DECREE ON AWARDING SPEAKER OF ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT WITH LEGION OF
HONOR ALREADY SIGNED PRESIDENT OF FRANCE
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 12. ARMINFO. The decree on awarding Speaker
of National Assembly of Armenia with Legion of Honor is already
signed by President of France Jacques Chirac. Speaker of Armenian
parliament Arthur Baghdasarian informed in the interview to daily
“Haykakan Zhamanak”.
According to him, he has officially received the aforementioned decree
already. As regards my contacts with the West, “they are brilliant”,
Arthur Baghdasarian stressed.

Foreign Minister leaves for Turkey
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 11 2005
Baku, February 10, AssA-Irada — Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov
left for Ankara, Turkey on Thursday.
During the visit, Mammadyarov met with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah
Gul and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to discuss the status of bilateral
relations, the situation in the region and the Upper Garabagh conflict.
The visit by the Turkish Prime Minister to Azerbaijan scheduled for
March will also be discussed during the visit.*

EU envoy says stationing of peacekeeping forces in Garabagh possible
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 11 2005
Baku, February 10, AssA-Irada — The European Union special envoy
on South Caucasus Heikki Talvitie does not rule out stationing of
peacekeeping forces in Garabagh. “We hope that the settlement process
on the Upper Garabagh conflict will take place and peacekeeping forces
stationed in the region”, he told press conference on the results
of his visit to Azerbaijan on Thursday. He highly assessed the peace
talks on the level of the two countries’ foreign ministers. Talvitie
termed the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group as efficient and said
his organization appreciates the talks on the conflict resolution.
With regard to the peacekeeping contingent, the EU envoy said that this
may be possible only if a real proposal on the conflict resolution
is presented. Only in this case, the EU member states would assist
in setting up a peacekeeping mission, he said.
Talvitie added that the EU is closely following the democratic
development in Azerbaijan and stressed the need for applying Western
values and standards for the country’s admission to the ‘European
family’.
Touching upon the trials of opposition leaders, Talvitie said the EU
will issue a statement on the matter shortly, which will be based on a
report of the OSCE Bureau of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.*

Baku hails Georgian President’s separatism combat plan
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Feb 10 2005
Baku considers the initiatives of Tbilisi in settling relations with
South Ossetia in terms of resolving the separatism problem in South
Caucasus as an important step forward.
Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister, Araz Azimov, told journalists
that the Georgian President, Saakashvili’s peace plan and the recent
PACE resolution on Upper Garabagh are two remarkable factors for
resolution of regional conflicts.
Speaking at PACE in Strasbourg on January 26, Saakashvili laid out
new initiatives for settling the conflict over South Ossetia aimed
at granting the region a broad autonomy.
Azimov said that a noticeable intolerance of separatism and the
tendency towards resolving this conflict, based on the observance
of the territorial integrity of countries in such troubled zones,
are currently observed in the CE and Europe.

