Flint Journal, MI
March 30 2005

Runaway Couple
Despite brief stint for tax season, Cooks still having time of their
lives

BURTON

By Rose Mary Reiz

Michele Cook, half of the adventurous Burton couple who sold their
house and belongings to travel the world by bicycle, is back. But not
for long.

“I’m working at my old job for a couple of months,” said Michele, an
accountant. “After tax season, I’ll meet Doug in Spain, and we’ll
continue our journey through even more countries.”

Seven months ago, Michele and Doug left behind home, jobs, family and
friends to camp and bicycle full time. They described their plan as
“reverse retirement,” a way to enjoy the world while they’re young
and healthy.

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They since have toured England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and
France. Traveling on the cheap, they carry their tent and camping
supplies with them. They spend their days sightseeing and their
nights in campgrounds, hostels or at the homes of generous strangers
who offer hot showers and home-cooked meals. They communicate with
friends and families by e-mailing from libraries and Internet cafes
along the way.

It’s not all breathtaking views. There are also bugs, bad weather,
bathroom shortages, bicycle breakdowns and endless meals of “tuna
surprise” heated over a camp stove.

But Doug and Michele say they are having the time of their lives.

“There is discovery, challenge, delight and disappointment,” Doug
wrote in an e-mail. “There is confusion, frustration, joy, sadness,
inspiration, exhilaration and revelation. There is the sense of
accomplishment when we open our map and review the route we’ve
followed. And, of course, there is the relief of stepping off the
bike at the end of the day, throwing our tent up on some piece of
earth, crawling inside it and collapsing, thoroughly exhausted.”

After a brief bicycling break (While Michele does taxes, Doug is
working on an organic farm in Spain), they plan to cycle through
Portugal, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

“We’re thinking that by November, we’ll be in Greece for the winter
months,” Michele said.

Rough life, huh?

Here, Michele reflects on the past seven months of life on the road.

Q: What have you missed most about life at home?

A: We both miss music. The only music we get is at some hostels we
stay at, where there is a living area with a CD player.

I also miss watching movies. One night in Spain, we found a hostel
that had a TV room with videos – and they were in English. After
dinner, Doug and I watched “Dances With Wolves,” sitting on a couch
with our legs up. It was heaven!

Q: Have you acquired any new tastes?

A: Every country has a new favorite. We don’t eat out much, so we
don’t get to sample all the wonderful foods that are out there. We
try to keep things simple for cooking on our camp stove.

In Scotland, we discovered a dessert called “sticky toffee pudding”
in a can. You put the unopened can in a pan of water, bring it to a
boil for 15 minutes, open it up and pour cream over it. It’s
wonderful!

In France, we of course enjoy wonderful baguettes and wonderful brie
and camembert cheese. You don’t find the processed cheese like we
have here, and the bread is baked fresh twice a day and made with
whole ingredients – no preservatives.

In Spain, we enjoyed Clementines, olives – and wine in a box! Yes,
they sold wine in a box the size of a brick for about 50 cents.

Q: How has your health been?

A: We’ve had a few sniffles here or there, but nothing that has
stopped us from cycling – except for the bad water we had in Spain
about three weeks before I returned home. We were in bed for almost
48 hours and then it took us another couple of days to get our
strength back.

We have increased our endurance training, which means we can ride a
long time at a slow pace. Many of our cycling friends at home think
we must be so fast by now. Well, we’re not. At least I’m not. We can
basically cycle all day long at an average speed of 10 miles per
hour, less if we are in the mountains or are up against strong winds.

Q: What’s it been like being together all day, every day? Any
arguments?

A: When you’re with someone 24/7, you are bound to have conflicts.
But you do what you have to do, and you talk it out and come to a
resolution. When we need a little time away from each other, we may
take a walk once we get to a campsite.

Q: Has this experience drawn you closer to each other?

