Jordan News Agency – Petra, Jordan
Sept 9 2005
Majali Presides Over the Primary Session of the World Parliament
Speakers in New York

Pet0168 4 0165 Majali Presides Over the Primary Session of the World
Parliament Speakers in New York New York, Sep. 9 (Petra) — Speaker
of the Lower House of Parliament Abdul Hadi Majali presided over the
primary session of the Second Conference of World Parliament
Speakers, currently being held at the headquarters of the United
Nations in New York. Majali met, on the sidelines of the conference,
with speakers of the Armenian and Hungarian parliaments and exchanged
with them views on issues on the conference agenda in addition to the
parliamentary relations between Jordan and the two countries. Majali
also met with a number of parliament speakers and heads of
delegations participating in the conference. //Petra// 091916 Local
SEP 2005 

UEFA.com
Sept 10 2005
London ready for Futsal first
by Greg Demetriou from London
The UEFA Futsal Cup is back with a four-team mini-tournament getting
the 2005/06 competition under way in London over the weekend.
European debutants
English entrants London White Bear FC are the hosts for the
round-robin event, which will feature three other European debutants:
Tal Grig Yerevan from Armenia, Dinamo Tirana from Albania and Roubaix
Futsal from France. The top two teams after the three days of action
on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday will progress to the first qualifying
round.
‘Winning mentality’
London coach Oleksandr Saliy is confident his side can put on a good
show in front of their supporters at the Crystal Palace national
sports centre in south London. The Ukrainian has a cosmopolitan squad
comprising players from nine countries and believes his charges have
the “winning mentality”.
Unknown quantity
However, the 36-year-old concedes he does not know too much about
their rivals, particularly the French and Albanian champions. “I
think we have a chance,” he said. “But we don’t know the level of our
opponents. We will see what happens and I am sure my players will do
their best.”
English boost
Saliy added he expected the Armenian team to pose the biggest threat,
especially as they boast several experienced internationals. “They
will be strong and they are the favourites,” said Saliy. Yet,
regardless of his side’s display, the mini-tournament will do much to
raise the sport’s profile in England.
Prolific players
Yerevan enjoyed a tremendous 2004/05 season, not dropping a single
point. They also have two top-class performers in Armen Gyulambaryan
and Armen Danielyan. The 30-year-old Gyulambaryan scored 127 goals
last term, making him Europe’s leading marksman, while the
25-year-old Danielyan was voted Player of the Year by the Football
Federation of Armenia.
Coach excited
Coach Ruben Nazaretyan, who turned 29 on Monday, is excited about
seeing his men in continental competition. “We have never played in
such a tournament before,” he said. “We are sure there are no weak
teams, but the only thing that could hamper us is our lack of
experience at such a level. We will give it our best shot.”
Mullaj involved
Albanian Futsal is also at a fledgling stage. Dinamo were beaten
finalists in the first two domestic championships but were able to
represent their country after 2004/05 champions KS Erzeni were
stripped of their title over ineligible players. Dinamo have several
internationals, not least Ani Mullaj, with the 22-year-old scoring
eight goals in last season’s UEFA Futsal Cup for SK Tirana.
Tirana example
The club are coached by 46-year-old Albert Celmeta, of whom good
things are expected. He has every confidence his team can hold their
own and reach the next stage, as Tirana did in last year’s
preliminary round thanks to a 6-4 victory against another English
side, Sheffield Hallam FC.
Fighting spirit
Roubaix are perhaps the biggest unknown quantity of those on view.
They were formed in 2004, although a team previously existed under
the name Roubaix Trois Ponts. The club won the French Futsal Cup in
March by recovering a 3-1 deficit to draw level before beating
Issy-les-Moulineaux Futsal 3-1 on spot-kicks.
‘Nothing is impossible’
Coach Malik Laouar, himself just 28, has put faith in young players.
Given the unexpected nature of their domestic triumph against a side
containing several French internationals, Laouar said of Roubaix’s
European chances: “For us, nothing is impossible.” They have a number
of players tipped for the big time, not least 22-year-old goalkeeper
Djamel Haroun and 25-year-old defender Mounir Khrouf.

