Azeri soldier wounded in ceasefire breach
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 11 2005
Baku, February 10, AssA-Irada
Samir Bakirov, a soldier in the Azerbaijan Army, was wounded after
Armenian military units fired at the positions of the Azerbaijani
military units located in Shikhlar settlement of the Aghdam District
on Wednesday night. The health condition of the hospitalized soldier is
satisfactory, a source from the Ministry of Defence told AssA-Irada.*
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Garabagh conflict to be mulled during Putin’s visit to Armenia
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 11 2005
Baku, February 10, AssA-Irada — The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over
Upper Garabagh will be discussed during the planned official visit by
Russian President Vladimir Putin to Armenia. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to visit Yerevan on February 17 to discuss
preparations for Putin’s visit.
Lavrov will meet with the Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian,
Minister for Defence Serzh Sarkisian, Parliament Speaker Artur
Bagtasarian and Prime Minister Andranik Markarian, the Armenian
“Panarmenian” news agency reports.*
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Tablet , UK
Feb 11 2005
Lead Book Review – 12 February 2005
The encounters that cause sparks to fly
Holy Fire
Victoria Clark
Macmillan, £20
Tablet bookshop price £18.
My wife was recently asked by the accident and emergency department
of a London hospital to complete a form requiring her – in addition to
the usual enquiries about ethnicity, religion, blood group and so on –
to state her “cultural identity”. In the end she entered “Anglican”,
even though she had given the same answer to the question on religion.
The best passages in Victoria Clark’s very clever book suggest that
the NHS bureaucrat behind that form may have been on to something:
there is a dimension to our sense of identity which certainly includes
religion – or the lack of it – but encompasses all sorts of other
factors too. And if Ms Clark is right it is a thoroughly destructive
force. There is little in Holy Fire about religion as a source of
goodness, holiness or moral order; instead, poisoned by politics,
race and history – and poisoning them in return – religion in this
book is a sectarian battle standard.
Her story begins with a brawl between two clerics in one of
Christianity’s most sacred places. Within the Basilica of the Holy
Sepulchre in Jerusalem is a tiny chapel known as the “edicule”,
built over the spot St Helena identified as Christ’s tomb. On Easter
Saturday the “Holy Fire” is said to appear miraculously within it,
and candles lit from this wondrous confirmation of Christ’s divinity
are, by ancient tradition, passed among the faithful by Jerusalem’s
Greek Orthodox Patriarch and one of the church’s Armenian Orthodox
priests. In Easter 2002 the Armenian priest decided to “hurry the
miracle along a little” with the aid of a cigarette lighter. The
Patriarch intervened, and the two came to blows. A couple of Orthodox
monks piled in to help their leader and the Israeli police had to
storm the chapel to restore order.
The incident inspires Ms Clark’s investigation of the centuries-old
war between the Christian denominations for control of the Holy
Places. Some of the stories are very funny: the Ethiopian Orthodox nuns
and monks of the Holy Sepulchre have been reduced to living in a squat
on the church’s roof, and jealously guard their territory from the
Egyptian Copts next door; when an elderly Coptic monk started taking
his afternoon snooze in a chair by the Ethiopians’ gate they suspected
him of annexation by stealth, and Israeli police were again called
to stop things turning violent. Some of the stories are dreadful:
the Holy Fire ceremony of 1834 ended with a stampede, mass suffocation
and a massacre by panicky Ottoman troops; a British observer described
the church walls “spattered with the blood and brains of those who had
been felled, like oxen, with the butt-ends of the soldiers’ bayonets”.
Holy Fire unfolds against the background of the current Palestinian
intifada, and Ms Clark moves skilfully between contemporary anecdote
and big-picture history, using the Holy Sepulchre’s story as a focus
for exploring the broader issue of Christianity’s involvement in the
Holy Land. For the most part her points are subtly made, and she allows
her characters to reveal themselves. Fr Athanasius, a Franciscan from
Texas, tells her: “What we have in that church [the Holy Sepulchre],
is not three different takes on Christianity – Orthodoxy, Catholicism
and Oriental Orthodoxy. That would be complex enough, but it’s worse
than that. The territory the church occupies and all its contents are
divided six ways on mostly tribal lines except for us Franciscans –
we’re multinational. Otherwise you’ve got Greeks, Armenians, Egyptians,
Ethiopians and Syrians.”
