Armenian Central Bank cuts interest rates
Interfax
June 7 2004
Yerevan. (Interfax) – The Central Bank of Armenia cut its interest
rates from 17% to 16% on June 4, the bank’s press service told
Interfax.
The bank last changed its interest rate on May 6, 2004, when it
reduced it from 18% to 17% per year.
The REPO rate currently amounts to 6%, the rate on Central Bank
deposits – 1%, and the rate for Lombard credits – 20%.
PRESS OFFICE
ARMENIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA WESTERN DIOCESE
3325 North Glenoaks Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91504
Tel: (818) 558-7474
Fax: (818) 558-6333
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
COMMUNIQUÉ
PRIMATE PRESIDES OVER 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF ST. MARY ARMENIAN CHURCH IN YETTEM
On Sunday, May 30, 2004 His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian,
Primate of the Armenian Church of North America Western Diocese,
presided over the 100th Anniversary celebration of St. Mary Armenian
Church in Yettem. One hundred years ago, when the community of Yettem
was first established, services were held in the garden. In the same
tradition, on May 30, Morning Services began in the garden, after which
the Primate celebrated Divine Liturgy in the church. In his Sermon the
Primate addressed the faithful community of Yettem with the words,
“Today we are challenged with two celebrations.” Pentecost and the
100th Anniversary of St. Mary Armenian Church. The two celebrations
invite us to a new life, so that we may live a Christ-like life in
the community.^Ă”
In the evening a banquet was held in celebration of the 100th
Anniversary, which included remarks by the Parish Council Chairman
Mr. Hartune Neffian, as well as by Anahid Soxman and Ed Tellalian.
Following, Archpriest Fr. Vartan Kasparian, Pastor of St. Mary Armenian
Church, addressed the faithful in attendance and congratulated all
those who have served the church over the past years.
The closing remarks of the banquet were delivered by the Primate,
who inspired the faithful with his touching address. Below is the
message of His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian.
“Pentecost has been spiritually the most enriching moment in the life
of Christ’s apostles. After the Ascension as they gathered in the
upper room the Holy Spirit descended upon them and they were filled
with the Spirit. The Spirit transfigured the lives of the apostles
and led them to preach the Word of God and become witnesses of Christ.
As we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, we are all filled with the
power of the Spirit and strengthened with the vision to become the
new apostles of the new times. Today the Holy Spirit descends into
the depths of our souls. It is only through our prayerful life that
we are able to grasp and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in our
being. In my personal and pastoral life I have often been strengthened
by the Holy Spirit as a child, as a young man and as an ordinant.
For one hundred years our fathers have responded to the calling of
God as they have become recipients of the Holy Spirit and have become
apostles who spread the Word of God.
One hundred years with Christ marks a milestone in the life of St. Mary
Armenian Church. Today we are challenged to pave the road for yet
another 100 years of history in the life of the new generation. This
is the time to learn the past, render respect to our forefathers
for their vision and hardship, for their wisdom and perseverance,
for their love and dedication for the Armenian Apostolic Church.
We are here to enrich our lives with the same vision as our
forefathers. By being faithful to our forefathers, we fill our
God-given lives with Christian values, thus becoming a source of
inspiration for children and the youth. However, above all, we are
here to become the architects of the future church. We are challenged
to have the vision for a new church with the deep understanding that
the church can live only when we walk with Christ and become part of
his Crucifixion and Resurrection.
We ought to ask ourselves the question, “What is our mission? How
much do we give from our hearts to God and the community?” We ought
to respond to this question with the good faith in action, with
the courage to overcome the hardships of the days and times, and be
strengthened with the presence of God in our lives through prayer.
Let us thank God for bestowing in our lives abundant blessings. The
blessing of the life of our forefathers has bonded our lives with
Christ, enriched our spirits with the love of Christ and enabled us
to better understand that spiritual values are everlasting.
My message to you all today is to be the stewards of this church the
100th anniversary in another blessing bestowed upon all of you. In
this wonderful church we ought to see the presence of our forefathers
and hear the echo of their message.
Be the guardians of your Christian faith. Be engaged in making this
church the stronghold for the future generation. You have been blessed
with the legacy of 100 years; you are now blessed with the opportunity
to pass that legacy to the future generation. Participate; be engaged
in the life of this church. The church is the ground to test our faith
in Christ. The more we give, the more we strengthen our faith. The
more we strengthen our faith, the more we glorify our Lord.
Today, filled with spirit we give thanks to God Almighty for the
gift of the lives of the founders of St. Mary Armenian Church, the
pastors and the faithful members. Today, filled with the power of
the Holy Spirit we pray for the departed souls of the pastors and the
faithful members of this church who have lived a life similar to the
grain of wheat.
Today, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit we are transfigured
spiritually to continue our God-entrusted mission. Our mission is
to render respect to the founders of this church in action, in true
sacrifice.
Today, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit I extend to you
all my joy and true inspiration for the exemplary mission you have
accomplished under the able leadership of your beloved pastor Father
Vartan.
Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit let us pray for the
children and the youth, so that they also may attain the divine
wisdom and the love of Christ to hold firm their Christian faith,
and by remaining faithful to the faith of their forefathers, to
strengthen the foundation of the Armenian Church.”
DIVAN OF THE DIOCESE
June 2, 2004
Burbank, CA
CENN – JUNE 1, 20004 DAILY DIGEST – ARMENIA
Table of Contents:
1. The Death of Green Spaces
2. The Windfall from Cutting Trees
3. Russians Take Over Armenian Chemical Plant
4. 120 Million Drams Provided ILLION To Shirak Region for Work Against
Money Project
5. Germany to Allocate 6m Euro to Armenia for Reconstruction of Power
Stations
6. UN Millennium Development Goals to be implemented in Armenia
7. Medicine registration fees to be leveled
1. THE DEATH OF GREEN SPACES
Source: Transitions Online, Czech Republic, May 28 2004
In 1988, the large, leafy public square next to the Opera House in
Yerevan was renamed Freedom Square, in honor of the movement that
eventually led the country to independence from the Soviet Union in
1991.
With its benches, open spaces, and trees, the square has long been a
popular place for people to come and relax.
But situation is changing at alarming speed, however, as the square’s
green spaces are paved over to make room for cafes, restaurants, and
dance clubs. So many of these places have sprung up that in some corners
of the square it is impossible to tell where one establishment stops and
another begins – the outdoor tables and chairs all run together, and the
music from competing loudspeakers merges.
Every time a caf? is built, another bit of public space is lost. Here,
dozens of trees have been felled, benches have been ripped up, and grass
has been replaced by cement patios. It’s a phenomenon that can be seen
across the city. According to the Social Ecological Association, more
than 700 hectares of trees have been chopped down over the past decade
in Yerevan’s construction boom.
By law, it shouldn’t be happening this way. According to government
records, the building permits for most of the cafes violate the cities
own ecological and planning standards. The rules say that before
construction can begin on a new establishment, an owner must submit a
design that meets the approval of ecologists. According to 2002 data
from the Ecology Ministry, only one of the 12 cafes in Opera Square, the
Astral, followed that procedure.
Yerevan’s chief architect, Narek Sargisian, defends the onslaught of
development as a market response to public demand. “If so many cafes are
being built, it means that there is a demand for them,” he said.
Sargisian admits that the park’s planners didn’t anticipate the
displacement effect that the retail establishments would have on people
who are looking for a public green space to relax in. On the other hand,
he said, “the cafes are always full.”
But they’re not making much money, or so believes Srbuhi Harutiunian,
head of the Social Ecological Association. Harutiunian said the group
had undertaken an unofficial survey of the park’s caf? and restaurant
owners and came up with surprising results.
“We found that 40 percent of these establishments are unprofitable,”
Harutiunian said. “Among the rest, 40 percent don’t worry about profit
at all [and are more interested in the prestige of their location], and
the remaining 20 percent secure a profit only by not paying their
taxes.”
Yet the building continues. To understand why, it’s necessary to look at
who’s behind the chattering crowds, loud music, and frothy cappuccinos.
2. THE WINDFALL FROM CUTTING TREES
Ordinary Armenian businesspeople patronize the restaurants and cafes
around Opera Park, but they certainly don’t own them. So far, at least,
it seems that ownership is a privilege reserved for the political elite
– members of parliament, ministers, influential bureaucrats, and their
cronies. A loophole has enabled the concreting over of Yerevan’s green
spaces in the city’s law on allocation of land that has allowed the city
to chop up and sell small caf?-size plots that it owns. Any plot larger
than 20 square meters must be sold at public auction; anything less can
be quietly sold to any buyer, for any price. Former Mayor Robert
Nazarian, a man appointed by the president, was a champion of the
loophole.
Although he is no longer in office, Nazarian’s legacy of political
favoritism continues to deprive the city treasury of public funds and to
line the pockets of government officials who “bought” parcels of land. A
case in point: recently, according to reliable sources, a caf? in
Freedom Park that was owned by a senior government official sold for
$250,000. The official had spent $15,000 on the land on which the caf?
has constructed. His final take after including construction costs? More
than $220,000.
Some estimates of the total losses to the state treasury from corrupt
land sales near the Opera, where 15 companies have built cafes, exceed
$1 million.
Typically, the new owner begins to expand his cafe. After the event, the
Mayor’s Office “legalizes” the expansion of the caf? rather than taking
action against the owners – who are high-level public officials.
Whatever the procedure, the results can be gargantuan. In early 2002,
Nazarian “sold” a 20-square-meter plot of parkland to a company
(inappropriately) named Magnolia. The area of the plot has continued to
expand until today. According to the city’s Architecture and Planning
Department, the Magnolia Caf? occupies a staggering 2,615 square meters,
making it the largest establishment in the park. The businessman who
managed to take over so much land? Grigor “Bellagio Grish” Margarian, a
member of parliament from the Orinats Yerkir Party.
Nazarian has explicitly intervened in some developments. In January
2002, a company named Only Merriment requested permission to buy a plot
of land and build a video arcade next to Freedom Square. Permission was
granted, and approval from the city planning department awarded. One
month later, Only Merriment was allowed to acquire an additional
312-square-meter plot of land adjacent to the arcade site, to build an
outdoor caf?.
Then, one month after that, Nazarian abruptly amended both decisions and
issued blanket permission to Only Merriment to build a combined
arcade-caf?, although this hybrid had never been approved by the city’s
architecture department. Only Merriment was re-registered as Atlantic
Garden and, according to official documents, was authorized to occupy
332 square meters in a public tender. Today, it’s hard to tell how much
of the park Atlantic Garden occupies – much more than 332 square meters,
though, since, during construction the building was considerably
expanded by its owner. The owner? Anush Ghazaryan (better known as
Kamvolny Anush, or Pretty Anush), a man widely thought to enjoy the
protection of National Security Minister Karlos Petrosian.
Levon Khachatrian, a member of parliament, has also benefited from the
generosity of the Mayor’s Office. Just as with Only Merriment and
Magnolia, the major expansion of his caf? was within the law:
Khachatrian first received a 20-square-meter plot and then permission to
expand the plot. Khachatrian’s caf? today obscures part of the Opera
House from Sayat-Nova Street.
Asked recently if any establishment in Freedom Square of the area near
the Opera House was built according to city-approved plans, chief
architect Sargisian replied with one word: “No.”
KEEPING PUBLIC RECORDS PRIVATE
Official corruption in Armenia is a problem recognized by a host of
international organizations. The Office for Security and Cooperation n
Europe has been at the forefront of international efforts to bring
attention to the problem and help the government tackle it, in part with
the help of a joint OSCE-Armenian task force. President Robert Kocharian
has even appointed a special adviser to coordinate the fight.
So why hasn’t anything been done to stop the corrupt practices that are
doing obvious damage to public life in the capital? “Unfortunately, the
people with power in this city are above the law,” says biologist
Oganezova, voicing a common public sentiment. “But they don’t realize
that they, too, lose. We lose our city’s environment, literally and
figuratively.”
He may have final approval over all new construction and land sales in
the capital, but chief architect Sargisian says he can do nothing. “I
try to do everything in my power, but there are too many senior
officials in our government. They build these structures and consider
themselves to be above the law,” he said. But, as someone who has kept
his post through three mayors, Sargisian has become vulnerable to
accusations by some nongovernmental organizations that he allows the
situation to continue.
In November 2003, two months before he was dismissed from office, Mayor
Nazarian admitted to reporters that he had come under pressure by
government authorities to approve the land sales. Ninety-nine percent of
the cafes near the Opera House were illegal structures, he acknowledged,
adding, “We did not approve these designs.” But none of the structures
was torn down. In fact, since he made those remarks, new ones have gone
up.
According to City Deputy Kamo Areyan, current Mayor Yervand Zakharian
has given his staff a “strict order” to examine how building licenses
and land sales are approved.
Armenia’s Association of Investigative Journalists has tried several
times to gain access to mayoral decisions on land allocations during the
period from 1997 to 2003, without success. Zakharian has refused to
provide the group with this public information and has not given an
explanation for his refusal. President Kocharian has refused to
intervene. The matter is now with the courts.
3. RUSSIANS TAKE OVER ARMENIAN CHEMICAL PLANT
By Tigran Avetisian in Yerevan and IWPR in London (CRS No. 235,
27-May-04)
Armenia’s giant chemical factory, Nairit, the object of ownership
battles over the last few years, has acquired a new and little-known
Russian owner, in a sale welcomed by both government and workers.
The takeover of one of Armenia’s prize assets follows the acrimonious
departure last year of Ransat, the British-based company that tried to
turn around the factory, but ended up quarrelling with the Armenian
government.
A provisional deal was struck on April 16, 2004 by Armenia’s central
bank, which was in de facto control of the company, to sell Nairit to
the Volgaburmash Company, based in the Russian city of Samara.
The final details of the deal are still pending as currently an audit is
being carried out to determine the worth of the factory. Its results
will be announced in August.
Nairit produces chloroprene rubber. In Soviet times it had a monopoly
and was the only factory in the USSR making the product. It is still one
of only five factories around the world turning out the synthetic rubber
and has customers in 20 countries. Anil Kumar, general director of
former owner Ransat, told IWPR last year that if the plant operated
well, it would be worth 50 million US dollars.”
Ransat pulled out last May after a row over who was responsible for the
factory’s energy debts. Kumar said he had “spent ten million dollars
before a single ton of rubber was produced” and blamed the Armenian
government for not supporting his plans to turn around the company. (See
“Armenian Chemical Deal Ends in Tears, CRS 177, May 1 2003
)
Kumar said Ransat had promised to invest 25 million US dollars in the
factory over a five-year period and progressively settle its debts,
estimated variously at between 30 and 35 million dollars.
After Ransat pulled out of Armenia, the factory’s shares passed to
Haykapbank and, as the bank did not have enough assets and was therefore
taken under administration by the central bank, effectively placing it
under Armenian government control.
The Armenian government then handed management of Nairit to the Russian
bank Runabank, one of whose major shareholders is the Volgaburmash
holding company. Volgaburmash is owned by Samara businessman Andrei
Ishchuk who is also a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the
Federation Council.
The holding company has several factories in Ukraine and Russia that
produce drilling equipment and several factories producing heating
equipment, 11 construction companies and two banks. The Russian news
agency Interfax reported that Volgaburmash had an annual turnover of 200
million dollars.
However as Volgaburmash has not previously dealt in chemicals, questions
are being asked about how and why it acquired Nairit.
“The Yerevan chemical factory is not a prestige project for
Volgaburmash,” Gleb Stolyarov, Samara correspondent of the Russian
business newspaper Vedomosti told IWPR.
Volgaburmash declined to answer IWPR’s questions, but Stolyarov pointed
out that the company’s vice-president Yury Trakhtenberg had told a press
conference that, “the personal connections of the president of the
holding, Andrei Ishchuk, played a role.”
The acquisition of Nairit follows a pattern where major plants in
Armenia have been acquired by Russian companies, while western companies
have experienced significant difficulties in the Armenian market. The
Razdan hydroelectric power station and the Metsamor nuclear power
station are managed by Russian companies.
The Armenian government is enthusiastic about Nairit’s new owner. Karen
Chshmaritian, minister of trade and economic development said that,
“Four or five years ago, no one believed that Nairit would ever be
privatized – first of all, because of its size, and secondly because of
all the problems that had accumulated. But today that has become a
reality.”
Political analyst Aghasi Enokian commented that a big business like
Nairit could not succeed in Armenia without support from top levels of
governmen.
Whatever the politics of the deal are, there is general agreement that
Nairit is now undergoing a revival.
Mikhail Zavetyayev, who represents Volgaburmash, said that 3.5 million
dollars had already been invested in the factory over the past ten
months and that it was already bringing in a profit.
Ruben Saghatelian, the new executive director of the factory, told IWPR
that Nairit was now working at full capacity and that “we have no more
problems with putting out the product”.
Chshmaritian said that thanks to its new owner Nairit had not acquired
any new debts over the past ten months, that the almost 2,000 workers on
the payroll were receiving their wages regularly and that 350,000
dollars worth of back wages had been paid out. Factory director
Saghatelian said that they had worked out a schedule for paying off
debts.
The workers are also pleased with the new management. “We are happy that
finally we’ve started to receive our salaries on time,” Hrachik
Tadevosian, chairman of the trade union representing the factory’s
workers, told IWPR.
But he added, “We are still owed a lot of money. Not only from the
Ransat period but from much earlier.”
“I have no interest at all who owns Nairit or where our rubber gets
sold,” said Sarkis, a 43-year-old worker at the factory.”I am content
now, thank God. “If only they could pay us the money we’re owed from
before.”
Tigran Jrbashian, an economic analyst, said that the situation at Nairit
was now “very promising”. But he said that a lot of the previous
problems plaguing the factory remained. “The problem of transporting the
product still remains very serious and that directly puts up costs.”
Tigran Avetisian is a journalist for Aravot newspaper in Yerevan.
4. 120 MILLION DRAMS PROVIDED TO SHIRAK REGION FOR WORK AGAINST MONEY
PROJECT
ArmenPress, May 27, 2004
About 25 percent of the 500 million drams provided by the Armenian
government for “Work Against Money” project is given to Shirak taking
into consideration the level of unemployment in the region and the
previous effectiveness of the project.
According to the data provided by regional employment center from the
total 120 million provided to the region 82 million is given to Akhurian
and Gyumri, 20 million to Artik and its neighboring territories, 10
million to Maralik city and its neighboring communities and 4 million
each for Amasia and Maralik communities.
As different from the previous years, this year instead of cleaning the
streets people will renovate green zones and forest areas. At the same
time reconstruction of secondary and cultural establishment and streets
will be conducted.
Shortly registration of citizens eager to participate will start. Last
year such an initiation provided work to 1500 unemployed.
5. GERMANY TO ALLOCATE 6M EURO TO ARMENIA FOR RECONSTRUCTION OF POWER
STATIONS
Source: Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan, May 26, 2004
[Presenter] As a result of the two-day (25-26 May) working session of
the Armenian-German financial and technical cooperation it was confirmed
that Germany would allocate Armenia a grant of 6m euros in July. This
financial aid will be channelled to the reconstruction of small
hydroelectric power stations. During the 11 months of the
Armenian-German cooperation programmes the Germans assisted Armenia with
more than 150m euros.
[Correspondent over video of meeting] A protocol adopted during the
two-day inter-parliamentary session of the Armenian-German financial and
technical cooperation, confirmed and signed over some champagne, was
headed by Armenian Finance and Economy Minister Vardan Khachatryan and
the head of Transcaucasus and Middle Asia Department of Germany Ministry
of Economic Cooperation and Development, Wolfgang Armbruster.
[Wolfgang Armbruster, captioned, in Germany with Armenian voice over]
The Armenian government within the framework of the economic reforms
achieves our cooperation. These are water supply, reconstruction of
small hydroelectric power stations, assistance to the communities,
health programmes, etc.
[Correspondent] The finance and economy minister said that all the
programmes have been discussed one by one. There is a problem in the
water supply system which is being resolved in Armavir town and also 10
communities. Noragung company is implementing the programme.
Similar programmes will be implemented in Lori and Shirak Regions. Among
the republic’s regions, Armavir is the first which will have a 24-hour
quality water supply system. Lori and Shirak will follow after Armavir
this year.
An additional programme on the reconstruction of small hydroelectric
power stations will be confirmed in Bonn in July.
The next interparliamentary negotiations will be held in Bonn, in the
spring of 2005.
Armenian president and ecology minister discuss Lake Sevan, environment
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan 26 May 04 [Presenter] President
Robert Kocharyan held a working meeting today with Ecology Minister
Vardan Ayvazyan where they discussed protection of Lake Sevan, forests
and other environmental issues. The ecology minister assured the head of
state that the efforts directed to the restoration of the green areas
all over the republic would be felt this year. [Correspondent] During
the discussion of the environmental issues with the president, Ecology
Minister Vardan Ayvazyan outlined the issue of Lake Sevan. Already in
1998, President Robert Kocharyan urged to stop the use of Lake Sevan’s
water for energetic aims. As a result of some years’ works, the water
level in Lake Sevan has risen by 98cm, which means that now the lake
contains 1.18bn cu.m. more water. The minister announced that now they
are concerned about the rising water level in Sevan. The Ecology
Ministry is implementing the programmes on protection of the ecosystem
of Lake Sevan and development of the surrounding environment, with the
assistance of the international organizations. [Armenian Ecology
Minister, Vardan Ayvazyan, captioned] We discussed the issues connected
with the protection of the ecological system of Lake Sevan, and
especially the Ecology Ministry, which is implementing an 8m-dollar
programme in the area of Lake Sevan. We are trying to implement various
programmes in the villages too, starting with protection and restoration
of the green areas and development and implementation of small
businesses. [Correspondent over video of Lake Sevan] The president
focused attention on the issues of building a National Park around Lake
Sevan. The forests’ issues are also always in the president’s centre of
attention. The minister assured him that cultivation of 360,000 hectare
of forests in Gegargunik and Tavush Regions will yield a positive
result. The president also stressed the importance of adopting a law on
ecology, which according to the ecology minister it is already ready.
The government will submit it to parliament for discussion soon.
6. UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN ARMENIA
Source: Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan, 26 May 2004
[Presenter] According to the UN experts’ assessments, the successes
achieved in Armenia by the implementation of the UN Millennium
Development Goals are impressive. The regional representative of the UN
Millennium Development Goals, Yeji Osiatynski noted that apart from the
successes that have been achieved, there are a lot of works to be done
in education, health care and other spheres. Osiatynski said that if we
are speaking about the reduction of poverty it is necessary to increase
the level of higher education. When people are educated it is easier for
them to find a job, and more jobs means less poor people.
[Correspondent] Armenia has joined the UN new programme four years ago,
which is called the Millennium Development Goals, with 190 other
countries. The programme encompasses the following eight areas of human
challenge.
These are: To reduce poverty and starvation, to achieve primary
education, gender equality, to reduce child mortality, maternal health,
to struggle against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, to ensure
environmental protection and to create a global partnership for
development.
Among these eight goals, the first, poverty reduction is the most
important for Armenia. The regional representative of the UN Millennium
Development Goals, Yeji Osiatynski noted that the time has come when the
economic growth registered in Armenia will be directed to the reduction
of poverty.
[Yeji Osiatynski, captioned in his office, in English with Armenian
voice over] It is not important that poverty will be reduced in 2005,
2010 or 2015. It is a necessary political and social aim and we are
moving forward in this direction. The democratic system, a free economy
and creative and talented people will help you in this work.
[Correspondent] The Polish official who visited Armenia for the first
time, who was finance minister in his home country, considers that the
time is right to clear the county of corruption and to reduce the number
of poor people in the country. Osiatynski thinks that the young hold
great potential for the newly developing countries and also for Armenia.
The future of the country is in their hands. Armenian Prime Minister
Andranik Markaryan also agreed with Osiatynski’s opinion.
[Yeji Osiatynski] Today during the meeting with the prime minister I
understood that there is a readiness and intention to implement the
Millennium Development Goals for the sake of the country and their
people. With all your efforts you must build a democratic state, have a
free economy and you will succeed.
[Correspondent] The representatives of the government and political
organizations discussed the UN Millennium Development Goals.
7. MEDICINE REGISTRATION FEES TO BE LEVELED
Source: ArmenPress, May 26,2 004
According to a health ministry-affiliated agency for medications and
medical technologies, foreign pharmaceutical companies seeking
registration of their products in Armenia will pay as much fee for
expert examination of their medicines as local companies. Until now
overseas companies have paid $1,500 for conducting expert examination of
their medicines and local companies-$400. The lower price for domestic
companies was to help boost home pharmaceutical production.
Under the new scheme, both local and foreign companies, will have to pay
$1,200. Leveling of fees is one of the requirements Armenia assumed when
joining the World Trade Organization. According to the agency, around
4,000 medicines are registered in Armenia, of which 7.4 percent are
domestically produced. Armenia brings medicines mainly from US, Great
Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary and CIS countries.
Two of 11 Armenian companies, licensed to manufacture medicines,
Pharmatech and Arpimed have brought their products in compliance with
GMP requirements.
—
*******************************************
CENN INFO
Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN)
Tel: ++995 32 92 39 46
Fax: ++995 32 92 39 47
E-mail: [email protected]
URL:
WEB SITE DEVOTED TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN OTTOMAN TURKEY OPENED IN
GERMANY
PanArmenian News
May 31 2004
BERLIN, 31.05.04. A web site devoted to the Armenian Genocide in
Ottoman Turkey in early last century has opened in Germany. In
the words of the creators of the site – leaders of the Recognition
Germany-based committee– the main goal of the project is to propagate
and achieve recognition of the fact of the Armenian Genocide by
Bundestag (the Parliament). The site is in German yet, however
English and Armenian versions will appear soon. The Genocide history,
documents and photographs of 1890-1922 are presented at the site.
Here one can find latest news on the process of world recognition of
the Armenian Genocide, specifically in Germany.
The Daily Star, Bangladesh
May 22 2004
Talking books
Agha Shahid Ali
Yasmeen Murshed
The transience of human life is much with me these days and I find
myself recalling lost friends and lost opportunities with increasing
nostalgia. I would have loved hearing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in person
because his CDs are a poor substitute for the drama of the real life
version, but it was not to be, and I would have greatly enjoyed
meeting the talented poet, Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001) whose
premature death has saddened his many admirers and a poetry lovers
throughout the world. It has deprived South Asia of a blazing talent
from taking its rightful place among contemporary English poets.
Born in New Delhi, brought up in Kashmir and later to become an
American, Ali taught at a number of prestigious institutions in
America including the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His poetry
collections include The Half-Inch Himalayas (Pub: Wesleyan University
Press 1987); A Nostalgist’s Map Of America (pub: Norton 1992); The
Country Without A Post Office (pub: Norton 1997); and Rooms Are Never
Finished (pub: Norton 2001) which was a finalist for the National
Book Award in the US in 2001. He was a ghazal enthusiast and
translated Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poems in The Rebel’s Silhouette —
Selected Poems (pub: University of Massachusetts Press 1991). He
cajoled and encouraged a wide range of well known modern poets into
contributing to a poetry anthology entitled Ravishing Disunities —
Real Ghazals In English (pub: Wesleyan University Press 2000) which
he edited.
I reread The Country Without a Post Office recently and it reminded
me what a strong and vibrant poet Ali was. These poems are a poignant
and nostalgic evocation of his lost homeland particularly in the
tragic era of events when the troubles began in Kashmir. A haunting
volume it establishes this Kashmiri-American poet as a very important
poetic contributor to the body of work in English by South Asians.
In this book he focuses on the tragedy of his homeland which has been
devastated by the internal strife wrought on the land with “mass
rapes in the villages/towns left in cinders”. Ali finds that
contemporary history has forced him to return not as a tourist as he
would have liked, but as a witness to the savagery visited upon
Kashmir since the 1990 uprising against Indian rule. Amid rain and
fire and ruin, in a land of “doomed addresses”, Ali evokes the
tragedy of his birthplace. These are stunning poems, intensely
musical steeped in history, myth, and politics all merging into Ali’s
truest mode, that of longing. The Hindu-Muslim conflict reminds Ali
of similar genocidal wars in Bosnia and Armenia but in Kashmir the
blood of victims falls like “rubies on Himalayan snow” while “guns
shoot stars into the sky”. With the population decimated and the Post
Office destroyed, Ali’s poems become “cries like dead letters,” and
the poet becomes “keeper of the minaret.”
Ali’s strong affinity for Urdu is evident in his language which
eerily brings the cadences and drama of South Asia into English
poetry and in a sense each poem translates across the boundaries of
continents to result in a fusion of cultures. He seems to have a very
deep understanding of “words behind the words” as will be seen from
this short poem entitled “Stationery”.
The moon did not become the sun.
It just fell on the desert
in great sheets, reams
of silver handmade by you.
The night is your cottage industry now,
The day is your brisk emporium.
The world is full of paper.
Write to me.
Ali was imbued with the romance of Urdu poetry and he brings to his
work an inventive formalness infused with passion and grief. Kashmiri
myth and culture imbue these poems dramatising the importance of
eastern imagery and the Ghazal while Ali’s vast readings in, and
knowledge of, English Literature shines through in his allusions
which range from Tacitus through to Eliot.
After his death his friend Rukun Advani wrote of him, “In the early
1970s, Agha Shahid Ali already had a high reputation as an Indian
‘University Wit’. He was known in poetry coteries as a connoisseur of
verse, a fund of learning on T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound (he went on to
write a fine Ph. D. on ‘T. S. Eliot as Editor’), a ghazal enthusiast,
an inspiring lecturer of English, a bird of the most dazzling feather
who everyone in our university wanted to look at and hear. His
reputation had spilled out of Hindu College, where he didn’t so much
teach as captivate and infect his students with his knowledge of
Hindustani music, Urdu verse, and the Modernist movement in
Anglo-American poetry. He was much in demand in the other colleges,
where he would invariably be encored and asked to read some of his
own verse.
This he always did with consummate, engaging immodesty. We are all
narcissists in some way, but Shahid had perfected the art of
narcissism. He displayed it unashamedly and was universally loved for
the abandon with which he could be so unabashedly and coyly full of
himself. He was just so disconcertingly free of pretence in this
respect, so entirely unique just for this reason. As he said of
himself once, ‘Sweetheart, I’m successful in the US of A only because
I’ve raised self-promotion to the level of art.’
But he deserved every accolade he got. He had one foot in the realm
of mushairas and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the other in the world of Western
versification and translation activity. His own achievement was to
blend the two. Eliotic blank verse was, in the main, not for him
because he thought it an easy way out for poets. His own evolution as
a poet is marked by his increased interest in mastering the most
complex verse forms of Europe, such as the ‘canzone’ and the
‘sestina’, and deploying them as moulds for sub-continental ideas,
Kashmiri themes, Urdu sentiment. No one did this as successfully as
Shahid. Literary criticism does not yet possess a proper vocabulary
to describe the ways in which he pushed English poetry in new
directions.”
My own favourite is his “The Wolf’s Postscript to Little Red Riding
Hood”, from A Walk Through The Yellow Pages (pub: Sun Gemini 1987). I
have included it in its entirety because I find it one of the most
engaging and witty pieces of writing of recent times.
“First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity, for kindergarten teachers and clear moral:
Little girls shouldn’t wander off in search of strange flowers
And they mustn’t speak to strangers.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn’t I have gobbled her up right there in the jungle?
Why didn’t I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I a forest-dweller, didn’t know of the cottage
under the three oak trees and the old woman who lived
there all alone? As if I couldn’t have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf, now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester though you’ll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman: Was I sleeping while he snipped my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down, simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones cutting through my belly, at the garbage
spilling out with a perfect sense of timing, just when the tale
should have come to an end.”
Yasmeen Murshed is a full-time bookworm and a part-time educationist
. She is also the founder of Scholastica School.
Montreal Gazette, Canada
May 22 2004
Fired broker unrepentant
Insists he was trying to help his clients
Paul Delean
The Gazette
Pic: Money manager Harry Migirdic could be barred for life.
CREDIT: ALLEN McINNIS, THE GAZETTE
Disgraced investment manager Harutyun Migirdicoglu, who a lawyer for
the Investment Dealers Association of Canada said yesterday should be
barred for life for a long list of misdeeds, was a big wheel in
Montreal’s Armenian community, from which he drew many of his
clients.
“To me, he was like God. He lived in a big house, drove a Mercedes. I
was proud to see an Armenian fellow so successful in English
society,” said Richard Papazian, 43, whose late mother was one of his
clients – and he alleges in his suit, one of Migirdicoglu’s victims.
The former CIBC World Markets vice-president, more commonly known as
Harry Migirdic, was a registered investment representative in Quebec
for more than two decades. In 1986, he was made a vice-president at
Merrill Lynch, and in 1990 transferred to the downtown branch of Wood
Gundy – now CIBC.
At both firms, he was the subject of several warnings and
disciplinary measures, including a $30,000 fine at CIBC for knowingly
accepting a power-of-attorney he knew had not been signed by the
owner of an account, according to evidence presented yesterday to a
three-member disciplinary panel of the IDA.
Terminated by CIBC in April 2001, Migirdic has not worked since for
any firm belonging to the Investment Dealers’ Association.
And he won’t again, if the recommendation of lawyer Caroline
Champagne to the panel is accepted.
The panel is expected to make its decision in a couple of weeks.
Migirdic, who swung his briefcase at a Gazette photographer as he
entered the IDA offices yesterday, did not comment on Champagne’s
proposal. But he did say he meant no harm to clients. The abrupt fall
of Wall St. and stocks like Nortel triggered what happened, he said.
The infractions were committed “to cover another account,” he told
the panel. “There was no intent to harm any one client, only to help
another client who was in trouble. I couldn’t help any of my clients
at the end. Everybody suffered.”
The IDA listed 24 rule transgressions during Migirdic’s time as a
CIBC representative. At a disciplinary hearing in March, Migirdic
didn’t deny the allegations, but did not plead guilty. He said all
transactions were done with the clients’ consent, since they’d given
him the mandate to make their money grow. Only when markets went bad
did they complain about his management, he said.
The IDA, however, found him guilty on all counts.
Its preliminary report said more than 20 clients, many of them
elderly, had complained to CIBC about his conduct
In one case, Migirdic had a trading account for a holding company
guaranteeing a trading account opened in the name of his 73-year-old
uncle in Turkey. The guarantee eventually led to the extraction of
more than $691,000 from the company account, cleaning out the owners.
In another case, Migirdic made about 1,400 trades over a seven-year
period in the account of an investor who had listed his risk
tolerance as low. The portfolio shrank by more than 50 per cent
between December 1999 and June 2000, dropping to $471,519 from $1
million.
In yet another case, Migirdic had two longtime clients sign a
document “under the false pretense that it was required for account
maintenance,” the IDA said.
The signatures actually guaranteed the account of someone unrelated
whose trading losses they ended up covering to the tune of $356,824.
Iran, Armenia gain “stategic importance” from pipeline – Armenian minister
Mediamax news agency, Yerevan
17 May 04
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said in Yerevan today [17
May] that “the construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline will
seriously change the situation in the region”.
The Armenian foreign minister called the signing of the document on the
construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline “a most important event”.
Vardan Oskanyan expressed the opinion that after the construction
of the gas pipeline, Iran and Armenia “will acquire new strategic
importance in the region”.
Hearts of Darkness
By Richard Broderick
Minnesota Magazine (May-June issue)
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
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Sabina Zimering is not what most would consider a commanding presence.
These days, the life of the white-haired, soft-spoken retiree quietly
revolves around her children and grandchildren.
But there is more to Zimering than meets the eye. Milan Kundera once
said that the history of the modern world is the story of the struggle
of memory against forgetting. Zimering, a Polish Jew, is both witness
to that struggle and living proof that, at least some of the time,
memory triumphs.
This spring, the Great American History Theatre produced the world
premiere of Hiding in the Open, an adaptation of Zimering’s memoir of
the same name. Opening to rapturous praise from critics and audiences
alike, the script tells the improbable story of how Zimering and her
younger sister managed to escape the Holocaust by posing as Catholics—a
feat made possible by the fact that, in prewar
Poland, all public school students were required to study Catholicism.
Escaping from the ghetto in their hometown of Piotrkow the very night
the Nazis moved in to deport all the Jews to the death camps, Zimering
and her sister made their way to Germany itself, where they managed to
survive as “volunteer” laborers right in the heart of Hitler’s Reich.
While her book and the play adapted from it tell her story through
print and performance, Zimering travels to schools, community centers,
colleges, retirement homes, and elsewhere, relating her harrowing
tale of deception and survival. Speaking recently to gatherings at an
alternative high school at Dakota Technical College and at Hill-Murray
High School, she received what one observer describes as “overwhelming
response” with “awestruck” students glued to their seats and school
officials thrilled to see their charges so raptly attentive. In
response to her appearance, the principal at the alternative high
school has gone so far as to arrange a field trip next fall to
Washington, D.C., which will include a visit to the Holocaust Museum.
“This is a completely new world for me, but very rewarding,” says
Zimering, who, after emigrating to the United States, spent much of her
career as an ophthalmologist working with student health services at
the University. She confesses that she was unable to talk about her
experiences to anyone for a long time after the war ended—although
she survived, other family members and virtually everyone she’d known
growing up did not. Now, though, she realizes that what she has to
say is not rewarding only for her.
“To high school students, the history of 50 or 60 years ago is not
much different from 600 years ago,” she says. “But when a survivor
comes and tells their story, it’s completely different. It makes an
impact for a person to come that they can see and talk to.”
Zimering’s visits to high schools and college classrooms are arranged
through the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies (CHGS), a cross-disciplinary unit with a unique approach that
weaves together scholarship, community outreach, and art to explore
the darkest reaches of human experiences. This blend of scholarship,
storytelling, and art reflects the vision of the center’s director,
Stephen Feinstein, who came to the University from the University
of Wisconsin-River Falls, where he’d been the chair of the history
department.
Founded in 1997 with money from an anonymous donor, CHGS offers a
wide-ranging curriculum of classes on the Holocaust as well as the
genocides in Turkey, East Asia, Central Africa, the former Yugoslavia,
and elsewhere. But its reach is much broader than that—amazingly so,
given the center’s brief history. It also sponsors major art exhibits,
such as “Coexistence,” a traveling exhibition of poster art initiated
by Jerusalem’s Museum on the Seam (see page 34); brings Holocaust
survivors like Zimering to the community (her memoir was also
the subject of a class taught at the CHGS); conducts conferences;
presents guest speakers like Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power,
author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide; and
offers training and curriculum materials for use in high schools and
middle schools. One of the center’s new offerings is six “teaching
trunks” containing books, videotapes, posters, and curriculum guides
loaned by the center to participating schools.
*
Instead of establishing a separate department, the University
decided to organize its new program as a center located within the
History Department, an arrangement that, Feinstein explains, avoids
the possibility of overspecialization. Although small—the center’s
faculty consists of Feinstein and a handful of adjunct professors—the
goal of the center is, he says, “to think out of the box about how
we create programs that are of interest to scholars and the public,
to engage in research, and to gain prominence for the University by
having an active public dimension in this area.”
>>From the beginning, the center has drawn extensively from the
Twin Cities’ unusually large number of Holocaust survivors—about
150 individuals in all when the center opened its doors seven years
ago. But its growing renown in the field of Holocaust and genocide
studies owes a lot to Feinstein’s enthusiasm for scholarship that
examines and compares characteristics common to all episodes of
genocide (to some, the Holocaust is seen as a unique event, standing
outside of history) and his determination to weave the arts—literary,
visual, and cinematic—into the mix of offerings.
“You could have a center like this without including art, but
it wouldn’t be complete,” argues Feinstein, who has a background
in art history and has studied the underground art of the Soviet
Union. “There are people out there who think only straight history
is worth studying—no literature or other works of imagination. There
are some who even think that survivor testimony is of no value.”
But art, he observes, adds multiple dimensions critical to coming to
grips, if that is possible, with the worst of human behavior. Among
the millions killed by the Nazis—as well as the millions killed by the
Turks, the Khmer Rouge, and the Hutu—were musicians and artists and
writers and filmmakers as well as “ordinary” people. Just as important,
art—even mediocre art—has the power to engage a much wider audience
than scholarship ever could. “Schindler’s List is not the best movie
about the Holocaust, but it got the message out to millions of people,”
Feinstein says. “More than I could possibly reach.”
“The fact that the center is initiating bringing the ‘Coexistence’
exhibit to the Twin Cities is a testimony to what Steve’s perspective
enables him to add to this community,” says Rabbi Joseph Edelheit, the
director of St. Cloud State’s court-mandated Jewish studies program and
creator of the CHGS’s class in post-Holocaust theology. “My experience
with other institutions that offer Holocaust studies makes it clear to
me that this center is unique. Steve’s an internationally recognized
art historian. He’s not bringing untested theories to his role. His
maturity allows him to provide the center with seasoned leadership.”
Like other faculty associated with the center, Edelheit was drawn to
CHGS through his personal connections to Feinstein but has remained
involved with the center because of Feinstein’s demonstrated
willingness to think “outside the box.” When Feinstein invited
Edelheit to teach at the center, Edelheit responded that the only
class he wanted to teach would deal with theology.
“I asked, ‘Is that a problem at a public university?'” Edelheit
recalls. Feinstein assured him it was not, so Edelheit, who counts
27 members of his extended family lost to Hitler’s diabolism and has
the distinction of having been the first rabbi to earn a doctorate
in Christian theology, created a course in post-Holocaust theology,
which includes the works of both Christian and Jewish thinkers.
“I go into this class not with merely my academic credentials,
but more passionately my rabbinical credentials and my desire to
create interfaith dialogue,” Edelheit says. “My goal is to model the
commitment to dialogue.”
The center’s willingness to break new ground is also what brought
Patricia Baer, a professor of English at Gustavus Adolphus in
St. Peter, Minnesota, to the University in 2001 to teach a course
titled “Women in the Holocaust: Gender, Memory, Representation.”
As with other instructors working with the center, Baer has found
that her class draws a broad variety of students, attracting both
undergraduate and graduate students from Jewish studies and women’s
studies, but also history, education, nursing, political science,
Spanish, and art, as well as members of the broader community—including
a student who works with a shelter for battered women. Baer’s classes
have included both Christians and Jews. What’s more, each time she’s
taught the course, Baer reports, she’s also had students from Germany
enrolled.
“That’s made for an interesting dimension to our discussions,”
she says. “For Jewish students, I think many times they have had a
member of their family who is a survivor or know of family members who
died and now have a particular interest in how these events affected
women. International students often want to know how Americans look
at this event and how that view differs from what they are taught in
a place like Germany.
“Stephen is really quite extraordinary in his foresight,” she says. “At
the time I first offered this course, there were only five or six
similar courses in the United States. Holocaust studies have been slow
to embrace the insights of feminist studies. There are complicated
reasons for that, like the hegemony male historians have had in the
field who often feel that a feminist approach trivializes the issue.”
Some scholars and survivors, she says, also feel that a focus on gender
issues threatens to minimize “the racial basis for the Holocaust.”
Meanwhile, for Taner Akcam, a visiting history professor who teaches
courses on the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915 and the
rise of nationalism in the Middle East, it is precisely the center’s
willingness to compare acts of genocide that constitutes one of its
principal values.
“This is something that has been lacking,” says Akcam, an ethnic Turk
who was the subject of a recent New York Times article detailing the
outrage his work on the Armenian genocide has elicited from the Turkish
government, which continues to deny any such event took place. “For the
most part each genocide scholar deals with his or her own specialty.
This helps bring us out of the shadows.”
*
The term crimes against humanity first appeared only in 1915 in
response to the Turkish killing of Armenians and the then-novel German
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, and the word genocide, which
specifically refers to the intentional mass killing of a particular
people or ethnic group, was not coined until 1943 (by Rafael Lemkin,
a Polish Jewish lawyer). But genocide, along with the invention
of weapons of mass destruction, could be considered the signature
experience of the past 100 years of human history.
But why should this be so? What is it about global conditions that
made the 20th, and now, it seems all but certain, the 21st century,
an epoch so rife with a lust for extermination?
Not surprisingly, there aren’t any easy answers. But if one examines
the mass killings of the recent past, as the scholars and students
at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies do, certain patterns
begin to appear, not so much in the modus operandi of the killings—gas
chambers in the Reich, machetes in Rwanda—but in the ethnic, national,
and international circumstances that militate in favor of genocide. The
conclusions that can be drawn from this study are not hopeful: The same
toxic mix of forces that triggered the murder of more than a million
Armenians nearly a century ago are still at large in the global arena.
“In order to understand the killing of the Armenians, you have to
understand the emergence of the different nations within the context
of the demise of the Ottoman Empire,” explains Akcam. “The idea of
the nation state is a very homogenous group living within a defined
territory. In a polyglot empire like the Ottoman Empire, where 10
different ethnic groups might be living together in the same village,
the rise of nationalism created hostility and the basis of ethnic
cleansing.”
Similar forces were at work, Akcam points out, in the former
Yugoslavian Republic when it was disintegrating during the period
following Tito’s death, in the Kashmir and large swaths of Africa
and East Asia as well, all but ensuring future outbreaks of genocide.
The rise of Hitler, it should be added, took place against a backdrop
of what Feinstein calls “a template” of the collapsing empire/rising
nationalism scenario described by his colleague Akcam. Fueling the
downward spiral into genocide was a mix of pseudo-scientific theories
about “race” and a fundamental misapprehension of Darwin’s survival
of the fittest—and its deadly misapplication to human beings.
The fact that similar forces, from the post-colonial hangover
that continues to afflict much of the Middle East to the rise of
fundamentalism as a 21st-century version of extreme nationalistic
or racial ideologies, are still at work in the world today makes
the work of the center all that more relevant—and urgent. Memory’s
struggle against forgetting goes on.
“We need to be talking about how to prevent genocide from happening
in the future,” says Feinstein. “We need to create an early warning
system to predict the outbreak of these kinds of events that doesn’t
trample on national sovereignty.
“That’s one issue,” he continues. “The other issue is that we must
study these events as a facet of humanity on the presumption that,
by doing so, we can learn something from it.” n
Richard Broderick is a St. Paul freelance writer.
PRAVDA/ RIA Novosti, Russia
May 14 2004
Putin, Kocharyan to discuss Russo-Armenian economic cooperation
11:16 2004-05-14
Russian President Vladimir Putin is to meet with Armenian President
Robert Kocharyan today in Moscow for the fifth time in the last 12
months.
Plans are in place to discuss ways of enhancing economic ties,
fuel-and-energy interaction, as well as that in the field of
transport, investment, the real economy and the financial sphere, a
high-ranking Kremlin source told RIA Novosti.
Trade-and-economic interaction will be perceived as a top-priority
issue, RIA Novosti’s interlocutor added, reminding that the bilateral
trade turnover had soared by 34.5% last year.
According to the Kremlin source, Mr. Putin and Mr. Kocharyan will
devote special attention to facilitating education, culture and
humanitarian cooperation, which is now becoming more active.
Moreover, both leaders will exchange opinions on all highly important
international and regional issues, the interlocutor went on to say,
adding that both sides were voicing either similar or coinciding
positions on all principled issues.
Armenian premier says Ukraine may join gas pipeline project
Era, Kiev
11 May 04
Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan is paying a visit to
Ukraine. He met his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yanukovych,
today. In particular, the parties noted that both countries had
tremendous potential for developing bilateral trade.
The Armenian prime minister also stated that Ukraine could take
part in bidding for the construction of a gas pipeline to Iran. He
noted, however, that a technical and economic feasibility study of
the project was still being prepared, so details of the possible
participation of Ukrainian companies in building the pipeline had
not been discussed yet.