Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
August 25, 2004, Wednesday

Aliyev warns of dangers posed by Armenian secessionism

Berlin

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said Wednesday the breakaway ethnic
Armenian province Nargorno Karabach would have to remain a part of
his country and warned against the dangers of secessionism.

Pointing to millions of Armenians who live in communities around the
world, Aliyev asked what other countries would do if faced with
similar threats of Armenians voting to secede.

“Just imagine if Armenians, everywhere they live in the world would
start to think about self-determination and just imagine how many
Armenian states that would turn up on the world map,” said Aliyev
speaking through a translator after talks with German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder.

Nargorno Karabach is an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan’s
internationally recognized borders which broke away from Baku’s
control in the early 1990s.

Armenia backs secessionists in Nagorno Karabach and militarily
occupies about one-sixth of Azerbaijan. The Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) continues to mediate disputes.

Chancellor Schroeder insisted Azerbaijan’s old borders remained
recognised by Berlin and said Germany would continue to back OSCE
moves aimed at a political resolution of the disputed territory.

Aliyev said he wanted Armenians to live in Azerbaijan and in Nargorno
Karabach – but under Baku’s control.

“This policy of the Armenians has had no success and I hope the
Armenians will soon understand this and withdraw their armed forces
from the occupied territories,” said Aliyev, adding: “Then we can
live in peace.” dpa lm sr

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 25, 2004 Wednesday 12:48 PM Eastern Time

Tehran to grant loan to Armenia for gas pipeline construction
By Tigran Liloyan

METSAMOR /Armavir region in Armenia/, August 25 – Yerevan will
receive a loan from Tehran for building part of the Armenian stretch
of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, Armenian Energy Minister Armen
Movsesyan said here on Wednesday.

The 30-million dollars loan will be extended for 7.5 years, at a 5
percent interest, the minister said, saying these terms were
acceptable.

The money will be used for building a pipeline from Agarak to
Kadzharan in southeastern Armenia to connect the country’s gas
pipeline network to Iran’s.

Armenia will pay for Iranian gas with electricity it will produce,
Mosesyan said.

He said he was hoping that the construction of the gas pipeline will
begin as early as this year. The pipeline is expected to be
commissioned by January 2007.

The agreement on building the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline was signed in
Yerevan on May 13. The whole project is estimated to cost 220 million
dollars. This sum includes the 100-million-dollar Armenian part of
the pipeline.

Iran’s Oil and Gas Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said, Iran’s gas
supplies to Armenia will make up 36 billion cubic meters.

The construction of a gas pipeline from Iran has a very important
significance in the context of ensuring Armenia’s energy
independence, the republic’s President Robert Kocharyan said.

Despite certain reports, this pipeline is intended solely for meeting
the demand for energy on the domestic market, the president said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 25, 2004 Wednesday 8:34 AM Eastern Time

Fresh nuclear fuel delivered to Armenian plant

By Tigran Liloyan

METSAMOR /Armavir region in Armenia/, August 25 -Armenia’s Energy
Minister Armen Movsesyan said fresh nuclear fuel had been delivered
to the Armenian plant in advance for the first time, before the
beginning of repair works.

Movsesyan, who arrived at the plant to inspect the progress of
repairs, praised the Russian financial management which had made it
possible.

“Improvement of the nuclear plant’s safety remains our priority,” he
said, adding that the republic had spent on this purpose some 40
million dollars after de-mothballing the facility.

Safety measures are financed by international donor organizations,
the European Union and the U.S. energy ministry.

According to the minister, repair works are carried out according to
schedule. Half of all planned repairs have already been completed.
The nuclear plant will go on line on October 4, he said at a meeting
with the plant’s officials.

“We won’t talk about shutting down the plant until Armenia creates
alternative power generating capacities,” Movsesyan said.

The construction of a new nuclear power plant is under discussion.
The main problem is a lack of funding, as the project requires some
one billion dollars, he said.

The Armenian nuclear power plant, located 40 kilometers west of
Yerevan, was commissioned in 1979. It was shut down after a
devastating earthquake of 1989.