Explaining the “status quo” agreement which froze the
interdenominational rivalries where they were in 1852 and still
applies today, he says: “It’s important to realise that there are
three different sets of rights governing everything inside the church
and everything that happens there: rights of property, rights of use
and rights of cleaning. Having the right to clean something doesn’t
pre-suppose a right to use it, and the right to use it doesn’t
necessarily entail ownership, because ownership can be shared.”
Every so often the author’s voice intrudes when she asks her
interlocutors whether this kind of talk has very much to do with
the teaching of what she terms the “man-God” the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre is supposed to celebrate. It is gently done in the book,
but this tale encompasses centuries of petty rivalry, greed, venality,
corruption and violence in the name of Christianity.
There is a bigger point behind all this, but when Ms Clark finally
steps outside the brilliant artifice of her narrative to make it
directly it is disappointingly crude. During one of her highly
effective vignettes – a meal at which two old friends, one Jewish
and one Palestinian Christian, confront the damage done to their
relationship by the intifada – she lets us know what she really thinks:
“They are waiting for me to speak but I am suddenly overwhelmed by
the thought of Arabs and Jews dying in their hundreds and thousands
on account of mistakes made and crimes committed by a succession of
Christian powers over hundreds of years.”
So there you have it; we Christians have infected Jerusalem with what
Edward Lear called its “squabblepoison”, and we are responsible for the
world’s most intractable political problem. I found myself scribbling
“Up to a point, Lord Copper” in the margin, and this statement a couple
of paragraphs later is even more questionable. Listing the Christian
enthusiasts who contributed to the foundation of the State of Israel,
Ms Clark writes: “I suspect that if the Earl of Shaftesbury, Arthur
Balfour, Lloyd George and President Truman had not been so versed in
the Old Testament and therefore so susceptible to Jewish emotionalism
about a God-given homeland, so willing to dream the Jewish dream,
an Israel would eventually have come into being, especially given
the Nazi Holocaust, but it would not have been here.”
This huge historical assumption jars – and is at odds with the subtlety
which characterises the rest of the book. Holy Fire successfully
demonstrates that nothing relating to Jerusalem is ever simple; and
I suspect that the author has a sense that she may have overstepped
the mark here, because she plunges immediately back into the West
Jerusalem restaurant where her two friends are finishing up their
meal. But from this point the book goes downhill: the material on
Christian Zionists is perfectly respectable, but it feels familiar –
and Christian fundamentalism is too easy a target.
In her introduction, Victoria Clark writes: “My argument is that
fourth-century Byzantine Orthodoxy and twenty-first-century American
Christian Zionism are two ends of a single long continuum in the
eyes of many non-Christians. Three years on from 11 September 2001
it seems more urgent than ever that we in the traditionally Christian
West begin to see ourselves as others see us.”
I am not quite sure she makes the case she states in the first of those
sentences – but the aspiration expressed in the second is triumphantly
realised; and this is a humbling book for any Christian to read.
Edward Stourton
–Boundary_(ID_agim4QQjaupCj6zoqF6P4g)–

Turkish Daily News
Feb 11 2005
Gül assures Azerbaijan on Armenia policy
Friday, February 11, 2005
‘Turkey’s policy on this matter is clear. The people of Azerbaijan do
not need to worry,’ says Gül relating to the closed Turkish-Armenian
border gate
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
Turkey gave assurances to Caucasus ally Azerbaijan that its border
gate with Armenia would remain closed unless Armenia ends occupation
of the Azeri territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has displaced
hundreds of thousands of Azeris.
“The border gate is closed at the moment. The continuing occupation
and the fact that almost a million Azeris are currently displaced
constitute a big obstacle for any change in Turkish policy,” Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gül told a joint news conference after talks with
visiting Azeri counterpart Elmar Mammedyarov.
Turkey closed its border gate with Armenia and severed diplomatic
ties with Yerevan in the last decade in protest of the Armenian
occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. Ankara says normalization in ties is
related to Armenian troop withdrawal from the occupied territory, in
addition to Yerevan’s official acceptance of the current borders with
Turkey and stopping its support of Armenian lobby efforts to get
international recognition for an alleged Armenian genocide during the
late Ottoman Empire.
Yet, European Union aspirant Turkey has been facing pressure from
Europe to revise its Armenia policy and to open the closed gate with
landlocked Yerevan, something that has alarmed Azerbaijan.
“Turkey’s policy on this matter is clear. The people of Azerbaijan
do not need to worry,” Gül said, indicating that bilateral ties with
Armenia will return to normal when the occupation ends as a result of
peace talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
Mammedyarov’s talks in Ankara come weeks before he meets Armenian
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian in Prague on the dispute.