The New York Times
Sept 10 2005
Unbearable Grief Given Full-Throated Voice
By BERNARD HOLLAND
Published: September 10, 2005
Diamanda Galas does what a lot of people want to do and don’t: stand
up in the middle of a crowd and yell like crazy. In the 1980’s she
was our princess of the primal scream. If we allowed our discontents
to seep out through narrow vents of politeness, Ms. Galas’s misery
arrived in hot unencumbered blasts.
Phot:
Richard Termine for The New York Times
Diamanda Galas performing “Defixiones, Orders From the Dead,” which
includes taped recitation and film projections along with her howls.

Forum: Popular Music
She is back with “Defixiones, Orders From the Dead” at Pace
University, a one-woman performance piece colored by loud, echoing
amplification, taped recitation, film projections and deep bass
drones. They are no match for Ms. Galas’s howls of disapproval and
dire predictions of world conflagration. She pounds the piano, holds
forth at the lectern, dances with microphones in each hand or goes on
her knees.
These are not your ordinary yells, but rather a repertory of
skillfully modulated moans, shrieks, whoops, wobbles, gurgles, stage
whispers and spitting consonants. None bear good news. Indeed,
“Defixiones” remembers, according to a press release, “Armenian,
Assyrian, Anatolian and Pontic Greek genocides that occurred between
1914 and 1923.” The texts draw from all those languages with English
and Spanish thrown in. The title refers to inscriptions typical of
Middle Eastern gravesites, threatening with curses those who would
desecrate the dead.
Thursday’s eager listeners at the Schimmel Center for the Arts were
mostly under 30 and evidently looking for something different.
Contrariness is the business of young people, and they got it here in
large doses. Acceptance of Ms. Galas’s art depends on one’s
definition of overkill. First there are the props: a darkened stage,
four burning candelabra, and lighting that both obscures and sends
hot blasts of brightness toward to the audience. Then there is Ms.
Galas herself, draped head to toe in black and moving in the shadows
with Robert Wilson-like stateliness.
Ms. Galas’s strengths are also her fatal weaknesses. Relentless grief
is indeed the intended message, but after an hour of this 75-minute
piece, what begins as legitimately unbearable becomes merely tedious.
The sentiments pour out in an unvaried monochrome of mood, and Ms.
Galas’s mood is terrible. Given no air to breathe, the onlooker
suffocates. Even the hippest of Thursday’s enthusiasts were twitching
at the drawn-out coda of “Defixiones.”
Diamanda Galas is, on the other hand, a genuine original and a
living, breathing survivor of a largely vanished downtown scene. She
is also vocally and technically well armed to do what she does. Those
with a taste for the extravagant and a willingness to share her
outrage should go to the repeat performance tonight.
“Defixiones” will be performed again tonight at 8 at the Schimmel
Center for the Arts, Pace University, 3 Spruce Street, between Park
Row and Gold Street, Lower Manhattan.

