ArmenPress
Oct 19 2004
KOCHARIAN MEETS CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS: President Kocharian received
today the visiting foreign minister of China Lee Jaosin and members
of the Chinese delegation. Kocharian’s press service said the foreign
minister conveyed to Kocharian the greetings of the Chinese president
Hu Zintao. The minister also said China gives great importance to
developing diverse relations with Armenia and appreciates highly
Kocharian’s personal contributions to boosting bilateral ties.
Kocharian in turn voiced his satisfaction with the growing
cooperation with China. According to the Armenian president, the
absence of political problems between the two nations provides them
with good development prospects. Kocharian also singled out China’s
and Armenia’s close cooperation within international organizations,
saying both have virtually the same positions on many key issues.
China’s foreign minister discussed economic cooperation with prime
minister Andranik Margarian, who underscored high-level exchange
visits for enhancing bigger trade between the two countries. Among
priority areas the two mentioned chemistry, energy and agriculture.
Other areas of possible cooperation include science, technology,
education and culture, health and tourism. Noting with satisfaction
the growth in bilateral trade circulation during the first quarter of
the running year, the Chinese FM reaffirmed Chinese determination to
make large scale investment in Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
Oct 18 2004
NATO SECRETARY GENERAL TO VISIT SOUTH CAUCASUS IN EARLY NOVEMBER
BAKU, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS: Robert Simons, a special
representative of NATO’s Secretary General Jap de Hoop Scheffer to
Central Asia and South Caucasus was quoted by Azerbaijani Turan news
agency as saying that Scheffer plans to visit Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Armenia in early November.
In response to a question whether NATO was going to open a
representation office in the Caucasus Simons said a recent NATO
summit in Istanbul adopted two major decisions on the Caucasus and
Central Asia. According to the first one, two NATO senior officers
will be making frequent trips to these regions to monitor the
situation and work with their governments within the frameworks of
Partnership for Peace program. According to the second decision, NATO
appointed its special representatives for these two regions.
Robert Simons also commented on Azerbaijan’s discontent with NATO
and accusations that it supports Armenia’s “aggressive” policy. “NATO
advocates for resolution of problems among its partner countries on
the basis of independence, sovereignty and their territorial
integrity, hoping that all conflicts will be resolved soon through
peaceful ways, ” he was quoted as saying. He also added that NATO’s
decision to cancel Cooperative Best Efforts-2004 maneuvers in
Azerbaijan was not an attempt to defend Armenia. “Our goal is to
develop partnership with all interested countries and provide them
all with equal opportunities,” he said.

ArmenPress
Oct 18 2004
US-ARMENIAN BENEFACTOR PLEDGES MONEY FOR MAINTENANCE OF NORTH-SOUTH
HIGHWAY IN KARABAGH
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS: An American-Armenian benefactor
Vahe Karapetian pledged on October 16 to release funds for the
maintenance of a strategic highway that will run across Nagorno
Karabagh. Christened as the North-South highway the new road will
provide safe communication among all rural and urban communities.
Funds for its accomplishment are raised by Hayastan all-Armenian fund
through annual telethons conducted in the USA, Armenia and other
countries with strong Armenian communities.
Vahe Karapetian was in Nagorno Karabagh October 16 where he met
with its leader Arkady Ghukasian. He traveled to Karabagh via
Goris-Stepanakert highway that was also built on Hayastan funds.
Karapetian provides money for its technical maintenance.
The US benefactor also promised to help restore two churches in
Nagorno Karabagh.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
Oct 19 2004
AUSTRIAN, GERMAN EXPERTS TO LEARN PROSPECTS FOR INTRODUCING NEW
CREDITING SYSTEM IN ARMENIA
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS: G. Wagner, G. Biernach and F.
Boyek, three representatives of the Austrian KSV and German SCHUFA
credit bureaus have arrived today in Armenia at the invitation of the
Armenian ACRA credit bureau. ACRA has been cooperating with them for
several months already. The agreement on their visit to Armenia was
reached during a world gathering of senior executives of credit
bureaus in Beijing, when ACRA applied for membership to influential
credit organizations.