He and Gül also discussed bilateral economic ties. Turkey and
Azerbaijan are partners in a multi-billion dollar project, called the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, to transport Azeri crude oil to western
markets through Georgia and finally to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of
Ceyhan.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is expected to become operational
soon, with the first delivery of oil scheduled for mid-2005. Gül said
he was confident that the project would be completed on time.
The energy cooperation is set to expand further when a natural gas
pipeline linking Azerbaijan’s Shahdeniz gas fields to Turkey’s
eastern province of Erzurum starts operating. Mammedyarov said the
Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline could become operational in 2006 or
2007 and added that Turkey could import some of the natural gas from
this pipeline to European countries.
Seeking Azeri support to end KKTC isolation:
Gül also sought Baku’s backing for efforts to bring into force
international pledges to end the isolation of Turkish Cypriots.
Gül reportedly told Mammedyarov that Azerbaijan would become a
model that other countries could follow if it takes steps towards
ending the isolation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
(KKTC).
Mammedyarov said in response that his government would work on the
issue and encourage Azeri companies to do business in Turkish Cyprus.
Mammedyarov was received by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer later in
the day.
–Boundary_(ID_6aDtGlUlJ5EnicMYumOvBA)–

Kivanç Galip ÖVER: CDU doesn’t question taboos
Friday, February 11, 2005
Turkish Daily News
Feb 11 2005
A sentence was removed from the school books in Brandenburg, and
a great row took place. The entire of Germany discusses the matter
because the sentence was claiming that Turks had tried systematically
to annihilate Armenians.
According to the German press, Turkey pressed, used diplomacy
skillfully and succeeded. Nowadays the opposition party CDU (Christian
Democratic Union) is trying to drive the coalition party SDP (Social
Democratic Party) into a corner. Sven Petke, a senior official in CDU,
is demanding the sentence to be put back in the school text books.
The statements made by the provincial officials of Brandenburg are
far from being satisfactory to CDU it is a matter with a great detail,
and there is no point speaking about it in details. The most striking
point in the details is the attitude of CDU. The party will soon come
to power in Germany. The time will soon come for the agreement and
disagreements between Berlin and Ankara to affect more that one region.
Even it can be said that the axis of Berlin-Ankara will pave a way
to significant echoes and results. However Berlin’s approach -it is
obvious that this approach is under the influence of internal politics-
does not give much hope regarding the matter. CDU’s attitude shows that
it behaves according to its prejudices about Turkey. The approach of
CDU basically stresses the religion, the culture and the history of
Europe. In fact Turkey doesn’t oppose to the religion, the culture
and the history of Europe.
It is true that Europe is a continent which has an overwhelming
Christian population, whose culture is under a great influence of
the religion, and which lived through problems with Turks. There is
no point in discussing that here.
CDU opposes the idea that Turkey is to be admitted in the near
future or to be admitted before being ready for it. Turkey believes
that it will be ready to be admitted, and it makes efforts for it.
Here too there is no point in discussing that issue here.
However when it comes to Turkey’s identity, social structure, its
mentality, its preferences and its history, the problem appears. CDU
sadly attaches more importance to its idea about Turkey than the
real Turkey.
The politicians in CDU are nervous about the change in the school
text books in Brandenburg. Yet none of them ask themselves this
question: “Or if the events we believe in were not lived?”
The politicians in CDU have to survey this and other allegations in
detail. Because when they come to power, their decisions will be
very crucial.
CDU’s priority must be keeping Turkey “chained” to Europe’s
institutional structure. That is to say, Turkey -in any case- will
be in Europe’s future. If the party has this preference, then it has
to obey the obligations of it.
–Boundary_(ID_8urMs49FYpfnAUyOhvR3pg)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russian paper sees Georgia-Armenia as friends ‘on paper’
The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 11 2005
The Russian newspaper Gazeta SNG reports that the participation of a
low ranking delegation from Armenia at the funeral of Prime Minister
Zurab Zhvania demonstrated the relations these two countries have
with each other.
For some reason, the paper writes, the first president of Armenia
Levon Ter-Petrosyan and the ex-speaker of the Armenian assembly Babken
Ararktsyan were the ones who arrived in Tbilisi for the burial ceremony
of Zhvania. This friendship, the paper states, “means almost nothing
for the two ‘brothers’ – neither for Georgia nor for Armenia.” Opposite
directions in foreign policy will have adverse affect on the relations
of Tbilisi and Yerevan, the paper concludes. According to the paper,
Armenian-Georgian relations are facing a difficult time. Armenia does
not comprehend the open anti-Russian approach of the current Georgian
leadership, and Tbilisi accuses Yerevan of the opposite. The politics
led by Zurab Zhvania helped control the reforms of Saakashvili.
“Now the president is free and can do everything he sees as right.
The only thing that can stop him, according to the Georgian observers
is the appointment of the Minister of Defense Irakli Okruashvili
to the position of the Prime Minister, who is famous for his harsh
statements. It is still impossible to make Georgia a united state,”
the paper writes.
The paper notes that Georgia participates in GUUAM, an international
body that paper describes as an incapable organization. However,
the paper states, the presidents of Ukraine and Georgia make every
effort to “raise this ancestor if integration from the dead.”
The paper writes that Georgia does not share Armenia’s opinion, even
in the Karabakh conflict. However, official Tbilisi is content not to
make statements regarding “the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.”
“During the visit to Armenia in 2004, people hinted to the Georgian
president that it would be better if he would pay attention to the
settlement of his own conflicts,” the paper notes.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America
138 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-689-7810
Fax: 212-689-7168
e-mail: [email protected]
Website:
Contact: Iris Papazian
CROSSROADS E-NEWSLETTER – February 11, 2005
CATHOLICOS ARAM I ANNOUNCES 2005 THE YEAR OF THE
90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, His
Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, issued an
encyclical that was read during the Divine Liturgy in all churches within
the jurisdiction of the Cilician See.
His Holiness notes in his encyclical that the Catholicate of Cilicia has
itself witnessed and lived the massacres its people were subjected to. For
ninety years the Catholicate helped to provide the physical and
psychological needs of the Armenians forcibly removed from their land,
played a crucial role in the formation of the Armenian communities
worldwide, built churches and schools, spread spiritual, moral and cultural
values, and became a staunch defender of the rights of its people.
His Holiness asked the Armenian people to embrace the message of the
90th anniversary with a united spirit, to commemorate the anniversary
appropriately, and to regard it as a time to strengthen the struggle for
justice. He also urged the faithful to participate in pilgrimages to Deir
Zor-site of the forced deportations and death marches-which is a reminder of
the struggle for survival.
PRELACY BEGINS SIX-WEEK LENTEN PROGRAM
The Prelacy’s six-week Lenten program began yesterday, Wednesday,
February 9, with the traditional Husgoom service at St. Illuminator Armenian
Cathedral in New York City, presided by the Prelate, His Eminence Archbishop
Oshagan Choloyan. In his introductory remarks, His Eminence emphasized the
importance of the Lenten season for our spiritual journey. It is an
opportunity for us, sinful and fallen human beings, to turn to God and to be
with him in order to be ready to meet Him at the Resurrection, the Prelate
said.
Deacon Shant Kazanjian, Director of the Armenian Religious Education
Council (AREC), presented the first of his six-part Bible study on the
Passion narratives. The study focused on Matthew 20:17-28, Holy Monday
reading, which served as an introduction to the Passion Week. Dn. Shant
discussed how a suffering and crucified messiah seemed oxymoronic to the
first century hearers, the correct understanding of what it means to confess
Jesus as the Messiah-offering himself as ransom (prgank) to deliver humanity
from sin and wickedness and death, and, in light of all this, how then shall
we live.
Now that the stage is set, the next five sessions will focus on the main
acts of the Passion drama. The second Bible study, next Wednesday, February
16, will focus on the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples
(Matthew, Chapter 26:17-30).
During the fellowship hour, the participants enjoyed a light Lenten meal
prepared by the Prelacy Ladies Guild.
For information, contact the Prelacy office at 212-689-7810, or visit
the Prelacy web site at
AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA WILL VISIT TOMORROW
John Evans, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, will visit Archbishop
Oshagan tomorrow morning. The Ambassador is making various visits to leaders
of the Armenian community as well as participating in a series of town hall
meetings in various cities. USAID Director in Armenia Robin Phillips and
Aaron Shirinian, assistant to the ambassador, will accompany him.
HEAD OF CHURCH OF DENMARK VISITS ANTELIAS
The leader of the Church of Denmark, Bishop Erik Norman Svendsen,
visited the Catholicate of Cilicia this week where he had a meeting with His
Holiness Aram I. The two spiritual leaders discussed issues related to
Christian education and ecumenical relations.
The Catholicos expressed his belief about the importance of renewing the
Ecumenical Movement and making it relevant to the lives of the people. They
emphasized the importance of the success of the peace process and bringing a
halt to the emigration of Christians.
The two spiritual leaders discussed the social service activities of the
Catholicate. His Holiness noted that it is thanks to the support of the
Danes that the Birds Nest Orphanage has provided shelter to thousands of
Armenian orphans. The orphanage is currently under the patronage of the
Cilician See, but the Church of Denmark continues to aid the institution.
PRELATE WILL VISIT CHICAGO THIS WEEKEND
FOR PILLARS RECEPTION AND CELEBRATION OF DIARENTARATCH
Archbishop Oshagan will travel to Chicago, Illinois, to be with the All
Saints Church parish in Glenview, Illinois.
Saturday evening His Eminence will attend a Pillars of the Prelacy
reception, hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Jack Mardoian, which is expected to
attract a number of faithful friends who have agreed to support the Prelacy
through this annual giving program.
On Sunday, the Prelate, will officiate at the Divine Liturgy and deliver
the Sermon. He will also preside over the Diarentaratch ceremony where
newborns are presented to the Church, as well as the traditional bonfire
ceremony.
DER VARTAN RECUPERATING AFTER SURGERY
We have been informed by members of the St. Gregory parish (North
Andover, Massachusetts), that their pastor, Rev. Fr. Vartan Kassabian, is
continuing his recovery from hip replacement surgery. We wish Der Hayr a
continued speedy recovery.
SPECIAL RELIGIOUS SERVICE FOR NEW CANADIAN PRELACY BUILDING
Under the auspices of Archbishop Khajag Hagopian, Prelate of the
Armenian Prelacy of Canada, a special religious service took place for the
newly built Prelacy building.
Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Prelate of the Eastern Prelacy, and
Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate of the Western Prelacy, and all of
the clergy from the three Prelacies were present at the ceremony which
coincided with the commemoration of the Feast of St. Ghevontiants.
The official opening of the building will take place in May.
THIS WEEK WE COMMEMORATE DIARENTARATCH
(PRESENTATION OF THE LORD)
This Monday, February 14, the Armenian Church commemorates the Feast of
the Presentation of the Lord (Diarentaratach). This feast, which occurs
forty days after Theophany, is considered to be scriptural confirmation of
our Lord’s revelation as God.
The tradition goes back to Jewish law, when a child was taken to the
temple on the 40th day and presented to God as a gift. In accordance with
this practice, forty days after the birth of Christ, his mother Mary took
the infant Jesus to the temple. A familiar figure during those days was a
man named Simeon. He was quite elderly and considered to be a just man. He
had prayed to God to give him an extended life so that he could see the
Savior. When Mary took Jesus to the Temple, Simeon was also present. Upon
seeing Mary and the child, Simeon declared: Lord, now you are dismissing
your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your
salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light
for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.
In the Armenian Church this feast has also taken on many old customs and
traditions from pre-Christian times. The traditions were taken and given a
Christian flavor. For example, according to tradition, the night before the
feast, wood and branches would be burnt in the courtyard of the Church, and
newly married couples would gather around the fire that was started with
candles brought out of the church. The atmosphere would be one of merriment
and celebration as young men jumped over the fire. Those present would light
a candle from the bonfire and take it home so that Light would prevail.
ST. VALENTINE
February 14 is also Valentines Day. St. Valentine was a priest in Rome
who was imprisoned for befriending persecuted Christians. He became a
convert and was eventually clubbed to death.
In modern times Valentines Day has become a Hallmark holiday and a good day
for florists and makers of chocolates.
REMEMBERING LINCOLN
And, of course, February 12 is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th
president of the United States. Some of us old timers at Crossroads remember
when February 12 was a holiday. Now, since the advent of Presidents Day,
Lincoln and Washington, whose birthday is February 22, have been lumped
together in a holiday that is primarily marked by sales in shopping malls.
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the President, recalled the last thoughts
uttered by her husband in the theater the evening he was assassinated:
He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed
by the footprints of the Savior. He was saying there was no city he so much
desired to see as Jerusalem. And with the words half spoken on his tongue,
the bullet of the assassin entered the brain, and the soul of the great and
good President was carried by the angels to the New Jerusalem above.
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GEORGIAN NEW PRIME MINISTER – AN OLD FRIEND OF ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT
PanArmenian News
Feb 11 2005
Yerevan hopes that the appointment of Zurab Nogdayeli will allow to
preserve the trusting atmosphere between political leadership of
Armenia and Georgia.
Within the next few days the president of Georgia Mikhail
Sahakashvili will sign the decree on appointing the minister of
finance Zurab Nogdayeli to the post of Prime Minister. Armenian
government has a wealth of experience in cooperating with this figure
and it is quite reasonable to assume that the appointment of the new
leader will not spoil intergovernmental relations between the two
countries.
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Warm relations that connected Armenian leadership
and Zurab Jvania were not at all conditioned by his ethnic origins.
Working contacts with him were all crowned with success. Jvania
personally coordinated the solution of several issues connected with
Armenia. That is why besides sincere sympathy the tragic death of the
Prime Minister caused Armenian leaders to worry about agreements
reached with the late head of the government. It is hard to say
whether the appointment of Zurab Nogdayeli will preserve the friendly
atmosphere in the relations between Armenian and Georgian
governments. But in current conditions this appointment was perhaps
optimal in all senses and harmless for Armenian-Georgian relations.
Armenian political leaders know Nogdayeli very well. Yet being a
deputy he participated in Armenian-Georgian inter-Parliamentary
contacts as well as agreements on the level of Armenian and Georgian
youth organizations. As a minister of finance he had normal working
relations with the members of Armenian government. He worked with
Armenian minister of finance Vardan Khachatryan, foreign minister
Vardan Oskanyan and transport minister Andranik Manukyan. As a
minister of finance, Nogdayeli has twice been in Yerevan in February
and September, 2001. Both visits were aimed at discussing the destiny
of the 20 million debt of Georgia to Armenia. In that period the
behavior of the minister seemed a bit strange since he cast doubt on
the sum that Georgia owed to Armenia and then evaded giving an answer
about the terms and forms of paying back the debt. In Yerevan
Nogdayeli showed himself as characterized by the speaker of Georgian
parliament Nino Burjanadze: a tough, uncompromising person. It is
hard to say how the negotiations on the debt would end if president
Shevarnadze did not call the minister to start the payment of
interest on debts. Anyway, it is worth mentioning that Nogdayeli’s
hard behavior in negotiations was not at all conditioned by any
special attitude towards Armenia. The minister just felt the heavy
responsibility for budget implementation and watched every penny. As
a result, failing the budget he had to resign which he did
beautifully, expressing disagreement with the course of Edward
Shevardnadze.
The appointment of Nogdayeli is on the whole convenient for Armenian
community of Georgia. Being a minister Nogdayeli tried to focus
attention on the problems of Javakhq. Particularly he promised in
December to find funds for constructing Tbilisi – Ninotsminda road
and implementing other programs in Javakhq. Nogdayeli is on good
terms with the leadership of Armenian community of Georgia. As it is
known Nogdayeli was one of the most reliable members of Zurab
Jvania’s team where the president of the Union of Georgian Armenians
Gena Muradyan played an important role. The new head of the
government and the head of Armenian community represent one political
clan. This allows hoping that Muradyan will keep his position after
changes in the personnel. (Muradyan occupies the position of deputy
president of the department that coordinates industry, trade,
transport and communications)
Political correspondents initially predicted that the future Prime
Minister will be a person who was fateful to Jvania. This appointment
is aimed at preserving the ruling triumvirate. But now, it is already
obvious that the candidature of Zurab Nogdayeli as a Prime Minister
is not convenient for Nino Burjanadze, so it is possible that there
may be serious contradictions between the key components of the
ruling triumvirate. On one hand this will allow Georgia to gain
healthy opposition which is now missing but on the other hand it will
weaken the positions of the ruling power. This can be alarming also
Armenia since à a lot of things depend on the stability in the
neighboring country.
Artyom Yerkanyan
–Boundary_(ID_AfIfpnLFrdHgYLTOY06azg)–

Frankfurter Allgemeine, Germany
Feb 11 2005
Reference to genocide to be added
State retracts decision to eliminate notation
11. Februar 2005 F.A.Z. Weekly. The eastern state of Brandenburg has
withdrawn its decision to remove a passage in a history lesson that
refers to the killings of more than 1 million Armenians by the Turks
in the early 20th century.
The state’s premier, Matthias Platzeck, made the announcement on
Tuesday after he met with Armenian representatives in the state
capital of Potsdam. Beginning next school year, the history lesson
for the ninth and 10th grade will once again include a reference to
the killings, but it will also contain other examples of genocide.
Previously, the killings of the Armenians were listed as the only
example.
In explaining the latest decision, Platzeck said it would be wrong to
list just one example of genocide. The view was shared by the state’s
education minister, Holger Rupprecht. In a newspaper last week,
Rupprecht defended the decision. “The reference was removed because I
and the premier consider it to be a mistake to list Armenia as the
sole example of such a controversial subject.”
