Author: Tambiyan Samvel

WHAT LIMIT OF ELECTION FRAUD WILL UNITED STATES AND FRANCE DRAW?
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir
Oct 23 2007
Armenia

In some sense, Serge Sargsyan’s explanation is logical. He said it
is more expedient to prevent the soaring of prices, create favorable
social conditions and woo votes rather than to boost the prices,
accrue funds to buy people’s votes and cause social protest. On the
other hand, the prime minister must know that people are dissatisfied
not only with their social state. Moreover, the least dissatisfaction
is with the social state. The society is dissatisfied with injustice
in all the spheres of life in Armenia, which brings about innumerable
social, legal, moral, psychological consequences. In other words,
keeping the prices of food low is not enough to win over voters,
and the prime minister knows it, so does the party he leads, and
so do its coalition and other partners. Consequently, it is more
effective to accrue money and buy people’s dissatisfaction with
money because quite a different logic starts working as soon as
a person is offered to sell his dissatisfaction at some thousands
of drams. Certainly, it is silly to accrue election funds through
causing social protest. But since Armenia is an ancient civilization,
the rules of modern civilization stop working here.

It is not known when the government will accrue the necessary funds.

Perhaps it will become known after Serge Sargsyan’s U.S.-French visit
when he will have made clear what efforts it will take him to be
president of Armenia. And the extent of this effort will depend on the
limit of election fraud that the United States and France will draw,
the quantitative and the qualitative limit of election fraud.

If this limit is reduced compared with 2007, it means more money
will be needed to give bigger election bribes. Besides, it will
be necessary to buy several other candidates who will surely sell
themselves out expensively, considering the soaring prices. It does
not mean the candidates are also food and they became expensive
in a chain reaction, especially that the international price of
candidates is the same. The problem is that a candidate is also human
and he also needs to buy food, and since food has become expensive,
they need to sell their candidacy, the only product they have, for
a good price to afford to pay their bills over the next five years,
until the next presidential election.

Meanwhile, the United States and France are hardly likely to pledge
support to Serge Sargsyan. Nothing of the kind has happened in any
election. It is another problem that the absence of an alternative to
the government candidate made the West and Russia maintain the status
quo in the Armenian government. It was done through the observation
of the election process, there was no predetermined decision. No
election of Armenia has been predetermined, even though different
activists swear the election was determined to justify their failure.

Hence, Serge Sargsyan will probably return from the west without clear
likelihood of support. Meanwhile, he should be thankful that during
his visit no Armenian member of parliament or official was attacked
in Las Vegas or at Moulin Rouge in Paris.

RECOGNITION OF KARABAKH IN 90 DAYS

Lragir
Oct 23 2007
Armenia

Yesterday the Armenian parliament adjourned the discussion of the
bill on the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by 90 days. The
bill has been presented by the Heritage faction. The leader of the
Heritage party said if the parliament majority needs time to make
their stance on the bill clear, they are ready to wait.

DON’T COUNT THOSE DONKEYS BEFORE THEY’RE HATCHED
By Don Erler

Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX
Oct 23 2007

After church last weekend, I remarked to my bride of 41 years that
Advent begins in six weeks. Yikes.

The succession of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas will march
quickly by, with 2008 arriving before we finish exchanging those
not-quite-right gifts.

All of which means that the real presidential race — actual primaries
and caucuses, not mere polls and "debates" — will begin before our
New Year’s bubbly loses its fizz. And as Michael Barone pointed out
Oct. 16 in Dallas, few Americans will be paying attention to political
advertising during the holidays.

Major co-author of the Almanac of American Politics (a bible for
political journalists), senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
and respected print and TV commentator, Barone brings decades of
informed judgment to political analysis. He noted that predicting the
results of the Iowa caucuses will be especially difficult, given the
near-impossibility of polling only the caucus participants.

"We are in a period of political change," different in crucial respects
from much of our recent politics, he said. For the first time in 80
years, neither an incumbent president nor his vice president will be on
a major party ticket. By January ’09, the country will have experienced
two consecutive eight-year administrations, characterized by close
presidential races and what Barone calls "trench warfare politics."

But now we’ve entered a period of "open field politics," with voters’
church attendance no longer predicting their voting behavior with 80
percent accuracy. Barone observed that although Sen. Hillary Clinton
is the odds-on favorite to lock up the Democratic nomination, John
Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama appear to be close in Iowa.

The Republican side, he said, is "less clear all around." Although
he declined to predict a winner, Barone claimed that former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani has "an asset few in presidential history have
had": his performance in the 9-11 crisis, most closely analogous to
Dwight Eisenhower’s status in 1952.