The goal of the Austrian and German experts is to assess
preconditions of the establishment of the institution of Armenian
credit bureau and to offer to ACRA and local commercial banks an
efficient system of cooperation that has been tested successfully in
many developed and developing European countries. The system supposes
the most precise evaluation of risk factors.
Application of that system in Armenia will allow Armenian lenders
to make their financial responsibility a guarantee for receiving
privileged credits.
Austrian and German experts will discuss the issue of introduction
of that system with senior officials of the Central Bank, World Bank
Yerevan office and other lending organizations and commercial banks.

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Dania Ohanian
Armenian Prelacy of Canada
3401 Olivar Asselin
Montreal, QC, H4J 1L5
Tel: (514) 856-1200
Fax: (514) 856-1805
Email: [email protected]
Successful Spiritual Art Exhibit Organized by Armenian Prelacy of Canada
The spiritual art exhibit presenting the works of Vatche Arakelian and
Vartan Jiftjian was a complete success. It brought forth a new and unique
type of medium within Armenian art, as well as a more traditional kind of
time-honored Armenian workmanship.
Organized by the Armenian Prelacy of Canada, under the Auspices of His
Eminence, Archbishop Khajag Hagopian, Prelate, the exhibition’s distinct
genre set a new light on a deeply cherished and valued part of Armenian
culture and identity through art.
Arakelian’s medium of choice is a new introduction to Armenian art and
features Armenian religious icons and designs on stained glass, the first of
its kind to be exhibited in Montreal and elsewhere.
Although Arakelian has been using this technique since childhood, he noted
that the paints used for glass staining were not available in Armenia until
1999.
A Montrealer, Arakelian uses religion as his inspiration, expressing that,
“It relaxes me. When I sit down and begin working, I leave this world behind
and become part of that one.”
Jiftjian’s work on the other hand, rekindles a long-lost part of Armenian
heritage through silver work, which entails sculpting and designing historic
religious artifacts out of silver, ornate with precious gems and
occasionally other precious metals.
The event’s success can be tallied not only in terms of sales (more than 75%
of the pieces were sold), but also in terms of attendance. More than 400
people visited the exhibit during its run on the weekend of October 15th
2004.
-30-

ArmenPress
Oct 18 2004
ARMENIAN BOOKS TO PRESENTED AT ISTANBUL FAIR
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian books will be for the
first time presented at the 23d international fair in Istanbul from
October 23 to 30. About 300 books of Armenian classics, modern
writers will be presented.
Vahan Khachatrian, head of the Armenian Publishers Association,
told Armenpress that the agreement on the Armenian participation was
signed during the 56th international fair in Frankfurt October 6-11.
The fair leadership and the Turkish Publishers Association will
take care of the expenditures of the participation of the Armenian
delegation and the transfer of the books.
The Armenian publishers will also take part in the “Neighborhood
through culture, art and literature” symposium dedicated to the
book-publishing issues.

The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario)
October 19, 2004 Tuesday Final Edition
The state is a powerful killing machine
by RICHARD HAALBOOM
To start off the 21st century, 9/11 of 2001 has become the most
notorious calendar date in the Western world. For most of the
remainder of this century, 9/11 will continue to stand out as a day
of horror, a day of attack by an enemy that is and was only hazily
identifiable.
How do you hit back at a perceived enemy which has no state borders
and supposedly operates elusively out of caves in the hills of a
mountain range separating Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One method is to personalize this hazy enemy. You order your troops
to get this guy, this Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. As commander in
chief, you command your military forces to blow up every mole hole in
“them there hills,” regardless of the collateral damage the killing
of innocent civilians.
When you can’t catch this Osama bin Laden, you start a second front,
a “war of liberation” against a people and a country ruled by a
brutal dictator which has no known connections with this al-Qaida
terrorist outfit. And what do you get? So far, a country in turmoil;
more than 1,100 dead American soldiers and more than 10,000 dead
Iraqi men, women and children. And how many more casualties — the
wounded, the missing and the kidnapped — have been tallied?
Recently, via our media we were again confronted with another callous
act of evil, the capture and deaths of schoolchildren in a place near
Chechnya — a part of the globe most of us cannot even locate on the
map, somewhere in or next to southern Russia.
The horror of such random killings is so effective upon the governors
of our “peaceable kingdoms” because the psychological need and
factual necessity to eradicate the wrongdoers is impossible. When one
random murderer is killed, another one pops up. Murder by terrorists
is nothing new. Brutal terrorist acts have occurred during nearly
every year of every decade over the past 100 years or more. Recall
the Irish Republican Army, the Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhof Gang
in Germany, the assassins of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, the
blowing up of passenger airplanes, the terrorists supported by Libya,
and so on, sickeningly so.
But in sheer total numbers of killings there is no institution more
brutal and more bloodthirsty than the modern nation state. And the
more power that governments of nation states arrogate to themselves,
the more violence is inflicted upon its citizens.
Professor emeritus Rudolf J. Rummel of Hawaii has made a lifetime
study of mass murder by authoritarian government thugs. He wrote a
number of books, two of which stand out, namely Death By Government
and Statistics Of Democide. His numerous charts and calculations of
killings, slaughter, rapes, massacres, mass starvation of peoples
numbs the mind. His statistics cover up to the year 1987. His current
website address is
The following paragraph extracted out of Death By Government catches
the horror of all the killing of civilians during the first 88 years
of the last century when “almost 170 million men, women, and children
have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen,
crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or
killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted
death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners . . . It is as
though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And
indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs.”
The 170 million civilian deaths does not include soldiers who died on
the battlefield. He figures that the battle deaths during all wars of
the 20th century add up to only (only ?) 38.5 million troops, equal
to about 25 per cent of the civilians murdered during the same time
period.
He computes the killings of the 15 most murderous nation states,
outside of war dead, and comes up with about 151 million innocent
citizens of these countries wiped off the map by their top guns. The
most absolute powers — former Communist Russia; Communist China,
China under Chiang Kai-shek, Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam,
Yugoslavia and former Nazi Germany — together account for about 128
million civilians murdered.
The real killers, however, are the brutal autocratic rulers who
controlled those security states, those countries; the autocratic
mass murderers who ruled absolutely and who killed absolutely — no
questions asked.
Stalin leads the list. He and his henchmen were responsible for the
murder of more than 42 million persons from 1929 to 1953.
Mao Tse-Tung of Communist China comes along in second place. He
killed about 38 million of his own people between 1923 and 1976.
Then there is Adolf Hitler, who from 1933 to 1945 was responsible for
exterminating 21 million humans.
And the list continues on: Chiang Kai-shek, more than 10 million
dead; Lenin, more than four million; Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge of
Cambodia, nearly 2.5 million out of a population of approximately
seven million. And during and after the First World War, the Turks
tried to kill every Armenian they could get their hands on. And the
murder statistics continue on ad infinitum.
The recent random killings by elusive killers, the terrorists, are
indescribably horrible, but, comparatively, their numbers of innocent
victims slaughtered do not even come into the gunsights of the
government authorized killers who murdered millions upon millions of
their own citizens.
The more power governments have, the more government violence is
perpetrated upon a country’s own citizens. The more freedom a
country’s people have, the more government violence upon its own
citizenry is kept in check. As Prof. Rummel states again and again:
“Power kills and absolute power kills absolutely.”
Richard Haalboom is a Kitchener lawyer.

Agence France Presse — English
October 18, 2004 Monday
NATO chief starts tour of Central Asia
BRUSSELS
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer left Brussels on Monday on his first trip as
NATO secretary general to Central Asia where he will seek to step up
cooperation between the Atlantic Alliance and the strategic region,
his press office said.
De Hoop Scheffer’s tour will take him to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, meeting with the president
of each country, the office said in a statement.
He is accompanied by his new special representative for the Caucasus
and Central Asia, Robert Simmons, a former US State Department
official.
In Istanbul in late June, heads of state and government of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization called for heightened cooperation with
the strategically important Central Asian countries.
