Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
July 6 2004
DEFENSE MINISTER OF AZERBAIJAN MEETS LATVIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY’S STATE
SECRETARY EDGARS RINKEVICS
[July 06, 2004, 13:19:38]
Defense Minister of Azerbaijan Colonel-General Safar Abiyev received
July 5 a delegation of Latvian Defense Ministry led by the country’s
Defense Ministry’s State Secretary Edgars Rinkevics.
Mr. Rinkevics conveyed Latvian Defense Minister’s greetings to his
Azerbaijani counterpart. He further noted that today, Azerbaijan and
Latvia are making their first steps towards development of bilateral
relations between the two countries’ Defense Ministries and stressed
the signing agreement with the Azerbaijan defense Ministry would
promote deepening of the bilateral cooperation.
Colonel-General Safar Abiyev told the guest of the establishment of
the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, reorganization of military colleges and
implemented reforms in this sphere. He noted that `Azerbaijan had
been closely cooperating with NATO in the framework of the
`Partnership for Peace’ program’, and that quite a lot of
representatives of the Azerbaijani armed forces are continuing their
education at higher military schools of many countries.
Asked of the perspectives of the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict resolution, the Minister noted that the problem should be
settled in accordance with the international legal norms. In this
connection, Mr. Abiyev reminded of the four relevant resolutions
adopted by the United Nations Security Council, as well as
recognition by the US Department of State, Council of Europe,
European Union, Presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine of
the occupation of the Azerbaijani lands by Armenia. We believe in
widening of this process and triumph of justice, he said.
The parties have also exchange views on the existing military
situation in the Southern Caucasus and Baltic regions.

PawtucketTimes.com
Armenian Leader Stresses Need to “Refine” Constitution in Holiday Address
BBC Monitoring Central Asia
07/05/2004
Text of report by Armenian news agency Noyan Tapan It was a powerful impulse
for radical reform in Armenian legislation, for consolidation of the
people’s power and for confirmation of the supremacy of the law. “In
celebrating Constitution Day, we citizens are celebrating our rights and
freedoms.
Text of report by Armenian news agency Noyan Tapan
Yerevan, 5 July: The presidential press service has sent Noyan Tapan news
agency President Robert Kocharyan’s message on Constitution Day. It says:
“Dear Fellow Citizens,
“I congratulate you on Constitution Day.
“The adoption of a constitution has historic significance for any people and
state. It was a powerful impulse for radical reform in Armenian legislation,
for consolidation of the people’s power and for confirmation of the
supremacy of the law.
“In celebrating Constitution Day, we citizens are celebrating our rights and
freedoms.
“The current constitution has shown its viability many times. Its unswerving
application guarantees legality and stability in the country. On the other
hand, the need to refine the constitution has arisen in our society, to
bring it into line with the contemporary demands of development.
“Once again congratulating you on Constitution Day, I tell you of my belief
that our country’s basic law will be refined and will long serve the people
of Armenia.”

Cyprus News Agency
July 5 2004
Cyprus and Armenia sign health & medicine cooperation agreement
1415:CYPPRESS:03
Cyprus and Armenia sign health & medicine cooperation agreement
Nicosia, Jul 5 (CNA) — Cyprus and Armenia signed today an interstate
cooperation agreement in the fields of health and medicine.

Denver Post
July 4 2004
Canada offers preview of gay-marriage impacts
The unions, legal in three provinces, have not been the burning issue
that they are in the United States.
By Anne C. Mulkern
Denver Post Staff Writer

Post / Helen H. Richardson
Apraham Niziblian, 30, right, and Michel Niquette, 49, a couple for
over two years, who believe fully in gay marriage and the rights of
homosexuals, share a moment in the couple’s kitchen.

Montreal – In the kitchen of a home in Canada’s second-largest city,
Rene LeBoeuf and Michael Hendricks fix a dinner of sauerkraut and
sausages while drinking beer and playing with their golden retriever,
Oscar Wilde.
The pair slide back and forth between French and English as they talk
about their recent wedding and upcoming Miami honeymoon. Occasionally
correcting each other and finishing each other’s sentences, LeBoeuf,
49, and Hendricks, 62, look and sound like any married couple. Except
both are men. They married three months ago, the first gay couple to
do so in Quebec.
“We’re a typical married couple,” Hendricks said. “We get home in the
evening, we make dinner. We have a garden. We do our shopping. Normal
lives.”

“Normal” is a word many gay people in Montreal are embracing with new
fervor. Located 30 minutes by car from the New York border, Montreal
has been friendly to gays for at least a decade. But in the last few
months, it has become even more welcoming.
Montreal sits in Quebec province, one of three in Canada where gay
couples are allowed to legally marry. Ontario, just west of Quebec,
and British Columbia, in the far west, also allow the marriages. The
three are the most populous regions, housing three-fourths of
Canada’s 30 million people.
As the United States wrestles with the issue of gay marriage, Canada
offers a window into what might sit on the horizon.
Polls show about half of Canadians oppose gay marriages, about the
same proportion as in the United States. But the largest Canadian
courts – as with the Supreme Court in Massachusetts – decided
marriage laws must be rewritten to include gays and lesbians. The
same-sex marriages started in Ontario about a year ago.
Last week, Canadians retained the Liberal Party as the controlling
force in Parliament. The Liberal Party has said it supports
legalizing gay marriage nationwide, as do two of the three other
parties in Parliament. Gays who feared the country’s Conservative
Party would try to overturn marriage laws know that’s not likely, at
least not now. Of Parliament’s 308 members, the majority comes from
political parties that endorse an expansion of liberalized same-sex
marriage laws. The Supreme Court of Canada, meanwhile, is considering
the issue. Popular thinking is that the court will support gay
unions.

Post / Helen H. Richardson
Rene LeBoeuf, 49, left, and Michael Hendricks, 62, were the first gay
couple to get married in Quebec. They sit amongst placques they have
made from many of the front pages of the local newspapers that show
the large amount of media attention they got surrounding their union.

“It’s a fait accompli, more or less,” said Apraham Niziblian, 30, who
lives in Montreal with his gay partner, Michel Niquette, 49.
Niziblian commutes between Montreal and Washington, where he lobbies
on Armenian issues. Legalizing gay marriage has given all gay couples
legitimacy, he said, the kind not found in the U.S.
That feeling of freedom was seen on a recent day in Montreal as two
men sat entwined outside a coffee shop. One caressed the other’s
thigh, then leaned in for a long, passionate kiss. A few blocks away,
two other men drank sangria and kissed repeatedly on the balcony of a
two-story restaurant. Behind them, the sun slipped below Montreal’s
gothic cathedrals.
“It’s just more of a mainstream thing,” Niziblian said of gay
relationships in Montreal. “Even people who are opposed to the
marriage issue, you won’t find people who are opposed to people being
gay. You won’t hear people say you chose to be gay.”
Across the U.S. border, the issue is anything but settled.
Massachusetts is the only state to allow gay weddings, and Vermont
the only one to allow civil unions for gay couples.
The U.S. Senate plans this month to consider a proposal – sponsored
by Republican Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado – to amend the
Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman. U.S. Rep.
Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was the first to offer the amendment.
President Bush says he supports the measure. Sen. John Kerry, the
likely Democratic nominee, opposes both the proposed amendment and
gay marriage, but he favors civil unions.
Several polls show Americans split about evenly on whether to amend
the Constitution to preclude gay marriages. A June poll conducted for
The Denver Post showed that in Colorado, 50 percent opposed the
amendment effort, while 41 percent favored and 9 percent were
undecided. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
As in the United States, religious groups, including a Canadian
branch of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, have been the
loudest opposition to legalized gay unions. Focus on the Family last
year spent $600,000 on radio and newspaper ads that talked about
upholding families.

Post / Helen R. Richardson
Stephane Ricard, 23, right and Guillaume Demers, 19, feel free to
express their interest in and fondness for one another while they
have lunch on a date in the village. The village is how this
neigborhood is referred to by gays and lesbians and is an openly gay
neigborhood in Montreal that is very well-known in the community.
“We believe in mom and dad,” said the newspaper ad, which showed a
man and woman with a child. “We believe in marriage. The family is a
schoolroom for life, and lasting lessons come from a man and a woman.
… Traditional marriage, if you believe in it, protect it.”
The president of Focus on the Family’s Canada arm, Darrel Reid, calls
Canada the “canary in the coal mine” for the United States. James
Dobson, who heads the United States group, agrees.
“We’re headed in the same direction as Canada,” Dobson said in an
interview. “I think it’s just a matter of time.” He called gay
marriage “the most serious social experiment that ever has been
perpetrated. If it occurs … it will destroy the family.”
If Canada begins allowing gay marriages nationwide, it will be the
second nation to do so. Belgium allows all gay couples to wed.
Denmark, France and Germany allow civil unions.
The issue in Canada is more nuanced than in America, however.
While gay couples lined up to wed in Massachusetts and in San
Francisco when municipalities allowed it, Canadian gays and lesbians
aren’t running to the courthouses. There’s no official tally of how
many gay couples have wed, but gay-rights groups put the number at
about 3,000 nationally since Ontario first legalized the marriages in
June 2003. Of those, they estimate 1,000 were Americans who then
returned home.
This is happening as Canadian marriage rates are declining. Canada in
2001 recorded 4.7 marriages per 1,000 people, compared with a rate of
5.1 for the four previous years, and a 7.8 rate in the U.S.
Quebec province has the lowest rate of marriage in North America, at
three marriages per 1,000 people.
Quebec residents said in interviews that the nonmarriage trend is a
rebellion against the Catholic Church, which they feel controlled
their lives for decades. The province is still about 90 percent
Catholic, but as Niziblian explains, “The church doesn’t have the
same sort of influence on Canadians.”
Canadians differ from Americans culturally in other key ways, said
those tracking this issue. Americans focus on individual freedoms,
while Canadians focus more on the rights of all members of society.
“It’s the difference between a revolutionary country and a country
that never revolted,” said Iain Benson of the Center for Cultural
Renewal in Ottawa, which opposes gay marriages. Canadians, he said,
operate as though they still live under a monarch.
Most trace the beginnings of gay marriage in Canada to the late Prime
Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s famous statement in 1967, “The state
has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.” No-fault divorce and
decriminalization of gay sexual acts soon followed.
In 1982, Trudeau removed the Canadian Constitution from the British
Parliament’s jurisdiction. He incorporated into it the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is similar to the U.S. Bill of
Rights. Soon, a series of court cases began to rule that the charter
granted gays the same kind of anti-discrimination rights that all
citizens shared.
Gay and lesbian groups began to demand the right to marry.
Parliament reacted in 1999 by voting overwhelmingly to affirm the
definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. It was
similar to a measure approved by the U.S. Congress and President
Clinton in 1996.
But Canadian courts continued to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.
In 2002, supreme courts in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec said
the existing definition of marriage was discriminatory. The Ontario
court told Parliament to resolve the issue. When Parliament failed to
act, the court declared gay marriages legal in June 2003.
Gays began marrying the next day in Ontario.
Hendricks and LeBoeuf, who’ve been together 30 years, won their
lawsuit against Quebec in March 2004.
In Canada, gay marriage brings only a few more tangible benefits than
gay and lesbian couples already enjoy. Since 1997, gay couples that
registered with the state have had most of the benefits of married
couples, such as community property rights, tax benefits, the right
to jointly adopt children, and some survivor benefits. It’s called
conjoint de fait, French for “spouse in fact.”
Among Canadians who oppose gay marriages, many endorse civil unions
or say gay couples should have the same rights to legal benefits that
heterosexual couples enjoy.
But gay couples say they want to be treated like everyone else, even
if they never decide to get married.
“It’s important to get the choice, but I don’t really want to get
married,” said Luc Vaillant, 37, of Montreal. “It’s for the égalité,”
he said – equality. “Just feeling as the others.”
Nick Williams, 38, is marrying his partner of five years, Mark
Tessier, 45, in September. Outside a voting location on election day,
he said he supported anyone but the head of the Conservative Party,
which opposes gay marriages.
“I don’t want to live in the Stone Age,” he said. “I like the fact
that in the 21st century, we’re starting to recognize gay couples as
couples that should be recognized.”
Not all gays agree that legalized marriage is a positive thing. At a
dinner party at Niziblian’s home, two gay men debated whether the
right to marry is an advancement.
“I just don’t identify with an institution that was created for
straight people,” said George Berberian, 32. “It doesn’t really suit
gay people and their lifestyle.”
Berberian said gay men primarily are motivated by sexual desire and
stay together for shorter periods than heterosexual couples. He said
that fighting for gay marriage is equivalent to conforming to
heterosexual lifestyles and that gays instead should fight to be
recognized for their differences.
Paul Dumont, 29, who also is gay, would like to get married.
“I still believe one day I’ll meet the right person. I know it’s
going to be true love, and I want to celebrate that love,” he said.
“You can celebrate it some other way,” Berberian said.
“No, I want that ring,” Dumont said with an impish grin.
Canadian groups that oppose gay marriages – most of which are
religious – say redefining marriage violates their rights. It’s
equivalent to condemning one definition of marriage, they said, and
imposing a new one.
“It’s really the states and the courts imposing a particular moral
code on some societies,” said Daniel Cere, director of the Institute
for the Study of Marriage, Law and Culture, a think tank.
As she voted on Monday, one new mother agreed. “I don’t want schools
teaching my daughter about same-sex marriage,” said Leslie Suderman,
29, of Montreal, whose daughter Sparrow is 10 months old. “I want her
to learn my thoughts on that. I view homosexuality as something that
would be abnormal.”
But even those opposed shrug their shoulders when asked what should
be done to stop the marriages.
In the 1,800-population town of Van Kleek Hill, known for its old
gingerbread mills, resident Lorraine Wade, 48, opposes the marriages
but acknowledges, “Most people are going to live their lives the way
they’re going to live their lives.”
Denver Post researcher Regina Avila contributed to this report.

The Halifax Daily News (Nova Scotia)
July 4, 2004 Sunday
Ancient lessons for our politicians;
The Greeks and Romans can teach us all a thing or two
by Robson, John
When the Athenian statesman Phocion gave a speech that the public
applauded, Plutarch claims, he turned to some friends and asked,
“Have I inadvertently said something foolish?” How many politicians
would ever have such a reaction today? Yet how many should? I sure
missed Plutarch during this election.
For one thing, I treasure his anecdote about Cato the Elder who, told
it was odd that there was no monument to him in Rome, said he would
far rather have people ask why he didn’t have a statue than why he
did. What a useful standard by which to judge the personal qualities
of politicians. When Bill Clinton claims in his memoirs that “in
politics, if you don’t toot your own horn, it usually stays untooted”
you might reasonably conclude that, in Cato’s situation, he would
have put one up himself.
Some readers may be puzzled by my tendency to enthuse about some
author who wrote long before Jennifer Lopez’s first marriage; if so,
I reply that it is not a boast to find nothing interesting in books.
(Or quote American commentator Florence King that in high school “the
girls who recited Mickey Rooney’s wives in the cafeteria made fun of
me for reciting Henry VIII’s wives in history class …”)
All argument is in some sense argument by analogy: This thing is like
that thing, it is not like that other thing. But if we do not carry
around with us a supply of material suitable for the drawing of
analogies, what sort of reasoning is likely to result? That’s why
Plutarch wrote The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.
Knowledge of the past
A person without knowledge of the past is liable to react to a
promise of free money the same way Homer Simpson reacts to the word
“doughnut.” Would it not be better instead to flinch as George
Washington would have at any political program reminiscent of Rome’s
“bread and circuses” for the urban mob? Or recall another Plutarch
story about Cato the Elder: “Being once desirous to dissuade the
common people of Rome from their unseasonable and impetuous clamour
for largesse and distributions of corn, he began thus to harangue
them: ‘It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the
belly, which has no ears.”‘
Paul Martin would have been well-advised a year ago to ponder
Plutarch’s report that Pompey the Great once had the chance “to lead
Tigranes, King of Armenia, in triumph,” but “chose rather to make him
a confederate of the Romans, saying that a single day was worth less
than all future time.”
My admiration for Plutarch is not uncritical. He likes the Spartans
too much, and unfairly casts Marc Antony as too besotted with
Cleopatra to attend to affairs of the state. But it’s interesting to
see him praise Cleopatra’s personality and intellect over her raw
physical beauty, and slam Julius Caesar, who “looking upon all
changes and commotions in the state as materials useful for his own
purposes, desired rather to increase than extinguish them …”
Perhaps his correspondingly high opinion of Caesar’s assassin Brutus
is overdone. But it would be nice to have some sort of opinion on
Brutus that doesn’t also involve Popeye the sailor man. Lest you
smell dust here, I promise that Plutarch is also full of intrigue,
illicit sex and gruesome violence. For instance, the orator Cicero,
who backed Brutus, was assassinated and, on the orders of Marc
Antony, his head and hands were severed, brought to Rome, and
“fastened up over the rostra, where the orators spoke; a sight which
the Roman people shuddered to behold, and they believed they saw
there, not the face of Cicero, but the image of Antony’s own soul.” A
useful anecdote to have whenever someone triumphantly waves an
enemy’s head in public.
Flatterer or friend?
Plutarch also records that Phocion once “answered King Antipater, who
sought his approbation of some unworthy action, ‘I cannot be your
flatterer, and your friend.'” And he advises the politically
ambitious likewise to “answer the people, ‘I cannot govern and obey
you.”‘ Of course anyone who did so might not win, but hey, most
candidates lose anyway. (Besides, Cato the Younger once lost an
election for consul, declined to run again because the people
obviously didn’t want him, and happily went on with his life.) And it
would surely raise the level of debate to go about dismissing people
as “another Lepidus” or hailing them as “a second Brutus” instead of
wracking our brains trying to remember who was in Joe Clark’s
cabinet. Speaking of people who should certainly have spent more time
asking friends if they’d inadvertently said something foolish.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 3, 2004 Saturday
Nagorno-Karabakh among main issues of Russia-Armenia talks
By Natalia Simorova, Natalia Krainova
MOSCOW
One of the main issues Russian and Armenian Foreign Ministers Sergei
Lavrov and Vardan Oskanyan will discuss during their talks in Moscow
will be the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s
spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said on Saturday in connection with the
planned visit by the Armenian foreign minister to Moscow due from
July 5-7.
Russia is ready to render assistance in the conflict settlement
process and be a guarantor for an agreement acceptable for the
parties.
The parties themselves should find a compromise solution to the
problem, the diplomat noted.
The talks will also focus on cooperation between the two countries
within the CIS, the Organisation of the Treaty on Collective Security
and the EURASEC and coordination of efforts of the foreign ministries
to improve the situation in the Caucasian region.
Among the priority subjects will be also trade and economic, cultural
and humanitarian cooperation.
Moscow and Yerevan are determined to take purposeful and necessary
moves on the bilateral and multilateral basis in fight against
terrorism, Yakovenko said.
Efficient practical cooperation between law-enforcement structures
and security services supports political cooperation in the area.
The visit by the Armenian foreign minister will give an additional
impetus to Russian-Armenian relations that have a durable legal
basis, the Russian diplomat noted.
Oskanyan is also planned to meet with Chairman of the State Duma’s
Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots Andrei
Kokoshin.

XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
July 5, 2004, Monday
Cyprus, Armenia sign health cooperation agreement
NICOSIA
Cyprus and Armenia signed on Monday a cooperation agreement in the
field of health and medicine.
Cyprus Minister of Health Constantia Akkelidou, who inked the pact,
told reporters after the signing ceremony that this agreement would
provide numerous exchange visits between the two countries and other
ways of cooperation.
Cyprus has fulfilled an old pledge it gave to Armenia by sending
medicine and medical equipments to the country, she said.
Armenian Ambassador to Cyprus Vahram Kazhoyan who represented his
country said there had been a long experience of cooperation in the
field of medical sciences and health care between the two countries.
“I am glad that finally we were able to sign the agreement which puts
all this cooperation in a legal framework,” he said.
As a good gesture stemming up from this agreement, Cyprus will send a
container of medicine to Armenia soon, he added.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 5, 2004 Monday
Russia, Armenia to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
By Svetlana Alexandrova and Alexandra Urusova
MOSCOW
The Russian and Armenian Foreign Ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Vardan
Oskanyan, will discuss here on Tuesday ways of settling the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said, “Russia is ready
to contribute to the settlement of the conflict and guarantee the
signing of agreements that will be acceptable for both sides.” “The
participants in the conflict should reach a compromise over this
problem,” he emphasized.
The Moscow talks “will focus on interaction within the CIS, including
within the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the EurAsEC,
and the foreign ministries’ joint efforts aimed at improving the
situation in the Caucasus.”
The Armenian foreign minister’s visit on July 5-7 will give an
additional impulse to Russian-Armenian relations which have a firm
legal basis, the spokesman said.
Trade and economic cooperation will be among priorities during the
talks. In 2003, trade turnover between Russia and Armenia increased
by 34.5 percent to 203.3 million U.S. dollars. Russia’s exports to
Armenia grew 33.5 percent to reach 126.2 million dollars, while
imports increased 36 percent to 77.1 million dollars.
In the course of his visit, Oskanyan will also meet with chairman of
the State Duma Committee for the CIS and Relations with Compatriots
Andrei Kokoshin.
The Russian and Armenian foreign ministers meet regularly. The
previous talks were held in Moscow last November.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 5, 2004 Monday
FC international committee calls for ratification of adapted CFE
By Lyudmila Yermakova
MOSCOW
Committee on International Affairs at the Federation Council, the
upper house of parliament, has supported the ratification of the
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE) and decided to recommend
the house members to ratify the document at a plenary session on July
7.
“The treaty is one of basic elements forming the patterns of European
security and stability,” the committee’s chairman, Mikhail Margelov
said.
“The ratification will enable Russia to keep its military forces in
Ukraine and Armenia,” he said. “The treaty also envisages the
building up of confidence between Russia and NATO and precludes the
covert formation of large-scale forces in Europe.”
Considering the fact that only Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have
ratified the adapted treaty, the committee members decided to prepare
a letter of address to other 27 signatories urging them to do
likewise.
On Tuesday, July 6, the letter of address will be submitted to the
council of the upper house and on Wednesday, July 7, to the all the
house members for affirmation.
Members of the Committee also called on the Federation Council and
the State Duma, the lower house, “to take steps to consolidating
Russia’s positions in different international organizations,
including in the Council of Europe (CE) and NATO, so as to press for
ratification of the treaty.”

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 5, 2004, Monday
ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT EARNS MONEY ON “DODGERS”
The Armenian government has earned some $74,000 on “dodgers” from
military service: 120 Armenian citizens liable for military service
preferred to pay money into the budget to being conscripted. The
might-have-been protectors of fatherland used the opportunity,
provided by the law on dodgers from military service, passed on March
1, 2004. The law envisages payment of 100 minimum wages (about $200)
twice a year as a “compensation” for each conscription missed. The
amount of $200 suffices six months. The maximal fee per conscript has
been $3,300. So far, this chance is only give to persons, who reached
the age of 27 before the law was passed.
According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, over 5,000 citizens come
under this law. After the above sums are paid, these persons are
fully relieved of criminal responsibility for dodging the military
service.
Source: Moskovsky Komsomolets, July 2, 2004, p. 7
Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin