Tajik president hails outcome of talks with Putin

Avesta web site, Dushanbe
16 Oct 04

Dushanbe, 16 October: “I would like to thank [Vladimir] Putin
personally for his foresight and extraordinary approach to resolving
the complicated issues that were hampering our cooperation,” the
Tajik president [Emomali Rahmonov] has told a news conference after
Tajik-Russian top-level talks.

He said the [Putin’s] visit would give a fresh impetus to Tajik-Russian
relations.

“We attach great importance to setting up the Russian military base
in Tajikistan and restructuring Tajikistan’s state debt to Russia,”
the president said. “I think this was a great achievement. The
meeting is of historical significance to Tajikistan. The burden of
unsettled problems will no longer be bothering us and we may now work
on specific projects in a business-like atmosphere, for which we have
created a solid basis.”

Discussing economic cooperation, Tajik president called on Russian
business circles to be more active on the Tajik market. He added
that the sides discussed regional and international issues such as
fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, the situation in Afghanistan
and ways to raise the effectiveness of such organizations as the
CIS, the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization; members are
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia],
the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization; members are China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia], the EAEC
[the Eurasian Economic Community of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia and Tajikistan – the former Customs Union] and others.

Saturday, October 16, 2004
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One way to have a balanced view of yourself is by trying to see yourself through the eyes of your enemy. If most people hate doing that it may be because they are too infatuated with their own positive image of themselves and they dread the prospect of seeing the negative. What if the enemy makes a good case?
*
To be infatuated with one’s own image is the surest symptom of being a dupe to propaganda.
*
A reader writes: “How do you know there will come a time when churches and mosques will become museums? Are you a prophet?”
No, I am not because I base my assertion on the past, on history and what is commonly known and accepted as fact. After all, is not the future an extension of the past? Consider the fate of Greek and Roman temples. Consider the fate of the 1001 churches of Ani. As recently as last year, 42 churches were closed down in the Detroit area. What happened to the mosques in Spain? And what will happen to the mosques in America when a weapon of mass destruction claims 100,000, perhaps even 1,000,000 victims, and the terrorist responsible for this holocaust is discovered to have found safe harbor in a mosque?
*
If, on the other hand, you assert that our religion, being superior to all others, is destined to shatter all historic precedents, I ask: “Are you saying that because that’s what you were told as a child or is it because you really think so?”
#
Sunday, October 17, 2004
*********************************
On the radio this morning, an interview with Jimmy Breslin, a well-known Irish-Catholic writer and the author of THE CHURCH THAT HAS FORGOTTEN CHRIST. When asked what he thought about good Catholics who believe in the Pope and go to church every Sunday, he replied: “They are sheep.” Next question: “You mean they can’t think for themselves?” “That’s right!”
*
Since I am in the business of exposing prejudices and fallacies, I am sometimes accused of having my share of them. If I do, I hope they are not those of a good Armenian or a good Christian, but those of an honest human being.
*
A good Armenian: Can anyone define him? It is not at all unusual for a good Armenian to be a bad Armenian in the eyes of another self-appointed good Armenian. The same could be said of a good Christian, a good Muslim, a good Protestant or a good Sunni.
*
Religion generates infidels. Where there are orthodoxies there will be heretics. And every ideology will have its share of dissidents, and sometimes the dissidents will be right and the ideologues dead wrong.
*
Where there are top dogs there will be underdogs. As an underdog of underdogs, or a double underdog, I don’t feel the need to identify myself with them. I am one of them.
*
Could an Armenian be a top dog in the Ottoman Empire or the Soviet Union without betraying not only a fraction of his Armenianism (however you care to define that label) but also his humanity?
*
The problem with labels is that they tend to reduce or even dehumanize the other. For an Armenian, the label Turk comes with a heavy burden of history, and we are all creatures of the past. But to be creatures of the past does not necessarily mean being its slaves.
*
When I wrote recently that a man does not need a cathedral in which to pray, a reader wrote: “How do you know? Why do you project your own predilections on others?” This reader may not be aware of the fact that it was the construction of a cathedral in Rome that split the Church into Catholics and Protestants, and this split was the cause of many wars, one of which lasted a hundred years.
*
Sometimes I feel like a Muslim among Christians, and like a giaour among jihadist Muslims. Some readers think what I say is so eccentric and odd that I might as well be an enemy of the people. I have every reason to suspect that these readers confuse spin and propaganda with fact and reality. Or, as Jimmy Breslin says, they think not like men but like sheep. They view the past and present, that is to say, reality, through the eyes of bishops, imams, and politicians. And the world continues to be in an unholy mess because people don’t trust their own judgment and prefer to accept the judgment of spinners and propagandists. But ignoring our judgment is also ignoring that which separates us from animals.
*
Propaganda dehumanizes. Political and religious leaders don’t say that because if they did, they would expose themselves as dehumanizers and the real enemies of mankind, and more precisely, wolves in shepherd’s clothing.
#