A: I think so. Especially now that we’re apart. You tend to take each
other for granted, and when that person is no longer there, you
realize how much you need each other.

It feels very weird now, being apart for three months. I think it’s a
little easier for me, because I’m back with friends and family, plus
I have work to occupy my day. Doug, on the other hand, is by himself
in a foreign country. I don’t think I could do that.

(Doug wrote by e-mail: “Cycling alone, after having had the pleasure
of my wife’s companionship for the last seven months, really made me
lonesome for her. It brought into sharp focus the things I was
missing: Michele’s mental and physical strength, her incredible
energy and her passion for the adventure. Without her, I was at
half-strength, literally.”)

Q: What’s it like not knowing where you’ll end up sleeping from one
night to the next?

A: That was the biggest thing for me to adjust to. It brought me a
lot of stress around 3 p.m. every day. Doug would always tell me not
to worry about it, and after a few months of this, I began to tell
myself that we haven’t had one night where we were stranded with no
place to sleep. So I began repeating to myself, “It always works
out.”

Q: What’s gotten you down while on the road?

A: What gets us down is just trying to do some simple things. For
example, trying to make a simple phone call can be a challenge. In
Spain, we bought a phone card, and it would work at one phone booth
but not the next. Very frustrating.

Q: Can you imagine surviving this adventure without the luxury of
e-mail?

A: No! It’s so wonderful to talk to people at home via e-mail. If we
didn’t have it, we would only be able to call just a few people. With
e-mail, we have a huge distribution list and can stay in contact with
more than 100 people with a simple click of the “send” button.

Q: What’s been the biggest surprise?

A: The generosity of the people we’ve met. I have said many times to
Doug that if I was ever at home and I saw another touring cyclist, I
would slam on my brakes and ask them if they needed anything –
directions, a place to sleep, food, clean clothes, whatever. I would
do it for them because that is what has been done for us.

Q: What advice would you give others thinking of doing this?

A: Buy good quality gear that is waterproof. You will not regret
spending the extra money. Also, buy components for your bike that can
be purchased all around the world.

Try to learn as much of the language as you can before going to a
foreign country. They do not all speak English like many Americans
think – especially when you get into small villages.

Q: How has this experience changed you? Do you look at the world
differently?

A: Yes, especially after returning home. I can’t believe how
fast-paced our lives are here. We scurry around taking care of
everything, from work to families to our friends, housework, laundry,
cooking. Our lives are turning into one big blur. I even feel that I
have fallen back into the trap since I’ve been home.

On the other hand, our freedom in America is a treasure. Doug and I
were in a hostel southern France, eating lunch with another family.
They were speaking a language I didn’t recognize. When the husband
got up and took the children away, I asked the wife, who spoke
English, what it was. She said Armenian. I told her I was Armenian,
and asked her if she was on holiday. She said no, that she and her
family had left their home country and were looking for a better
life. She kept saying that it was “very bad over there” and she
didn’t want to raise her children in such turmoil. Her family didn’t
know what the future held. They were trying to get working visas and
a place to live in France. That really makes you appreciate your
freedom.

Q: Has the trip made you realize how little “stuff” people really
need?

A: Yes. I can only hope that other people will step back and
appreciate what they have and realize it isn’t about how much money
you have or how big your house is, or how nice your car is. There is
so much more to life than that. I think so many of us take our lives
for granted and you really don’t know what the future will bring to
you. Our lives can change drastically in one second, and generally it
is only then that we realize how good we had it.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Sportinglife.com, UK
March 30 2005

Armenia 2 Andorra 1

A second-half goal from Romik Khachatrian was enough to seal victory
for Armenia in the basement battle with Andorra in European Zone
Group One of the World Cup Qualifying competition.

The Armenians therefore picked up their first win in the qualifiers
and after taking a shock point in their last match with Romania will
travel to Holland for their next test in great heart.

Their French coach Bernard Casoni will have been delighted with his
team’s performance as they were missing both captain Harutyun
Vardanian and top-scorer Artur Petrosian through injury.

However Andorra have now dropped to the bottom of the Group 1 pile at
the expense of their rivals and their week is unlikely to get better
for the minnows from the Pyrenees when they host the Czech Republic
in midweek.

It was all Armenia in the first-half and it was no surprise when they
took a 32nd minute lead as Ara Hakobian beat Andorra goalkeeper Koldo
Alvarez.

The home side then missed a good chance to extend their lead nine
minutes later as midfielder Artavadz Karamian’s header just shaved
the post.

Andorra had only managed a single shot on target in the first period
so it came as something of a shock as they levelled the scoreline in
the 57th minute.

Justo Ruiz’s powerful free kick hit the post and bounced back to
create havoc in the home penalty area.

Fernando Silva was alert to the opportunity and was first to reach
the ball heading home past keeper Roman Berezovsky.

But Armenia were not to be denied and Khachatrian grabbed the winner
in spectacular fashion in the 73rd minute.

The midfielder smashed in a long-range rocket from more than 30 yards
from goal that left Alvarez with no chance.

Andorra, despite this setback, will at least take something from this
qualifying group when they are inevitably eliminated.

Earlier in the competition they beat FYR Macedonia in what was their
first ever victory in a competitive international in their short
footballing history.

`OSCE IS NOT A TRIBE’, IT IS OSCE

A1+
31-03-2005

In the press conference after the meeting with the FM Vardan Oskanyan
Dimitrij Rupel, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office called Nagorno Karabakh
President Arkadi Ghoukasyan `leader of Karabakh’. Asked the clarifying
question if he considers Arkadi Ghoukasyan leader of a tribe living in
Azerbaijan and not the President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, he
answered, `I am the leader of the OSCE, but OSCE is not a tribe’.

Nevertheless, the Slovenia Foreign Minister made an announcement
profitable for the Armenians; he said that the Karabakh conflict is
special and it is not like other `cold’ conflicts in the region.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office appreciated the meetings with the
officials of Armenia as `interesting and effective’. But he did not
tellanything clear-cut in the meeting with the journalists repeating
that `Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders must use the window of present
opportunities’.

Besides the opportunity Robert Kocharyan and Ilham Aliev also have
commitments. According to Dimitrij Rupel, they must put an end to
their aggressive announcements.

This night the OSCE Chairman-in-Office will leave for Kyrgyzstan, from
where he will return to Armenia early in the morning and leave for
Tbilisi with his delegation. The head of the delegation explained the
overloaded agenda this way, `Unfortunately my work is very necessary
now; for this reason I will spend the night not in a hotel but on my
way to Armenia. I think it will be more effective’.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Slovene OSCE chairman discusses Nagornyy Karabakh issue in Armenia

STA news agency, Ljubljana
30 Mar 05

Yerevan, 30 March: Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, the OSCE
chairman-in-office, called on all concerned parties to step up efforts
in a bid to find a solution to the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict as he
wrapped up his visit to Armenia on Wednesday [30 March].

After meetings with top Armenian officials, Rupel encouraged all
parties to take advantage of what he said was “the existing window of
opportunity” and bolster efforts aimed at finding a solution.

Speaking to the press after a meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanyan, Rupel said the OSCE – and Slovenia, too – was ready
to assist in the search for a lasting solution to the
conflict. According to him, Slovenia could host talks on the issue.

Oskanyan stressed that the OSCE was playing an important role in
trying to end the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict.

Moreover, Oskanyan said he hoped Rupel would reiterate the stance that
violations of the cease-fire in Nagornyy Karabakh must stop when he
visits Azerbaijan on Saturday. Rupel said he intended to do that.

Apart from Oskanyan, Rupel also met Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan and Speaker of the National Assembly Artur Bagdasaryan. “I
am convinced that the guidance of the presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan will be crucial for the successful development of the peace
process,” he said after the meeting with the president.

Earlier in the day, Rupel held talks with the leader of Nagornyy
Karabakh, Arkadiy Gukasyan, who was less optimistic that a solution to
the conflict could be found soon, as he is convinced that Azerbaijan’s
position will not change by summer.

Gukasyan, who is not internationally recognized as the leader of
Nagorno-Karabakh, stressed that the OSCE’s role in solving the
conflict was very important.

Asked by an Armenian journalist whether he considers Gukasyan to be a
tribal leader, since he refers to him as the leader and not the
president of Nagornyy Karabakh, Rupel said that he was also the leader
of the OSCE, which does not mean the OSCE is a tribe.

The simmering conflict in Nagornyy Karabakh, the ethnic-Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan, is one of the issues in which the OSCE is
trying to assist the parties involved to find a peaceful
solution. Since February 2000, the organization has had its office in
Yerevan.

Moreover, Rupel stressed that Armenia had undertaken reforms and urged
Armenian officials to keep up these efforts. The OSCE, he said, was
ready to help in several fields, including election reform, the
freedom of the press and the fight on corruption.

He also called on the Armenian authorities to continue amending the
law on elections in order to ensure electoral fairness and
transparency.

Pointing to a number of attacks on journalists in Armenia, Rupel said
the free press was a key factor in the development of a democratic
society. He said he hopes the authorities would investigate all
attacks on journalists.

Rupel is scheduled to travel of Kyrgyzstan later tonight as he
continues his tour of the Caucasus.

The Daily Star, Lebanon
March 32 2005

An ideal U.S. checklist for promoting freedom

By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff

The United States has recently appointed two able officials – Karen
Wright and Liz Cheney – to revamp two of its persistently enigmatic
and largely failed policies: promoting global public diplomacy and
democracy throughout the wider Middle East region. Having spent the
last 35 years of my professional life deeply engaged in both those
arenas, I venture to offer some thoughts here that folks in
Washington might ponder if they aim to do a better job than their
predecessors of grasping why this noble American mission to promote
freedom and democracy is received with such skepticism, scorn and
even resistance around the world, and not just in Arab-Islamic lands.

Here’s a quick list of eight issues the U.S. should ponder:

1. Style – As that great British thinker Mick Jagger of the Rolling
Stones once said: “It’s the singer, not the song.”

The noble policy to promote freedom and democracy is often resisted
because Washington’s manner tends to be aggressive and threatening.
It uses sanctions, the military and a unilateral laying down of the
law that others must follow, or else they will be considered enemies
and thus liable to regime change. People don’t like to be bullied and
threatened, even to change for their own good.

2. Credibility – The U.S. simply does not have much credibility in
the Arab-Islamic Middle East in terms of consistency or fairness.
Instead, its long policy track record has hurt, angered or offended
most people in this region, primarily by backing Arab dictators and
autocrats, or supporting the Israeli position on key issues of
Arab-Israeli peacemaking. The priority freedom issue for most Arabs
is freedom from foreign occupation and subjugation, whether it’s the
Palestinians, Iraq or other situations. If Washington uses war and
active pressure diplomacy to implement UN resolutions in Lebanon and
Iraq, but does nothing parallel to implement UN resolutions calling
for the freedom of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, it will
continue to be greeted with disdainful guffaws in most of the Middle
East.

3. Consistency – The United States could promote freedom and
democracy without waging war in Iraq, spending $300 billion, leaving
over 1500, Americans dead and more than 10,000 injured, and perhaps
100,000 Iraqis killed, and creating a massive anti-American backlash
throughout the world.

It can better promote democracy and rally Arab democrats by telling
Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine al-Abedin ben Ali of
Tunisia, for example, that over 20 years of being president without
any meaningful legal opposition is enough. It can support term limits
for Arab presidents and promote democracy among its Arab allies and
friends, such as Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunis
and, now, Libya, whose leader has been in power for 36 years.

4. Motive – A perpetually rolling motive for the American war in Iraq
is not good for American credibility. We’ve been told Iraq was about
weapons of mass destruction, links with Al-Qaeda, imminent threats to
the United States, homegrown brutality against the Iraqi people,
stopping Iraqi threats to neighbors, and, now, spreading freedom and
democracy throughout the Middle East. Some of these rationales may
one day prove to be correct. In the meantime, the collection of half
a dozen is crippling to the trust placed in America.

5. Context – The Arab world’s very vulnerable states suffer massive
internal pressures due to issues of population, identity, demography,
economy, environment, ideology, crises of citizenship rights vs.
statehood obligations and secularism vs. religiosity, and the
perpetual pressures of foreign armies. In this wider context, the
issue of promoting freedom and democracy is dwarfed by the more
pressing imperatives of stable statehood, liberation from foreign
occupation, meeting basic human needs, and stopping the tradition of
foreign armies coming at us every couple of generations and redrawing
our map and reconfiguring our systems. Freedom and democracy
certainly would help resolve many of our indigenous problems, if they
were applied across the board. If the U.S. and others abroad promote
these values selectively and self-servingly expediently, as is the
case now, they will continue to elicit resistance and rebuke.

6. Legitimacy – There is no global consensus that the United States
is mandated to promote freedom and democracy, or that this is
America’s divinely ordained destiny. There is such a mandate, though,
in the charter of the United Nations, Security Council resolutions to
end foreign occupations, and international legal conventions – most
of which the U.S. resists, ignores or applies very selectively. No
surprise then that virtually the whole world resists the United
States.

7. Militarism – The American use of pre-emptive war for regime
change, already applied in Afghanistan and Iraq, creates more
problems than it resolves. It shatters the concept of peace and
security through international law, and asserts the triumph of the
law of the jungle, where the strongest rules. Promoting freedom and
democracy through the guns of the U.S. Marines is not credible with
many people outside of Republican and neoconservative Washington
circles.

8. Relevance – The value of individual freedom as defined in American
culture runs against the grain of the concept of freedom as it is
understood in most of the Middle East and the developing world, where
people sacrifice certain individual liberties for the protection, the
identity, the sense of hope, the well-being, and the communal
expression that comes from belonging to a larger group. Such groups
include the family, tribe, religion, or ethnic or national group (for
Kurds, Druze, Armenians, Circassians, and others), along with the
Islamic umma or the Arab “nation.” All these collective identities
dominate the issue of personal freedom, at least at this stage of
development in the region.

These are real concerns, derived from modern historical experience,
not from imagined threats or Arab psycho-social deviancies. They are
very relevant in the context of Washington’s desire to promote
freedom and democracy, because they act as the primary constraint to
any meaningful Arab cooperation with the U.S. More important, though,
is that they can all be overcome and removed from the scene through
better communications between Arabs and Americans, and more
consistent, lawful policies by all concerned. All this is just food
for thought from the Middle Eastern battlefield of ideas and
perceptions that is littered with both the corpses of failed American
initiatives and the burdens of distressed Arab societies.

Rami G. Khouri writes a weekly commentary for The Daily Star.

Jerusalem Post
March 30 2005

Religious leaders: Ban J’lem Gay Parade
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

>From left: Muslim cleric Abdel Salem Menasra, Archbishop Aristarchos,
of the Greek Orthodox Holy Land Patriarchate, Latin Patriarch Michel
Sabbah, Israeli chief Sephardic rabbi Shlomo Amar and Chief Ashkenaki
rabbiYehuda Metzger in Jerusalem Wednesday
Photo: AP

In a rare alliance, senior religious leaders of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam in the Holy Land joined forces Wednesday to
thwart a major international gay parade scheduled to take place in
Jerusalem this summer, urging the government to ban the event which
they said could provoke a violent reaction from the faithful.

“We are shocked to have received notice that a worldwide assembly of
ten days including an immodest parade devoid of minimal propriety is
scheduled to be held in Jerusalem this summer, which will offend the
very foundations of our religious values and the character of the
Holy City. Such an event would constitute a severe affront to the
hearts and souls of adherents of all religions – Jews Christians and
Moslems alike,” a declaration signed by a dozen top religious leaders
including Israel’s Chief Rabbis, the Latin Patriarch, the Vatican
Ambassador to the Holy Land, representatives from the Armenian and
Greek Orthodox Patriarchies and three Muslim Sheiks.

“We call upon and demand… the Israeli Government and all
responsible officials and Israeli police to realize the full
implications of their plans and to prohibit any march of this kind,
and especially in the Holy City of Jerusalem,” it read.

United and uncompromising in their beliefs, speaker after speaker in
the multi-faith tri-lingual press conference organized by the Israeli
Chief Rabbinate denounced the planned event as an affront and
provocation to the sensitivities of Jerusalem’s Jewish Arab and
Christian residents, as well as to millions of believers around the
world.

“We have enough tension in our city regarding the disengagement plan
and we do not need to add fire to the oil,” said Chief Rabbi Shlomo
Amar.

“The particular holiness of Jerusalem has requirements both for those
who are believers and those who are not,” concurred the Latin
Patriarch Michel Sabbah.

“We respect the ideas of everybody, but everybody must respect the
sentiments of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” said the Representative
of the Holy See Archbishop Sambi.

“Such a parade is not only an offense but a provocation to Jews
Christians and Muslim all over the world,” he said, adding “no one
can be sure such a move will not provoke a reaction from the
faithful.”

New York Rabbi Yehuda Levin, representing 1,000 Orthodox Rabbis from
the ‘Rabbinical Alliance of America,’ who has been actively working
with Evangelical Christian leaders in the US against the event
lambasted the “parade of abomination” which he said represented
nothing less than “a spiritual rape” of the Holy Land.

“Why is it that the Government of Israel does not allow 10,000 Jews
to march on the Temple Mount because it is said to be a provocation,
but does not stop a ten day immoral celebration of sodomy and
pornography which is a provocation to the overwhelming majority of
the people of this city, and this land?” he asked.

Levin also expressed dissatisfaction with the Jerusalem Mayor Uri
Lupolianski’s ‘behind the scenes’ attitude vis a ve the event.

“We are embarrassed, ashamed and dissatisfied that you have not been
out there up front speaking out for the holiness of the city and
against this abomination” he said.

The highly unusual cooperation between Judaism’s, Christianity’s and
Islam’s top religious leaders in Jerusalem comes on the heels of a
joint Christian-Jewish campaign launched in the city earlier this
month to prevent the August parade from taking place in the Holy
Land.

The press conference of top religious leaders – where black hatted
Rabbis intermingled with Black-hooded Priests, Hebrew-speaking
priests pressed hands with Hebrew-speaking Sheikhs, and Muslim
clerics warned of destructions along the lines Sodom and Gomorra –
was condemned by Israel’s Masorti (Conservative) Movement, which has
come out strongly in favor of the international gay pride event.

“Such an unholy coalition of people who otherwise hate each other
only represents their own fear and hatred of the gay and lesbian
community,” said movement Rabbi David Lazar.

As the debate over the international gay pride parade rages, while
more conservative religious leaders opposed to the event look for
both public and divine intervention, police said they were
“considering” asking organizers to postpone the event since their
forces will be overburdened with the concomitant withdrawal from the
Gaza Strip.

The prerogative for issuing permits for marches and other public
events in the country rests with the police.

For their part, local organizers of the event have said that they had
not received any request from police to postpone the 10 day event to
date, adding that only the parade itself required security.

“Every year there is another excuse why this is not the right time,”
said Hagai El-Ad the executive director of Jerusalem’s Gay and
Lesbian Center whose organization is planning to host the
international event.

Even before the conflict with the Gaza pullout emerged, the idea of
holding such an international parade in Jerusalem was a source of
bitter controversy.

In a largely conservative city, with a strong religious and
traditional makeup, the idea of holding such an international parade
in Jerusalem is seen by many – even outside of religious circles – as
out of touch with both the spiritual character of the city as well as
the sensitivities of its observant residents.

A poll released at the Jerusalem press conference indicated that
three-quarters of Jerusalem’s Jewish residents were opposed to
holding the event, and only a quarter supported it.

The Dahaf institute poll taken this month among 400 people found that
among Jerusalem Arabs a whopping 96 percent opposed the event.

In reaction to the poll, organizers of the parade such that “freedom
of speech should not be held hostage to one poll or another.”

Jerusalem held its first annual local gay parade only three years
ago. The event, which draws several thousand participants, has been
the source of repeated debate each year, with many religious city
councilors and a not insignificant number of city residents
considering such an event inappropriate for a “holy” city.

The last international gay parade, which took place in Rome in 2000
despite the wrath of the Vatican, attracted about half a million
participants, while local organizers had been expecting tens of
thousands of revelers for the Jerusalem event this summer.

Village Voice, NY
March 30 2005

Housing of the holy: Church to be luxury residences

By Albert Amateau

The facade and tower of St. Ann’s Church at 124 E. 12th St. is about
all that remains of a house of worship that has gone through multiple
transformations serving Protestant, Jewish and Catholic communities
since it was first built in 1847.

But former parishioners, East Village neighbors and preservation
advocates are still hoping to save the remnant of the unofficial
landmark where Mass was celebrated for the last time on Jan. 16.

The church, built as the 12th St. Baptist Church with a facade of
locally quarried Manhattan schist, was acquired in 1856 by Temple
Emmanuel-El, a congregation of Reform Jews who remained there until
they moved to Fifth Ave. at E. 65th St. in 1870, when St. Ann’s, a
Roman Catholic parish on Astor Pl., acquired the building.

The interior was demolished and rebuilt in the French gothic style
according to a design by Napoleon LeBrun. Over the years, the
parishioners included luminaries like Alfred E. Smith, who became
governor of New York State and ran for president in 1928, and Peter
Maurin, founder of The Catholic Worker.

In 1929 the church was declared the National Shrine of St. Ann,
dedicated to the mother of the Virgin Mary, but the parish later
declined due to changing demographics. In 1977 the National Shrine of
St. Ann was transferred to a new church in Metairie, La., a New
Orleans suburb.

However, the Armenian Catholic community convinced the Catholic
Archdiocese of New York in 1983 to give them the church for as long
as they could maintain the building. But in recent years, the
archdiocese had to cover maintenance expenses and the Armenian
Catholics had to move in February of last year.

The archdiocese sold the property for $15 million to a developer
based in Brooklyn, Hudson Companies. In February of this year, the
archdioceses removed the carved white marble altarpieces, the
statuary and the organ built in 1864 by Henry Erban to a diocesan
warehouse in Staten Island.

Alan Bell and David Kramer, principals of Hudson Companies, said last
week their plans to build luxury apartments on the site are still
very general, but they have indicated that they are sympathetic to
preservation concerns.

`They told us they would like to keep the facade and tower of the
church but they warned that height and setback requirements in the
zoning might prohibit that,’ said Andrew Berman, executive director
of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. While
City Planning has confirmed that keeping the church facade and tower
would violate zoning rules, Berman said he still hopes to find a way
that would allow the developer to preserve the front of the church.

Berman said he is also asking the developers to salvage elements of
the adjacent rectory at 110 E. 12th St. built as a rowhouse before
the 1847 church.

In a letter to Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Robert Tierney,
Berman said the rectory’s only major alterations are changes to the
window lintels and the addition of a fourth floor and roof cornice in
the 19th century.

Nancy Cosie, a longtime neighborhood resident who worshiped at St.
Ann’s over the years, said she was devastated at the loss of the
church that served so many diverse worshipers.

`We had the Armenian Rite and an Ecuadorian parish dedicated to Our
Lady of Quinche in Ecuador,’ Cosie recalled. `And since the late
1980s we had traditional Latin Masses at 2 p.m. on Saturdays – I
think it was the only Latin Mass in Manhattan. The Armenian Bishop
Tertzakian gave approval for them and for an English Catholic Rite
that’s been celebrated here since the late 1990s,’ Cosie said. `The
Armenians spent about $500,000 fixing things like the roof and then
they were evicted even though the archdiocese says they chose to
move,’ Cosie added.

The parish school at the rear of the church with a front on E. 11th
St. was sold in the early 1980s and was converted into apartments.

Agence France Presse
March 30 2005

Turkey probes official who ordered novelist’s books destroyed

30/03/2005 AFP

ANKARA, March 30 (AFP) – 16h55 – The Turkish interior ministry is
investigating an official who ordered the seizure and destruction of
works by novelist Orhan Pamuk for making a reference to the massacre
of Armenians, the Anatolia news agency said Wednesday.

Pamuk, author of several novels including “My Name Is Red,” “The
White Castle” and “The New Life,” caused an outcry when he said in an
interview with a Swiss newspaper that “one million Armenians were
killed in Turkey.”

The statement appeared to contradict official denials of an Armenian
genocide.

Furious at the remark, deputy governor Mustafa Altinpinar of Sutculer
in the Mediterranean province of Isparta, issued a circular ordering
all copies of Pamuk’s books to be confiscated from local libraries
and bookstores and destroyed.

“The author has made baseless, slanderous and injurious accusations
against the Turkish nation,” the circular said.

A search of local bookshops and libraries, however, failed to produce
a single copy of Pamuk’s books, newspapers said.

“I issued the order in reaction to Pamuk’s remarks over the
Armenians, but now I wish I had first checked to see whether there
were any of his books in our town,” Altinpinar was quoted as saying
by the daily Radikal.

The governor of Isparta province, Isa Parlak, immediately announced
that Altinpinar had “abused his authority.” He cancelled the order,
while Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu ordered an investigation,
Anatolia said.

The massacre of Armenians during World War I is one of the most
controversial episodes in Turkish history.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor
of modern Turkey.

Turkey instead says that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks
were killed in civil strife when the Armenians rose against their
Ottoman rulers.

Pamuk, one of Europe’s most prominent novelists, has been translated
into more than 20 languages. He lives in Istanbul.

Turkish Press
March 30 2005

Press Scan

SWISS FM MAKES STRANGE COMMENT

HURRIYET- Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey met Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul in Ankara. The visit of the Swiss minister to
Turkey planned for 2003 didn’t take place after the parliament of a
western Swiss canton recognized the so-called Armenian genocide
claims. During the meeting, Calmy-Rey made a strange proposal to
Turkey about the Armenian claims saying that Turkey should be warm to
the idea of foundation of an international commission.

Turkish Press
March 30 2005

Press Scan

HERE IS DOCUMENT OF ARMENIAN CONFESSION

TURKIYE- Armenian Dashnak Party said, ”we formed gangs after the
Russians came, and we massacred 30,000 Turks in (eastern city of)
Van.” Here are some highlights of the report submitted by this party
to the Socialist International: ”We tried to kill Sultan Abdulhamid
II on June 8th, 1905. 40 people died but we could not reach him. We
killed Van Governor as a retaliation. We achieved to gather the
Armenians in all villages under a single flag. We formed gangs in
villages of Bitlis and Van. The Armenians rebelled after the Russians
attacked on Van in 1915. Our rebellion reached its peak in April. We
killed 30,000 Muslims in Van in a few days. Russian Czar Nikolai II
sent us a ‘thank you’ message.”