In 1996, Russian specialists helped Armenia de-mothball the plant and
launch its second reactor. The facility accounts for some 40 percent
of all electricity generated in Armenia.

However, the European Union is anxious to see the plant closed. Last
year, the financial management of the plant was handed over to a
daughter company of Russia’s RAO Unified Energy Systems.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 25, 2004 Wednesday 7:28 AM Eastern Time

Georgian policemen said to commit outrages in South Ossetia

By Sergei Ostanin, Alexander Kharchenko

TSKHINVALI

The command of collective peacekeeping forces has sent to the Joint
Control Commission a letter about “outrages of policemen of Georgia’s
units in the area of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict”

A member of the command’s staff told Itar-Tass on Wednesday that
“Georgian policemen engage in money extortion on the road
Kekhvi-Tskhinvali in residential areas Kurta and Eredvi, unlawfully
detain citizens of Russia, Armenia and other CIS countries travelling
on the territory of South Ossetia and beat taxi drivers”.

Fifteen people have sent complaints to the command of the
peacekeepers.

In particular, Georgian police stopped two residents of Tskhinvali at
the Kekhvi checkpost last night.

Seizing their documents, the policemen demanded 1,000 roubles from
each.

The detained people had no money, and the policemen began to beat
them.

Russian peacekeepers who were staying not far interfered and stopped
the beating.

Northern District Times (Australia)
August 25, 2004 Wednesday

Armenians seek home

A DEMAND for more facilities to cater for Ryde’s 10,000-strong
Armenian community has emerged as the council considers whether it
should demolish a derelict clubhouse at Burrow Park.

The Ryde-based Armenian Association of Australia’s 85 members are
lobbying Ryde Council to keep the unoccupied facility in Princes St,
Ryde, for their cultural activities.

The council has said they could carry out their traditions at nearby
Santa Rosa Park’s scout hall, which is used by another Armenian group
but an association spokesman said their cultures differed
significantly.

“Irrespective of them being another Armenian group, we’re like chalk
and cheese,” association vice president Toros Boyadjian said.

“There are big cultural and traditional differences. There’s a
different language and different dialect.”

Burrow Park members are predominantly Christian Orthodox while Santa
Rosa members are a mix of religions, some with Iranian heritage.

Mr Boyadjian dismissed the idea of cultural conflict dividing the
groups.

The association expressed interest in occupying the clubhouse when
the Italian group San Giorgio Martire Di Sydney left the premises in
2001, finding it inadequate on car parking and safety issues because
of its secluded site.

The council said the building was structurally unsound and
dilapidated and would cost $300,000 to restore.

Ryde councillor Sarkis Yedelian said Armenians still needed a
facility of their own.

He said Ryde Civic Centre was available only up to four times a year
while most locals had to travel to the Willoughby Armenian Cultural
Centre for traditional activities. The Armenian Youth Federation,
Armenian Cultural Association, Armenian Sports Association and
Armenian Relief Society use the Ryde Civic Centre.

The recommendation to demolish the clubhouse went before the council
again last night (Tuesday).

The Straits Times (Singapore)
August 25, 2004 Wednesday

Amazing Charla;
Small in stature but big in spirit, the tiny half of the racing
cousins shows that size really doesn’t matter

Hong Xinyi

YOU may have seen her running desperately to keep up with the other
contestants on The Amazing Race 5, but Charla Faddoul will have you
know that her dwarfism has seldom kept her from accomplishing her
goals.

The 28-year-old, who is 1.2m tall, said she endured tremendous pain
during surgery to straighten her legs when she was 13.

Why? ‘So I would be able to walk and run like everyone else. That was
the toughest time I’ve had to face as a little person,’ she said in a
phone interview yesterday from Baltimore in the United States.

‘It was excruciatingly painful, and no kid wants to spend the entire
summer in casts. After that I had to use a wheelchair for a while,
but it made me a stronger person,’ she said.

‘When I was in high school, kids were not very nice about my dwarfism
as well. But when I got older, I started showing my personality.’

Faddoul sounded slightly more tired than her usual upbeat self on
television – which was understandable as she had been fielding
interviews from the press all day.

Along with her cousin Mirna Hindoyian, 28, Faddoul was eliminated in
last week’s episode of the reality show.

