integrity is
unprecedented, does Congress really want to send Turks the message
that it’s willing to divide up their country?
Tulin Daloglu is the Washington correspondent and columnist for
Turkey’s Star TV and newspaper. A former BBC reporter, she writes
occasionally for The Washington Times.

SO-CALLED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CONFERENCE DENOUNCED
The Anatolian Times, Turkey
Sept 20 2005
ISTANBUL – A denouncement has been filed against several Armenian
scholars who organized a conference on the so-called Armenian genocide
and used Ataturk’s picture on a poster at the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA).
The denouncement was filed at the Uskudar Republican Prosecutor’s
Office and had the signatures of Dr. Ibrahim Oztek, Dr. Zihni Papakci
and owner of Iktidar Magazine Metin Hacimustafaoglu.
A conference on the so-called Armenian genocide was organized at
UCLA which was attended by Armenian scholars Vahram Shemmassian,
Ardashes Kassakhian and Levon Marashlian last April. The conference
posters had Ataturk’s picture in front of puppies.
Dr. Oztek stressed that Turks and the founder of Turkey Ataturk were
insulted by the posters and conference organized at UCLA. “We will
sue those responsible for the insult against the Turks,” noted Oztek.

MAMMADYAROV: “ONLY RETURN OF ALL OCCUPIED TERRITORIES WILL HELP RESTORE OUR TRUST IN ARMENIA”
Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 20 2005
Only the return of all the occupied territories back to Azerbaijan
will help restore our trust and confidence in Armenia and its declared
intentions on the establishment of good neighborly relations with
Azerbaijan.
There should be no place for illusions: Azerbaijan will never
compromise its territorial integrity, Elmar Mammadyarov Minister of
Foreign Affairs, said in his statement to the General Debate of the
60th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on 18 September
2005. Since accession of Azerbaijan to the United Nations, this
Organization has been closely associated in our society with the hopes
for liberation of the territories of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia.
Although the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is
strongly involved in the settlement process, prompt reaction of the
United Nations Security Council in response to the occupation of the
territories of Azerbaijan and adoption of four resolutions 822, 853,
874 and 884 still generates optimism for peaceful settlement of the
conflict in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of
Azerbaijan. The principles unanimously adopted by the Security Council
in those resolutions continue to be the basis for the settlement
of the conflict. Last year consideration by the General Assembly of
the agenda item entitled “The situation in the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan” played a crucial role in attracting attention to the
dangerous practices carried out by Armenia in the occupied territories
of Azerbaijan.
“As for the negotiation process itself, I must admit that we are now at
a critical juncture where the chances for resolution of the conflict
are cautiously optimistic. The Government of Azerbaijan remains
committed to the peaceful settlement of this protracted conflict,
based on the respect for the norms and principles of international
law,the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions
and the OSCE documents and decisions. We expect that the Armenian
side will proceed from the similar constructive approach and will
not miss this window of opportunity,” he stressed.
“Such a step will relieve the Government of Armenia from a label of
aggressor inherited after occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan
and will provide for both parties the opportunities to be brought
by the settlement of the conflict,” he underlined. He reiterated
Azerbaijan’s readiness for providing the security assurances for the
Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
“As for the status of the region, it is necessary to create favorable
conditions for the secure and dignified return of the expelled
Azerbaijani population to the Nagomo-Karabakh region and other
occupied territories, to establish there normal living conditions
and to provide opportunities for economic development for both
communities,” the Minister emphasized.
Once the agreement is achieved, both for political and legal guarantees
of its implementation we will need the support of the international
community for the deployment of the multinational peacekeeping
forces, demining, restoration of communications, rehabilitation
of lands, as well as the provision of security guarantees for the
population in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, including
the creation of local police forces in the region for both Armenian
and Azerbaijani communities. Last, but not least point on the conflict
resolution. It is the issue of communication of the Armenians living
in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan with Armenia and thatof
the Azerbaijanis living in the Nakhchivan region of Azerbaijan with
the rest of thecountry.
“From this high rostrum, after the recent meeting of the Presidents
of Azerbaijan and Armenia held in Kazan on August 26 2005, I urge
the Armenian not to loose this chance and to advance the negotiation
process with the assistance of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmen
in accordance with the mutual understandings reached with in the
Prague process,” Mammadyarov underscored. Mammadyarov is to be back
on Tuesday.
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ARMENIA’S AMBASSADOR TO ITALY RUBEN SHUGARYAN MEETS WITH DEPUTY FM OF ITALIA MARGERITA BONIVER
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 19 2005
YEREVAN, September 19. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Ambassador to Italy Ruben
Shugaryan met with Deputy Foreign Minister of Italy Margerita
Boniver, press-service of the RA Foreign Ministry reported ARKA
News Agency. They discussed issues of Armenia’s Eurointegration
within the program of new neighborhood, possible development of the
Armenian-Turkish relations in the context of the European processes
and the negotiations on Turkey’s entrance to the European Union.
According to the press-release, the sides discussed in details the
issues related to the organization of Italian-Armenian Friendship
Days in October, 2005 in Armenia. This initiative is sponsored by
the President of Italia Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and the President of
Armenia Robert Kocharyan. Boniver expressed her satisfaction with
the development of Armenian-Italian relations. A.A. -0–

LUCAS’ SEARCH FOR HIS IDENTITY
Hartford Courant
Sept 20 2005
Smith Grad Is One Of Four Transgender Students In Sundance Series
By ROGER CATLIN, Courant TV Critic It was a simple choice for the
Oklahoma high school senior to attend Smith College in Northampton.
“Academically it’s one of the top schools in the country,” says the
student, who graduated from Smith with highest honors in May. “It’s
one of the only schools that offer a neurosurgery major. And it had
very good financial aid. It just happens to be a women’s college.”
The gender issue wasn’t quite as black and white for the student,
born as Leah 22 years ago but more recently known as Lucas.
He didn’t realize there was such a thing as transgender students –
and that he was one – until he got there. Not that it was some kind
of campus fad.
“It’s not something that suddenly happened to me,” Lucas says by
phone from his home near Tulsa. “I spent my entire life with a certain
problem. I didn’t have any language to use to understand where I was
coming from.
“As a young child, I was more masculine, and I had trouble relating
to people in ways they could understand. When you’re 2, you hardly
know what transgender is.
“The issue has been there my entire life,” Lucas says. “That made it
very identifiable when somebody gave me a word for it. That’s when I
realized it. I started taking steps to let people I knew that I knew.”
At first that came in making more visible the transgender support
group at Smith. It comes with a wider impact in a new eight-episode
series that follows Lucas and three other transgender students from
other campuses.
“TransGeneration” begins tonight on Sundance Channel, in cooperation
with the Logo network.
It’s produced by World of Wonder, maker of such films as “The Eyes
of Tammy Faye,” “Party Monster” and “Monica in Black and White.”
“They have a way of looking at characters who might be challenging for
audiences or people might have preconceptions about and finding a way
to really humanize them,” says Adam Pincus, senior vice president of
original programming at Sundance, who said he got the idea for the
series from a New York Times article.
“One of the things that we’ve been trying to do with the documentary
work is to find stories and characters who are really pushing things
in new directions and challenging the status quo,” Pincus says.
“These kids are pretty radically redefining what their gender identity
means to them. And they’re smart, and they’re articulate.”
Besides Lucas, the subjects are:
Gabbie, 21, a male turning female at the University of Colorado,
entering her junior year, the only one of the four to undergo surgery
during filming.
Raci, 20, a male-to-female entering her sophomore year at California
State University in Los Angeles, who was most reticent to tell her
fellow students what the camera crews were about. “They’re doing a
documentary on women in college,” she’d fib.
T.J., 24, a graduate student at Michigan State University, an activist
who has the most trouble getting accepted by her parents, who are of
Armenian descent.
“The only thing these four have in common is that they’re dealing
with an issue of gender in some way,” says Jeremy Simmons, director
and supervising producer of “TransGeneration.” “These are four very
different experiences we’re showing.”
