Opposition picket prevented
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Oct 13 2004
On Tuesday some 50 members of the opposition Whole Azerbaijan
Popular Front Party (WAPFP) attempted to picket the Milli Majlis
(parliament) building in protest against the planned participation
of Armenian parliament members in NATO’s “Rose Roth” seminar due in
Baku in November.
After paying tribute to the Cemetery of Martyrs, the protesters
began to march toward the parliament’s building, chanting “Death to
Armenian aggressors” and “Shame on Armenians”. The police prevented
the protesters from approaching the building. During the clash
about 10 picketers were detained and taken to the Sabayil district
police department.*

Speaker not opposed to Armenian MPs’ planned visit
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Oct 13 2004
Commenting on Armenian parliament members’ planned visit to Baku to
participate in NATO’s “Rose Roth” seminar, parliament speaker Murtuz
Alasgarov said that Armenians’ arrival in the Azeri capital ‘is in
favor of Azerbaijan’. “I believe the visit of military officers is
different from that of diplomats,” said Alasgarov, recalling his
severe protest against Armenian officers’ planned participation in
the NATO exercises, originally scheduled in Baku for September but
later postponed.
The Speaker underlined that at the opening ceremony of the seminar
he inform the participants of the fact that Armenia occupies 20%
of Azerbaijan’s territory.
“I will urge the seminar attendees to voice their position on Armenia’s
aggression and pass a relevant decision on the matter,” he said.

Retailers Finding A Market Downtown
By Michael Barbaro, Washington Post Staff Writer
washingtonpost.com
Oct 13, 2004
In downtown Washington, once synonymous with the demise of urban
retail, upscale men’s clothier Jos. A. Bank has beaten internal sales
predictions by 15 percent one year after opening. Hecht’s is completing
$15 million in renovations to its Metro Center department store. And
developers are putting the final touches on a 275,000-square-foot
shopping complex with five national chains.
After a series of false starts, the old downtown shopping district
east of the White House is experiencing what store owners, retail
brokers and city leaders describe as a retail revival, one that is
slowly transforming a landscape dominated by restaurants, banks and
cell phone stores.
In the past five years, nine national retailers — including H&M,
Jos. A. Bank, Barnes & Noble, and Borders — have opened stores
downtown, more than twice the number in the preceding five years,
records show.
Developers and brokers credit the surge to pent-up demand for downtown
shopping, a growing population of private-sector employees and an
aggressive effort by city leaders to court retailers. “The retail tide
is coming back in,” said John Asadoorian, a retail broker in the city.
City leaders say there is still much work to be done, but the
retail growth has begun to chip away at the perception of downtown
as a sterile home for law firms and federal agencies that closes for
business at 5 p.m. Gradually, Washington area residents are beginning
to regard it as a worthwhile place to shop.
Downtown worker Gloria Gaskins, 43, lives in Lanham. But instead of
darting for the suburban malls after work, Gaskins asks her 17-year-old
daughter to take the Metro into the city to browse the aisles at
Hecht’s and H&M, the Swedish apparel retailer, which opened a store in
the old Woodward & Lothrop building at 11th and F streets NW in 2003.
Retailers “put better stuff downtown,” Gaskins said after leaving
H&M with her daughter on a recent shopping trip.
Now comes the biggest test yet of downtown’s ability to sustain a
major shopping center. In early November, developers will celebrate the
grand opening of the 275,000-square-foot Gallery Place in Chinatown,
the largest investment in downtown retail in two decades.
The complex, at 7th and H streets NW next to the MCI Center, features
a United Colors of Benetton, Ann Taylor Loft, City Sports, Urban
Outfitters and an Aveda store and spa on the street level. Above them
will be a 14-screen Regal Cinema movie theater, downtown’s first
major-release theater. Just east of downtown, in Union Station,
is a nine-screen major-release theater.
“You are always a little nervous about a new retail project,
but this is one where you are definitely nervous,” said Michael
L. Pratt, a retail broker at District-based Madison Retail Group,
which represented several of the tenants inside Gallery Place. He
said he thinks the complex will prove successful but said Chinatown
“is not yet a proven area.”
When it comes to retail, the same can be said for much of
downtown. There are only 13 major national retailers downtown, an area
bordered by 15th and 6th streets and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania
avenues NW. In all, they occupy about 410,000 square feet, or about
one-fifth the amount of space inside Tysons Corner Center in McLean.
Throughout downtown, there are pockets of run-down storefronts in
what brokers say should be prime retail real estate and renovated
spaces still waiting for retail tenants — a fact developers blame
on the slow process of signing stores to tight urban sites, which
are more complex to operate in than larger suburban shopping centers.
Douglas Development Corp., which owns the former Woodies building,
finished renovating the building’s first-floor retail space a year ago,
but only one tenant, H&M, has moved in. Two others, shoe retailer DSW
Shoe Warehouse and discount clothing chain Ross Dress for Less, have
signed letters suggesting they intend to, and a third, home-furnishings
store Crate & Barrel, has expressed interest.
“These things do take time,” said Douglas Development President
Douglas Jemal. Recalling that downtown was a vibrant shopping center
decades ago, he said: “It took 40 years of abandonment for F Street
not to be considered a shopping district. It will take a few years
to return it to one.”
Some of the holes will soon be plugged. Three large sites are either
under construction — or about to be under construction — in the
10-block area bordered on the north end by the old Convention Center
and to the south by the FBI building. Developers say that when they
are finished, by 2008, about 60,000 square feet of new retail space
will become available.
On the site of the old convention center, at New York Avenue and 9th
Street NW, there are plans to create 300,000 square feet of retail
space by 2009, where several developers advocate building a small,
upscale department store, such as Saks Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdale’s.
Developers say a high-end department store — which city leaders have
pursued, unsuccessfully, for years — would create the equivalent of
a mall anchor, a retail attraction big enough to lure shoppers into
the city’s core. Downtown has just one department store, mid-priced
Hecht’s. “It would add enormous stability to the market,” said Gallery
Place developer Herb Miller.
The city will offer up to $30 million to lure retailers downtown, which
should help landlords fill up the new space. The money is earmarked
for high-attraction retailers — as determined by a committee —
and is designed to be repaid through the retailers’ sales taxes.
What’s more, several tourist attractions are set to open downtown
over the next few years. Now under renovation, the National Portrait
Gallery, at 8th and F streets NW, will reopen in 2006. Seven blocks
away, the former National Bank of Washington building at 14th and G
streets NW, which once housed Hahn’s shoe store, may become a museum
memorializing the Armenian genocide of 1915. Supporters are raising
money for the project.
But until these various efforts are completed, the center of
downtown will remain — and, most importantly for retailers, feel —
disconnected and unfinished. “It is definitely a work in progress,”
said Gerry Widdicombe, director of economic development for the
Downtown DC Business Improvement District, a group of property owners
that promotes development. “There is no critical mass yet, but the
tipping point could be any day now.”
Or, as Andre Turman, an 18-year-old District college student said of
downtown shopping, “It’s not like a mall. It’s pretty limited.”
The District is following a well-worn path for cities recovering
from blighted urban cores: First come the restaurants, which cater
to office workers and tourists, next a smattering of apartments,
whose residents can support small shops and drug stores, and finally
major retailers, national chains with the size and name recognition
to attract large numbers of shoppers.
“Retailers are always tentative,” said Anita Kramer, director of
retail development at the Urban Land Institute, a District-based
think tank. “They need to have their customer base.”
Slowing the growth is the small size of downtown’s residential
population. Much has been made of the city’s success in attracting new
apartments and condominiums, but as of 2003, downtown had only 8,000
residents, an unpersuasive figure for retailers used to plopping down
stores in, say, Bethesda, with a population of 55,000, city leaders
and retail brokers say.
The steadily gentrifying neighborhoods north of downtown, such as
Logan Circle and the U Street corridor, have triggered their own
retail revivals, but for now they remain largely disconnected from
the traditional downtown, retail brokers said.
So what is driving retail growth? Downtown workers.
As of last year, there were 379,000 employees downtown, according
to the Downtown DC Business Improvement District group, up about
23 percent from 1996. Within the 110 blocks covered by the group,
the fastest job growth is not among government workers, but in the
business and legal services sector. The average employee in that
zone earned a salary of $62,000 last year, making downtown’s daytime
population a lucrative market for retailers.
Lisa Branco, a 33-year-old consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. who
works in the District, says she “hates the mall.” During her lunch
hour, she stops at the new Ann Taylor Loft on 7th Street NW. “This
is much better than driving an hour, parking the car in a garage and
battling the teenagers,” she said.
Wendy Elsasser, an Alexandria resident who works downtown for
the federal government, said walking the streets there “used to be
scary.” Now “it’s turning around,” she said as she finished browsing
inside Hecht’s downtown store. Today she does about 40 percent of
her shopping downtown at lunch and after work.
“There are just more shopping offerings now,” said Elsasser, 52.
One of them is Jos. A. Bank, which moved into 11th and F streets NW,
a block it still shares with a vacant storefront and a variety store
selling cigarettes, candy and adult videos.
Fine men’s clothing stores have thrived on retail-rich Connecticut
Avenue and Friendship Heights. But downtown represented untested —
and risky — waters for a company that sells $1,000 suits.
“We worried we were a little ahead of our time,” said Robert
B. Hensley, Jos. A Bank Clothiers Inc.’s executive vice president
for stores and operations.
They don’t worry anymore. The downtown location has become one of the
chain’s best performing in the Washington area. Its biggest customer:
affluent men who work in the area and would rather buy their suits,
ties and cufflinks a few blocks away at lunch than at a crowded
suburban mall after work.
What they buy says much about demand for high-end goods downtown. When
it opened, Jos. A. Bank stocked much of the store with a line of
mid-priced suits that sell for between $400 and $500. But brisk sales
of the store’s higher-end suits prompted the company to make more
room for lines that sell for $700 to $1,600, said Gary W. Cejka,
senior vice president of store operations.
Downtown’s only remaining department store, Hecht’s, has discovered the
same demand for higher-end merchandise. Responding to repeated requests
for better merchandise in its Metro Center location at 12th and G
streets NW, the department store has introduced three new clothing
designers — Michael Kors, Marc Ecko and Emanuel Ungaro — upgraded
its cosmetics section and expanded its women’s handbag department.
In all, Hecht’s is pumping $15 million into its downtown store, an
investment its parent company, May Department Stores Co., originally
resisted when executives analyzed the store’s small nearby residential
population.
“The way demographic data is compiled, they could not appreciate what
was happening downtown,” said outgoing Hecht’s president and chief
executive Frank J. Guzzetta, who argued the city’s growing office
and residential population could sustain a higher-end store.
Retailers across the country are looking at the same numbers, and
so far, most are not ready to take a bet on downtown Washington. But
the early success of Jos. A. Bank and H&M, coupled with the opening
of Gallery Place, is viewed as strong evidence that downtown retail
is on the rebound.
“I don’t know of another downtown area of 12 or 13 blocks that seen
this much investment over the past five years,” said Eric W. Price, the
District’s deputy mayor for planning and economic development. “It’s
happening slowly, but it’s happening.”

783 Azerbaijanis in captivity
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Oct 13 2004
783 Azerbaijanis are currently held in captivity and as hostages
in Armenia, Eldar Samadov, acting chairman of the working group
of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing
Persons, told an event dedicated to Armenian separatists’ terror acts
perpetrated against Azerbaijan.
Samadov pointed out the poor health condition of the Azeris held in
Armenian captivity.
A documentary on Armenia’s atrocities committed against peaceful
Azerbaijanis was displayed in the event organized by the Commission.*

PACE January Session to Discuss Nagorno Karabakh Issue
AssA-Irada
13/10/2004
The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh will be discussed
at the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE), Samad Seyidov, head of the Azerbaijani delegation
at PACE, told a meeting of the Milli Majlis (parliament) on Tuesday.
Seyidov stressed that the Azerbaijani delegation succeeded in adopting
a resolution on Azerbaijan at the last session of PACE. The document
appreciates ongoing developments in Azerbaijan. It contains critical
moments as well, he said.
Seyidov noted that the draft report prepared by PACE’s former
reporter on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict Terry Davis confirms the
fact of occupation of Nagorno Karabakh and stresses restoration of
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity under international legal norms.