Sudanese Online, The Sudan
Sept 9 2005
White House Urged Act on Anniversary of Darfur Genocide Declaration
sudaneseonline.com
9/9/2005 5:10pm
White House Urged Act on Anniversary of Darfur Genocide Declaration
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON – Hundreds of activists descended on the White House
Thursday to protest what they called President George W. Bush’s
inaction in the year since his administration said that genocide was
taking place in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
Some 700 people took part in the Washington rally, at which a
petition demanding U.S. action and bearing tens of thousands of
signatures was unfurled, said Ann-Louise Colgan, director of policy
analysis at Africa Action, one of the event’s organizers.
”As Americans struggle to cope with the President’s failure of
leadership on the domestic front in the horrific aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, we must also condemn the President’s failure of
political leadership on the international front, where he has failed
to act to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur and the death toll
continues to mount,” said Salih Booker, the organization’s executive
director.
Separately, the Sudanese government and two main rebel groups from
Darfur said Thursday they would attend peace talks scheduled to
resume Sep. 15 in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
Violence in Darfur, now in its third year, has killed more than
400,000 people and forced 2.5 million of the region’s 5.5 million
people to flee their homes and villages, U.N. agencies and advocacy
groups have estimated.
Relief workers also have been caught up in the fighting. The United
Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said Tuesday it had received fresh
reports of fighting between rebel groups and the nomadic Janjaweed
militia, looting of humanitarian assistance, and attacks on villages.
”The combat between the Janjaweed and the Sudanese Liberation Army
(SLA) has been taking place in the Jabal Moon hills in North
Darfur,” UNMIS said in a statement, ”but the situation in West
Darfur is most troubling, following two attacks last week on
humanitarian convoys sent in by non-governmental organizations
(NGOs).”
The death toll could exceed one million people by the end of the year
unless bold steps are taken to rein in the conflict between rebel
groups of African descent and Arab militias that the regime in
Khartoum stands accused of arming and abetting, Africa Action warned.
It has urged Washington to push for the deployment of an
international peacekeeping force and has demanded that Africa Union
(AU) peacekeepers be given a political mandate to intervene in the
fighting to protect civilians.
The fighting started over rebels’ claims that the Sudanese government
had deliberately neglected Darfur, starving it of basic services and
development money. It has been compounded by competition for control
of local oil, gas, and mineral resources.
Even as government and rebel forces implement a peace process in the
country’s south, the Khartoum regime appears to be girding for new
violence in eastern Sudan, where local populations also are rebelling
against the government, according to Africa Action.
In 2000, the group was among the first to warn of what it then saw as
an impending crisis in Darfur.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Sudan in July and urged
the government to end the violence in Darfur, a region about the size
of Texas.
However, U.S.-Sudanese intelligence cooperation in what the White
House calls its ”war on terror” and prospects for peace in war-torn
southern Sudan dominated Rice’s talks with President Omar Hassan
Ahmad al-Bashir and senior government officials.
Washington also has pledged to help airlift AU troops from their home
countries to Sudan.
Even so, speakers at Thursday’s rally chided the White House for what
they said amounted to scant lip service. They renewed demands for
urgent action to protect Darfur’s civilians and to mobilize a
multinational intervention to support the AU, Africa’s equivalent of
the European Union.
”We call on President Bush, one year after he recognized the
genocide in Darfur, to take decisive and effective action to end the
violence that is brutalizing innocent civilians in Darfur,” said
David Rubenstein, coordinator of the 134-organization Save Darfur
Coalition, which claims a combined membership of more than 130
million Americans.
Thursday’s event was organized by Africa Action, American Jewish
World Service, Armenian National Committee of America, Evangelical
Lutheran Church of America, Faithful America, Greater Washington
Jewish Task Force on Darfur, NAACP, National Council of Churches,
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Save Darfur Coalition,
Sojourners, STAND, Sudan Peace Advocates Network, TransAfrica Forum,
and the United Methodist Church.
Anti-genocide activists also have been pressing U.S. television
networks to increase coverage of the Darfur situation, described by
the United Nations as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The campaign–run by the American Progress Action Fund and the
Genocide Intervention Fund–asks networks to ”be a witness” to the
genocide in Darfur.
Organizers said they hoped increased coverage would move voters to
exert pressure on elected officials.
”Television has told us stories of important human brutality before,
and Americans have responded by demanding action from our elected
representatives,” the campaign said in a statement citing examples
including the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and the
Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
Last year, the ABC, CBS, and NBC network nightly newscasts aired a
total of only 26 minutes on Sudan, according to the Tyndall Report,
which monitors major broadcasters. ABC devoted 18 minutes to Darfur
coverage, NBC five, and CBS only three. By contrast, lifestyle
doyenne Martha Stewart’s legal woes received 130 minutes of nightly
news coverage.
A U.N. commission concluded last January that crimes against
humanity–but not genocide–had occurred in Darfur. In April, the
world body passed a resolution referring cases of alleged atrocities
since July 1, 2002 to the International Criminal Court.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan then handed the names of 51 people
suspected of war crimes and atrocities in Darfur to the court. The
list included Sudanese government and army officials as well as
militia and rebel leaders.