“We’re almost like polar opposites,” Lucas says of his fellow subjects,
whom he met at an early screening of the film.
The producers said they tried to reach out through groups and on the
Internet to find the right people. In the case of Lucas, it was his
roommate, Kasey, whom they had originally come out to interview a
year ago. After months of filming, Lucas says, “We didn’t know who
was going to be the focus until after the school year ended.”
Why agree to do it?
“I guess overall I wanted people to appreciate the aspects of me
that they can relate to that didn’t have anything to do with gender
reassignment,” says Lucas, who adds that he’s been a fan of documentary
film and Sundance.
Parents of all the subjects eventually become part of the series, and
Lucas’ mother emerges as “so incredibly likable,” Pincus says. “It’s
so counter to what some people’s preconceptions would be about what
that woman’s reaction and experience of her son is,” he says. “She
goes through a whole process that you see in the course of the show.”
Now that it’s about to be seen, “my mom is very anxious,” Lucas says.
“She’s worried someone she knows is going to see it, which is
understandable. My dad is not so anxious about that, but he’s extremely
aware on how it’s being marketed.”
The series’ promotional catchphrase is: “Four college students
switching more than their majors.”
“He doesn’t understand that you have to trivialize the issue to create
public interest,” Lucas says.
Lucas says he feels a little anxious in advance of his life’s being
shown on national TV. “But mostly I’m excited in a positive way.”
As he decides his next move in his graduate education, he says he
feels more comfortable in Oklahoma, ironically, than he did in the
famously liberal enclave.
“I’d come home and just be read as male,” he says. “Then I’d go back
to Northampton, and there’d be so many lesbians there, they’d know
me as female.”

ARMENIA’S CENTRAL DEPOSITARY JOINS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CIS EXCHANGES
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 19 2005
YEREVAN, September 19. /ARKA-Finmarket/. The Central Depositary of
Armenia has been admitted to the International Association of CIS
Exchanges. The decision was made at the Association’s general meeting
attended by the heads of 15 organizations from eight CIS countries.
During the meeting, representatives of CIS exchanges and depositaries
discussed trends and formation of the CIS exchange infrastructure.
After discussing the current situation and prospects for cooperation
between CIS members, the Association members approved a program
of action for 2005-2010, which includes legal underpinnings for
financial cooperation between CIS members, creation of conditions
for an integrated CIS stock market, development of the stock market
of futures and options, commodity stock market, as well as the
development of bilateral and multilateral projects between the
Association members. P.T. -0–

SUCCESS IS FOUND IN NORMA’S SIMPLICITY
By Alan Conter
The Globe and Mail, Canada
Sept 20 2005
Vincenzo Bellini: Norma
L’Opera de Montreal
Bernard Labadie, conductor
At Place des Arts in Montreal
L’Opera de Montreal set the bar awfully high in launching its
26th season with Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma. While Bellini’s 1831
masterpiece sits pretty solidly in the pantheon of great opera, only
a few productions really live up to the extraordinary demands of the
work. The company last staged it 23 years ago.
The challenge of Norma is not that it’s especially intricate; in fact,
it’s the reverse. Bellini took a bold step in composing a score where
the singers are left very much on their own, supported by a small
orchestra that plays beautiful yet relatively simple melodies.
Norma succeeds or fails on the range and colour of the voices.
Bellini asks a lot of his singers as musicians and actors. Felice
Romani’s libretto is intensely tragic where love, passion, duty and
deception are interwoven.
On Saturday night, l’Opera de Montreal pulled it off. Anyone who’s
ever seen a production of Norma in a post-Maria Callas world knows
that the audience is on pins and needles until the Druid High
Priestess finishes Casta Diva early in Act One. Will she bring the
right simmering intensity and have the power to climb the heights of
this aria with ease? If she can do it, you know the evening will be
all right. If she can’t, well, that’s a tragedy of another order.
As the final chords of Norma’s invocation dissipated in Salle Wilfred
Pelletier at Montreal’s Place des Arts, the audience roared its
approval of Hasmik Papian as Norma.