Her sunny but determined disposition was abundantly apparent during
her TV stint, and viewers certainly took notice.

Websites and blogs run by fans of the show have been discussing
Faddoul and her cousin more than any other team.

In a CBS online poll held last month, the feisty twosome were voted
most likely to win the show’s US$1 million (S$1.71 million) prize.

One Faddoul fan said: ‘She can carry a side of beef on her back, eat
2 pounds of caviar and keep a legion of loyal Charla fans entertained
through the dog days of summer. This woman deserves a medal.’

Dan Okenfuss, spokesman for the interest group Little People Of
America, considers her a role model.

‘What Charla is doing on the show is great, introducing little people
to the mainstream world, doing an activity average-sized people are
doing,’ he was quoted in an article posted on the website
usatoday.com last month.

Even host Phil Keoghan got noticeably misty-eyed when he told the
cousins of their elimination last week.

‘Charla may be a little person, but she has a heart the size of a
whale,’ he was quoted as saying in an article on usatoday.com last
week.

Before their elimination, entertainment magazines like People and TV
shows like Entertainment Tonight had already been clamouring for
interviews with Faddoul.

Since their elimination, the pair have been making the talk show
rounds in New York and Los Angeles.

But the glitz and the glamour of their post-Race life is not as
important to Faddoul as the acceptance she now feels.

‘Before, people would judge me before they got to know me. But when
I’m walking on the streets now, people don’t look at me like I’m
different,’ she said. ‘They welcome me with open arms, and say that
I’m an inspiration. It’s such an honour.’

And she is not self-conscious about being labelled a role model
either.

‘I’m not perfect, but I hope I can encourage not just little people,
but people who are different in other ways. It’s tough out there, but
don’t give up.’

Hindoyian, an attorney, is delighted by her fan mail.

‘I’ve received over 50 letters and e-mail. Of course some are men
asking me out on dates, but there are also young girls who say they
want to be as strong and independent as us. It’s so heartwarming.
Thank you, everybody.’

There are some brickbats among the bouquets, though. Some reality
show pundits call Faddoul’s tactic of using her dwarfism to inspire
sympathy ‘hypocritical’.

Hindoyian’s contentious relationship with other Racers (see other
story) have also garnered choice adjectives like ‘whiny’,
‘self-dramatising’ and ‘bitch’.

Besides endless run-ins with arch-nemesis Colin Guinn, she had once
tried to prevent a ticket agent from selling other teams air tickets
by saying they were violent.

She could also barely contain her glee each time her team’s
bus/taxi/train/plane sped ahead of other teams.

Nonetheless, the pair stand firm on their Race-running strategies.
‘If people can’t see that I’m trying to break stereotypes, then
there’s nothing more I can do,’ said Faddoul, sounding a tad
defensive.

‘Certain things are harder for me. We had to buy tickets ahead of the
other teams so that things wouldn’t boil down to a running
competition at the end. Their legs were double my size. I played the
game the best way I could using what I had.’

Hindoyian, likewise, mounted a spirited defence. ‘We never intended
to have rivalries with anyone. When we first arrived on the show, we
hugged and greeted everyone, and we wanted to build alliances.’

However, she said, ‘the other teams didn’t take us seriously at
first’.

‘They didn’t realise that I was an attorney and a good strategist,
and that Charla is a very successful manager of 10 sportswear
stores.’

But the Syrian-born Armenian cousins are no strangers to exceeding
expectations.

Born a month apart in the same Syrian hospital, their families
emigrated to the US when they were children. Both women currently
reside in Baltimore, Maryland.

‘I had to teach myself English when I was five years old,’ said
Hindoyian proudly.

‘And I was the youngest graduate in my class in law school.’ She
graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law at the age of
23.

‘Some of the other teams commented on how we spoke in Armenian among
ourselves. But that’s the language we speak at home,’ she explained.

‘I guess some people have no appreciation for other cultures.’

Despite not winning, the pair are happy to have had the experience.
Faddoul cited ‘the sun setting over the pyramids in Egypt’ as her
favourite memory of the Race, while Hindoyian is grateful that ‘I got
to travel the world with my cousin’.

Indeed, the two remain as close as ever. Said Hindoyian: ‘Charla and
I have known each other for 28 years, spent every holiday together,
and we can read each other’s minds.

‘We know each other’s strengths, and any bickering during the Race
was minimal.’

Faddoul also credits her husband, David Faddoul, with giving her
support.

‘He was worried at first because it seemed like a very physical show,
but he knows I usually succeed in what I do.’

She has been married for 3 1/2 years to the 34-year-old (and 1.75m
tall) manager who runs one of her stores. They were introduced by
mutual friends at a party.

‘He’s a wonderful man who believes in me and makes me want to do
better.’

With the new-found belief from her fans, there’s no telling what the
Amazing Faddoul will be able to accomplish next. RACE RELATIONS

The name-calling, the intense glares, the hostile factions and the
snide comments. Why didn’t fan favourites Mirna Hindoyian and Charla
Faddoul make any friends among their fellow Amazing Race contestants?
Hindoyian (left) gives us her take:

On being dubbed ‘Mirna and Schmirna’ by brothers Lance and Marshall
Hudes:

‘I don’t have any feelings about them. They said that the Russians
were miserable people, the Arabs were miserable people, and that
Charla and I weren’t their type of people. I’m happy that we are not.
I just want to keep a positive attitude and not put everyone down.’

On her soap-opera-worthy rivalry with arch-nemesis Colin Guinn
(right):

‘Colin actually called us Russian bitches, completely disrespecting
our heritage. He said repeatedly that his goal was to beat Charla. I
don’t think his ego could stand being beaten by two girls.’

On the bowling Mums Linda Ruiz and Karen Heins:

‘The Mums were not out to win a popularity contest, they were out to
win. They made it very clear during the most recent episode that they
thought we were a strong team, and we really respect people who give
us a chance.’

On how she kept gushing over host Phil Keoghan and hugging him every
chance she could:

‘We come from a small town, and we’re big fans of show, so Phil is
like a big celebrity to me. I think he is so handsome and witty.’

The Miami Herald
August 25, 2004, Wednesday

Atrocity haunts “Birds Without Wings’

By Connie Ogle

_”Birds Without Wings,” by Louis de Bernieres; Knopf (553 pages,
$25.95)

“Arms aren’t wings,” a woman in Louis de Bernieres’ violent,
heart-breaking yet resplendent new anti-war novel tells a small boy
who longs to fly. “If we had wings, do you think we would suffer so
much in one place? Don’t you think we would fly away to paradise?”

Oh, yes, we would fly. We would soar. We would escape the bloody
whims of history; the terrifying inevitability of change; the fear,
horror and death that bloom when powerful forces decide that
invisible borders _ geographical, cultural, religious _ count more
than people.

In the grand, sweeping style of his international blockbuster
“Corelli’s Mandolin,” de Bernieres masterfully explores the terrible
price of love, politics and war _ a cost we still insist on paying.
“Birds Without Wings” is a breathtaking, sorrowful account of the
Ottoman Empire’s death seen through the eyes of the Turks and Greeks,
Christians and Muslims of a tiny coastal town in southwest Anatolia.
Like “Corelli’s Mandolin,” which features the inhabitants of the
Greek island of Cephallonia during World War II, “Birds Without
Wings” traces another turbulent era’s devastating effects on a simple
place and its people. Fueled by rich storytelling and superb
historical detail, the novel is set in “the age when everyone wanted
an empire and felt entitled to one, days of innocence perhaps, before
the world realised, if it yet has, that empires were pointless and
expensive, and their subject peoples rancorous and ungrateful.”

Turkey bridges the gap between East and West, its largely Islamic
population governed by a secular democratic government, and so the
novel feels disturbingly pertinent. But de Bernieres never fails to
keep his characters in sharp focus as he offers us an impassioned
argument against aggression and blind nationalism, lamenting its cost
with a fervor disturbingly relevant to our current war-heightened
sensibilities.

He is also a magnificent storyteller, bringing to life humble
Eskibahce and its rustic inhabitants, among them Ali the
Broken-Nosed, not to be confused with Ali the Snow-bringer; Mehmetcik
and Karatavuk, best friends who mimic birds as boys and grow up to
fight different battles; the homeless Dog, whose ravaged visage
frightens everyone; the lonely Rustem Bey, the town’s wealthy
landlord; and Ibrahim and Philothei, Muslim and Christian, betrothed
since childhood but doomed to tragedy.

Religion rarely polarizes. “Life was merrier when the Christians were
still among us, not least because almost every one of their days was
the feast of some saint,” Iskander the Potter, one of our narrators,
confides. The town’s imam and priest respectfully greet each other as
“Infidel Efendi.” Brides adopt their husbands’ faith without
argument. Muslims stand at the back of the church during Christian
services; Christian feet tread the clay that shapes Muslim pots. All
this will change with the rise of Mustafa Kemal, founder of modern
Turkey, whose story de Bernieres also tells in short, succinct
chapters that grow more complex as the soldier’s dreams expand.

De Bernieres, like Kemal, is a harsh critic of religious monomania.
“It is curious that the Russians, calling themselves Christians, and
like so many other nominal Christians throughout history, took no
notice whatsoever of the key parable of Jesus Christ himself, which
taught that you shall love your neighbor as yourself, and that even
those you have despised and hated are your neighbors. This has never
made any difference to Christians, since the primary epiphenomena of
any religion’s foundation are the production and flourishment of
hypocrisy, megalomania and psychopathy.” He is scornful of Islamic
extremists as well, decrying the “mad light of moral certainty in the
eyes of those who acted on God’s commands as laid down in holy books
that no one was able to read.”

War, quite simply, appalls de Bernieres. His lengthy, unnerving
descriptions of the battle of Gallipoli _ the book is dedicated
partly to his grandfather, who was severely wounded there _ detail
atrocities with brutal, numbing repetition. “There had been fighting
for one month, and the dead had never been collected,” Iskander’s son
Karatavuk tells us. “Some bodies were swollen up, and some were
black, and they were seething with maggots, and others were turning
to green slime, and others were fully rotted and shriveling up so
that the bones stuck out through the skin. A lot of them were built
into the parapets and fortifications, so that you might say they were
being employed as sandbags.”

“Birds Without Wings” is not without moments of humor, but atrocity
haunts it _ children crucified and disemboweled by the Greeks, the
Turkish slaughter of Armenians at Smyrna. “I blame men of God of both
faiths,” Iskander says. “I blame all those who gave their soldiers
permission to behave like wolves.” In the face of horror, de
Bernieres can offer only the meager comfort of man’s ability to
endure and adapt. But he has given us a marvelous novel nonetheless.
Its insight into the darkest human desires is unerring and indelible.
Oh, how we long for paradise. Oh, how we long to fly.

___

(Connie Ogle is The Miami Herald’s book editor.)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Xinhua General News Service
August 25, 2004 Wednesday 7:30 PM EST

Paris mayor pays homage to liberators of Paris

PARIS

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe on Wednesday paid homage to all
liberators of Paris in an address at the City Hall to celebrate the
60th anniversary of Paris’ liberation from Nazi occupation.

Delanoe said that Paris’ liberation was the “symbol of the Europe
that freed itself from the Nazi yoke”.

He paid homage to all liberators, including Americans, Spanish,
Armenians, Polish, German anti-Nazi fighters and Italian
anti-Fascists.

“Their will to serve mankind’s dignity and liberty gathered them in
our city, for which they relighted the flame,” he said.

“To all these guides who made our city blazed up when breath of
liberty met with flame of honor, I extend our immense gratitude at
the name of Parisians,” said the mayor.

“Oblivion, indifference or even worse falsification are permanent
dangers at the origine of barbarism, which forms anti- Semitism,
racism or repulsion of others because of their identity, ” he noted.

“To all liberators of Paris, we owe living in the honor,” he said.

After more than four years of Nazi occupation, Paris was liberated by
the 2nd French Armored Division and the 4th US Infantry Division on
Aug. 24-25, 1944.