“The Council of Europe has always given priority to finding out
shortages and we should comprehend the logic of this organization,”

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 1) 517 163
Fax: (374 1) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
October 13, 2004
His Holiness Karekin II Receives Foreign Minister of Norway
On October 10, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians, received Mr. Jan Petersen, Foreign
Minister of the Kingdom of Norway. Accompanying the high-ranking
guest and his delegation to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin were
Mr. Vladimir Karmirshalian, Ambassador of Armenia to Norway, and
Mr. Timothy Straight, Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Norway to
the Republic of Armenia.
During the meeting, His Holiness and the Foreign Minister discussed
the present day opportunities and challenges facing the Armenian
Church and Nation. Reflecting on the historic close ties between
the two countries, His Holiness expressed the gratitude of Armenians
from throughout the world for the assistance and solidarity of the
Norwegian state and people during the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923
and also following the tragic and devastating earthquake in Northern
Armenia of 1988. The Catholicos of All Armenians also extended his
appreciation for the continued support of the Norwegian government to
the Republic of Armenia in the last ten years following independence.
Mr. Petersen thanked His Holiness for the audience, noting his
confidence that his visit to Armenia would foster and encourage
the greater strengthening and productivity of ties between Norway
and Armenia.
##

ECONOMIC INTEREST OF RUSSIA
A1 Plus
13-10-2004
WHEN SAYING THE ECONOMIC INTEREST OF ARMENIA, SUPPOSING THE The
recent days in Armenia can be called as the days of Russia in
Armenia. Numerous officials of Russia are now in Armenia and hold
meetings. Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin has today partaken
in opening of Armenian International Economic Forum.
It was stated during the arrangement that in 2004 the Armenian-Russian
trade turnover increased by 34,5 in comparison with 2003 and crossed
the limit of $ 200 million. As a rule the Russian investments were
directed to production and bank spheres of Armenia.
The Russian side considers establishment of “Armenal” joint venture
in 2000 and allocation of 70% of “Armavia” Company stocks to “Siberia”
Airlines as profitable investment.
Russia stresses with pleasure “Property for Debt” program, through
which some Armenian enterprises were handed to the Russian part.
Igor Levitin, Russian Transport Minister and Chairman of
Inter-parliamentary Commission for Armenian-Russian Economic
Cooperation, assures the private banks of Russia show interest in
supporting the Russian enterprises set up in the territory of Armenia
and establishment of new joint ventures.

ARA ABRAHAMYAN SPEAKING AT A CONFERENCE
A1 Plus
13-10-2004
“The investments are not in my pocket to take them and invest. The
Armenian Authorities must provide some conditions, too”, Ara
Abrahamyan, Chair of World Armenian Congress said at the press
conference. According to him, though he invests millions in Armenia
he won’t leave because of some relations. Besides, he is not going
to be occupied with politics in Armenia.
Ara Abrahamyan says there must be a document between the Armenian
Government and World Armenian Congress to clarify the terms and
responsibilities of the parts.
He thinks lack of information mostly hampers the activity of
an investor. Mr. Abrahamyan suggests to establish a Council
of Businessmen /he has already set up one in Argentina/. The
organizations running in various states will join and an association
will be established.
Ara Abrahamyan thinks it is necessary to find an alternative way for
traffic in order businessmen should not face a situation like the one
in “Upper Lars”. “How much losses did businessmen, including you incur
as a result of it?”, we asked Abrahamyan. “Volume of losses hasn’t
yet clarified but if the problem is not settled, it will be huge”,
Abrahamyan said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenia’s only elephant to get an Indian companion
Mail & Guardian Online , South Africa
Oct 13 2004
The only male elephant in Armenia’s zoo will get an Indian female
companion this week, a news report said on Wednesday.
Armenian officials had asked the Indian government for a female
pachyderm in 1999, for its sole male elephant originally from Moscow.
Indian premier Atal Behari Vajpayee promised them an elephant during
a visit to Armenia last year.
Acknowledging that their gift was late, Indian officials were quoted
as saying in the Hindu newspaper that the elephant would help “cement”
India-Armenia ties.