The five former Soviet republics are represented on the Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council, a body set up for consultation between NATO and
partner states. The five countries also take part in the Partnership
for Peace program aimed at encouraging reforms in members’ defense
structures.
De Hoop Scheffer also plans visits in the coming weeks to Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Agence France Presse — English
October 18, 2004 Monday
Jewish religious student apologies for spitting at Armenian
archbishop
JERUSALEM
A Jewish religious student who spat at an Armenian archbishop during
a religious procession in Jerusalem’s Old City last week has
apologised for his behaviour, a police spokesman said Monday.
Natan Zvi Rosental, a student at the prestigious Har Hamor yeshiva,
or Jewish seminary, formally apologised to Archbishop Nourhan
Manougian at a meeting in a police station, spokesman Shmulik Ben
Ruby told AFP.
Manougian had said he accepted the apology as his faith taught
forgiveness.
The incident took place during a religious procession when Rosental
spat at the archbishop’s feet, causing the priest to react
physically, according to Ben Ruby.
A brawl broke out, during which Rosental ripped the cross from around
the archbishop’s neck. The two were separated and police arrested the
student.
Despite the apology, police were still likely to charge Rosental with
“insulting” the archbishop and could even add further charges for
attacking him, Ben Ruby said.
In defence of his actions, Rosental said he had been brought up to
see Christianity as idol worship, which is forbidden by the Torah,
the Jewish holy book, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Haaretz has said the student spat at the cross being carried during
the procession as well as at the archbishop, who reacted by slapping
him.
“To approach in the middle of a religious procession and to spit on
the cross in front of all the priests of the sect is humiliation that
we are not prepared to accept,” Manougian said.
“The Israeli government … cries out in the face of any harm done to
Jews all over the world, but is simply not interested at all when we
(Christians) are humiliated on an almost daily basis,” he said,
quoted by Haaretz.
The 3,000-strong Armenian community live in the Armenian quarter of
the Old City and many Jews walk through it on their way from west
Jerusalem to the Wailing Wall.
Christian clergy at an emergency meeting of parliament’s interior and
environment committee called to discuss the abuse of Christians by
Orthodox Jews in the Old City said the practise was widespread but
rarely reported.
Vandalism of church property has also been reported in recent months,
with Jewish graffiti scrawled on the Georgian-built Monastery of the
Cross in west Jerusalem.
Three months ago, an 11th-century fresco in the same church was
defaced by unknown assailants.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

United Press International
October 19, 2004 Tuesday 11:33 AM Eastern Time
Ordeal of a Lebanese hostage in Iraq
By SALAH TAKIEDDINE
BEIRUT, Lebanon
“Welcome to the city that does not greet spies,” reads a large banner
that was raised at the entrance of Fallujah, the Iraqi city that
became well known around the world for being the hotbed of Iraqi
Sunni insurgents and suspected hideouts of notorious al-Qaida
operatives Abu Masaab al Zarqawi.
This was the first thing Aram Nalbandian saw when he headed to
Fallujah along with his workmate Sharbel al-Hajj and their Iraqi
driver on what was supposed to be a usual business trip on Sept. 27.
The three were not “spies,” but it took 27 days in captivity and much
of luck before their kidnappers admitted this reality.
“The mujahedin, wearing black hoods, stopped us at the checkpoint and
checked our identification cards. They knew we are Lebanese, and
that’s why they arrested us,” Nalbandian told United Press
International from his bedside at the American University Hospital in
Beirut shortly after his release in Iraq and return to his homeland.
He painfully recalled how he was blindfolded and taken to a house
“where there were other Iraqi hostages.”
“They started beating us, and I heard my friends screaming. So I knew
we are all together,” he said.
The beatings continue as the kidnappers showered them with questions:
Are you dealing with the U.S. forces, and do you do business with the
U.S. bases? Are you helping the government of Iraqi Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi and his ministries?
“The kidnappers consider not only the U.S. forces but also Allawi’s
government as their enemies,” Nalbandian said.
On the first interrogation night, Nalbandian knew the name of the
kidnappers’ chief: “Abul Ghadab” (Father of Wrath in Arabic).