Governor’s Plan to Redraw the Political Map
Drawing on more effective representation
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Page B-9
By California State Senator Chuck Poochigian
The once-a-decade redrawing of legislative districts has resurfaced
now that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set his sights on reforming
the otherwise lackluster issue of redistricting. I join the governor
and many of my colleagues in support of removing this responsibility
from the Legislature and assigning it to an independent body, and I
have co-authored an amendment to do so.
Woven through virtually every poll in recent years gauging
Californians’ view of their Legislature is a broad thread of
mistrust. The public at large is cynical of the Legislature’s ability
to function effectively, pass a balanced budget and focus on necessary,
sensible legislation. Responsibly drawn legislative districts should
help to improve both perception and reality regarding the political
process.
State and federal district maps were put in place with legislative
approval in 2001. They effectively preserve legislative majorities in
the Senate, Assembly and Congress and virtually assure re-election
of nearly all incumbents. Although equally apportioned numerically,
the maps are drawn by computers to divide the state’s cities, counties
and communities into a confusing labyrinth with a goal of establishing
district lines with a partisan- voter base. This essentially protects
a given incumbent or political party from competition in an effort
to preserve the status quo.
Apart from this obvious intent, the maps defy logic. For example,
the 14th Senate District I represent encompasses all or parts of six
counties. However, the lines carefully remove portions of Fresno and
skirt around the more populous areas of Modesto, Manteca, Tracy and
Stockton. The district overlaps portions of eight different Assembly
districts and five congressional districts. This not only makes it
more cumbersome to coordinate efforts as a regional delegation, but
also confuses constituents and local government officials attempting
to understand who represents their community and their interests.
Fortunately, in my case, many of the issues and demographics of the
current 14th Senate District are similar to those of the district which
I served previously, so the transition has been smooth. Nevertheless,
the overarching system of mapping legislative districts needs to
be changed.
Many believe the goal of reforming our state’s redistricting process
is to make elections fairer, or to skew elections toward one political
party or another. The primary goal of redistricting should be to ensure
that the voters have effective representation. Efficient government
starts with citizens having a clear understanding of who represents
them. Voters should choose their representatives; politicians should
not choose their constituents.
Independent redistricting systems similar to those being proposed
are less subject to political influences and have worked well for
California in the past. In 1992, after Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed the
reapportionment plans submitted to him, a three-member committee of
judges comprised of “special masters” was appointed to draft a new
redistricting plan, in accordance with rational guidelines and with
public input. Their plan was subsequently approved by the California
Supreme Court, with only minor changes made necessary by prior court
decisions.
The new districts were coherent, consistent and served the state
for nine years. Each Senate district was divided into two Assembly
districts. The court affirmed that this “nesting” of districts made
representation more “comprehensible to the electorate, and [simplified]
the task of administering elections…”
Under the current system, multiple legislators potentially competing
for higher office in a given Senate or congressional district may
be more prone to political infighting and posturing than to district
service. Crowding numerous Assembly districts into one Senate district
can result in incumbent conduct and decision-making that is motivated
by a desire to obtain political advantage over a neighboring legislator
rather than being focused on the interests of constituents. Nesting of
districts reduces those tendencies, promoting discipline and greater
emphasis on cooperative district representation. To the degree
possible, nesting of districts should be deemed a priority.
Assigning the duty of drawing legislative district lines to a panel of
highly respected retired judges, as some of my colleagues and I have
proposed, is a far better alternative than the current politically
charged process. The ultimate goal of redistricting reform should be
to ensure a more personal connection between the residents of every
community and those elected to serve them.
California State Senator Chuck Poochigian (Republican – Fresno), is
a member of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional
Amendments Committee and co-author of a constitutional amendment on
redistricting reform.

MRI Machines Maker Fonar Posts 2Q Profit
MRI Machines Maker Fonar Corp. Swings to
Second-Quarter Profit on 65 Percent Jump in Sales
Associated Press
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
MELVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Fonar Corp., a maker of magnetic resonance
imaging — or MRI — machines, on Wednesday posted a second-quarter
profit from a year-ago loss on a jump in sales.
Despite the good news, the company’s stock fell 8 cents, or 4.7
percent, to $1.62 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, which President
and Founder Raymond V. Damadian called a case of “buy on rumor,
sell on news.”
The 52-week low of $1 was set Oct. 25.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, net income rose to a profit of
$1.1 million, or 1 cent per share, from a loss of $2.6 million, or
3 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue grew by 65 percent to $29.5
million from $17.9 million.
In a press release, Damadian attributed the improvement to increased
demand and service and repair fees, as well as cost control.
“We believe that our sales and marketing initiatives combined with
continuing cost controls and new business opportunities provide the
company with a solid foundation for sustained profitability for the
remainder of this fiscal year,” he said.

Masco Corporation Announces Date Change for Earnings
Release and Conference Call for 2004 Fourth Quarter
PRNewswire-FirstCall
Thursday February 10, 2005
TAYLOR, Mich., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Masco Corporation
(NYSE: MAS – News) today announced that to avoid a conflict
with another company’s investor presentation, it will change its
conference call regarding 2004 fourth quarter earnings to 1:00 p.m.
ET, Wednesday, February 23, 2005. Previously the call was scheduled for
11:00 a.m. ET, Thursday, February 24, 2005. The conference call will be
hosted by Masco Chairman and CEO Richard A. Manoogian. Participants
in the call are asked to register five to ten minutes prior to
the scheduled start time by dialing: (719) 457-2632 (confirmation
#8393274).
The 2004 fourth quarter supplemental material will be distributed
prior to the conference call and will be available on the Company’s
website at
The conference call will be webcast simultaneously and in its
entirety through the Masco Corporation website. Shareholders, media
representatives and others interested in Masco may participate in the
webcast by registering through the Investor Relations section on the
Company’s website.
A replay of the call will be available on Masco’s website or by phone
by dialing (719) 457-0820 (replay access code #8393274). The replay
will be available approximately two hours after the end of the call
and continue through March 2, 2005.
Headquartered in Taylor, Michigan, Masco Corporation is one of
the world’s leading manufacturers of home improvement and building
products as well as a leading provider of services that include the
installation of insulation and other building products.
Statements contained herein may include certain forward-looking
statements regarding Masco’s future sales, earnings growth potential
and other developments. Actual results may vary materially because
of external factors such as interest rate fluctuations, changes
in consumer spending and other factors over which management
has no control. The Company believes that certain non-GAAP
performance measures and ratios, used in managing the business,
may provide users of this financial information with additional
meaningful comparisons between current results and results in prior
periods. Non-GAAP performance measures and ratios should be viewed
in addition to, and not as an alternative for, the Company’s reported
results under accounting principles generally accepted in the United
States. Additional information about the Company’s products, markets
and conditions, which could affect the Company’s future performance,
is contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission and is available on Masco’s website at
Masco undertakes no obligation to update any forward- looking
statements, whether as a result of new information, future events
or otherwise.
Source: Masco Corporation

NATO finalizing Azerbaijan partnership plan
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Feb 10 2005
NATO Secretary General’s special envoy on South Caucasus and Central
Asia, Robert Simons, says he is pleased with the status of
NATO-Azerbaijan relations.
“I am very satisfied with the current level of ties between the
alliance and Azerbaijan”, he told a news briefing at the Foreign
Ministry on the results of his visit to Baku.
Simons said that NATO and Azerbaijan are co-operating extensively in
numerous fields. He added that work on the Individual Partnership
Plan has been completed, and its implementation will begin following
its approval by NATO.
Simons continued that he had met with Azeri officials dealing with
the document and discussed with them all matters relating to its
efficient realization. A NATO working group is due to visit Baku in
mid-February to clarify certain details of the mentioned Plan.
Simons added that while in Azerbaijan, he also met with his
colleagues to discuss the Upper Garabagh conflict. He said that he
had collected enough data on the matter and would submit a relevant
report to the NATO Secretary General.
NATO admission
Azerbaijan is not currently seeking membership to NATO, Deputy
Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said.
“Azerbaijan has not raised the issue of NATO membership yet. Baku
believes that bi-lateral co-operation is essential at this point.”
Azimov said Azerbaijan intends to continue its collaboration with the
alliance on the level of political dialogue.
Simons said that Azerbaijan’s admission to NATO depends on the
country itself. He noted, however, that Baku is currently not seeking
to become a NATO member state but is exploring opportunities for
deepening its partnership with the alliance.

Condi’s Mideast roadmap is being influenced by whom!?
By Caroline B. Glick
Jewish World Review
February 9, 2005
As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarked on
her maiden voyage, it was reported that she departed
from America armed with a new policy paper on how to
implement the Quartet’s road map produced by the James
Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
According to Edward Djerejian, the former US
ambassador to Syria who directs the Baker Center, the
paper, with its detailed recommendations, is a “street
map to the road map.”
One of the things that make the paper significant is
that it bears former US secretary of state James
Baker’s name. Not only did Baker serve under the
president’s father, he now plays a formal role in
mobilizing international support for Iraqi
reconstruction efforts.
As well, the team that composed the report included
senior policy makers from the US, the Palestinian
Authority, Egypt, Canada and the World Bank. The US
was represented by current Assistant Secretary of
State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns as well
as by Norman Olsen, the political counselor at the US
embassy in Israel. The PA was represented by security
strongman Jibril Rajoub and by senior aides to Mahmoud
Abbas, Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Qurei. Egypt was
represented by Dictator Hosni Mubarak’s senior adviser
Osama El Baz and by General Hossam Khair Allah.
Israel had no official representation. Rather, the
Jewish state was represented by none other than Yossi
Beilin’s Geneva Accord crowd. Amnon Lipkin Shahak and
Shlomo Brom, signatories to that subversive agreement
where private citizens tried to abscond with the
government’s sovereign power to determine foreign
policy by negotiating the scandalously anti-Israel
“accord,” participated. They were joined by members of
Beilin’s EU-financed think tank, the Economic
Cooperation Foundation.
Not surprisingly, the product this team produced and
delivered to Rice is soft on Palestinian terrorism,
soft on Palestinian democratization, and relentlessly
harsh toward Israel — its sovereignty, its right to
defend itself, and its ability to claim any right to
retain any of the Israeli communities in Judea and
Samaria.
The document makes no clear statement on the need for
the Palestinians to dismantle terrorist organizations.
Indeed, the term “terror organizations” is absent from
the report. Instead, the Palestinian requirement to
combat terrorism is reduced to demands on Israel to
facilitate the training, arming and operation of the
“reformed” Palestinian security services while not
interfering with them in any way.
While the report pays lip service to the need for the
PA to reform its governing institutions, its only
clear statement on the end-product of reform is
unabashedly authoritarian. The aim of all the reforms
must be the “consolidat[ion of] Fatah as the main
political player in Palestinian society.”
While the report makes no call for the destruction of
Palestinian terror organizations and bucks up the
authoritarian, corrupt PA, it calls for Israel to be
treated with hostility and suspicion.
The paper calls for the establishment of a
multinational force that will implement the
agreements. Implicit in this statement is the
assumption that Israel will be prevented by the
presence of this force from taking any measures to
defend itself against attacks.
International border crossings in Gaza and Judea and
Samaria, including the weapons smuggling hub at the
Philadephi Corridor which separates Gaza from Egypt,
are to be controlled by the Palestinians. The report
gives Egyptian forces a more prominent role in
implementing the agreements than the IDF.
WHERE THE report’s anti-Israel bias is most blatant is
in its discussion of the Israeli communities in Judea
and Samaria. The authors refer to their desire to see
“The Palestinian people establish a viable state in
the West Bank and Gaza” and make it clear that a
precondition for the state’s viability is that it be
racially pure — entirely cleansed of Jewish
communities. At the same time, they express their
desire to “assure that Israel will continue to exist
as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people and
its other citizens.” So in the authors’ view, Israel
is to be a state of all of its citizens while
“Palestine” is to be Judenrein.
The report calls for the institution of a draconian
regime in the Defense Ministry and the Justice
Ministry to effectively prevent any building
activities whatsoever from being conducted in the
Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. This regime,
“The Special Office on Settlement Activities,” will be
obliged not simply to act as the enforcer of the
attrition of these communities. The report determines
that this body will be subordinate to the US embassy
in Israel — effectively ceding Israeli sovereignty to
the US.
The study even dares to dictate what propaganda moves
must be made by the Israeli government to force the
Israeli public to accept this policy. A close reading
makes it clear that the result of this policy will be
the expulsion of more than 400,000 Israeli Jews from
their homes. This is so because the destruction of
Israeli neighborhoods in Jerusalem is implicit in the
section’s opening paragraph, which mendaciously
claims: “The US government policy has been based on
the principle that there can be no acquisition of
territory by war.”
Not only does this sweeping and totally false
statement necessarily include Jerusalem; it can easily
be interpreted as saying that the only borders Israel
can legitimately claim are the UN partition borders
from 1947 since much of the land that makes up the
1949 armistice lines was acquired in war.
Perhaps it is reasonable that officials pushing a plan
that would cause Israel to effectively become the ward
of the international community should not feel limited
by the positions of the Israeli government as it makes
its plans — sufficing instead to have Israel
“represented” by radical free agents with Israeli
citizenship.
But two questions still arise: Why is the US
government sending its officials to participate in a
“working group” which works to undermine the
sovereignty of a US ally; and why is the Israeli
government not taking legal action against private
citizens who travel the world “negotiating” away the
sovereign rights of the state while undermining the
prerogatives of the Israeli government?
Jewish World Review contributor Caroline B. Glick is
the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for
Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy
managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.
–Boundary_(ID_U+8v2OK9IL7QKtjDWHHR1Q)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

US Company to Tackle Development of Gold Deposits
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 12 2005
AssA-Irada 12/02/2005 17:50
A special program on tapping Azerbaijan’s gold deposits has been
developed and submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers, Minister of
Ecology and Natural Resources Huseyn Baghirov told journalists
on Friday.
After the document is passed, US RV Investment Group will tackle
large-scale activity on developing the country’s gold fields, he said.
The US company plans to invest some $500 million in the project,
of which $30-40 million will be spent on exploration work.
The Minister did not elaborate on the gist of the program, but said
RV Investment has already started work on these fields.
Baghirov earlier said that the government had given RV Investment
Group the last opportunity to resume work on the relevant agreement,
saying that if the contract terms are not met, it will start talks
with other companies.
The 25-year agreement, signed earlier by Azergyzyl state company,
abolished in 1997, and RV Investment Group (with Azerbaijan holding
51% stake and the US company 49%), envisions developing 9 fields
containing 400 tons of gold, 2,500 tons of silver and 1.5 million tons
of copper. These fields are mainly located in the Kalbajar, Zangilan,
Dashkasan and Ordubad regions. Three of the deposits are located in
Azerbaijani territories currently occupied by Armenian armed forces.