New York Daily News, NY
Sept 11 2005
Mankind’s deadly toll

One of the many disturbing aspects of the Gulf Coast disaster is the
way everyone has been repeating this one phrase: A devastating
hurricane hit was never a question of “if,” they say, but “when.”
It is the same wording people use when they talk about another
terrorist attack here in New York.
For the last four years, an “if, not when” at the hand of man has
haunted most New Yorkers’ scariest daydreams. The London bombings
turned up the volume. So does an anniversary like today.
But as we see the bodies in New Orleans and feel for the families
there, it’s obvious that Mother Nature harbors a wrath at least as
terrible as Osama Bin Laden’s. And guess what? A ‘cane could drown
N.Y.C., a headline in the Daily News announced Thursday. Said the
story, “New York is a coastal city in a vulnerable spot.”
Vulnerable again? It’s enough to make a mere mortal wonder which to
fear more: man or nature. And it is hardly reassuring to hear the
answer: Humans are gaining the deadly edge.
This is a new distinction for our species. Until the last century,
says Steven Katz, director of the Elie Wiesel Center at Boston
University, nature was probably responsible for more death than
murderous mankind. And if you count disease, nature still is – maybe.
No one is absolutely sure about the math.
But if we are talking about natural disasters like floods and fires
versus man-made evils like war and banishment, humans recently pulled
ahead in the destruction sweepstakes.
“In the 20th century, the estimate is that 100 million people were
killed by government,” says Katz. These include all the soldiers who
died in World Wars I and II – 5 million Russians alone in the first
six months of fighting Hitler – as well as the 6 million Jews
exterminated in the Holocaust, all the Chinese killed in China’s
civil war and later Cultural Revolution, millions more killed in the
India-Pakistan War, millions slain by Stalin, as well as untold
murders in Rwanda, Uganda, Croatia, Cambodia, Armenia, Argentina. …
The list, unfortunately, goes on and on.
What’s worse, we civilians are only becoming more imperiled, says
Stephen Couch, a sociologist at Penn State. “Centuries ago, wars were
by and large limited to professional armies fighting one another,” he
says. “So the majority of casualties were military. Now, the majority
of casualties are civilians.”
This is a byproduct of what we call progress. “New weapons made new
tactics possible, like the deliberate wiping out of civilian
populations,” says Couch, citing Dresden and Hiroshima.
Terrorism is just the latest military technique, and Couch is not
optimistic about how it may evolve. “I think that the destructiveness
of war is likely to remain the same or perhaps get worse, with all
sorts of weapons of mass destruction, atomic proliferation and
biological warfare. The history of weaponry is that if you have a
weapon, it gets used.”
Mother Nature will continue to wreak her tsunamis, floods,
earthquakes and hurricanes, all of them devastating. But she does not
spend her days devising new ways to destroy mankind.
That is what the Bin Ladens of this world do.
In New York, as we pray for all those lost and prepare for all
eventualities, we must vow to work for peace. Because it’s not Mother
Nature that we can change.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