“You have the honor to be with me. Do you know who I am? I am Abul
Ghadab: I was (deposed Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein’s personal
executioner,” said Nalbandian, recalling his kidnapper’s proper
words. “He started to beat me and warned that every time I scream in
pain I will be punished by three more lashes.”
Such daily interrogation, which lasted for 10 days, usually started
at 10 p.m. and stopped at 4:30 a.m. when kidnappers leave to perform
the dawn’s prayers.
“Every second, every minute, we were facing death,” Nalbandian said,
noting that he heard about the beheading of British hostage Kenneth
Bigley from his own kidnappers.
“Bigley was not with us. The mujahedin told us about his beheading,”
he said. “It was a psychological war all the time.”
Nalbandian escaped beheading, but he was very close to death when
U.S. warplanes hit the house where the Lebanese were held captive in
Fallujah.
“The mujahedin were out of the house when a missile hit it. The
ceiling collapsed on us and suddenly, it was all dark,” he recalled.
Nalbandian and al-Hajj were wounded. Their Iraqi driver, who was held
simply because he was accompanying the two Lebanese, was killed under
the rubble.
“Before we were pulled out by the mujahedin seven hours later, I
thought: No one outside this house knows we are here or even exist,”
Nalbandian said. “It’ s so funny: We escaped beheading just to die in
a U.S. air raid.”
With tears in his eyes, he recalled the slain Iraqi driver: “Poor
Ahmad. He was 28 years old, father of six, and his wife expecting
twins. He was earning just $150 a month.
Nalbandian said Fallujah was under surveillance by U.S. warplanes and
helicopters, which used to swoop over the city several times day and
night.
Despite their wounding, the U.S. bombardment did some good: The
kidnappers apparently felt guilty, and things took a different turn.
The beatings stopped. Nalbandian and al-Hajj were turned over to
another group of insurgents headed by someone who identified himself
as Sheikh Khaled al-Irani.
Al-Irani, who said he was an Iraqi cleric, explained why he joined
the resistance.
“The Americans occupied our country to help us get rid of Saddam’s
regime and were supposed to leave while we take over power,” he told
Nalbandian. “But they came to kill our children and women. The least
thing I can do is to resist occupation.”
To al-Irani, anyone who even carries a glass of water to the U.S.
forces or their Iraqi allies “is my enemy regardless of his religion
or confession. That’s why I am fighting.”
Nalbadian himself is a Christian Armenian but was released unharmed
after it was proven that al-Hajj, also a Christian, and he were not
working for the U.S. forces. The kidnappers even returned a $50,000
ransom paid by their Lebanese employer to secure their freedom.
“They did not take money from us and returned the ransom because they
were sure we were not collaborating with their enemies,” Nalbandian
said.
Dozens other hostages were not so lucky. From among more than 100 so
far taken hostages in Iraq by several shadowy groups, nearly 30 —
including British, Italians, Americans, Turkish, Jordanians,
Nepalese, Egyptians, Macedonians and one Lebanese — were executed by
their kidnappers.
A great number of Iraqis were believed to have faced the same fate
for the same reason. Their number however is unknown.
As Abul Ghadab explained to Nalbandian about the insurgents’
infrastructure, Fallujah itself has some 260 mosques “each of which
has an imam then an emir who is the leader of the group and countless
groups of mujahedin.” Knowing their exact number proved to be a
difficult task.
Is al-Zirqawi among them? Does he really exist?
“Difficult to say. I did not see him. I cannot confirm or deny this,”
said Nalbandian, who still can’t believe he is alive and back in
Beirut.
It will take him long time before he overcomes his ordeal considers
returning to Iraq.
Nalbandian was like many other Lebanese, Arabs and Westerners who
were lured by the great – although risky – business opportunities in
Iraq.
Although he holds a BA in Business Administration from the
prestigious American University of Beirut, 47-year-old Nalbandian
found himself jobless in Lebanon due to the deteriorating economic
conditions and growing unemployment rate.
So Iraq’s attraction to secure a decent living for his family of
three children was tempting despite the dangers.