Eight-year-old Komala weighs 1 500kg and lives in a zoo in the southern
Indian city of Mysore. She will travel in a specially-made container
to Bangalore on Thursday from where the Armenian government will fly
her, mildly sedated in a cargo plane, the report said.
Mysore zoo veterinarian SM Khadri described Komala as “exceptionally
well behaved, obedient and in good health”.
She is an “F2” elephant, or one that is bred in captivity. India only
sends “F2” elephants abroad, Khadri said.
Accompanying her through the acclimatisation process will be a “mahout”
or handler and a team of veterinarians. – Sapa

Time & Place: The hippies on the hill
Historian Saul David grew up running wild with his cousins on the family
commune in Wales – until they all fell out over money
The Times/UK
October 10, 2004
I was brought up with a whole bunch of cousins in the Wye Valley
during the hippy days of the 1970s. There were about 30 children at
one stage, running around like savages at a place called Callow Hill,
near Monmouth, which was owned by my grandparents. They lived in the
big house, but my dad had five brothers and a sister, and they all
lived in various houses scattered on the hill.
I wouldn’t call it an estate because that’s a bit grand, but we had
a couple of hundred acres. My forebears were fantastically wealthy
Armenians who came to England from India in the 19th century and did
what foreign types do – they married into a penniless but well-bred
local family. My great-great-grandfather, who made his money in the
jute trade, had at one time 600 houses in London and within three
generations the money was gone.
We didn’t care. Life was wonderful. We roamed the woods and swam in
the ponds, we built dens and we had tree houses. The cousins were a
self-contained clan and, because the hill was up a long drive and
relatively secure, we were allowed the run of the place. It got a
bit Lord of the Flies at times, with the older cousins setting up
pretty brutal situations. My oldest cousin, Simon, who was basically
in charge, had a gang. Everybody wanted to join it because all the
older children were in it, but the only way you could be a member
was if you handed over your pocket money, which everybody did. The
saddest times of my childhood were when my cousins moved away.
The house we lived in was originally put up as a temporary place for
my father to work when he was an undergraduate. It was an outhouse
basically, but he moved in with his wife and started having children,
of which I am the fourth, and it grew organically over the years. When
my stepmother first saw it she described it as a series of potting
sheds.
Life on the hill was like living in a commune. I went to school
because I liked it but nobody forced me to. You’d hardly guess it
if you met my aunts and uncles now, but at the time everybody bought
into the hippy theme. Some of the parents were all for educating their
children themselves, not that it lasted long, and Mum got very into
self-sufficiency at one point, with her vegetable plot and her farming
and her pigs. She was a bit of an amateur. Her butter was never quite
the thing and she had to put it in an old Anchor wrapper and pretend it
was bought or we wouldn’t eat it. It was the same with her bacon. She
was never adept at getting the hair off the pig, so there’d always be
little spiky bits on the rind, which gave us an indication that it was
Mum’s. She used to write “Danish” on the side but we were never fooled.
By the 1970s the place had got so shabby they chose to film the second
series of The Survivors there. That was a television drama about a
post-nuclear-type survival scenario and Callow Hill was ropey enough
to fit the bill. We were extras and from then on I was fascinated
with making television. I have just completed a series of historical
documentaries for Five.
I also made a BBC documentary about the Zulu war, as well as writing
a book about it, and that was influenced by my life at the hill,
too. One of the chief stories in Zulu concerns the battle of Rorke’s
Drift, when 140 British soldiers held out against 4,000 Zulus for 24
hours. Eleven Victoria Crosses were won, more than in any other single
action in British military history, and a lot of the soldiers were
recruited from Monmouthshire. It was local lore when I was growing
up and I always promised myself that one day I would write about it.
Now my father owns the big house, as he was the only one whose
finances allowed him to take it over, helped by my stepmother,
who just happened to have a few quid. There are no cousins there
now as there were all kinds of problems over inheritance. It was
idyllic when we were growing up but everybody fell out ultimately,
as my father and his siblings scrabbled over the last bones of a once
immense fortune. It was very un-hippyish. I don’t think inheriting
money is a terribly good thing for anybody.
Zulu by Saul David, Viking, £20. Interview by Cally Law