La Nouvelle République du Centre Ouest
25 août 2004

La foule en liesse acclama la 2e DB

Après quatre années d’occupation, et une semaine de grèves,
barricades et combats de rue, le peuple parisien a retrouvé, en
s’insurgeant contre l’occupant allemand, la ferveur des grandes
heures révolutionnaires…

Paris s’est libéré tout seul. Enfin, presque. Quand le vendredi 25
août 1944, sous un soleil radieux, les chars de la 2e DB martèlent le
pavé parisien, la capitale s’est déjà soulevée depuis une semaine.
Qui tiendra Paris tiendra la France, disait-on. D’où des divergences,
non sans arrière-pensées politiques, sur les modalités de sa
libération, entre les Alliés, la résistance extérieure et les
résistants parisiens. Eisenhower préfère encercler la capitale. A la
tête du gouvernement provisoire, installé à Alger, de Gaulle plaide
pour une action rapide en direction de Paris. D’autant que
Rol-Tanguy, chef communiste des FFI, ardent partisan d’un soulèvement
immédiat, proclame le 18 août la mobilisation générale : « Français,
tous au combat ! » La grève est générale : ni transports, ni gaz, ni
électricité, ni courrier. Les journaux de la collaboration sont
remplacés par ceux de la clandestinité. Le chef des SS fuit la
capitale, Pierre Laval s’enfuit sous escorte allemande, il n’y a plus
de gouvernement. Les Allemands – 16.000 hommes, 80 chars et une
soixantaine de canons – sont depuis le 9 août sous le commandement du
général von Choltitz, installé à l’hôtel Meurice, rue de Rivoli.
Désorganisés, ils sont vite confinés par les FFI à quelques points
d’appui : École militaire, Luxembourg, Concorde, Opéra, République…
Aux ordres successifs d’Hitler de transformer Paris en un « champ de
ruines », von Choltitz n’obéira pas, jugeant ce projet insensé et
irréalisable.

Mairies, commissariats, bureaux de poste sont investis par les
résistants qui s’arment progressivement. De son PC souterrain de la
place Denfert-Rochereau, le colonel Rol coordonne les actions. Le
dimanche 20, des haut-parleurs annoncent un cessez-le-feu. Les
Parisiens achètent à la sauvette cocardes et drapeaux tricolores. Les
Allemands plient bagage et la Gestapo brûle ses dossiers sur les
pavés de la rue des Saussaies. Obtenue la veille au soir par le
consul général de Suède, Raoul Nordling, la trêve, rejetée avec force
par les mouvements de la Résistance intérieure, est rompue au bout de
24 heures. Les combats reprennent. Des barricades surgissent partout.
Les résistants étendent leur contrôle sur des quartiers entiers et
tiennent l’Hôtel de Ville. Le 23 août, les affrontements se
poursuivent.

Depuis l’aube, la 2e DB de Leclerc est en route vers Chartres et
Rambouillet. Le lendemain soir, une colonne blindée, composée de
pionniers espagnols et commandée par le capitaine Raymond Dronne, est
la première à pénétrer dans Paris : la nuit tombe, la foule en liesse
acclame les libérateurs et monte à l’assaut des véhicules. La radio
annonce la nouvelle, les cloches des églises sonnent à toute volée.
Le détachement parvient à l’Hôtel de Ville, guidé par un motocycliste
d’origine arménienne. Il est 21 h 20 à la grande horloge.

Au matin du vendredi 25, les chars Sherman de la division Leclerc
entrent dans Paris en trois colonnes par le sud et l’ouest qui se
rejoignent place de la Concorde. A midi, le drapeau français flotte
sur la tour Eiffel. L’unité du colonel Billotte prend d’assaut
l’hôtel Meurice et obtient la reddition de von Choltitz. Celui-ci
signe son acte de capitulation vers 15 h 30 à la préfecture de
police, en présence de Leclerc. Quelques instants plus tard, au PC de
Leclerc, gare Montparnasse, le général allemand rédige ses ordres de
cessez-le-feu.