Papian, an Armenian soprano, is not new to the role. In fact, she has
spent a good part of the last 10 years making it her own throughout
Europe and now, increasingly, on this side of the Atlantic.
Her interpretation of the powerful and tormented spiritual leader
of the oppressed Gauls is full on. She has bold and richly textured
voice, and can act. Act Two can unravel into a series of ill-considered
melodramas with a less capable lead. Norma’s internal struggle over
whether to spare her children infamy and enslavement by murdering
them or sparing their lives and committing them to an uncertain fate
was entirely believable.
American mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich was a fine Adalgisa, the younger
priestess who is seduced by the Roman pro-consul Pollione then
discovers he is the father of Norma’s children. She and Papian sang
wonderfully together.
Another American, Antonio Nagore, was Pollione, the Roman with
severe commitment problems. He is clearly a talented actor with a
solid and broad vocal range. However, on Saturday night, he seemed
to be suffering a bit; a slight hoarseness crept insidiously into
his singing from time to time.
The Polish bass Daniel Borowoski was an imposing Oroveso, the high
priest who ultimately must sacrifice his daughter and her foreign
lover.
Two up-and-coming Canadian singers rounded out the cast. They’re both
members of the company’s Atelier lyrique. Thomas Macleay, who has been
building a career singing early and contemporary music in Europe,
the United States and at home, is now showing up more frequently on
the opera stage. His Flavio, a friend to Pollione, was clean and crisp.
Beverly McArthur’s Clothilde, servant to Norma, fit well with the
remarkable singing of the star sopranos.
As you may have read in yesterday’s Globe and Mail, l’Opera de Montreal
cancelled an upcoming production, Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex,
because the company is experiencing a financial shortfall. It would
be have been a largely homegrown production.
Norma, on the other hand, is largely an import.
The beautiful costumes and sets were by John Conklin for the
Metropolitan Opera in New York. American Steve Pickover worked with
British director John Copley on the stage direction, also for the
Met. Montrealer Luc Prairie lit all of it stunningly. The music
direction was the work of Bernard Labadie.
The orchestra and chorus were also local — the Orchestre metropolitain
will be in the pit for the entire season, given the labour dispute
at l’Orchestre symphonique de Montreal.
Certainly the audience on Saturday night loved the show, and the next
opera, Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’Etoile, will be largely homegrown.

ROUNDTABLE “NK AND N. CYPRUS ARE DIFFERENT ISSUES FROM INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASPECTS.”
Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 20 2005
“The problems of the Northern Cyprus and the Nagorny Karabkh are
differing from each other issues”, it was reported on 19 September
2005 at the roundtable in the International press centre “The problem
of the Northern Cyprus and the Nagorny Karabakh at the international
legal plane.
As Trend reports, at the event staged by the world organization of
young Turkish writers and the Friendship society Azerbaijan-Cyprus
was dwelt upon the common problems of Turks and Azerbaijanis, the
history of the Turkish Republic of the Northern Cyprus, as well as
the occupation of the Azerbaijan’s lands by Armenians, approach to
these problems from the international legal principles.
The head of the young Turkish writers’ organization Akper Goshaly
reported, after the visit of the delegation of the Turkish Republic
of the Northern Cyprus to Azerbaijan, the attention to this republic
enhanced, meanwhile pressure on our country launched from the part
of Greeks grew. Goshali reported, some interested forces, especially
from the part of Armenia make attempts to identify the problem of
the Northern Cyprus and the Nagorny Karabakh.
Chairman of the Azerbaijan-Cyprus friendship society noted, at the
referendum held on the island of Cyprus the Turks, demonstrating
adherence to peace said on their readiness to live in one state with
Greeks but they declined it. Agil Samedbeyli also said one should
not present Nagorny Karabakh to the Azerbaijan’s public and media
as the third party, as they try to recognize Nagorny Karabakh as the
third party. The lawyer Farman Salmanli reported, Nagorni Karabkh is
the territory of Azerbaijan and the subject of the international law
and Azerbaijan became the UNO member having Nagorny Karabakh as its
part and the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan was recognized by
all states in the world.
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