The issue is an extremely sensitive one between Armenians and Turks.
Armenians say 1.5 million people were killed between 1915 and 1923 as
part of the Ottoman Empire’s campaign to push them from eastern
Turkey. Turkey maintains the Armenians were killed as the empire
fought civil unrest.
As a result, the Social Democrat Platzeck faced pressure from both
the Armenian and the Turkish representatives. The first change was
announced in late January two weeks after Turkish General Counsel
Aydin Durusay raised the issue.
The decision set off a wave of criticism from parties in the state,
including at least one member of the Social Democrats, who demanded
that Platzeck reverse the decision. Sven Petke, the general secretary
of the Christian Democrats in Brandenburg, said the removal of the
passage had hurt the state’s reputation. “It was not the reference to
the genocide on the Armenians that communicated a wrong image. It was
the unjustified removal,” Petke said.
Armenians joined the criticism as well. This protest resulted in
Tuesday’s meeting, which was attended by the Armenian Ambassador
Karine Kazinian. Kazinian expressed her satisfaction with the change.
“The key issue is that that genocide and everything associated with
the things that happened then will be discussed clearly,” she said.
Platzeck denied previous reports that he had bowed to Turkish
pressure and noted that discussions with the Education Ministry had
been conducted months ago.
Brandenburg is the first of Germany’s 16 states to use a textbook
that discusses the subject of genocide in the 20th century.

Trustbuster
by Scott Woolley,
Forbes
Feb 11 2005
A tiny upstart in the cigarette business threatens to topple a
comfortable cartel engineered by big tobacco companies and their
strange bedfellows, the state attorneys general. Big tobacco was
supposed to come under harsh punishment for decades of deception when
it acceded to a tort settlement seven years ago. Philip Morris,
R.J.Reynolds, Lorillard and Brown & Williamson agreed to pay 46
states $206 billion over 25 years. This was their punishment for
burying evidence of cigarettes’ health risks.
But the much-maligned tobacco giants have subtly and shrewdly turned
their penance into a windfall. Using that tort settlement, the big
brands have hampered tiny cut-rate rivals and raised prices with near
impunity. Since the case was settled, the big four have nearly
doubled wholesale cigarette prices from a national average of $1.25 a
pack (not counting excise taxes) in 1998 to $2.10 now. And they have
a potent partner in this scheme: state governments, which have become
addicted to tort-settlement payments, now running at $6 billion a
year.
A key feature of the Big Tobacco-and-state-government cartel: rules
that levy tort-settlement costs on upstart cigarette companies,
companies that were not even in existence when the tort was being
committed. The 1998 scheme came under legal attack almost from the
start. While the cartel has fought off most of these challenges, it
has just taken a palpable hit.
A federal court in New York tossed out a key antidiscounter rule, and
the entire settlement could yet crumble. This is due to the
doggedness of one Jeffrey Uvezian, who sells cheapie cigs under such
brands as Cobra, Boston and Tough Guy, through his company,
International Tobacco Partners. Uvezian has since 2002 been waging an
antitrust attack on the big tobacco companies and their allies in the
state attorneys general offices.
The one academic study to measure the impact of the settlement on Big
Tobacco backs up Uvezian: The deal raised both profits and stock
prices of the big companies. This finding comes from economist Frank
Sloan of Duke University–an institution founded, ironically, with
tobacco money. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office
dismisses Uvezian as a dangerous renegade intent on undoing the
“spectacular results” of the 1998 settlement. Spitzer’s deputy
counsel Avi Schick says the settlement is directly responsible for a
17% decline in cigarette consumption since 1997. He rejects Uvezian’s
charge that Big Tobacco has profited from the tort case and calls the
Duke University study so flawed “as to be worthless.”
Regardless, Schick says, the higher prices and lower sales “directly
translates into tens of thousands of longer, better and healthier
lives.” “It is very common for vice to masquerade as virtue,” Uvezian
retorts. He stole that line from U.S. Judge Dennis Jacobs of the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals in NewYork, who made the observation
in a hearing related to Uvezian’s case earlier this month.
A second zinger came after a deputy attorney general for New York
declared that to believe the states had sold out to Big Tobacco, you
would have to assume that 46 attorneys general are liars. “That’s
tempting,” Judge Guido Calabresi shot back. “It may be that when the
states were offered a stake in a monopoly, they took it.” In getting
the four cigarette titans to agree to pay the states princely sums,
which would require price increases, the states agreed to help the
big brands avoid getting undersold by discounters. They did so by
requiring even new off-price brands to pay roughly the same level of
fees (now about 40 cents a pack). The states were disarmingly
transparent about their intent: to “fully neutralize” the competitive
advantage of the discounters, the settlement says.
The settlement took hold in November 1998, and the giants instantly
raised prices by 45 cents a pack–this at a time when Marlboros
retailed for about two bucks a pack. That was enough to cover
payments to the states and then some, but the big brands continued
with a spree of price hikes–up 18 cents a pack the next year, then
up 19 cents the year after that. The incessant price hikes created an
opening for discounters, who spotted and then exploited a loophole in
the fee rules.
The settlement let them get refunds from states where they didn’t do
business, so a newcomer who sold cigarettes only in, say, Virginia
would get back 98% of the state-imposed fees. And so a flood of new
cut-rate brands popped up, including a handful of upstarts from
Jeffrey Uvezian. The son of a well-known cigarmaker, he previously
was running a cigar factory in the Dominican Republic and had begun
importing cheap smokes from Armenia, his ancestral homeland.
Discounters sold less than 1% of the cigarettes in the U.S. in 1997,
garnering a tiny share of the $49 billion smokers spent. The
discounters hiked their take to 8% in 2003 and cost the states a
cumulative $600 million in payments they otherwise would have
received. William Sorrell, attorney general for Vermont, who was
overseeing the settlement, urged state legislators to close the
loophole by passing a new law to eliminate any refunds. In a
confidential memo to fellow attorneys general, he noted that all
states have an interest in reducing the sales of discount brands.
So far 39 states have passed this measure, requiring all discounters
to pay the full fees even if they operate in only a few states. After
Indiana passed the law, Uvezian was forced to hike his prices by 50%.
His monthly sales in the state dropped from 20,000 packs to 11,600.
Four months later he abandoned the state altogether. In August the
nation’s biggest discounter, General Tobacco, capitulated and joined
in the settlement, agreeing to pay $1.7 billion to the states over
the next ten years even though it had no part in the cancer coverup.
Uvezian hired a venerable antitrust lawyer, David Dobbins, 76, and in
early 2002 sued in federal court to overturn the new law in NewYork
State and derail the settlement itself. Dobbins says that in 50 years
as a lawyer he had never seen a cartel so brazen: “If you’re an
experienced antitrust lawyer, this case just blows your mind.”
Dobbins previously had sued to challenge the settlement, representing
two tiny wholesalers in a federal lawsuit against the big brands
filed in western Pennsylvania. The case was thrown out. Then the
Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia took on the matter.In
June 2001 it declared that while “it is clear” the accord “empowers
the tobacco companies to make anticompetitive decisions with no
regulatory oversight by the states,” the settlement was immune from
antitrust laws.
Dobbins and his new client, Uvezian, similarly lost the first round
in their case in early 2002, when a federal District Court judge in
New York rejected it. They filed an appeal to the Second Circuit in
New York, argued the case in August 2002–and won a surprising ruling
in their favor in January 2004. The decision let Uvezian pursue his
lawsuit on antitrust grounds, returning the case to federal trial
court in New York.
Then last October the trial judge issued a split decision:He sided
with Uvezian and enjoined the New York State law that eliminated the
discounter refunds. “The state has failed to elicit any justification
whatsoever for its passage,” the judge said. The refund ruling was a
landmark, the first settlement-related rule ever to be knocked down
by a court.
Related challenges are under way in Kentucky, Tennessee and Idaho,
filed by other cheapie-cig sellers. So far an Oklahoma judge has
sided with the challengers while a Louisiana judge went with the
states. Spitzer’s deputy warned that the ruling “will flood New York
with cheap cigarettes.” Dobbins responds that New York is perfectly
free to levy a straightforward excise tax on all cigarette makers–it
just can’t get away with participating in a cartel.
But the judge refused to touch any of the settlement’s other
protections. So now Uvezian and his lawyer are back at the Second
Circuit Court of Appeals, imploring a panel of judges to go even
further and declare the deal a violation of federal antitrust law.
The appeals judges bombarded Dobbins with procedural challenges in
the hearing earlier this month, but also showed deep concern about
what Dobbins says the $200 billion state settlement has wrought–a
cozy oligopoly protected by state governments eager for tobacco cash.
As U.S. Judge Jacobs put it:”This may be one of the most successful
cartels ever.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress