A1 Plus | 16:20:58 | 22-09-2004 | Politics |

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SPEAKING AT NEWS CONFERENCE

On Wednesday, Armenian foreign minister Vardan Oskanyan, speaking at a news
conference in Yerevan, estimated positively the Armenian and Azeri
presidents’ meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, but declined to give details. He
said the presidents would tell all about the meeting if they find it
necessary.

Presidents Rober Kocharyan and Ilham Aliev met in Astana last week while
attending the CIS summit. By the end of their bilateral meeting Russian
president Vladimir Putin joined them.

Vardan Oskanyan said he didn’t share the opinion that Russia became too
active in Karabakh conflict settlement issue.

He said meetings with the participation of the third country had always been
held. Besides, Karabakh conflict settlement is within Russia interests, he
added.

Oskanyan is not sure that Kocharyan-Aliev talks started from that very
point, at which they were interrupted because of the then Azeri president
Heydar Aliev’s death “I can only say that the idea hasn’t been rejected”, he
said.

The foreign minister is unhappy about the CE official Terri Davis report on
Nagorno Karabakh and finds it “unacceptable to us”.

The minister doesn’t expect an objective stance also from British David
Atkinson, a new CE reporter on Karabakh, he says he is aware of Great
Britain’s approach to territorial integrity concept. But he says he still
hopes for better, as the report will impact the course of Karabakh conflict
settlement.

It isn’t clear yet when a meeting between Azeri and Armenian foreign
ministers is to be held. Oskanyan will fly Thursday to New-York to attend
the UNO 49th session.

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 22 2004

Trial against Six Members of KLO Started At Appellation Court

The preliminary session against six members of Karabakh Liberation
Organization (KLO), sentenced to different terms of imprisonment for
violation of public order has been held under chairmanship of judge
Shain Yusifov in Appellation court on Tuesday.

The defense forwarded solicitation about change of measure of
punishment, concerning accused persons. The court declined this
solicitation and appointed new trial on September 22.
Six KLO members, including chairman of this organization Akif Nagi
and his deputy Firudin Mamedov, were sentenced up to 5 years of
imprisonment for hooliganism, violation of public order. KLO member
held a protest action in front of Europe hotel on June 22 in
connection with arrival of Armenian officers to NATO conference in
Baku and were arrested same day.

Marco Island Eagle, FL
Sept 22 2004

MICMS students compete in Olympic Day
By MARCI ELLIOTT, Staff Writer
September 22, 2004

It was a day for champions.

The academic kind.

Seventh-graders at Marco Island Charter Middle School left their
regular classes Sept. 15 to take part in Olympic Day, an annual event
organized by teachers to help students develop an affinity for
learning through fun.

The event’s awards were styled after the Olympic Games, with gold,
silver and bronze medals presented to the top three teams. In the
MICMS version, the “medals” were made of spray-painted compact discs
that dangled from yellow ribbons around the winners’ necks.

The seventh-grade class, mostly 12-year-olds, was divided into 26
teams of five students each, with each team naming itself after a
country. Team members got to design their own flags, and many sported
their country’s name on their arms and legs or face.

The students performed dances, held relays, worked problems on the
metric system and took part in other activities in the morning. At 11
a.m., they had lunch and munched on popcorn as they watched Miracle,
the 2004 movie about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.

The best part of the day, students said, was when they gathered on
the pavilion that afternoon and the winning teams were announced by
science teacher Shane Totten.

The gold medal went to Armenia, silver to Greece and bronze to
Norway. The champions roared with glee as their classmates cheered
and applauded.

“We really worked hard,” said Tabitha “Taby” Crotts, a member of Team
Armenia.

“We couldn’t have won if we didn’t all help each other.”

Conor Watt said being on Team Armenia meant a lot to him.

“It’s good to represent your own (ancestral) country,” he said. “My
great-grandmother knew what it was like to live there. She fled with
her family when the Turks invaded.”

Some students said their favorite parts of Olympic Day were the
“cotton ball” relay with math teacher Debbie Waldinger and wearing
dress- up costumes with social studies teacher Lori Galiana.

Beata Logan of Team Norway said the event was a lot of fun,
especially the social studies activities.

“It takes a lot of teamwork,” she said.