Une marée humaine sur les Champs-Élysées

C’est là que Leclerc consent à faire signer au colonel Rol-Tanguy,
chef des insurgés parisiens, l’acte de reddition, avant que ne les
rejoigne le général de Gaulle, arrivé de Rambouillet. Le chef de la
France libre reprochera à Leclerc d’avoir laissé le résistant
communiste signer un exemplaire de l’acte de capitulation… Puis il
se rend à l’Hôtel de Ville où l’attend le Conseil national de la
Résistance rassemblé autour de son chef, Georges Bidault. De Gaulle
refuse de proclamer une République qui, pour lui, « n’a jamais cessé
d’exister ». Il rend hommage à la capitale, et, bras ouverts, salue
depuis un balcon les Parisiens qui l’acclament.

Pendant ce temps, dans le centre de Paris, de mystérieux coups de feu
partent des toits et des fenêtres. Les FFI poursuivent les tireurs.
Certains sont lynchés par la foule… tandis que de nombreuses
femmes, accusées de collaboration, sont tondues. La Libération de
Paris connaîtra aussi sa face noire. Mais le samedi 26 août au matin,
c’est la joie qui est de mise : de Gaulle descend les Champs-Élysées
escorté par une marée humaine. Jusqu’au 30 des combats sporadiques se
poursuivront dans la capitale. Au total, la « bataille de Paris »
aura coûté la vie à près de 1.000 FFI, 130 soldats de la 2e DB, près
de 600 civils, et à plus de 3.000 soldats allemands.

GRAPHIQUE: Image: Le lendemain, de Gaulle passe devant l’Arc de
triomphe avant de descendre les Champs-Élysées.

ARKA News Agency
Aug 25 2004

Festive devoted to the Day of the Republic to be held in Stepanakert

Danish Foreign Minister to visit Armenia on Aug 26-27

Meeting with kids been on holidays to Russia to be held in Yerevan
School `Slavyanskaya’

*********************************************************************

FESTIVE DEVOTED TO THE DAY OF THE REPUBLIC TO BE HELD IN STEPANAKERT

YEREVAN, August 25. /ARKA/. On September 2 on the occasion of the
13th anniversary of the Day of Declaration of Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic (NKR), festive will be held in Stepanakert and the regions
of NKR. According to ARKA’s reporter in Stepanakert, the celebration
will start with lessons in educational institutions of the republic
that will be devoted to the Day of the Declaration of NKR. Members of
the Government as well as Deputies and the representatives of the
Army will be present at the lessons. Columns of servicemen of the
Defense Army will march along the streets of Stepanakert. Members of
the Government, representatives of the community of the republic as
well as guests from Armenia and Russia will visit Stepanakert
memorial complex. Famous actors and singers invited from RA and RF
will have concerts in Stepanakert. A.H. – 0–

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DANISH FOREIGN MINISTER TO VISIT ARMENIA ON AUG 26-27

YEREVAN, August 25. /ARKA/. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig M?ller
to visit Armenia on Aug 26-27. As the Armenian Foreign Ministry
Information and Press Department told ARKA, the Danish Foreign
Minister schedules meetings with the Armenian PM Andranik Margarian,
the Armenian Foreign Minister VArdan Oskanian as well as Catholicos
of All-Armenian His Holiness Garegin II. On Aug 27 Per Stig M?ller
will visit the Armenian Genocide Memorial on Tsitsernakaberd. T.M.
-0–

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MEETING WITH KIDS BEEN ON HOLIDAYS TO RUSSIA TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN
SCHOOL `SLAVYANSKAYA’

YEREVAN, August 25. /ARKA/. On Aug 27 there will be held a meeting in
Yerevan Secondary School `Slavyanskaya’ with kids that traveled to
Russia for holidays by invitation of the Russian Federal authorities
and Moscow Government. As the Russian Embassy told ARKA, 30 kids
traveled to recreation summer camp Ogonyek in Sergiev Posad and
another 40 along the `Golden Ring of Russia’. As it is mentioned in
the press release, during the meeting with representatives of the
mass media there will be provided information on Russian projects of
support of com-patriots residing in Armenia. Also, the kids will tell
about their impression of trip to Russia, while a photo exhibition
and demonstration of documentary video film about kids’ trip from
Armenia to Russia will be organized for guests. T.M. -0–