Author: Nalbandian Eduard

Armenpress

RUSSIA DECLINES ARMENIAN PROPOSAL

YEREVAN, AUGUST 23, ARMENPRESS: Gagik Mkrtchian, head of a trade and
economic development ministry department dealing with jewelry and goldsmith
industry, said Russian finance ministry has declined an Armenian proposal
asking for a permission to re-export fifteen percent of raw diamonds it
receives from Russia.
Mkrtchian said the Russian ministry cited various reasons to turn down
their proposal, one of which was that re-exported Armenia diamonds could
compete with Russian diamonds at foreign markets. Mkrtchian said Armenian
companies have received 150,000 carats of Russian raw diamonds out of
450,000 carts envisaged for Armenia for 2005 by an intergovernmental
agreement. However, he said, some small companies in Armenia are not now
able to buy Russian diamonds after Russian Alrosa, the main supplier of raw
diamonds, raised its prices.
“I think Russia would not like to lose a market that is able to process
annually 1 million carat of raw diamonds in a friendly country,’ he said.
Raw diamonds are also supplied to Armenia by Belgium and Israel.

Armenian-Georgian talks are not anti-Russian – president

Arminfo
22 Aug 05

Yerevan, 22 August: Friendly relations between the Armenian and
Georgian presidents will definitely tell on mutual relations between
ordinary residents of both countries. This is how Armenian President
Robert Kocharyan commented for journalists on the results of his
unofficial meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at his
summer residence on Lake Sevan today.

[Passage omitted: reported details]

Commenting on a recent article carried by the Russian newspaper
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which said that the current Armenian-Russian
[presumably Armenian-Georgian] unofficial talks allegedly have an
anti-Russian undertone, Robert Kocharyan described it as “a fruit of a
morbid and limited imagination of the author of that article”.

Everything possible should be done for the interests of the two
countries not to collide in the South Caucasus, in Armenia and
Georgia. On the contrary, if there are some points for collision, they
should be softened, and the current relations may be very useful in
these terms.

Only people with a morbid imagination can look for an undertone here,
like the said article did it, the Armenian president believes.

Turkish historian given suspended sentence for violating Armenian antique book law

AP Worldstream; Aug 16, 2005

A Yerevan court on Tuesday handed a two-year suspended sentence to a
Turkish historian who tried to leave the country with centuries-old
books, in violation of Armenian law.

Yektan Turkyilmaz, 33, was leaving from Yerevan June 17, when Armenian
security agents pulled him from his plane. He was carrying 88 books,
some of which dated back to the 17th century, authorities said.

Armenian law prohibits anyone from taking a book that is more than
50 years old out of the country without permission. Authorities did
not return the books to Turkyilmaz.

Turkyilmaz is the only Turkish scholar to be allowed to study in
Armenia, which has tense relations with Turkey, due to lingering
bitterness over the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World
War I and Turkey’s support of Armenia’s regional rival, Azerbaijan.

Turkyilmaz, who was freed after the ruling, told reporters that he
planned to spend another two weeks working in Yerevan before returning
to Istanbul then North Carolina, where he is a doctoral student at
Duke University.

Sweet Scoops owners say yogurt tastings are best form of advertising
By Natalie Otis, [email protected]

Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, New Hampshire)
8-15-2005

BRENTWOOD – Nine years ago, Brian Murray stopped at a café in Exeter
with a sweet tooth and came out with a business plan.

He had ordered a frozen yogurt and was raving about the treat when
the café owner lamented that the small yogurt maker he was buying
the stuff from was closing up shop.

A software company employee with a plan to one day own his own
business, Murray had been on the lookout for a good business idea. He
also knew his father, Wayne Murray, a retired attorney, was looking
for an investment. The two agreed that the next day Wayne should go
talk with the yogurt maker in Salem, Mass., about his business.

Brian~Rs discovery in Exeter quickly dropped him and his father
into the part-time frozen yogurt business. The maker of the frozen
yogurt in Exeter was none other than the man whose family founded,
and eventually sold, Colombo Yogurt – Bob Colombosian.

Colombosian~Rs family started a non-frozen yogurt business in the
1940s, and eventually sold to General Mills. With the sale, Colombosian
retained the rights to make frozen yogurt and focused on the frozen
offerings under the Sweet Scoops name.

Sweet Scoops, the company Brian and Wayne Murray bought from
Colombosian, started with operating the single shop in Salem,
Mass., and supplying yogurt to a few customers buying wholesale. It
now employs a dozen workers and is delivering to New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island.

The first year, Sweet Scoops sold about 12,000 pints. It now sells
that much in a week and is prepared to keep 50,000 pints in a new,
12,000-cubic-foot freezer at the manufacturing facility in Brentwood.
The buzz in the stores is a “sweet treat with half the calories and
half the fat.”

The company must deal with the giants such as Stonyfield Farm and Ben
& Jerry~Rs that offer similar frozen products. However, Sweet Scoops
has made a move in the past three years to transform the product into
something 100 percent natural.

The step was to attract niche customers. The business knows it can~Rt
compete for space in the main freezer aisles offered up to global
companies with the backing to pay grocers to place their products in a
prime space, so Sweet Scoops is going after the natural foods sections.
These sections are becoming more popular in stores and even have
their own freezer sections. This is where Sweet Scoops believes it
can grow its business.

Brian Murray~Rs notion is to grow the business slow like it has all
along, with no intention for now to take it national. The short-term
goal is to focus on getting the products in stores in Vermont and
New York in the next five years and from there, who knows.

Atop the Sweet Scoops business now sits, not Wayne – he has retired –
but Brian and his sister Brigid, who together run a friendly family
business where they take it day-by-day in awe of how well things
typically work out for them.

Change, change, change

Brian jokes that every time the business has had a profitable year,
it makes some decision to remodel, add new freezer space, create more
storage or buy new equipment.

“That is just they way it is,” he said.

Some of the pivotal changes have come in the past two years, such as
taking on more production space, expanding the freezer capacity and
launching a new package design to save on time.

As the business has grown, the time-consuming task of hand-labeling
the pints was becoming a burden.

“Before you can fill an order for 9,000 pints, you had to label 9,000
pints with three different labels – you can imagine what that takes,”
he said.

Two years ago, the business began working with Easter Seals to employ
workers with special needs to help with the labeling.

“It has worked out great for them and us,” he said.

However, the greatest timesaving move thus far is the new
packaging. The business is now paying to have the popular flavors
pre-printed on pint containers instead of hand-labeled.

Ginger, French Vanilla, Black Raspberry, Mudslide with Chocolate
Chunks, Mint Chocolate Chip, Dutch Chocolate Chip, Coffee Cookies
and Cream, Peach Mango and Strawberry Banana all have pre-printed
containers that can be grabbed and filled at a moment~Rs notice.

“We just got the packaging back last month and are really excited
about it,” Brian said.

He admits how naive he was about the yogurt business in the early
years. He thought it would be easy; it~Rs yogurt, right?

“It is way more than that,” he said.

Like any small manufacturing business, the company is about working
day-by-day and order-by-order. The Murray family looks ahead, realizes
where the market is, and is planning to get bigger one client at a
time, one sale at a time.

The company believes all people have to do is try it, and it will have
a customer. This is why the only form of advertising it has done is
to go out into the community and let people try it.

“We do tastings every weekend and I lay it on thick,” said Brian,
who often goes out himself. “People say no thank you, and I say,
~QI made it myself.~R How can you resist that?”

He said most who try it, buy it.

People have preconceived ideas about yogurt, that~Rs the business~Rs
greatest hurdle.

Their business is growing in a declining market for yogurt. According
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, frozen yogurt only makes up 4
percent of the frozen-foods market. And, that number has been dropping
the past two years.

However, for Brian that means the glass is half-full. If his business
is growing in a declining market, it means his product must be one
of the best.

Buyout offers

Murray doesn~Rt spend his days worrying about the giants running him
out of business.

Nevertheless, the company has fielded buyout offers, and when it
comes to hearing from rivals, the brother-sister team shrugs it off.

“We go to the same shows as (they do) and they come over and they
taste our product,” Brigid said.

She has noticed a change in the “big guy” offerings recently, as some
have responded for a demand for low-calorie treats.

“We have always been half the fat, half the calories,” she said.

But this year they couldn~Rt help but notice some big brands going
after that market.

“We thought it would take from our sales, but it really hasn~Rt,”
she said. “We know they see us. We were hoping to fly under the radar
of the big companies for a bit longer, but it~Rs OK. We are here and
it~Rs OK.”

As for the yogurt giant they bought from nearly a decade ago, Brian
says Colombosian occasionally pulls up to the facility in a Mini
Cooper with a cooler and occasional advice.

“He and my father became good friends during the sale and he comes
here and visits us,” Brian said. “I would like to think he is proud.”

At a glance:

Sweet Scoops Where:191 Crawley Falls Road, Brentwood Phone: 642-4111
Web:

Where to buy it

Tuttle’s Red Barn, Janetos Market, and Care Pharmacy – Dover

Durham Marketplace – Durham

Convenient Grocer – Exeter

Caffe Fresco – Hampton

Applecrest Farm Orchards – Hampton Falls

Newfields Country Store – Newfields

Joe’s Meat Shoppe – North Hampton

South Street & Vine, Philbrick’s Fresh Market – Portsmouth

Red Ginger – Rye

Golden Harvest – Kittery, Maine

This page has been printed from the following URL:

–Boundary_(ID_sHon4x1anPUj+XoZDkfbXw)–

Call to back UN genocide reform

Oxfam has urged the US, Russia, India and Brazil to support a UN
reform that would require the organisation to act quickly to prevent
genocide. The international charity accuses the four countries of
blocking UN plans designed to stop atrocities such as the 1994 Rwanda
genocide happening again. Oxfam says the proposal would oblige the
international community to take action if governments failed to do so.

Its statement comes ahead of a UN summit next month to discuss
reforms. Oxfam says that while US officials publicly back the planned
reform, in principle they are seeking to water it down.

Other countries opposing the move include Syria, Iran, Cuba, Pakistan,
Egypt and Algeria, the charity said.

‘New standard’

The current draft statement says the UN has a “shared responsibility
to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner” to “help
protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and
crimes against humanity”.

Oxfam says it is essential the agreement remains this strongly worded,
if UN members are to prevent future genocides happening.

Such a reform would establish a new standard, the charity says, and
oblige the international community to act when required.

Oxfam’s spokeswoman in New York, Nicola Reindorp, said: “We’ve taken
the step of exposing the governments blocking the agreement so people
around the world can call on them to change their minds.

“We urge these governments to urgently reconsider their position and
agree to protect civilians from mass murder and atrocities.

“The international community must never again allow genocide or mass
murder to go unchecked.”

Governments supporting the call for strong language in the draft
statement include Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya,
Chile, Peru, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea,
Singapore, Canada and the EU.

However, opposition from the would-be blockers could still dilute the
commitment and so make it meaningless, Oxfam warned.

“Those supporting the responsibility of states to protect civilians
must stick to their principles and those opposing it must think
again,” Ms Reindorp said.

“Brazil, India, Russia and the US must play their part in helping to
stop the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians.”

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2005/08/14 02:37:35 GMT

Turkey denies holding Al-Qaeda suspects

Agence France Presse
Thursday, August 11, 2005

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s security department denied that police had detained
a group suspected of having links to the Al-Qaeda extremist network and
of plotting attacks against Israeli cruise ships in southern Turkey.
Police sources said a Syrian national was detained on suspicion of
involvement in a series of suicide bombings in Istanbul in November
2003, blamed on a local Al-Qaeda cell.

Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, earlier said 10
people had been detained in the Antalya Province, which attracts
millions of tourists each year, on suspicion of plotting attacks on
behalf of Al-Qaeda on cruise ships popular with Israeli holiday makers.

Police headquarters in Ankara denied the report, also carried by the
Turkish media.

“Recent reports in the Turkish and foreign media on the arrest in the
southern provinces of Al-Qaeda members preparing to attack foreign ships
and the seizure of C4 plastic explosives are totally false and
ill-intentioned,” the statement said.

The private news channel NTV said earlier that the detained group was
gathering information on synagogues in Turkey as well as on Israeli
ships to prepare for attacks.

It said the suspects were detained in Istanbul and Antalya.

The suspects included a Syrian national believed to have built the bombs
used to attack two synagogues, the British consulate and London-based
HSBC bank in Istanbul in November 2003, NTV said.

The Syrian national, identified only by his initials N.S., was detained
in Diyarbakir, in the southeast, and was taken to Istanbul for
questioning by anti-terror police in connection with the 2003 attacks,
officials said.

Israel’s counterterrorism unit earlier this week warned Israeli holiday
makers to avoid a strip of Turkey’s Mediterranean coast between the
resorts of Alanya and Kemer, in Antalya Province, citing credible
intelligence pointing to a potential attack.

Last week, Israeli authorities ordered four Israeli cruise ships
scheduled to dock in Alanya to change course to Cyprus for fear of a
possible attack.

Armenia Tree Project
65 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472 USA
Tel: (866) 965-TREE (toll-free)
Email: [email protected]
Web:

PRESS RELEASE
August 11, 2005

Diasporan Students Work in Armenia With ATP Summer Volunteer Program

WATERTOWN, MA–This summer, two university students traveled to Armenia to
work as volunteers in the only environmental organization operating in the
country with a broad-based diasporan support network.

The two, Christian Millian of Maine and Anais Kadian of Ontario, were
selected as participants in the Armenia Tree Project (ATP) Summer Volunteer
Program, which was organized in close cooperation with the Birthright
Armenia program.

Soon after arriving in Armenia, the coalition of organizations and
individuals opposing the construction of a road through the Shikahogh Nature
Reserve was becoming very active, and the volunteers accompanied ATP staff
to a forum on the issue at the UNDP office in Yerevan. In support of the
grassroots effort in Armenia, the ATP office in Watertown initiated an
action alert that resulted in over 700 people sending letters to President
Robert Kocharian expressing their opposition to the proposed route.

Later in the month, Christian and Anais were able to attend the public forum
at American University of Armenia, where the Minister of Transportation
announced that the government decided upon an alternative route for the
roadway, and a number of local experts discussed the reserve and related
environmental issues in Armenia.

As the program became more hands-on, Christian and Anais assisted workers at
the ATP nursery in the village of Karin with an inventory of available
trees, extracting weeds, shaping irrigation channels, and sorting out cedar
cuttings, but both truly enjoyed the experience. `I got to taste the most
delicious mulberries,’ exclaimed Anais when she recounted the day’s work.

A gardener himself, Christian was very interested in the irrigation system
used at the nursery. `I hope to implement it in my own garden when I return
home,’ he declared. `I was amazed how the workers, in the absence of
pre-made materials, devised their own methods of building a greenhouse.’

Christian and Anais also assisted the teams of workers hired by ATP to
perform coppicing at the Botanical Garden site in Yerevan. The two used
hand-made acacia branch brooms to help clear the area of leaves and
branches, and were treated to a tour of the Academy of Sciences greenhouse
followed by a picnic lunch with the workers.

Because the ATP and Birthright programs strongly encourage homestays with
Armenian families, the volunteers were able to improve their Armenian
language skills and develop personal relationships with local people. These
experiences were also cultivated when Christian and Anais accompanied ATP
workers as they traveled to various planting sites throughout the country to
monitor the health of the trees, ensure that they are being properly
watered, and calculate amounts of fruit production.

The two traveled on monitoring excursions to ATP planting sites including
Khor Virap, Armavir Zoo, Sardarabad Monument, and Nor Kharpert Children’s
Home. `The orchards at the children’s home were absolutely gorgeous, and the
trees at Khor Virap were extremely healthy and well cared for,’ recounted
Christian after the visits. `Khor Virap was beautiful and it was wonderful
to see the trees greening such a sacred place.’

One of the highlights of the program for the volunteers was the extended
visit to the remote Getik River Valley, where ATP has established backyard
tree nursery micro-enterprises in Aygut and neighboring villages. During the
trip, Christian and Anais were able to meet a number of the nursery owners,
who are growing tree seedlings in their own backyard nursery plots. The
seedlings will be purchased by ATP for planting into the adjacent forests,
providing a source of income for the villagers and restoring the forests in
the valley.

For one week, Christian had the opportunity to travel to Ijevan, where he
assisted US Peace Corps volunteers who were field-testing ATP’s new
environmental education curriculum at an Eco-Camp for local children of ages
11-15. `ATP agronomist Genik Movsisyan showed the children a seed and they
had to guess which tree it came from. Most of the time, they were very
accurate, which was encouraging,’ emphasized Christian.

Christian worked with the Peace Corps volunteers on environmental education
lessons that included games and skits about resource management, discussions
about conserving electricity and water, and cutting down on trash and other
waste.

`Our skit featured an apple tree, a butterfly, a cow, a bird, and a small
boy that all become sick from the pollution. Finally, at the end of the
skit, a factory owner is convinced by a little girl that he should clean up
the trash and pollution,’ explained Christian. `When these skits were
presented to the parents of the children, many of the parents got tears in
their eyes and were so proud. It was evident that the children were
educating the older members of the community about the environment.’

`The work dynamic at ATP is one of the things I enjoyed very much during my
internship. I would like to thank all the people who have taken me along
with them in their daily work, and who made me a part of what ATP is
contributing to Armenia,’ stated Anais. `I was curious to see how an NGO in
Armenia truly works. In school we studied NGOs, but here I was able to
experience first hand what it means to be a part of an NGO in a developing
country. Seeing the logistics of this entire operation, its communication
with the office in the US, and the concrete difference it makes in people’s
lives was very exciting.’

PHOTO CAPTION: (L to R) Summer volunteers Anais Kadian of Ontario and
Christian Millian of Maine at the Armenia Tree Project (ATP) nursery in the
village of Karin with nursery worker Grigory Kolayan

Armenian expert backs “normalization” of ties with Turkey

Mediamax news agency
11 Aug 05

YEREVAN

Consistent normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations meets the
interests of the Armenian people, the head of the analytical centre
for globalization and regional cooperation, Stepan Grigoryan, said in
Yerevan today.

Addressing a seminar in Yerevan, Grigoryan said that the establishment
of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey without conditions
and the lifting of the border blockade by the Turkish authorities
would contribute to Armenia’s increased role in the region.

He said that the balance of forces in the South Caucasus would change
if the events were to develop this way and there would be no longer
need for the Russian military presence in Armenia.

Although the Turkish side has still been putting forward some
conditions, certain positive impulses towards the normalization of
relations with Armenia can be seen, Grigoryan said. The talks on
Turkey’s membership of the European Union due in early October could
play a decisive role in the process, he said.

BBC News
Aug 8 2005

34.stm

Profile: Benon Sevan

Benon Sevan headed the oil-for-food programme from 1997
As former director of the UN’s oil-for-food programme, Benon Sevan is
now caught up in the scandal surrounding the programme for Iraq.
The 67-year-old’s resignation on Sunday ahead of expected allegations
of corruption brings to an end four decades of service with the UN.

Posted to some of the world’s major hotspots, Mr Sevan, who was born
in Nicosia and is of Armenian ancestry, has had a string of key
positions.

In 1988, he was sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan as a special
adviser, monitoring the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan after
nearly a decade of conflict.

The charges are false and you, who have known me all these years,
should know they are false

Benon Sevan

Q&A: Oil-for-food

The following year, he was promoted to assistant secretary general
and the secretary general’s personal envoy to the region, later
heading the humanitarian effort there.

He had also worked extensively in the Middle East, before being
appointed head of the oil-for-food programme in 1997.

In 1985, he was sent on special mission to examine the fate of
prisoners on both sides in the Iran-Iraq war.

And from 1992, as well as his other duties, Mr Sevan served as the
special envoy for missing persons in the Middle East.

Danger postings

His first senior posting to a trouble spot came soon after he joined
the UN Secretariat in 1965.

Mr Sevan was caught up in the UN HQ bombing in Baghdad

>From the end of 1968 to the summer of 1969, he served as an observer
of the controversial final stage of the decolonisation of West Irian
(now Irian Jaya) and its incorporation into Indonesia.

He subsequently worked for two years on the UN development fund for
the region.

And Mr Sevan’s work as the oil-for-food boss also brought danger,
with the official halfway through a televised news conference at the
UN headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 when a truck bomb
devastated the building, killing 22 people.

The UN special envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was among the
dead.

Mr Sevan, speaking at a ceremony in Baghdad as Mr Mello’s body was
about to be flown out, quoted a US soldier who said the envoy, dying
under the rubble, had told him: “Don’t let them pull the mission
out.”

Oil-for-food accusations

The oil-for-food programme was wound up at the end of 2003, and Mr
Sevan retired in May 2004.

By that time, he had agreed to continue on the UN payroll on a salary
of $1 a year and co-operate with the investigation into corruption in
the programme.

In February, an interim report by Paul Volcker’s panel into the
scandal said Mr Sevan had tried to allocate oil sales from Iraq.

Payments of $160,000, which Mr Sevan said came from his aunt in
Cyprus, have been questioned. The bureaucrat has said the notion he
would risk his career over such a sum when he was administering
billions is incredible.

His resignation ends 40 years of a plethora of roles within the UN,
which also included appointments in the 1990s as deputy head of the
Department of Political Affairs, and assistant secretary general in
the Department of Administration and Management, in charge of the
restructuring of the UN.

Mr Sevan was educated at the Melkonian Institute in Cyprus, and then
studied history and philosophy at Columbia University in New York,
eventually doing a post-graduate degree at the school of
international and public affairs there.

He is married and has a daughter.

ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER ANDRANIK MARGARYAN HOSTS EGYPTIAN AMBASSADOR

ARKA News Agency
Aug 4 2005

YEREVAN, August 5. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan
received Egyptian Ambassador to Armenia Abla Mohammed Abd-Al Rahman
Osman on Thursday. According to Armenian Government’s Press Service,
Margaryan expressed his condolences on victims of terrorists act in
Sharm Al Sheikh noting that aggregate efforts are needed to combat
terrorism. Speaking on Armenian-Egyptian political relationship,
the Premier highly estimated cooperation between the two countries in
international organizations. At the same time, the PM found trade and
economic relations sluggish saying some steps are still being taken
in to spur them.

The Egyptian Ambassador expressed hope that Armenian Premier’s visit
to Egypt will give an impetus to economic cooperation development.

Issues related to the training program for specialists in healthcare,
culture and education areas were discussed at the meeting as well.

M.V. -0–