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

The Christian presence in Jerusalem
Is in jeopardy

Declared His Holiness Aram I

ANTELIAS, LEBANON – Referring to the recent attack of a Yeshiva student
on Archbishop Nourhan Manougian, the Armenian Orthodox Archbishop in
Jerusalem, His Holiness Aram I made the following statement to the
press. “The news reaching from the Christian quarter of Jerusalem are
worrying and disturbing. The Churches and Christians in Jerusalem are
increasingly witnessing the kind of incidents and situations which
clearly indicate the existence of a well planned Israeli policy of
Judiazation of Jerusalem. In fact, different manifestations of this
policy are forcing the Christians to migration. It is a fact that the
numerical size of Christian communities is very much reduced and the
activities of the churches are getting limited”.

Expressing his deep concern about this situation, His Holiness Aram
I stated. “We cannot remain silent and indifferent in view of these
attempts aimed at de-Christianization of Jerusalem. Jerusalem has
been the birthplace of Christianity. Its Christian identity must be
preserved it. The right and privileges of all religious communities
must be protected. Jerusalem must become a city of dialogue,
tolerance and peace. The Judiazation of Jerusalem will greatly harm
the peace process in the region. Therefore, we urgently appeal to
the international community to take this matter very seriously.
More than at any time, at this critical point of the history of
humanity, mutual respect and tolerance between religions, nations
and communities must constitute the firm bases of all societies”.

##

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates
of the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about
the history and the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may
refer to the web page of the Catholicosate,
The Cilician Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church
is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

USAID FUNDS PROGRAMS

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
15 Oct 04

The US government provides direct humanitarian aid to Nagorni
Karabakh, which is aimed at solving problems of housing, health
care and education. The humanitarian aid is provided to NKR through
USAID. In the result of the tender the Armenian Relief Fund was
chosen for implementing the program and in September of 2002 a
contract was signed which will be valid till 2007. In 2003 ARF
received its first task. The director of the humanitarian program
in NKR Andranik Sarghissian said, from the very beginning, after
the settlement of organizational problems, ARF undertook a survey
of the buildings needing reconstruction or repairs. 3000 flats were
examined in five regions of Karabakh, as well as public buildings,
which badly need reconstruction. The lists were submitted to the
USAID. Soon instructions were received for the region of Askeran for
the reconstruction of 75 houses, 9 water pipelines, an irrigation
system and 20 surgeries. According to Andranik Sarghissian, since
launching the program reconstruction of 25 houses has been completed
already. Recently reconstruction of the remaining 23 houses, 20
surgeries and 9 water pipelines has been put out to tender. Soon
the contractor will be known and the construction will start, which
is planned to be completed in April of 2005. Works have started
in Martakert. In the second stage of the surveys the Armenian
Relief Fund presented the lists to USAID and received instructions
for 290 houses, 11 surgeries and 5 water pipelines. Building has not
started yet. In November the program for Hadrout will be launched. It
is planned to restore 90 houses, 6 surgeries, 9 water pipelines
and an irrigation system. According to Andranik Sarghissian, the
list presented to the USAID contained 229 houses. He said that the
organization pays special importance to the quality of work. During
8 months after the completion of the work the building contractor is
not paid 5 per cent of the sum maintained by the contract; in case of
a low-quality work the organization has to eliminate the faults. It
should be mentioned that tenders of the USAID are available for both
the building companies of Armenia and Karabakh, which have no less than
2 years of experience and have carried out building of 100 thousand
dollars. Presently two companies, “Vahagn-84” and “Sipan” implement
building works within the framework of the programs of ARF. The health
program of humanitarian aid to Nagorni Karabakh will be implemented
by the medical stuff of the American University of Armenia.

REFERENCE: In 1988 after the earthquake in Armenia the USA east coast
diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church established an organization
aimed to aid the victims of the earthquake. In 1993 the organization
was registered as Armenian Relief Fund. The organization implements
agricultural, educational, energy, social programs in Armenia and
a number of other countries. Owing to the fund, an old people’s
home in Gyumri, a secondary school in Vanadzor and a center for
parentless children in Yerevan were opened. There are a number of
other programs, such as organizing visits of young specialists to
Armenia. The population of Artsakh is grateful for the work done
by ARF. Many send letters of gratitude to the fund. One of these
letters has been published in Azat Artsakh recently. The leadership
of ARF thinks that special attention should be paid to the quality of
construction. This is very important as there are cases when buildings
repaired or constructed on charity means require additional repairs
taking additional costs, causing the dissatisfaction of people.

NAIRA HAYRUMIAN.
15-10-2004

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian PM expresses wariness about sending military contingent to Iraq

AP Worldstream
Oct 15, 2004

Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markarian suggested the former
Soviet republic is reconsidering a promise to send troops to Iraq,
expressing fear that it could put his country in terrorists’ sights.

Armenia is considering sending about 50 military personnel to Iraq,
primarily bomb disposal experts, doctors and transport teams. They
would work under Polish command, and Armenian President Robert
Kocharian pledged the troops during a visit to Poland early last month.

But Markarian stressed that it was up to the Constitutional Court
and the parliament to make the decision on sending the troops.

“Let’s not forget that … there have been certain changes from the
conditions under which we gave preliminary approval” of the plan,
he said.

The government has sought to portray the decision to send troops to
Iraq as a way to boost ties with Europe, but critics worry that it
will endanger the 25,000-person Armenian community living in Iraq.

“We also have concerns on this count. It’s possible that as a result
Armenia could become of the targets of terrorists,” Markarian said.

Of the 12 former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent
States, four _ Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia _ have
sent troops to Iraq.

Moving up rapidly
By Andrew Blazier Staff Writer

Pasadena Star-News

*Monday, October 11, 2004* – PASADENA — *Tenrox* Inc. is moving fast.
And it’s just picking up speed.

With average revenue growth of more than 40 percent in each of the
last nine years, the Pasadena-based firm is quickly finding its place
among the region’s high-tech rising stars.

Last month, the software company was named to *Deloitte & Touche*
LLP’s Technology Fast 50 list, ranking 16th among Los Angeles’
fastest-growing tech companies. Deloitte, a Big Four accounting firm,
presents the yearly honor to L.A.-area companies that generate at
least $1 million in annual revenues and have been in operation for
more than five years.

Tenrox’s revenues have grown 423 percent since 1999, but the company
is moving on the ground, as well. Founded in Montreal in 1995, the
Tenrox moved its headquarters to Pasadena in November to be closer
to a growing number of West Coast customers.

“We didn’t have a West Coast presence at all, so we had few customers
here,’ said President and Chief Executive Rudolf Melik, who runs Tenrox
with his brother, Ludwig Melik, the firm’s vice president of sales.

Tenrox maintains a staff of 100 in Montreal. In order for the company
to continue its torrid growth, it had to be located near the bulk of
its clients, who generally are located in the United States.

“We needed to have our key executives in the U.S.,’ echoed Ludwig
Melik.

Nine years ago, the Armenian brothers emigrated to Canada from
their home country, Iran. When they co-founded Tenrox with two other
partners, they served as a pure consulting firm.

In 1999, the company changed directions, devloping products that
help medium-size companies manage their accounting systems with a
centralized electronic format. The Meliks say the business has received
a sharp increase in demand from firms complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002. Clients typically have between 100 and 200 workers.

That sweeping legislation was designed to reform management structures
and restore the public’s faith in corporate governance. But it has
created a wave of companies offering solutions to the problems caused
by increased regulation.

For the Meliks, the government’s demands have translated into surging
revenues. They say the software offers clients a broad range of
solutions to problems that include compliance with federal and state
labor laws, tracking project progress and speeding up reporting times.
The suite also aims to increase employees’ access to data such as
vacation time, individual schedules and benefit plans.

“Our product is mission-critical,’ Rudolf Melik said. “We don’t want
to miss a beat.’

Andrew Blazier can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 2477, or by
e-mail at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> .