UEFA.com
Sept 11 2005

Drama as Futsal Cup begins
Yerevan win
Armenian champions Yerevan were hot favourites to take one of the two
first qualifying round place on offer in this preliminary
mini-tournament, and sure enough cruised to a 7-2 victory against
one-year-old French side Roubaix.
Gyulambaryan injury
However, Armen Gyulambaryan, Europe’s most prolific Futsal scorer
last season with 127 in all, was taken off during the game with a
knee injury. Armen Danielyan, the reigning Armenian player of the
year, scored twice, a tally matched by Roubaix’s David Vieira.
Dinamo survive
In the previous match, Dinamo eked out a 2-1 victory against English
debutants London. Ani Mullaj, who struck eight goals in this
competition last season, gave Dinamo a half-time lead, and although
Alexandre Topalo equalised just after the break for Olexandr Saliy’s
side, Mullaj was on target again to leave the Albanian team’s
campaign on course.
Sunday games
Fixtures continue on Sunday with London and Roubaix both aiming to
get off the mark in the first game at Crystal Palace, and Dinamo
taking on Yereven later in a match where the winners could well
progress regardless of their third result on Tuesday.

INQ7, The Phillippines
Sept 11 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

Parañaque parish changes Virgin’s feast day
First posted 06:33am (Mla time) Sept 11, 2005
By Josephine Darang
Inquirer News Service
Editor’s Note: Published on page E4 of the September 11, 2005 issue
of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A MAJOR CHANGE OCCURRED IN ST. Andrew Cathedral in La Huerta,
Parañaque. Msgr. Manny Gabriel, rector, deemed it proper to celebrate
the feast day of Nuestra Señora del Buen Suceso (Our Lady of Good
Events) on Aug. 10, instead of Nov. 29, so that the celebration is
concentrated on the Virgin.
The feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle falls on Nov. 30. The
procession brings out both the Virgin and the saint.
The image of the Virgin was enthroned in the church Aug. 10, 1625, by
Fray Juan Guevara from his cell in the convent where she stayed for a
few days.
The story of the Virgin began with Katig, a poor indio, who asked the
sacristan for the dusty image in a corner of the sacristy. Katig
brought the image to his small house, lighting candles to honor her.
When Katig lay dying, he asked Fr. Guevara to take the Virgin and
offer Masses when he died.
At night, singing was heard from the priest’s cell and a strange
light emanated from the image. Fr. Guevara realized the Virgin was
miraculous.
With the bishop’s permission, he brought the image to the church.
The celebration this year began with a nine-day novena of Masses.
Different priests said Mass and gave homilies. The fiesta Mass was
concelebrated by Msgr. Gabriel and other priests at 6 p.m. The gozos
to the Virgin were sung by the Cathedral Choir using the music of the
late National Artist Lucio San Pedro.
The Cofradia de Nuestra del Buen Suceso launched its website
() during the fiesta. It also led the
procession after the Mass.
Candaba fiesta
Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Bahay Pare, Candaba, Pampanga, is
preparing for its fiesta on Sept. 24. Dr. Alvin Balatbat is hermano
mayor.
Masses will be held every hour 5-10 a.m. then 4:30-7 p.m. Pampanga
Archbishop Paciano Aniceto will officiate at the concelebrated Mass
at 10 a.m.
Text 0916-4453842 or call (045)8827313.
Devotees are now praying for the canonical coronation of Our Lady of
Mercy. The fiesta is part of the annual Mercedarian Festival that
commemorates the 787th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin
Mary in 1218 to St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Penafort, giving
them scapulars.
Fundraising
Prominent families of Ilocos Norte will have a fundraising dinner
dance at 6:30 p.m., Sept. 24, at William Shaw Pavilion of Wack-Wack
Golf and Country Club. The event also marks the Kannawidan
Foundation’s 12th anniversary.
Leading the fundraising are officers and board members: Justice
Oswaldo D. Agcaoili (ret.), president; Georgia Balmaceda Alviar, vice
president; Minda Acacio Garcia, treasurer; Betty Factora Merritt,
secretary; Lita Marcos Roque, auditor; and Amparo Javier Araullo,
lawyer Ernesto Albano, Nora Castro Bautista, Marylou Carpio Claudio,
Baby Villaluz Doble, Mian Rosales Gancayco, Dr. Fidelis Foronda
Labrador, Baby Valdez Lejano, Col. Willie Nicolas and Linabelle Ramos
Villarica, trustees.
Founding chair Francis Ablan, and past presidents Justice Willie
Agnir (ret.), Rosemarie Balmaceda Lazaro, Rosie Mata Castro, Max
Edralin and Alice Raval Ventura comprise the council of advisers.
Funds will subsidize entrance fees for the Museo Ilocos Norte of
public elementary school children in the province. Guest of honor
Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte traces his roots to Vintar town.
Call 9251462 or 0919-5825556, or 7222272.
Pilgrimage
Arpex Travel is organizing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land Nov. 9-18.
Text 0916-3189813 or 0917-8250817, or call 5253883.
World congress
Sixteen Filipino members of the Oblates of the Benedictine
Congregations of the Philippines led by national spiritual director
Dom Martin de Jesus Gomez, OSB, and national lay coordinator Alex
(Bro. Vincent) Pesigan will leave Sept. 17 for Rome to participate in
the First World Congress of Benedictine Oblates Sept. 19-25.
Delegates are lay people associated with monastic communities in the
country, promising to apply the teachings of Saint Benedict,
especially `Ora et Labora’ (Prayer and Work), in their lives.
Enthronement
The newly restored image of the Lady of Apocalypse was re-enthroned
Sept. 8, birthday of Mama Mary, at the Immaculate Conception
Cathedral in Pasig City with Bishop Francisco San Diego and Fr. Roy
Rosales officiating.
The restoration of Our Lady of the Apocalypse was started in 2004 by
a group from the Cultural Heritage Studies of the University of Santo
Tomas. Professor Maita Reyes, consultant to the Lopez Museum,
supervised the restoration.
Statue
On Aug. 30, a statue of Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaquer, founder
of Opus Dei, was placed outside the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The
five-meter marble statue is in a niche on the left transept of the
basilica, also known as St. Joseph’s Arm, very close to the entrance
to the sacristy.
The statue is grouped with others of the same size, like those of St.
Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church (by the
Armenian sculptor Khatchik Kazandjian); St. Teresa of the Andes,
Carmelite nun (by the Chilean sculptor Juan Eduardo Fernandez Cox);
and St. Marcellin Champagnat, founder of the Marist Brothers (by the
Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jimenez Deredia).
St. Josemaria’s statue was carved from a single block of marble by
the Italian sculptor Romano Cosci, who spent more than a year on the
work.
;story_id=49862&col=23

Zaman, Turkey
Sept 11 2005
ECHR’s Decision on Minority Foundations on Sept. 20
By Emre Demir
Published: Saturday, September 10, 2005
zaman.com
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will announce its critical
decision about the property problems of the minority foundations on
September 20.
ECHR will adjudicate the cases applied by Yedikule Surp Pirgic
Armenian Hospital Foundation and Fener Greek Boys High School
Foundation against Turkey.
The Court is also expected to adopt a new practice regarding the
Lausanne Treaty’s articles on religious minority foundations.
In recent years, ECHR accepted the applications from the
aforementioned two foundations against Turkey for the “violation of
property and discrimination”.
The foundations demanded the restitution of the buildings, which the
Supreme Court of Appeals decided to restore to their former owners,
to provide other minority foundations to have same property rights.
Yedikule Surp Pirgic Armenian Foundation demand the restitution of
two buildings in Istanbul, owned by donation in 1943 and 1967. Fener
Greek Boys High School demand the restitution of the school building
of which some parts were owned by donation in 1952 and the remaining
was bought in 1958.
These buildings were taken from the foundations by an application to
the Office of Treasury Undersecretary channeling the Supreme Court of
Appeals.
The Court of Appeals seized the buildings of the Greek foundation by
a court decision on 7 March 1996 and the buildings of the Armenian
foundation by the decisions taken on 30 November 1997 and 24 February
1998.
If ECHR case ends up against Turkey, hundreds of buildings seized by
the court of appeal’s decision in 1974 may be restituted.
Minority foundations, which demanded the return of the real estates
they formerly restituted to Turkey, are closely following the
decision due by ECHR.

Times of Oman, Oman
Sept 11 2005
Iraq group threatens to kill Lebanese hostage

DUBAI — A previously unheard of group in Iraq threatened to kill a
Lebanese hostage it accused of working with a liquor distribution
firm that “deals with the occupiers,” according to a video posted on
the Internet Sunday.
“The Group for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” said
it had “captured an importer of food and liquor in Baghdad who works
for a company that deals directly with the crusader occupiers of
Iraq.”
It demanded the company’s “withdrawal from Iraq as soon as possible
in order to free the Lebanese hostage — otherwise woe on him and
you.”
The hostage, who speaking in Arabic gave the Armenian name of Garabet
Jean Chekerjian, said he held dual Lebanese and Cypriot nationality.
He was shown in the footage sitting on the floor with his hands and
feet tied.
A hooded gunman pointed an automatic weapon at his head. The captive
exhorted Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and the Lebanese embassy in
Baghdad to put pressure on his employers to pull out of Iraq.
“I hold dual Lebanese and Cypriot nationality and I work with the
branches of the ‘Jetco Trading’ (phonetic) company in Lebanon, Cyprus
and Iraq. The company supplies foodstuffs and alcoholic beverages to
the occupation forces and the Iraqi army,” he said.
“I urge the company to leave Iraq and I ask the Lebanese embassy to
put pressure on the company and its owner to sever links with the
occupation forces and the Iraqi army.”
Addressing unspecified people he named as “Gebran, Avo and Rita,” as
well as Lahoud, the captive called on all Lebanese companies to quit
Iraq, which he said was occupied “as Lebanon had been 15 years ago.”
Dozens of foreigners have been kidnapped by anti-US insurgents in
Iraq and some have been executed by their captors. About 30 Lebanese
working for private companies in Iraq have been kidnapped and later
freed, most of them in exchange for a ransom. But in September 2004,
one Lebanese national was killed by his captors and three others died
during an attempted kidnap.

ARMENIAN CHURCH AKHTAMAR IN TURKEY RESTORED BY METHODS INADMISSIBLE
FOR IT
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 10. ARMINFO. The Armenian Church “Surb Khach” (St.
Cross) on Akhtamar peninsula (territory of present day Turkey) is
restored with materials inadmissible for restoration.
Members of a public organization engaged in study of Armenian
architecture visited the peninsula on August 14 2005. They told
ARMINFO that restoration is in process, and the territory is
fenced. The unique monument of Middle Age architecture, the Cross
dated 915-921 (architect Manuel) are covered with tar and mazut,
frescos are replaced with stones made from “khachkars.” To note
Akhtamar peninsula was the residence of Armenian Kings of Artsruny
Dynasty (the 10-11th centuries). The monument’s belonging to he
Armenian culture is not mentioned, just a placard says in Turkish and
English and that church belongs to the Armenian period. Besides,
architect Manuel was presented a archimandrite, specialists say. The
church is restored without participation of the Armenian party or
independent experts of UNESCO that initiated the restoration. The
members of the organization say that local Kurds survived from
massacres by Turks continue destroying the churches and houses of
Armenians.
Anti-Armenian propaganda is widely practiced at the Museum of the
ancient Armenian town of Van, wherein a Turk-guide presents the piles
of skulls as the Turk victims of the genocide by Armenians in the
beginning of the 20th century.
According to data of UNESCO dated 1974, of 913 Armenian historical
monuments 464 were fully destroyed, 252 were ruined, and 197 need
immediate restoration.