Daily Star, Lebanon
June 12 2004
AUB to award honorary doctorates
4 men to receive doctor of human letters
By Daily Star Staff
BEIRUT: For only the second time since 1969, the American University
of Beirut will be awarding honorary doctorates in a special midday
ceremony in Assembly Hall on commencement day, June 26.
This year the university will award the degree of doctor of humane
letters to four outstanding individuals: mathematician Michael Atiyah,
Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian, ABC TV anchor Peter
Jennings and world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, an AUB statement said.
Michael Atiyah, whose father was Lebanese, has carved a name for
himself throughout the 20th and 21st centuries in the world of
mathematics.
He was referred to as one of the greatest living mathematicians. In
March of this year, Atiyah received, in collaboration with professor
Isadore Singer of MIT, the Abel Prize for mathematics, which is almost
the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for this field.
Their Atiyah-Singer index theorem, linking pure mathematics and
theoretical physics, has been described by the Norwegian Academy of
Science, as one of the great landmarks of 20th century mathematics.
Vartan Gregorian, born and raised until the age of 15 in Tabriz,
Iran, was then educated in Beirut at the Armenian College.
He then went on to Stanford University, where he received both his
Bachelors degree and doctorate in history.
He taught at San Francisco State College, University of California, Los
Angeles, the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania,
where he became the first dean of Arts and Science.
Peter Jennings, the popular and suave anchor of ABC Evening News
since 1983, established the first American television news bureau in
the Arab world in Beirut in 1972. He conveyed breaking news stories
throughout the Arab world and broadcasts in hotspots in Europe,
the Middle East and Asia.
Yo-Yo Ma, born of Chinese parents in Paris, was playing the cello
when he was four years old.
Moving to New York with his musician parents, he studied at the
Juilliard School and debuted at Carnegie Hall at the age of 9.

PACE MONITORING COMMISSION REPRESENTATIVES ASSESS POLITICAL SITUATION IN ARMENIA
RIA Novosti, Russia
June 11 2004
EREVAN, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – Co-reporter of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe monitoring commission Ezhi Yaskernya
and the commission’s secretary David Chupina began to assess Armenia’s
political situation.
The Armenian parliament public relations department told RIA Novosti
that on Friday the monitoring commission members met chairman of
Armenia’s Constitutional Court Gagik Arutyunyan, head of Erevan-based
OSCE office Vladimir Pryakhin, ambassadors of the European Council
member-states, representatives of international organizations,
national minorities and mass media.
Scheduled for Saturday in the National Assembly are the meetings with
speaker Arthur Bagdasaryan, vice-speaker Tigran Torosyan, members of
the Armenian PACE delegation, heads of the standing parliamentary
committees for external relations, state and legal issues, defense
and national security, leaders of the parliamentary factions.
On Monday the commission members will meet Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan, Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan, Minister of Justice
David Arutyunyan, Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan, Defense Minister
Serge Sarkisyan, Attorney General Agvan Ovsepyan, Police Chief Aik
Arutyunyan, Central Election Committee Chairman Gevorg Azaryan,
members of the central broadcasting commission.
Mr. Yaskernya said earlier that “the PACE would be informed of the
internal political situation in Armenia and of the steps taken by
the Armenian government towards implementation of the PACE resolution”.
On April 28, the PACE adopted a resolution prescribing Armenia to
settle the internal political situation prior to September this year,
otherwise the Assembly reserved the right to review the Armenian
parliamentary delegation credentials.
From: Baghdasarian

IN TEN YEARS RUSSIA’S POPULATION TO BE LESS BY ANOTHER 10 MILLION
RIA Novosti, Russia
June 11 2004
MOSCOW, JUNE 11 (RIA Novosti) – By 2015 Russia’s population will be
reduced by another ten million. Olga Antonova, deputy head of the
Population Statistics Board of the Federal State Statistics Service,
made this forecast at the RIA Novosti round table Priorities of the
State Ethnic Policy of the Russian Federation and Outlook for the
Ethnic-Cultural Autonomies in Light of the 2002 National Census.
The 2002 population census showed that over the twelve preceding years
the population of Russia became less by 10 million; the average annual
population loss is 800,000.
Since the last census, Russians have become one million less.
“As of January 1, 2004, Russia had 144.2 million people”, Antonova
said.
Immigrants are the salvation for the Russian demographic situation.
“They replenish the natural population loss by two thirds”, she said.
“Migration is and will be a source replenishing the population of
our country”, she added.
The main “providers” of manpower in Russia are countries of the
Commonwealth of Independent States – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan
and Moldova. Since the 1989 census, the number of Turks, Koreans,
Vietnamese, Pashtuns residing in Russia has also increased.
“However, the inflow of registered migration has been ebbing in recent
years”, Antonova noted. In expert estimate, the aggregate potential
of future migration from countries in the Transcaucasia and Central
Asia does not exceed three to four million.
“All those willing to leave Armenia and Georgia have already left
them”, she said.
On a longer perspective, manpower resources may arrive from East
and South-East Asia, above all China, and, “to a lesser degree,
from India and Afghanistan”.
The number of Russia’s native small ethnic groups has increased by a
fourth over twelve years and, according to the last census, is 306,000,
said Galina Sheverdova, head of the Methods and Census Analysis Sector
of the Federal State Statistics Service, told the Friday round table.
According to the state statistics, native small ethnic groups
constitute from 19 to 40 percent of Russia’s autonomous entities –
Evenk, Chukchee, Koryak (Siberia) etc.
“Noteworthily, less than a half of the native small ethnic groups
speak their national tongues. Less than 20 percent of the 19 mostly
Northern ethnic groups do”, Sheverdova noted.

AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA ACCUSE EACH OTHER OF VIOLATING CEASEFIRE
RIA Novosti, Russia
June 11 2004
BAKU/YEREVAN, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – Azerbaijan and Armenia have
accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
The press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported that
on Wednesday night Armenian military units, deployed in the Berd
district of Armenia, fired small arms at the Azerbaijani army in Koha
Nabi, a village in the Tovuz district.
Also, Azerbaijani positions were shelled from the Armenian positions,
1 kilometer northeast of the village of Kuropatkino in the
Khodzhavend district of Azerbaijan in lower Karabakh.
The press service asserted that the fire from the Armenian positions
was neutralized through return fire and that no Azerbaijanis died.
On June 6 and 7, Armenian soldiers fired sub-machineguns and
machineguns twice at the Azerbaijani army’s positions in the Gazakh
district of Azerbaijan (western Azerbaijan), 200 kilometers away from
Karabakh and the border with Armenia.
The press secretary of Armenian Defense Minister, Seiran
Shahsuvaryan, said that on Thursday at 7:50 p.m., Moscow time,
Azerbaijani military units shelled the village of Movses in the
Tavush region of Armenia.
“The Armenian side did not return fire,” Mr. Shahsuvaryan said.
No Armenians were killed.
According to Mr. Shahsuvaryan, on Wednesday night, Azerbaijani
soldiers shelled the positions of the Nagorny Karabakh defense army
near the village of Kuropatkino.
“The Karabakh soldiers were forced to return fire and neutralize the
fire from the Azerbaijani side,” Mr. Shahsuvaryan said. No one was
killed on the Karabakh side.
Mr. Shahsuvaryan also said that on June 7, Azerbaijani troops fired
large-caliber weapons at the village of Berkaber in the Tavush region
of Armenia.
The OSCE representatives on Thursday monitored the observance of the
ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the village of
Garakhanbeili in the Fizuli district of Azerbaijan. According to the
EU, there were no violations in that area.

MP questions identities and confession of Georgian high ranks
Batumi News
June 11 2004
The interest of the majoritarian deputy from Zugdidi, Gocha Pipia,
in the ethnic and religious identities of the future ministers and
their parents, called forth anxieties among the deputies. Several
MPs left the session in protest.
Kakha Bendukidze, Minister of Economics, commented on Pipia as a
“mad” and “a man of evil conscious”, – before leaving the session.
“A madman rushed out and demanded the ministers to submit their parents
identities. I see myself it absolutely unacceptable, and he would be
jailed in any honoring itself state”, – Bendukidze said. “If anyone is
interested how I feel with the fact that my mother is Armenian, I have
always been and will always be proud with that”, – Zurab Zhvania said.
Pipia himself, believes, that presence of those deputies, who hide
their identity, is dangerous at the state levers. “Those individuals,
who are disguising their genuine identities, have complexes”, – Pipia
said. He recalled the internet sources, criticizing John Kerry for
disguising that he is Jew, claiming himself as an Anglo Sax. “When
everything is being sold out in Georgia, I have a right to ask,
are these people, selling out national property, Georgians?” –
Pipia argues.
“Religious education of our future generation should be based on
the Christian Orthodox belief, attacking the Orthodox Church on the
name of democracy is unacceptable”, – Pipia said, questioning the
confession of Kakha Lomaya, Georgian Minister of Education.

An informative look at Liza
By KEVIN McDONOUGH, United Features Syndicate
Times Union, Albany, NY
June 11 2004
First published: Friday, June 11, 2004
Unlike the vast majority of celebrity profiles that simply reiterate
the obvious and belabor the hideous, tonight’s two-hour “Biography”
(8, A&E) taught me many things I did not know and reminded me of
other things I had forgotten about Liza Minnelli. This troubled and
talented singer, dancer and actress has spent the better part of five
decades trying to get out from under the shadow of her doomed mother.
The daughter of Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, Liza
made her screen appearance as a toddler in the 1949 “In the Good Old
Summertime.” Unfortunately, Minnelli explains, the Hollywood staff
that costumed her in 19th-century finery forgot to provide underwear,
and she felt decidedly cranky while being held aloft by family friend
Van Johnson. In a remarkable clip from the old Jack Paar show, we
watch Liza make her TV singing debut — introduced not as herself,
but as an Armenian gypsy girl whose name turned out to be an anagram of
“Judy Garland.”
This superior “Biography” is filled with informative and painful
recollections from Minnelli as well as legions of lifetime friends
and admirers, including songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb
(“Cabaret”). Mia Farrow, a fellow child of Hollywood who has known
Minnelli since preschool, praises her friend’s talent and acting
ability. Farrow describes Minnelli’s performance in the 1969 “The
Sterile Cuckoo” as a tour de force. Marisa Berenson, Joel Grey
and Michael York (in an archival interview) recall the special
circumstances that made filming “Cabaret” so difficult and memorable.
Having won a Tony, an Emmy and an Oscar before turning 30, Minnelli
has had a decidedly bumpy second act. Her Scorsese-directed musical
“New York, New York” faded from memory almost as quickly as its title
song became known as Frank Sinatra’s signature tune. Her spirited
performance in “Arthur” was overshadowed by those of Dudley Moore and
John Gielgud. And, of course, there were the frequent visits to rehab
clinics and her recent freakish marriage to her controlling producer.
While these difficult times are chronicled here, this “Biography”
accentuates the positive and recalls Minnelli’s gifts as she prepares
to make yet another revival in a life that has become defined by
stumbles and comebacks.

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT RECEIVES CHAIRMAN, GENERAL MANAGER OF YEREVAN
BRANDY COMPANY PIER LARECH
ArmenPress
June 11 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 11, ARMENPRESS: The president of Armenia Robert Kocharian
received today the chairman, general manager of Yerevan Brandy Company
Pier Larech, who completes his activity in our country. Mr. Larech
introduced to the president the new director of the company Erve Karof.
As it was reported from the presidential press office, Kocharian highly
assessed the work of Mr. Larech. He hoped that the traditions formed
during the activity of Larech will continue. According to Kocharian,
in the face of “Perno Ricar Group” Armenia ha s a serious partner
and today there are no doubts that the privatization of the Yerevan
Brandy company was justified step.

PRIME MINISTER ANDRANIK MARGARIAN RECEIVES OUTGOING AMBASSADOR OF IRAN
ArmenPress
June 11 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 11, ARMENPRESS: Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian received today Mohammad Koleini, the Ambassador
Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
who is ending soon his diplomatic mission in Armenia.
Estimating highly the Iranian diplomat’s four-year tenure in Armenia,
the Prime Minister noted that that period of time was marked by
significant achievements in relations between the two nations and
their governments, both in political and economic areas and an
environment of confidence was formed to help further boosting of
cooperation. Likewise steps were taken towards further development
of traditional educational, cultural and other ties.
Ambassador Mohammad Koleini expressed his deep satisfaction at the
assistance he received from the government of Armenia and other bodies
during his mission, adding also that he will continue promoting
strengthening of friendship between the two friendly nations that
date back to the earliest periods of recorded history.
Upon completing the meeting Prime Minister Andranik Margarian wished
success to Mohammad Koleini in his personal life and further activity.

NOTHING IS DONE TO DISCLOSE THE ELECTION FRAUDS
A1 Plus | 17:22:33 | 11-06-2004 | Politics |
“Supreme Soviet” Deputy Club informs none of the applications it spread
over the vote frauds in 2003 presidential and parliamentary elections
was referred to in the release of General Office of Prosecutor on
punishing those having committed frauds.
“General Office of Prosecutor replied to all the applications the
same way: “Your application /statement/ addressed to the General
Prosecutor was sent to discussion of Central Electoral Commission. CEC
will cause you to be informed about the results”.
Not being responded by CEC in the fixed term we appealed to Court,
which granted our demand obliging CEC to answer our applications. But
CEC doesn’t answer us again.
During a year we couldn’t get answer for the introduced applications
though we have used all the ways of the Armenian legislation.
The above reference of General Office of Prosecutor gives cause to
spreading the election frauds in coming elections”, “Supreme Soviet”
Deputy Club says.

BBC Accused over ‘Visit to Enclave’
The Scotsman, UK
June 10 2004
“PA”
Azerbaijan’s national broadcasting council has complained to the BBC
that a crew visited the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh without
the agreement of Azerbaijani authorities, the council said today.
A statement from the council said that the head of the BBC World
Service’s Azerbaijan bureau, Islam Atakishiev, was called to
the council to receive the complaint that a crew from the BBC’s
Russian-language service had gone to the enclave, which has been
under control of ethnic Armenian forces for a decade.
The crew “participated in direct dialogue with the terrorist regime
there,” the statement said.
“In the event of continued preparation of further reports demonstrating
indifference to Azerbaijan’s national interests, the question of
broadcasting the BBC on Azerbaijani territory will be reviewed,”
the statement said.