ReOrient’s Short Plays Explore Middle East
By KEN BULLOCK Special to the Planet (10-15-04)

Berkeley Daily Planet, CA
Oct 15 2004

ReOrient, in its sixth year of “exploring Middle Eastern culture and
identity as represented throughout the globe,” is a festival of short
plays staged by Golden Thread Productions that’s opening this weekend
at the Ashby Stage after a run at SF’s Noh Space.

ReOrient is becoming a Bay Area institution without losing that
sense of being a well-kept (maybe too well-kept) secret that delights
whoever discovers it, bringing them back every year. The excellent
second series of three plays is playing in alternation with the first
series, of five plays.

The first play, “Don’t Eat the Tomatoes” is by Fatma Durmush, a
Turkish woman poet and playwright, born in Cyprus, who writes in
English. This is a strangely humorous tale of a young couple setting
up housekeeping by a graveyard thronged with mothers whose sons were
killed in the terroristic war with the Kurds. Durmush’s play takes
stylized dreamlike turns that could be called Absurdist, for want of
a better term to describe an original poetic logic.

The mourning mothers become tomato plants, bear tomatoes (“In truth,
the more sorrow, the better they taste”) and find peace; the young
wife, pregnant and abandoned by her husband, markets this cemetery
crop and becomes a consumer; her errant husband, newly educated
(“To live without reason is worse than being a tomato!”) and weary
of cities, returns.

The situation of the Kurds in Turkey and the controversy around
Kurdish militant Abdullah Ocalan’s condemnation to death isn’t so well
known here. Torange Yeghiazarian (Golden Thread’s founder-artistic
director) has directed this play with the sense of a parable or fable,
underlining what’s in common with our own interminable War On Terror,
and its almost familial social and cultural resentments.

The second, “Compression of a Casualty,” by Brooklyn playwright Kevin
Doyle, plays the fatuous smiles and mannerisms of TV news anchors
announcing a death in Fallujah, then “moving on,” against the young
fallen GI trying to recapitulate his own life and death amid the
repetitions of teleprompter copy. Such a brief description misses the
true compression and offbeat pace of banal, brutal meta-language with
Laura Hope’s taut direction of three fine actors (Tiffany Harrison,
Patrick MacKellan, Zak Kilberg) that drive this piece.

“Dinner/Khnamakhos” by Lilly Thomassian–again with fine direction,
by Meredith Weiss Friedman–is the barely-controlled madness of
a dinner party in an Armenian home in Glendale to celebrate an
arranged marriage. No one can see or hear the bride-to-be (Sara Luna),
commenting on the crazy comic melodrama her family and the groom’s are
playing out around the table. The groom-to-be looks oddly familiar–and
he finally remembers where he’s seen her eyes before (as he stares at
her picture with the bride-to-be looking over his shoulder). A chamber
play out of one of Bunuel’s surreal movies, Sheri Bass, Maximilienne
Ewalt, Ann Marie Donahue and Lisa Tateosian (all from “Don’t Eat the
Tomatoes”) and David Fierro make a savage portrait of two families.

The first series features “Chocolate in Heat, Growing Up Arab in
America,” written and performed by Betty Shamieh; “Disheartened,”
by Melgis Bilgin, “Between the Eyes,” by MacArthur Award winner Naomi
Wallace; “Falling,” by William Borden (about the World Trade Center);
and “Taziyeh” (the name of the Shi’ite passion play of Hussain’s
martyrdom at Karbala) by Novid Parsi.

Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient 2004 Sixth Annual Festival of
Short Plays Exploring the Middle East runs Oct. 15-24, Thurs.-Sat. 8
p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Series 2 will run Oct. 15, 17, 22, and 24
matinee. Series 1 will run Oct. 16, 17 matinee, 21 and 23. There will
be no show the evening of Oct. 24. The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave.,
986.9194,

Spitting triggers tension in Jerusalem’s Old City
By Michele Green

Ecumenical News International, Switzerland
Oct 15 2004

Jerusalem (ENI). Tensions in Jerusalem’s Old City have flared following
an incident in which a Jewish seminary student spat at an archbishop
during a procession from the city’s Armenian Quarter to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, a site commemorating Jesus’ crucifixion and burial.

Israeli police arrested the seminary student, but Christian clerics
living in the walled Old City say such assaults by ultra-Orthodox
Jews are a frequent occurrence.

“It happens maybe once a week,” Armenian Bishop Aris Shirvanian told
Ecumenical News International. “As soon as they notice a Christian
clergyman they spit. Those who are ‘respectful’ turn their backs to
us or the large cross that we may carry but the ones that are daring
either spit on the ground or on the person without any provocation
on our part.”

In the incident on Sunday, a cross was ripped from the archbishop’s
neck when a scuffle broke out after the Jewish seminary student spat
at the cleric. The seminary student later told police he had done it
because he saw the religious procession as idolatry. Police said the
man had been temporarily banned from visiting the Old City and that
he had been placed on bail pending an indictment.

Bishop Shirvanian said spitting against Christian clergyman had been
going on for years and that the assailants were religious Jews,
sometimes men but also women, teenagers and even children. “This
shows that it is a phenomenon that is prevailing in their religious
education and it should be corrected,” he said.

Daniel Rossing, director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian
relations, said his organization was collating accounts of spitting
incidents so they could approach rabbis and demand they teach their
congregants to stop such attacks.

“All people are created in the image of God and to spit on another
person is to spit on the image of God,” Rossing said. He said that
usually the assailants were ultra-Orthodox Jews and the victims were
“people wearing liturgical vestments or are wearing a manifest
Christian symbol such as a cross”. Rossing said he believed the
attacks were carried out due to intolerance towards Christians by
ultra-Orthodox Jews as well as to anger from religious persecution
in past centuries.

Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said few Christians file
complaints with police about such assaults and unless they did it
was impossible to arrest and prosecute the assailants.

“We can only act when we have been informed by a complainant. When
we do know about it we act immediately to arrest the person who did
it and bring them to justice,” Kleiman said.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a 12 October editorial: “It
is intolerable that Christian citizens of Jerusalem suffer from the
shameful spitting at or near a crucifix. Similar behaviour toward Jews
anywhere in the world would immediately prompt vehement responses.”

New UN stamp promotes benefits of disarmament to children

UN News Centre
Oct 15 2004

15 October 2004 – Declaring that “the children of the world need
books, not guns,” United Nations Messenger of Peace and Oscar-winning
actor Michael Douglas today launched a new UN stamp that promotes
disarmament.

Designed by artist Michel Granger of France, the stamp highlights
the theme that children should be in school instead of facing wars
or gun-related violence.

The UN Postal Administration (UNPA) and the Department of Disarmament
Affairs worked together to develop the stamp, which costs 37 cents
and is available for purchase.

In a video message to mark the stamp’s launch in New York, Mr.
Douglas said “the proliferation of light weapons has cheated children
of the chance to go to school, to play in the fields and to be raised
within a secure environment protected by elders. It has allowed
children to be used as instruments of war.”

He added that “the individual and social investment in weapons – that
find their way into the hands of children – must be redirected. The
children of the world need books, not guns, education, not war.”

The disarmament stamp is Mr. Granger’s third design for UNPA; he
has also designed stamps about the issue of chemical weapons (1991)
and road safety concerns (2004).

Yesterday UNPA also launched eight commemorative stamps on the theme of
Human Rights (Education Decade 1995-2004). Yuri Gevorgian of Armenia
designed the stamps for this series.

CONFERENCE HELD IN THE FRAME OF SCAD PROGRAM
[October 15, 2004, 22:41:04]

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
Oct 16 2004

A conference, “Role of the NGOs in combat against narcotics”, in the
frame of the 4th phase of the South Caucasus Anti-Drug (SCAD) program,
jointly realized by the European Union, UNDP and Azerbaijan Government,
was held at the “Europe” Hotel in Baku.

Goal of the action was to bring the problems of narcotics to the notice
of NGOs, determine the directions of cooperation of the governmental
and non-governmental organizations.

Speaking at the action, deputy prime minister of the Republic,
chairman of the relevant State Commission Ali Hasanov stated that
state constantly fights illegal circulation of narcotics and adheres
involvement of the NGOs to this work. He also spoke that at the
occupied areas, the Armenian aggressors plant narcotics and use the
uncontrolled zones for drug trafficking.

Also were speaking at the conference the head of social policy standing
commission of Azerbaijan Parliament Hadi Rajabli, first deputy
internal minister Zahid Dunyamaliyev, EU expert Patrick O’Gorman,
representatives of UNISEF, other international organizations in the
country, as well as embassies of USA, Great Britain, Germany and Italy.