FM officials receives envoys
WAM – Emirates News Agency, United Arab Emirates
Sept 4 2005
Sep 4, 2005 – 06:20 –
Abu Dhabi, Sept. 4, 05 (WAM)–Abdullah Rashid Al Nuaimi, Foreign
Ministry Under Secretary, received here Sunday Michele J. Sison,
US Ambassador.
The meeting discussed avenues of cooperation between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Dr. Tariq Ahmed Al Hidan, Foreign Ministry Assistant Under
Secretary for Political Affairs, held talks here Sunday with Prof.
Arshak Poladian, Armenian Ambassador on means of further strengthening
cooperation between the two countries.

THE TEACHERS ARE TAUGHT TO SOW PEACE
By Liza Weisstuch, Globe Correspondent
The Boston Globe
August 28, 2005, Sunday THIRD EDITION
The conversation started with the Armenian genocide and flowed into
the Bosnian-Serbian conflict. Then came the matter of United Nations
intervention or lack thereof in Africa, which led to talk of the pros
and cons of international intervention in general.
They had come from Colombia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland.
For 10 days in Brookline this month, 40 educators from 11
countries made similar connections at a symposium organized by the
Brookline-based nonprofit foundation Facing History and Ourselves,
which uses the Holocaust to teach children about tolerance, democracy,
and human rights.
The symposium was the first time so many of the foundation’s
international partners have come together.
“Learning about problems in other places helps you reframe your own
perspective and challenge your assumptions,” said Tony Gallagher,
professor of education at Queen’s University in Belfast. “It’s helped
me see things in Northern Ireland that I didn’t notice.”
Rwandan educators Innocent Mugisha and John Rutayisire are developing
a history curriculum for their country, a subject that had been banned
nationwide in the years since the genocide. “Now we can go back and
ask teachers to debate and connect issues,” Rutayisire said. “It’s
a major shift in Rwandan teaching.”
Facing History opened in Brookline in 1976 after Margot Stern Strom,
then a public school teacher, was frustrated with the detached,
sanitary way textbooks imparted history. She and fellow Brookline
teacher Bill Parsons thought students should connect what they learn
to the realities around them.
Their goal: develop a curriculum that teaches children how societies
have failed, so they can play a role in wiping out discrimination
and preventing genocide.
Karen Murphy, director of international programs and one of the
symposium’s organizers, said: “There are basic issues, like how do you
deal with conflict in the classroom? How do you deal with a divided
society? How do you deal with legacy of violence? How [do you] help
students imagine democratic participation?
“If you want effectiveness in democratic society, if you want engaged,
thoughtful citizens, you have to invest in them.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri secret services used Georgian to trap young opposition leader – daily
Azadliq, Baku
4 Sep 05
Azerbaijani opposition daily Azadliq has said Georgian citizen Merabi
Dzhibutia, who was detained recently for illegally trespassing the
Georgian-Azerbaijani border, is allegedly an Azerbaijani special
services agent.
The special services used Dzhibutia to “trap” Azerbaijani opposition
youth leader Ruslan Basirli, Azadliq said.
Azerbaijani State Border Service identified Dzhibutia on 29 August
as the person who had allegedly mediated a meeting between Basirli
and Armenian secret services in Tbilisi in July. Ruslan Basirli,
head of the Yeni Fikir (New Thought) youth movement, was arrested on
4 August on charges of cooperation with the Armenian secret services
and plans to overthrow the government.
Azadliq questioned reasons why Dzhibutia had attempted to cross over
to Azerbaijan. “If he represented the Armenian intelligence services,
as the Azerbaijani authorities claim, then why did not he flee to
Armenia? The reason is clear. When you scare a dog, it runs to its
master,” the daily said.
The report also noted that although Dzhibutia was detained on 26
August, information about his arrest was published on 29 August. It
recalled that the head of the Georgian Foreign Intelligence Service,
Batu Kutelia, visited Azerbaijan on the same day.
“It is quite possible that Mr Kutelia had to visit Baku because he
knew that Dzhibutia had been taken to Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani
authorities were already unable to hide the cat in a bag and had to
make public his arrest,” Azadliq said.
The daily also noted the delay in publishing Dzhibutia’s evidence to
the investigation. It took Azerbaijani investigators almost a week
to show him on pro-government TV channels giving evidence. Merabi
had to fill gaps in the Basirli case, Azadliq said.

New transmitter to hamper Armenian TV broadcasts in Azerbaijan
Regnum, Moscow
3 Sep 05
3 September: A TV tower was put into operation in Agsu ([central]
Azerbaijan) on 29 August. The tower will prevent Armenian TV broadcasts
on Azerbaijani territory.
Azerbaijani Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ali
Abbasov has said that a TV tower will be put into operation in Lerik
[southern Azerbaijan] in the near future, which will also hamper
Iranian TV broadcasts in Azerbaijan.

The land of promise and danger at the EU’s door
by Michael Portillo
The Sunday Times – Comment
September 04, 2005
Imagine if Turkey were ruled by an extremist Islamic regime hostile
to the West. The country commands the entrance to the Black Sea. It
protrudes into Europe and borders Bulgaria and Greece. Its troops
occupy part of Cyprus, where Britain has bases. An explosion of Kurdish
nationalism in Turkey could further destabilise Iraq. Strategically,
the loss of Turkey to fundamentalism would be a serious blow. It is
a question that should have troubled the 25 European Union foreign
ministers meeting near Newport, Gwent, when their Turkish counterpart
joined them on Friday to discuss accession to the Union.
Look at it another way. Across the globe there are not many countries
that have a Muslim majority and yet are secular and democratic. It
is an extraordinary piece of luck for Europe that Kemal Ataturk was
a visionary leader. When he founded the Turkish Republic in 1923 he
insisted on the absolute separation of religion from the state.
Turkey is pro-western. It joined Nato in 1952 and unlike most
European members invests heavily in defence (admittedly because it
is at daggers drawn with Greece). During the 1991 Gulf war, Turkey
joined the coalition and Turkish airbases were used for years after
by American and British warplanes enforcing the no-fly zones against
Saddam Hussein.
Turkey is a large country that occupies a strategic square on the
global chessboard. It has frontiers with Syria, Iraq and Iran and
the sensitive former Soviet states of Armenia and Georgia. If Turkey
became a rogue state that nurtured and exported terror, it would
be disastrous for Russia, America, Europe – and Israel. As it is,
Turkey and Israel enjoy cordial relations.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the United States advocates Turkish
membership of the EU. Admittedly Washington was stung when Turkish
parliamentarians (responding like good democrats to popular sentiment)
refused to allow America to launch its 2003 war against Iraq from
Turkey. But that underlines how bad things would be if Turkey slipped
out of our orbit. To prevent that, reason the Americans, we need to
underpin its democratic institutions by welcoming it into the EU.
The EU normally trumpets its record on consolidating democracy. It
is indeed its greatest achievement. Spain, Portugal, Greece and the
members that were formerly Soviet slaves have not stumbled from the
democratic path since being admitted to the EU. But in Turkey’s case
the EU is hesitant about extending the benefits of membership.
Most EU leaders do not think much in strategic terms. They rely on
America for defence (but criticise it for going to war). Having almost
no military strength themselves and being essentially inward-looking,
it is not easy for them to recognise that Turkey is a domino in
the struggle between the West and Islamic extremism. Some European
leaders would like the EU to replace Nato as the continent’s main
defence organisation so as to squeeze out the Americans. That thinking
demonstrates that they see military alliances as social clubs for
like-minded nations rather than as networks for winning wars.
Indeed, if it were not for American pressure perhaps the EU would
not consider admitting Turkey at all. Only a small part of it is in
Europe, so there would be a good argument for drawing the line at our
continental borders. Maybe we should give more thought to securing
the entry of, say, Ukraine which is wholly in Europe.
As usual, Tony Blair is the odd man out among EU leaders (and, as
usual, in line with America). He said bringing Turkey into the fold
would be “important for Europe and its security”. Other prominent
figures have cold feet. Angela Merkel, the German Christian Democrat
leader, recently wrote to 11 EU leaders proposing Turkey be offered
not full membership but a privileged partnership.
By that she means that Turks would not be free to live anywhere in
the EU. The problem, not often frankly articulated, is that most
Turks are Muslims. Germany’s enormous Turkish population is not well
assimilated. The idea that 70m Turks would gain the right to move
freely in the EU horrifies many German voters and Merkel is fighting an
election. President Chirac of France thinks he lost the referendum on
the EU constitution because of protest votes against Turkish accession.
For the time being Germany and France have a pretext for stalling.
Turkey does not recognise the government of Cyprus (though by a
cunning diplomatic nicety it does now recognise Cyprus as an EU
member). Turkey complains that the goalposts keep moving, but in any
case it has been willing to make most of the changes demanded by the
EU, so in due course it will probably fall into line on the Cyprus
point too. The EU will have used up one more excuse.
Merkel’s idea is clever, but it will not work because under German
and French leadership the EU has been turned into the only club that
countries want to join. We used to have an alphabet spaghetti soup
of organisations so we could make every country feel “wanted”. If it
were not a candidate for the EU it could be allowed into the Western
European Union or the Council of Europe or the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe. Only a Venn diagram could show
which countries belonged to what. It was untidy and it worked well.
Of course the Germans insisted on tidying Europe up and the French
wanted the EU to supplant everything else. So now countries will not
be fobbed off with lesser memberships. Even belonging to Nato counts
for little today since neither the Americans nor Europeans seem to
give a toss for it. So either we admit Turkey or Turkey will be angry.
The consequences of rejection could be grave. Secularism does not look
secure there. In 1997 the Turkish army intervened in Ankara to remove
an Islamist government. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister,
was once imprisoned for Islamist sedition after reading an Islamist
poem at a rally. The constitution had to be changed to allow him into
parliament. He heads an Islamist-based party, although he says that
he is committed to secularism. Entering the EU is his priority. How
volatile might Turkey become if his hope of entry were extinguished?

EU BACKDOWN OVER TURKEY AS KEY REBELS LIFT THREAT OF VETO
Irish Independent
September 2, 2005
EU countries rebelling against the start of membership talks with
Turkey backed down dramatically last night.
Despite continuing opposition from Austria and Cyprus, neither country
threatened to veto the start of talks next month.
EU foreign ministers agreed they would put their own joint declaration
to the Turks, warning them that they must quickly move to open up
maritime and aviation routes to Greek Cypriot traffic.
Following increasingly acrimonious exchanges between Turkey and its EU
critics over the likelihood of it ever joining the EU, it now seems
that the vast majority of ministers accept existing commitments must
be met.
The formal start of accession talks will begin on October 3, although
it is not expected that Turkey could join the EU until 2013.
Austria has intensified its efforts to win support for an alternative
to full EU membership for Turkey. It argues that the poor Muslim
country of 62m people does not qualify to join.
Although the country’s foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, stood by
this position yesterday, there was no attempt to veto the opening of
the negotiations.
The ministers effectively ignored earlier comments from the Turkish
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul who insisted his country’s refusal to
recognise Cyprus ahead of the reunification of the Turkish and Greek
communities had not changed.
France has also sounded increasingly sceptical, arguing that Turkey
should first fully recognise the Greek Cypriot regime.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, insisted that no country
had said ‘no’ to the opening of the talks. Irish Foreign Minister,
Dermot Ahern, also voiced broad support for Turkey. He argued that
new arguments shouldn’t be introduced to block the negotiations over
Turkey’s failure to formally recognise Cyprus.
The Turkish government, however, did its case no good yesterday with an
extraordinary decision to bring criminal charges against its foremost
writer Orhan Pamuk, who could face up to three years in prison for
comments made in a Swiss interview condemning the mass killing of
Armenians in the aftermath of World War One.
A Turkish public prosecutor said the comments violated the Turkish
penal code. On the Euro constitution, Jose Manuel Barroso, EU
President, caused a stir when he said he could see no way to bring it
back to life after its rejection. The EU was working well without it.
Officially, all 25 Union governments still support the constitution
and agreed only to “pause for reflection” while they decided how to
overturn the two ‘no’ votes and push ahead with ratification.
However, Senhor Barroso’s comments suggest that the pause for
reflection will simply be a prelude to burying the document.
He said in an interview with a Polish newspaper: “In the foreseeable
future we will not have a constitution. That’s obvious. I haven’t
come across any magic formulas that would bring it back to life.”
Conor SweeneyNewport, Wales

Most young Azeris support military solution in Karabakh
Interfax, Russia
Sept 4 2005
BAKU. Sept 4 (Interfax) – A poll conducted recently by the non-
governmental Karabakh Liberation Organization suggests that most
young people in Azerbaijan support a military solution of the Karabakh
problem.
The organization’s press service told Interfax that 49% of young
Azerbaijanis polled said that the country should opt for military
intervention to liberate Karabakh.
Thirty-five percent of respondents preferred a peaceful settlement
of the problem and 16% were undecided.
The poll involved 1,943 respondents. sd md
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Houston Chronicle, TX
Sept 4 2005
Novel’s narrator finds himself
But the reader may be lost on the trip
By DEBRA WEINSTEIN
THE ZAHIR.
By Paulo Coelho.
HarperCollins, 298 pp. $24.95.
The unnamed narrator at the center of Paulo Coelho’s The Zahir:
A Novel of Obsession is an international best-selling novelist who
lives in France and brings in $2 million a year from royalties even
when he doesn’t publish a book. When he publishes a book, he earns
about $5 million. This may be a multimillion-dollar year for Coelho,
who will be publishing an estimated 8 million copies of The Zahir in
83 countries. He is a publishing giant, the author of the self-help
spiritual fable The Alchemist; his publisher claims he broke a
Guinness world record when he signed 53 different language editions
of The Alchemist in one sitting at the 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair.
Coelho’s Alchemist was a lean book about a shepherd boy’s journey
to find treasure buried in the Pyramids; he discovers instead the
treasures within himself. In The Zahir, the shepherd boy is transformed
into a celebrity novelist, and the treasure he’s searching for is
his wife, Esther, a war correspondent who has disappeared. Was Esther
kidnapped or killed, or did she simply abandon a marriage that left
her unfulfilled? It’s a premise rich with inherent drama, but despite
the claims on the dust jacket, it’s not really the story of this novel.
This novel is about the novelist. He’s a man who, since he was a child,
has “fought to make freedom (his) most precious commodity,” who writes
“pages of such genius that even (he) couldn’t understand them.” The
novelist’s life may be empty, but it’s the emptiness of book signings
in mega-stores, lunches with representatives of the film industry and
interviews with journalists asking the same tired questions. When
he’s not thinking about his fame and success, he’s thinking about
Esther ~W his Zahir ~W a concept that roughly translated means his
obsession. Should the novelist go in search of a wife who is somewhere
in the interior of Kazakhstan? Halfway through the book, he still
can’t decide: “Before I could find her, I must first find myself.”
Coelho’s narrator “finds himself” through a host of characters
who serve as the author’s mirror or mouthpiece. You know them
simply through their dialogue, which is indistinguishable from the
novelist’s first-person narration. There is his girlfriend, Marie, a
35-year-old French actress who encourages him to write his next book,
A Time to Rend and a Time to Sew. The book is about his lost wife,
and it becomes an instant best-seller, and Marie isn’t even jealous.
She’s a celebrity, too, so she understands about success, and she’s
also a fan.
Then there is Mikhail, the man with whom Esther has disappeared. He
surfaces in France to offer the narrator his special brand of spiritual
guidance. He’s a performance artist who does group therapy with
unhappily married people in an Armenian restaurant, and he travels
around with a band of homeless bohemians.
When, in the final pages of this meandering book, our narrator finds
his wife, it’s a scene meant to be poignant, but it’s cringe-making in
its grandiosity. Here is Esther, the Zahir, conveniently transported
to where the author wants her, fitting too neatly into the narrator’s
life.
This is the age of the blog, of instant hit-and-run publishing. It’s
easy to put your blah-blah-blah out there for a reading public. But
novels are different; they demand some sort of narrative thread.
Coelho knows this. In one of many asides in a novel of asides,
he writes, “When I used to read biographies of writers, I always
thought they were simply trying to make their profession seem more
interesting when they said that ‘the book writes itself, the writer
is just the typist.'” The Zahir feels a lot like typing.
Debra Weinstein, author of Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z, wrote
this for the Washington Post Book World.

New York Times, NY
Sept 4 2005
A Memorable Cab Ride and Other Journeys Into the Heart of the City
[parts omitted]
THE PROPHET OF ZONGO STREET
By Mohammed Naseehu Ali
Amistad
($22.95, hardcover)
As we crossed the bridge, and drove onto Flatbush Avenue, the cabbie
finally came to the end of a winding statement about one or another
virtue of the Armenians. I looked at him and nodded, to give him the
impression that I had been listening all along.
“I’m telling you, my frien’;” he continued. “The people of Turkey
have a culture today because of us Armenians. They eat all the food
we eat, they cook like us, they even look like us, but they don’t
like to hear that deep in their souls they ar’ all Armenians. They
want to kill that soul and remove it from their bodies. But how can
you do that, my frien’?” he asked, with pompous laughter.
“Impossible,” I said, shaking my head.
“You’re right, my frien’. Impossible,” he roared, absentmindedly
veering out of his lane. The horns of cars riding alongside us
screamed all at once, and were followed by curse words in Urdu,
Creole-, Arabic-, Jamaican- and African-accented broken English by
fellow cabbies and other motorists. The Armenian collected himself
and continued.
“Greece used to be Armenia. The people of ancient Greece and the
whole area around it, all of them were Armenians.”
“Hmn,” I said.
“Incredible, right?”
I nodded.
WASTED BEAUTY
By Eric Bogosian
Simon & Schuster
($24, hardcover)
Within the hour Rena is signed to a three-year personal services
contract. The agency takes care of all her needs. Marissa finds her a
place to live on the Upper East Side with two other girls who model
for the agency. She’s issued a small expense allowance and instructed
where to buy clothes, buy makeup, where to go for dry cleaning.
Appointments are made for facials, waxings, hair conditioning,
manicures and teeth bleaching.
Finally, she’s handed a miniature TV set as a “welcome aboard”
present, an empty portfolio for all the clippings she’ll soon have
and a Dolce & Gabbana knapsack for her “go sees.” She can use Paul’s
pictures for the time being. It’s almost overwhelming.
Before the week is over Rena is so busy, she doesn’t have time to go
on “go sees.” A friend of Paul’s gets her into an editorial shoot
about head scarves for Teen Vogue. Marissa finds her a job down on
Grand Street doing a flyer for a New Jersey department store. For
that she has to wear a nightie and a cotton jersey. Marissa forbids
underwear ads, says Rena is too special for that.
On the following Thursday Rena gets a paycheck for $750 minus taxes
and her allowance, almost double what she and Billy ever made at the
farmstand.

Armenia 0 Holland 1
Sporting Life, UK
Sept 4 2005
Holland kept themselves on track for qualification to the 2006 World
Cup but were indebted to a single strike from Ruud van Nistelrooy
that gave them a slender victory over Armenia.
The victory was justified but Marco van Basten’s men were deeply
unconvincing as they struggled to penetrate the Armenian defence.
Holland had 74% of the possession in both halves of the match, but
no more than six shots were fired at Armenia keeper Roman Berezovsky.
The Dutch goal was scored in the second half by Manchester United
star van Nistelrooy, who played well but was unlucky in front of goal.
Van Nistelrooy’s strike came in the 63rd minute after Khalid Boulahrouz
sent a long ball to substitute Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who had
only entered the field of play a minute earlier.
The rangy striker headed the ball towards Van Nistelrooy, who turned
away from his marker and rifled the ball into the back of the net.
The Oranje started well and had three chances in the first 15 minutes,
only for Van Nistelrooy, Philip Cocu and Robin van Persie to have no
luck with their shots.
However besides a header from Dirk Kuyt and a shot from Van Persie,
Holland offered little else in the first period.
In the second half Holland faced even more problems getting through
the wall of Armenian players.
After the goal their passing game fell apart and the match fizzled out.
Armenia only looked to the counter attack during the game and never
really upset the Dutch defence or goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar.
But they were undoubtedly hampered by the loss of the focal point
of their attack, Ajax striker Edgar Manucharian, to a 17th minute
hamstring injury.