MICMS Seventh Grade Olympic Day

Gold – Armenia: Conor Watt, Danny Fleming, Chad Severn, Taby Crotts,
Anthony Funk

Silver – Greece: Danin Greusel, Ashley Wierback, Jake Pappas, Dan
Lopez, Nikki Popoff

Bronze – Norway: Nick Thorstenson, Kailey Knudson, Kevin Blaiweiss,
Nick Kalmanek, Beata Logan

Guardian, UK
Sept 22 2004

Ladylike look kills midriffs and matching knickers

Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor

Julien Macdonald is a natural born show-off. “Do you like my watch?”
he demanded of well-wishers backstage as his show at London fashion
week ended last night, brandishing a David Morris timepiece encrusted
with diamonds. “It’s worth £92,000. I wish I didn’t have to give it
back tomorrow.”
Last season, Macdonald said that his show might be his last in
London, as he was thinking of moving to Milan; he is still
threatening to leave, only now the pull is towards New York. “I love
London to bits but my business isn’t growing. The other designers who
moved away are doing much better than I am. I’m not making enough
money,” he said.

This was always going to be a difficult season for Macdonald. New
York and London fashion weeks have been united in the view that bare
midriffs and bling are out, ladylike dressing is in. Macdonald is not
known for the ladylike look. In fact, his dresses are so short that
many come with matching knickers.

As a compromise, he settled on prom dresses, tiered and
ultra-feminine, with ruffles and sweetheart necklines, but their
stiffness deprived the Macdonald catwalk of its usual raw energy.
Much better were the flowing, poppy-print chiffon evening gowns, and
the finale, a 1930s-style shimmy of silver sequins with £2m worth of
diamonds adorning one shoulder.

The 1930s, along with the 1970s, have been this fashion week’s
favourite retro reference points. Betty Jackson described the
inspiration for yesterday’s show as the “decadent days of the 30s
together with the louche international lifestyles of the 70s”. For
evening, there was a showstopping long, pale column with Art Deco
silver beading, or a glamorous bead and feather-trimmed kaftan.

Earlier in the day, it was the turn of five emerging designers to
stage mini-shows. Unfortunately, most did little to challenge the
stereotype that young London designers’ collections are ugly,
unwearable, and badly presented.

There was a ray of hope, however, in Gardem, the collection by Garen
Demerdijan, a Lebanese Armenian designer who was born in Beirut in
1975 but is now based in Paris. Although yesterday was his first
catwalk show, he has run a small business since 2001, and has been
stocked in the directional London boutique Browns Focus for six
seasons.

Yesterday’s collection had a sophistication of outlook and quality of
execution that set it apart from other young hopefuls. The gently
spiralling seams, restrained colour palette and effective use of
texture – a dress of creamy crumpled silk with smocking at the torso,
a pleated white skirt with a shimmering silver bolero – was
reminiscent of Hussein Chalayan’s London days.

News24, South Africa
Sept 22 2004

On this day

Highlights in history on this date:

1992 – Azerbaijani-armed forces mount an offensive against the
disputed enclave Nagorno-Karabakh.

2001 – Pope John Paul II visits Kazakhstan and Armenia and cautions
against allowing September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States
to create divisions between Muslims and Christians.

1499 – Turks ravage Vicenza in Italy.

1550 – Holy Roman Empire fleet captures vessel Port of Africa at
Mehedia in Tunis, naval headquarters of Turkish corsair Dragut.

1609 – The king of Spain orders the deportation of the baptised
former Muslims known as Moriscos.

1711 – Rio de Janeiro is captured by the French.

1792 – French Republic is proclaimed and revolutionary calendar goes
into effect.

1862 – US President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation
Proclamation, declaring all slaves in the Confederate States free as
of January 1, 1863.

1914 – A German submarine sinks three British cruisers in one hour
off the Dutch coast; The German cruiser Emden shells Madras in India.

1927 – Slavery is abolished in Sierra Leone in Africa.

1940 – The Vichy French governor-general concludes an agreement that
makes Indochina the largest Japanese military staging ground in
southeast Asia.

1943 – The German battleship Tirpitz is disabled by British midget
submarines in a Norwegian fjord.

1949 – The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb.

1955 – Hurricane Janet, the most violent Caribbean hurricane of the
season, causes almost 600 deaths around the islands.

1960 – A US Marine Corps DC-6 plane en route from Japan to the
Philippines crashes in the ocean 290km south of Okinawa. All 29
passengers are killed.

1965 – A cease-fire is declared in the war between India and
Pakistan, but both sides subsequently violate it.

1970 – Arab chiefs of state send envoys to meet with King Hussein and
Yasser Arafat to persuade them to find a way to contain the fighting
between the Jordanian Army and Palestinian guerrillas.

1974 – Official death toll in hurricane that swept Honduras is put at
5 000.

1975 – Sara Jane Moore fails in an attempt to shoot US President
Gerald Ford outside a San Francisco hotel.

1980 – Iraqi tanks enter Iran, marking the beginning of the Iran-Iraq
War as a full-scale conflict.

1986 – Two hijackers seize Soviet airliner at Ural Mountains airport
and kill two passengers before security agents recapture plane and
shoot the hijackers.

1988 – The government of Canada apologises for the World War 2
internment of Japanese-Canadians and promises compensation.

1989 – FW De Klerk takes over as president of South Africa.

1990 – Jordan’s King Hussein appeals to United States in televised
message to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia to avert “death,
destruction and misery.”

1991 – Armed opponents of Georgia’s president seize the republic’s
broadcasting studios and try to forge an anti-government coalition.

1992 – Azerbaijani-armed forces mount an offensive against the
disputed enclave Nagorno-Karabakh.

1993 – Abkhazian rebels in Georgia shoot down second passenger plane
in two days, killing 80.

1994 – Nato aircraft strike at Serbian targets near Sarajevo after UN
troops patrolling the city came under machine-gun and rocket fire.

1995 – America’s Time Warner Inc and Turner Broadcasting System Inc
announce a merger with Time Warner purchasing TBS in a deal valued at
$7.5 billion, creating the world’s largest media company.

1996 – Typhoon Violet veers into the North Pacific after killing
seven and setting off landslides that paralysed transportation in
Japan.

1997 – US President Bill Clinton, speaking at the United Nations,
announces he will submit to the Senate a treaty banning all nuclear
explosions.

1998 – Troops from South Africa and Botswana cross into Lesotho and
storm the royal palace, touching off a gunbattle with protesters.

2000 – The Court of Appeals in London rules to separate conjoined
twin girls against the wishes of their Roman Catholic parents. The
operation is certain to cause the death of one of the girls, and is
therefore forbidden by their religion.

2001 – Pope John Paul II visits Kazakhstan and Armenia and cautions
against allowing September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States
to create divisions between Muslims and Christians.

2002 – An appeals court in the Hubei province of China overturns
death sentences imposed on five members of a banned Christian sect in
December 2001, and orders a retrial.

2003 – The UN and UNAIDS, its Aids programme, issues a progress
report on how member nations were adhering to commitments made during
a June 2001 UN special session on HIV/Aids. It finds that the goals
set by the UN will not be met in many countries unless there is a
significant increase in global commitment

Interfax
Sept 22 2004

Negotiations give hope to resolving Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Baku. (Interfax) – Negotiations between the Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents in Astana in the framework of the CIS summit instill hope
that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can be resolved in a peaceful
manner, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev said during a
meeting with Philip Dimitrov, special OSCE representative on
Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“We believe that the aggressor, Armenia, should be forced to comply
with the four UN Security Council resolutions on the conflict, with
which it has not been complying,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s
press service quoted Abiyev as saying.

The defense minister said that the conflict should be resolved while
taking into consideration the territorial unity of Azerbaijan.

“This is necessary also for the security of large economic projects
in Azerbaijan, in which European countries and the U.S. are
participating,” he said.

Abiyev said that in the case of Armenia ignoring these demands,
“Azerbaijan will face the necessity of freeing its territory from an
occupant.”

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
Sept 22 2004

EUROPEAN STRUCTURES SHOULD ACTIVLE PARTICIPATE IN SETTLEMENT OF
NAGORNY KARABAKH CONFLICT
[September 22, 2004, 11:20:00]

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Republic Elmar Mammadyarov
has met with the vice-president of Assembly of the West-European
Union, the rapporteur of structure on questions of stability and
safety in the Caucasian region, the deputy of parliament of Italy
Marko Zakkera, 21 September.

Mr. Marko Zakkera has arrived in Azerbaijan with the purpose of
gathering the corresponding information and materials for the report
on Azerbaijan, which will be prepared for structure represented by
him, AzerTAj was told from the foreign ministry press service.

Having noted that for this purpose there are all conditions and
opportunities, minister Elmar Mammadyarov has wished the visitor
successes in this work.

Further, minister Elmar Mammadyarov has in detail informed on the
work which is carried out for peace settlement of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorny Karabakh conflict, the negotiations held
at the level of country leaders and Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and
about a position of our Republic on the said question.

The head of the foreign policy department has especially emphasized,
that the unsolved conflict till this moment renders negative
influence on development not only of Azerbaijan, but also the entire
region, and also on economy of the Armenia. Having noted, that in the
Azerbaijan territories occupied by Armenia, are prepared terrorist
groups and the process is outside of the control of our Republic, the
Minister has stressed the importance of joint efforts in combat
against the international terrorism representing threat for all
mankind.

Having noted, that our country is a member of European family,
minister Elmar Mammadyarov has stated that Azerbaijan has taken the
way of democratic development, has emphasized importance of
activation of participation and activity of the European structures
for settlement of the conflict.

At the meeting, also were discussed other questions representing
mutual interest.

Interfax
Sept 22 2004

Armenia doesn’t intend to join NATO but will deepen relations

Yerevan. (Interfax) – Armenia intends to deepen relations with NATO
but has no plans of joining the alliance, Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanian told a Wednesday news conference.

“Our stance amounts to the maximum expansion and deepening of
relations with the alliance. I don’t know what NATO thinks of it but
membership in the alliance is not on our agenda today,” he said.

As for Armenia’s plans for sending a group of 50 servicemen to Iraq,
Oskanian said that it would be a humanitarian mission consisting of
doctors, drivers and sappers.

He emphasized that from the very start Armenia was opposed to
military presence in Iraq.

Turkiye
Sept 22 2004

PRODI SPOKESMAN DENIES ARMENIAN BORDER CONDITION FOR TURKEY’S EU BID

The European Union Commission yesterday adamantly denied rumors that
the re-opening of the Turkish-Armenian border would be added as a
precondition to beginning Ankara’s EU membership discussions. Marco
Vignudelli, the spokesman for commission head Romano Prodi, said that
Prodi had said nothing that would lead one to believe that such a
condition would be placed on Turkey, calling such claims
categorically false. Vignudelli further stressed that the border
issue could only be resolved by dialogue between the two countries.
/Turkiye/

Zaman, Turkey
Sept 22 2004

‘EU Membership Process at Risk’

Emre Soncan, Yasin Uygur
Istanbul

Several Turkish academics and experts suggest that the Turkish Penal
Code (TCK) crisis occurring between Ankara and the Europe Union (EU)
could jeopardize Turkey’s membership process.

Some of those experts told Zaman that they wanted the government to
tread more carefully from here on out.

Economic Development Foundation President Davut Okutcu charges that
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statements are a
strategic mismatch in timing. To Okutcu, those statements about the
issue created confusion both within and without. He is adamant that
the TCK must be approved by October 6th because the penal code is the
fundamental text that the legal sphere relies upon when applying
reforms.

Okutcu goes on to say that the latest developments played straight
into the hands of those who have reservations about Turkey’s EU
membership. Okutcu also does not agree with Erdogan’s statement that
the EU should not interfere in Turkey’s internal affairs. The
Foundation president is of the opinion that the EU Commission was not
interfering in Turkey’s internal matters, but rather simply reminding
Turkey of the commitment it had made to reform.

Professor Kemal Kirisci, a faculty member at Bogazici University,
sees the government’s latest ploy as a joke. Just as Turkey was on
the verge of convincing Europeans to say ‘yes’ to Turkey’s
membership, it aroused the suspicion of those who support the
country’s EU membership. Now those supporters are thinking twice,
explains Kirisci. He considers now that even if Turkey tries to fix
its fault, its full membership date will come later than expected.

TESEV Foreign Policy Program Director Sabiha Sanyucel remarks that
the discussion date will be given despite everything that occurred.
According to Sanyucel, if the prime minister continues to rub the EU
the wrong way, a strong “yes, but” will be the decision of the EU at
the December summit.

In addition, EU expert and Referans daily newspaper writer Can
Baydarol comments that Erdogan’s stance is an indicator that Turkey
does not know what to do about the EU issue. Baydarol points out that
the harsh statements Erdogan made were evaluated as an assault on EU
values.

Continues Baydarol, “Of course Turkey has a strategic importance for
the EU. However, Erdogan should be calmer and more open to
compromise. The EU will not burn its bridges after such statements,
but the discussion date may be delayed. Now the Europeans are putting
the Armenian card before us. While saying that we passed the critical
threshold they will put down new criteria. Turkey’s confidence has
been eroding for a long time.”