Number of AIDS cases in Armenia reaches 16-year high – agency

Arminfo
30 Nov 04

YEREVAN

Since Armenia registered its first AIDS victim 16 years ago, the
highest number of AIDS cases, 45, was registered this year.

We should note that about a week ago the number of AIDS patients stood
at 42 people. According to the HIV/AIDS prevention centre, the number
of women who have contracted the disease has sharply increased to 13
cases this year. Seven women and one child have died. The first AIDS
fatality was registered in 2001. Most women were not engaged in
prostitution and were not drug addicts but contracted the “curse of
the mankind” thanks to their husbands who, in turn, picked up the
infection in CIS countries, namely, in Russia and Ukraine.

In the course of the last 13 days, the number of people who contracted
the AIDS infection has considerably increased. While 50 cases were
registered as of 17 November, the number has already risen to
60. According to official statistics, there are 304 HIV-positive
cases, including 288 citizens of the republic, while only two weeks
ago the number was 296.

The highest rate of the disease is observed in Yerevan – 143 cases or
49.7 per cent of Armenia’s total. However, specialists from the
HIV/AIDS prevention centre say the official statistics do not reflect
the real situation in the republic because real figures are 10 times
higher. Specialists believe that there are more than 3,000
HIV-positive cases in Armenia.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Iran-Armenia gas pipeline construction launched

Mediamax news agency
30 Nov 04

YEREVAN

The construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline started today in the
village of Agarak in Armenia’s Syunik Region [southern Armenia].

Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan attended the ceremony to
start the construction as well. The first 40 km of the gas pipeline
will be built on a 30m-dollar credit allocated by Iran.

[Passage omitted: background of project]

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IRNA, Iran
Nov 30 2004

Iran-Armenia gas pipeline project launched

Moscow, Nov 30, IRNA — An Iranian company started construction work
on a 41-km gas pipeline at Armenian border town of Megri on Tuesday
to carry Iranian gas to the republic.
Armenian Prime Minister Andranika Markaryan, Energy Minister Armen
Movsisian and other ministers, officials of Oil Ministry, Head of the
Presidential office Artashes Tumanian, Iranian Energy Minister
Habibollah Bitaraf and Ambassador to Yerevan Alireza Haqiqian were
present at the inaugural ceremony.

Iran and Armenia on May 13 signed an agreement to construct a 41-km
gas pipeline between the Armenian cities of Megri and Kajaran.

The 41-km pipeline is expected to cost 210-220 million dollars.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Markaryan said that November 30
will be recorded in the history of Iran-Armenia ties.

He said that implementation of this project would have an important
effect on the whole economy of Armenia.

Bitaraf, also speaking on the occasion, said that launching of the
project was a token of the two countries’ determination to bolster
bilateral cooperation.

The Iranian ambassador to Yerevan termed the construction of new
pipeline as a strategic measures which would lead to development of
the country and reinvigoration of the region.

The first gas consignment is to be transferred to Armenia in January
2007.

Russian security boss negative about NATO’s possible role in Karabakh
settlement

Mediamax news agency
30 Nov 04

YEREVAN

The secretary of the Russian Security Council, Igor Ivanov, today
expressed his satisfaction with readiness of Armenia and Azerbaijan to
continue a high-level dialogue to settle the Karabakh conflict.

He said “there is hardly a need for introducing changes which could
make it difficult to expand this dialogue”.

At journalists’ request, Ivanov in Yerevan was commenting on the
recent statement of official Baku on the desirability of NATO’s
involvement in the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict. Regional conflicts were not been discussed at a meeting of
the committee of the secretaries of the security councils of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization, which was held in Yerevan
today, because “this is not in our organization’s competence”, Ivanov
said.

“The Russian Federation thinks that the parties to the conflict should
find a solution to the Karabakh problem with active international
assistance. Russia will continue to provide such assistance within the
framework of existing mechanisms,” Ivanov said.

The secretary of the National Security Council under the president of
Armenia and defence minister, Serzh Sarkisyan, noted that the OSCE
Minsk Group was dealing with the resolution of the conflict and none
of the parties can make a unilateral decision to expand or change the
mediation format.

Azerbaijan detains 288 wagons carrying fuel to Armenia via Georgia – agency

Turan news agency
30 Nov 04

BAKU

Azerbaijan’s customs officials are currently holding nearly 450
railway cars, bound for Armenia, on the Azerbaijani-Georgian border.

The [Azerbaijani] State Customs Committee says that 288 of the railway
cars were carrying fuel from Turkmenistan to Armenia. The customs
committee, which has been inspecting buyers of the transit cargo since
4 November this year, has found out that some of the cargo from
Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan arrives in Armenia via
Georgia. Because of the Armenian occupation, Azerbaijan is not
allowing goods to enter Armenia via its territory in line with
transportation agreements signed with the CIS countries.

Buffalo News, NY
Nov 30 2004

Doctoral candidate is 16

UB student has two degrees and is a teaching assistant

By PETER SIMON
News Staff Reporter
11/30/2004

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

While other 16-year-olds are in high school, Rafael Davtian is
working on his doctorate in political science at the University at
Buffalo.

Rafael Davtian is a young man in a hurry.
A big hurry.

At age 16 – when students are normally still in high school – Rafael
is studying for his doctorate at the University at Buffalo. He has,
in effect, skipped eight grades of school.

Rafael doesn’t have his driver’s license yet, but he already has
earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Even though he won’t be old enough to vote for another two years, he
is a teaching assistant in UB’s political science department, helping
instruct students years older than he is.

“I like to learn and was motivated to advance,” said Rafael, a native
of Armenia who came to this country with his parents at age 8. “The
two main components were constant hard work and determination to keep
going.”

Academic acceleration hasn’t hurt the quality of his work one bit.
Rafael has never – not once, at any grade level – earned a grade
lower than A. He was valedictorian of Utah State University’s College
of Humanities with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

And in less than a semester, Rafael has earned a sterling reputation
at UB.

“He’s extremely mature and extremely bright,” said Franco Mattei,
director of graduate studies in political science. “He’s just at the
top of the class.”

Rafael hopes to teach at the college level, work for the State
Department or an international agency or get involved in electoral
politics.

His academic accomplishments are even more remarkable because he
arrived in the United States at age 8, knowing just a few words of
English.

In search of better opportunities and a Western lifestyle, his family
moved from Armenia to West Germany when Rafael was 3 and then to Salt
Lake City five years later.

Rafael’s progress was meteoric. For example:

– He skipped grades 4 and 5 and went directly from sixth grade to
ninth grade.

– He tackled the last three years of high school in two years and
still managed to accumulate 40 college credits.

– He earned an associate’s degree from Salt Lake Community College at
age 13, finished his undergraduate requirements in three semesters
instead of four and earned his master’s degree in one year rather
than two.

– Even though he studies from six to eight hours a day, Rafael finds
time to play tennis, soccer and chess and to read books for pleasure.

Most accelerated students skip just a year or two of school, and
Rafael’s academic career is highly unusual but not unique, said
Nicholas Colangelo, director of the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted
Education at the University of Iowa.

Colangelo, an advocate of acceleration for gifted students, said even
dramatic advancement can work with the support and planning of
parents and schools.

“The bottom line is, kids develop at different rates, and some very
much so,” he said. “The question you have to ask is: What would it
have been like for this young man if he stayed with his age group?”

Well-spoken, personable and impeccably polite, Rafael said he doesn’t
think about age and feels perfectly comfortable with his classmates.

“For me, it has become more or less normal,” he said. “I simply
accept the fact that here I am. It could be no other way.”

Armin Davtian, a manufacturing engineer while in Armenia, said he
advocated for Rafael’s acceleration based on his progress in the
early grades and his love of learning.

“I saw how quickly he grasped almost everything,” Davtian said. “He
was really fast, capable and brilliant.”

Neighbors, teachers and guidance counselors questioned that strategy
and raised concerns about the social and emotional pressures Rafael
would face. Some argued that we was being robbed of his childhood.

But the determination and confidence of both son and father never
wavered.

“I faced lots of blame and condemnation, but I knew I was doing the
right thing,” said Armin Davtian. “He proved he could overcome. He
produced excellent results. Whenever I was asked the question:
“Why?,’ the answer would be: “Why not?’ ”

Rafael agrees. “I was able to adapt well,” he said. “I get along with
everyone. I think it was stranger for the people around me than it
was for me, actually.”

Rafael’s academic success has been a family effort.

Armin and his wife, Gayene, moved with Rafael from Salt Lake City to
Logan, Utah, so their only child could attend Utah State, and then to
Amherst for Rafael’s doctoral program.

At Utah State, Armin Davtian enrolled in and graduated from the same
master’s program as his son.

“He was 14, I was 41, and we were sitting together and taking classes
together,” Davtian said.

UB provided Rafael not only a paid assistantship, but also a
Presidential Fellowship, the highest academic recognition accorded by
the College of Arts and Sciences.

“He’s one of the most outstanding students we’ve had in recent
years,” said Frank C. Zagare, chairman of UB’s political science
department and one of Rafael’s professors. “He more than competes
with older students in the class.”

Rafael loves UB, and college officials said his adjustment backs up
the confidence they showed in him.

“We made the right decision,” UB’s Mattei said. “I’m glad we did,
because otherwise it would have been our loss.”

G2: Health: The Mind Instructor: The tabloids have feted his ‘miracle’
cures for paralysis and spinal injuries but the medical establishment
has dismissed Hratch Ogali as a quack. Tanya Gold sits in on a surgery
and asks whether healing really works

The Guardian – United Kingdom
Nov 30, 2004

TANYA GOLD

Last week I received an email from Euan MacDonald, a 30-year-old
former City worker who has motor neurone disease. The email was about
Hratch Ogali – the “Mind Instructor” – a healer feted by the tabloids
for his “miracle” cures for spinal injuries and paralysis but
ostracised by the medical establishment. MacDonald has been his
patient for a year. “As this is a progressive condition, results are
difficult to measure,” MacDonald wrote. “Who knows if I would be
better, worse or the same had I not gone to see Hratch? What I can say
with certainty is that with Hratch’s help I am living without fear.”

In Ogali’s gleaming yellow studio in Marylebone, just off Harley
Street, Alessia is sitting on a bed, wearing a faded Juicy Couture
tracksuit. The room is crowded with equipment for physical and
motivational therapy: a multi-gym, a climbing frame and a miniature
jungle of plants. Diagrams of the skeletal system and the muscular
system frown down. Ogali is massaging Alessia’s legs, looking, he
says, “for active nerves. There is always an active nerve somewhere.”
He taps her foot with a metal rod and squints. “They start
responding.” He carries her to a vibrating power plate. “You’re
getting heavier,” he smiles.

“No,” Alessia replies.

“Get up and walk,” he shouts. But Alessia can’t; she was paralysed
when the private jet in which she was flying crashed.

“I moved to London because of Hratch,” Alessia says. “My family would
fly any doctor in the world to Rome to see me. Doctors came from all
over Italy, from Cuba and from Germany. My father is a brain
surgeon. So after the accident I knew. I didn’t need to be told. If
you break your spinal cord you don’t walk.” Hratch grunts, without
looking up, “You will walk again.”

Ogali used to be a jeweller. Then, he says, “life presented me with a
different task”. He was born in Syria to Armenian parents but he grew
up in Jordan. He came to London in 1962 and met his wife, Tracey, who
persuaded him to become a healer. “My experiences were unique in
life,” he says. “Unusual. I can’t identify the first person I healed
because people always came to me; always talked about a difficulty of
some kind and I always had the advice. Wherever I went this was the
case.”

He places a walking frame by the bed and tells Alessia to stand. “Go –
go – go!” he commands. “Come on! On your toes. Push! Push! Hold
tight. Hold tight.” She stands. After four weeks of daily treatment,
Ogali says, “Alessia is improving. It will all get repaired and these
feet will start feeling and we will get you up and walking. How’s
that? Is that a good plan?”

I watch Ogali “mind instruct” a man with Parkinson’s disease. “Back to
normal; back to normal,” he says as the man struggles to his
feet. “Let it be active; let it be alive. Don’t let yourself
disappear. Think; think.” Ogali pauses his incantation, strokes his
moustache and stares violently at his patient. “Breathe into your
brain through your nose and let it go down your spinal cord. Tell
yourself, “I want my life back – not tomorrow, not after lunch, but
now!” Fight! Fight! Fight! Don’t feel sorry for yourself and don’t
make yourself weak.” Eventually the patient stands, touching Ogali’s
little finger and they breathe, simultaneously, with triumph. The
patient’s wife turns to me. “He has a positive attitude and a will
now,” she says. “Before he met Hratch, he couldn’t care less.”

The next patient is Florence. She came to England from Nigeria in 1964
to work as a social worker and was diagnosed with the virus GBS in
2000. “It began wi th weak fingers at half past eight in the morning,”
she tells me, struggling to enunciate; the virus gifted her with a
speech impediment. “By midnight I had lost all feeling.”

Ogali’s flirtatious incarnation has emerged. He skips out of the
consulting room, hugs Florence and demands, “You must get well because
I haven’t had any proper Nigerian food in this country and you must
make it for me.” She purses her lips, moodily, at him. “Don’t behave
like an old woman,” he chides and wheels her over to the adapted
exercise bike. “Faster! Faster!’ he commands. Florence sweats, gasps,
and mentions a hip problem. “This stuff with hips; don’t make it up,”
he spits. “You don’t need a hip replacement. You haven’t done any
exercise for four years; that is all that is wrong with your hip. Next
week you will stand.”

I ask Florence if Ogali’s therapies are helpful. “My legs are
stronger,” she says. “I’m now able to stand. I’m happier and more
enthusiastic.” What, I ask her, is this mysterious ‘mind control’?
“‘Mind control’ is just focusing on what I’m doing. In my sessions
with Hratch (which cost pounds 100 an hour), I just say to myself,
‘I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it.’ I imagine I am running a
marathon and I am heading for the finishing line. I’m going to stand
up. I’m going to walk.” I watch her eyes. She believes it.

After the last patient has been kissed goodbye, I ask Ogali how he
learnt ‘mind instruction’. “First I investigated psychics, mediums,
and the telepathic world,” he says, rolling a cigarette and watching
his small son bicycle across the consulting room. “Then I taught
myself conventional medicine. I opened myself up so I can understand
it all. My questions always took me directly to where I could get the
answers from. When I see my patients, I move through my mind so I
understand exactly what they feel. I enter their energy and I bring
myself into such focus that I feel their ailment myself. I use their
instinctive memory, of walking and of health. I resolve the
difficulties from the depth of the unconscious mind.”

Ogali is writing a series of books on disease and remedy. His literary
agency, he tells me, used to represent Sigmund Freud. Ogali insists
that his methods can be taught and, if his principles are eventually
accepted by the medical establishment and the government, a small army
of mind instructors will march out from his mews.

For now, this is unlikely. Ogali’s campaign for recognition by the NHS
has failed; his letters to the Department of Health are unanswered. In
neurological circles, he is dismissed as a quack who prescribes
nothing more powerful than counterfeit hope.

Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsular
Medical School in Exeter explains the medical establishment’s mistrust
of “alternative” healers and “miracle” cures. “It is impossible to
make judgments with anecdotal evidence,” he tells me. “Anecdotes are
meaningless. It is only through proper research that our knowledge
advances. Hratch Ogali should provide proper evidence with clinical
trials. If he is potent then everyone should benefit from him. I am
not saying he is a crook – it is possible he has a power – but if he
wants recognition he shouldn’t go through the media. He should go
through science.”

Then why, I ask Ernst, do Ogali’s patients’ testify to recovery? My
desk is covered with letters from them, exalting his
methods. “Motivational healing like Ogali’s raises patient
expectation,” Ernst says. “Their belief in the possibility of recovery
is increased by the healer’s intervention and this belief can move
mountains. But it is wrong,” he adds, “to make patients believe that
there is a supernatural power that can heal.” He then explains the
placebo effect. “When there is residual function,” he says, “and if
you are told incessantly that you will be better then you will be
better. But it is unreliable and it is not unique to Ogali.”

Ernst tells me the story of the Spiritual Healer experiment, which
took place in Exeter five years ago. “We teamed five spiritual healers
with five actors pretending to be spiritual healers,” he says. “After
they had learnt to be spiritual healers the actors had the same effect
on the patients as the healers.” He clears his throat. “If anything,
they were a little better.”

But Ogali’s belief in his ability to heal is absolute; his patients
are his evidence. “If you focus,” he says, “you learn that you possess
all sorts of powers that are natural. Psychic power is
natural. Telepathic power is natural. We all possess this strength
but the will and the concentration and the determination to overcome
must be absolute.” He blows cigarette smoke to the roof of his
consulting room. “It is within us.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RIA Novosti, Russia
Nov 30 2004

CONSTRUCTION OF IRAN-ARMENIA PIPELINE BEGINS

YEREVAN, November 30 (RIA Novosti, Gamlet Matevosyan) – A ceremony to
mark the beginning of construction of the Megri-Kadzharan section of
the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline will be held in southern Armenia’s
Syuni region on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Armenia’s government told RIA Novosti that Armenia
Prime Minister Andrianik Markaryan would lead a delegation at the
ceremony.

Mr. Markaryan will also attend the opening of the second Iran-Armenia
power lines.

A delegation from Iran, led by Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf,
will also attend the opening ceremony in the Syuni region.

Armenian Energy Ministry Levon Vardanyan said the construction of a
41km pipeline in Armenia would start with the Megri-Kadzharan
section. He said that Iran agreed to finance the project.

On May 13, 2004, Armenia and Iran signed a treaty in Yerevan on the
construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. Under the treaty,
Armenia will receive 36 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas over 20
years. Armenia will pay for the gas with electricity. The pipeline
will also allow Armenia to receive Turkmen gas transported through
Iran.

The construction of the pipeline, 700mm in diameter and 141km long,
is planned to be completed at the end of 2006. According to the
preliminary estimates, Armenia will invest about $90 million and Iran
will invest about $120 million in the construction.

The Messenger, Georgia
Nov 30 2004

Georgia, Azerbaijan discuss Red Bridge border closure

Officials in Tbilisi say rail traffic already restored and detained
freight flowing into Georgia
By Anna Arzanova

Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Georgia HE Ramiz Hasanov met with Georgian
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikheil Ukleba on November 29 to
discuss the several hundred freight cars being held up at the
Georgia-Azerbaijan border.

The rail-freight, excluding oil products, had been detained by the
Azeri side for over ten days now because of Azeri suspicions that
some of the cargo is destined for Armenia.

While Georgian media has reported there are more than 900 train cars
waiting to cross the border, Ambassador Hasanov said that the number
was in fact much lower.

“There are about 300 train cars loaded with different cargoes, and of
these only one or two belong to Georgia,” the ambassador told
journalists on Tuesday.

He also sought to downplay the amount of time the Georgian cars have
been waiting, saying that they “could have been lost somewhere,” and
stressing that “now the Customs Departments are working on this issue
and there won’t be any more questions regarding this.”

The Azerbaijani ambassador confirmed that the cargo destined for
Georgia and other countries is being held by customs officials
because of the belief that some of the cargo is in fact bound for
Armenia.

Azerbaijan and Georgia signed an agreement in June this year, an
agreement that has been ratified in Baku but not in Tbilisi, that no
cargo transported from Azerbaijan to Georgia would then continue to
any third country that would damage Azerbaijan, a tacit ban on
transshipping to Armenia.

“There is an agreement regarding the transit of cargo cross the
Azeri-Georgian border and we want all aspects of the agreement to be
fulfilled,” Hasanov explained.

“Imagine if we started supplying diesel fuel or some other product to
Abkhazia or South Ossetia: do you think this would infringe upon the
national interests of Georgia? Of course it would,” Hasanov said.

The ambassador said that both sides had reached an understanding of
this issue at his meeting with Ukleba and that Azerbaijan had
informed Georgia that no cargo bound for Georgia will be stopped.

“This is really the case. We reached an agreement and specialists
from our customs committee will arrive tomorrow. They will work
together with the specialists of the customs department of Georgia.
We cannot be sure where these train cars are destined, which is why
they were stopped.” stated Hasanov, explaining that specialists of
customs committee will determine where each train car is bound.

Speaking with the media on Monday, Deputy Minister Ukleba said that
train cars have already begun crossing the border, and confirmed that
representatives of the Azeri customs department would arrive on
Wednesday.

“After discussion of this issue there will be a decision regarding
the renewal of cargo transportation to Georgia, to wherever the
documents say it is destined,” Ukleba said.

Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said that the government is working on
the issue. “I would not dramatize this issue because our appropriate
structures are working together with Azeri structures. I do not
expect that this problem will be aggravated,” he stated on Monday.

Also on Monday, the commercial director of the Georgian Railways
Ramaz Giorgadze left for Baku to negotiate with colleagues there.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Nov 30 2004

Azeri officer on trial in Hungary may be handed over to Azerbaijan

The Hungarian parliament Ombudsman Barnabas Lenkovich, addressing the
third international conference of Ombudsmen, which started in Baku on
Monday, said workers of the entity he leads often visit the
Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov in detention.
Safarov is on trial in Hungary for killing an Armenian serviceman.
`There are no problems with the trial of Ramil Safarov. He will make
the statements he made in English before in Azerbaijani language
again. A translator has been therefore provided’, Lenkovich said.
He said that Safarov is satisfied with his treatment in detention and
is awaiting the court sentence. The Ombudsman said that Safarov’s
extradition to Azerbaijan is possible after the court issues a
ruling, but stressed the importance of signing a relevant treaty by
the two countries.
`The Hungarian legislation allows for such an agreement’, he said.
Lenkovich plans to meet with Safarov’s parents as well.*