As for the general election, few gamblers would bet against the
Democrats’ regaining the White House and strengthening their positions
in Congress next year. After all, a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal
poll revealed that Democrats are preferred over Republicans by a
margin of 49 percent to 36 percent.

But Republicans cannot be counted out — not yet, anyway. A Fox News
poll has discovered that nearly the same percentage of likely voters
who favor Democrats think that Giuliani would do a better job of
protecting the nation (50 to 36 percent). Thus, if national security
becomes the decisive issue, at least one Republican could win.

Moreover, last year the Democrats reversed the Republican majority
that was won in the U.S. House in 1994, promising to "drain the swamp"
of legislative corruption and end the misbegotten Iraq war.

But members from both parties continue to get caught with pants down
or hands in the freezer, pork continues to flow through "earmarks,"
and the Democrats have lost their nerve on surge-improved Iraq.

Even President Bush’s anemic approval rating appears gargantuan
compared to the disastrously low rating for Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, having promised to secure a House vote on
a resolution to label as "genocide" the killing of Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, has backtracked. It appears that
several of the resolution’s 214 co-sponsors have heeded the prudential
warning that our close ally Turkey should not be embarrassed by such
a symbolic insult.

Clinton, like other leading Democratic presidential aspirants, has
outlined programs that, if enacted, would cost hundreds of billions
of dollars to implement. Taxing "the rich" simply cannot pay for them.

Even mathematically challenged voters can count, add and subtract. We
understand that counting Democratic proposals’ costs will add to an
already bloated national debt and subtract from our own families’
assets.

Such calculations counsel caution for Democrats who assume the
inevitability of their electoral success, which they expect to initiate
scant weeks from now.

Boston Globe
Greenway plan etched in stone

Message bricks sold for $500 apiece will line Mothers’ Walk

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | October 23, 2007

The group that oversees the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which
for months opposed proposals to build memorials on the mile-long
corridor of parks, is planning to sell 900 engraved commemorative
bricks to the public, at a cost of $500 each.

In mid-November, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy will
start selling 6-inch-by-6-inch concrete pavers, which look like
granite cobblestones with smooth surfaces, to anyone who wants to
honor "a loved one, mother, mentor, coach, or teacher," said Nancy
Brennan, the conservancy’s executive director.

The engraved pavers, along the edge of a four-block stretch known as
the Moth ers’ Walk, are also a way "of building community," Brennan
said, a goal of the conservancy since its inception three years ago.
Details on how the public will purchase the stones are being worked
out.

The $450,000 gleaned from the sale of pavers will be added to almost
$18 million that has been pledged to the conservancy so far, as part
of its effort to raise at least $20 million by year-end to care for
the Greenway.

As for the inscriptions on the paving blocks, Brennan said, "Free
speech should be honored and celebrated," and "hate speech" avoided.

With that in mind, donors will have to choose from a list of 10
possible phrases, along with the name of the person being honored.

"With love to . . .," "Immigrated to Boston on . . .," "In admiration
of . . .," "My inspiration . . .," "We love you . . .," and "Thank
you!" are some of the choices.

Asked whether a potentially controversial figure would be allowed to
be commemorated, Brennan said that has yet to be resolved.

But the planned sale of commemorative stones along the Mothers’ Walk
immediately raised questions about whether the Greenway – long seen by
groups involved in its design as a place that would be without
memorials or plaques – is now changing that focus.

"I do worry about what the precedent is," said David Seeley, a Leather
District resident and member of the Mayor’s Central Artery Completion
Task Force.

"Does it mean other locations will come up for sale?" he asked.

Greenway memorials have been a hot issue for two years, as the
Armenian Heritage Foundation and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority,
which built the park system, sought to designate a small block near
Faneuil Hall Marketplace to remember the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Dick Garver, a representative of the Boston Redevelopment Authority on
the task force, said the Armenian group’s proposed park, which is now
being broadened to refer to many or all immigrant groups, would have a
plaque on it.

"There will certainly be words here," he said. "They will be worked
out in public." Garver said they will convey "universal themes" such
as immigration to Boston but cannot "establish a proprietary name for
the park."

The antimemorial sentiment, though unwritten, was reflected numerous
times over the years at meetings where the Greenway was being shaped.

One comment came long before the Armenian park had been publicly
proposed, at a public meeting in March 2003, from Anne Emerson,
president of the Boston Museum, which plans to build a history center
adjacent to the site of the proposed Armenian park.

Discussing the nature of the Greenway, Emerson said, "It’s a canyon of
buildings, and something needs to be done to soften it. There should
be no logos, memorials, barriers, or billboards."

Mothers’ Walk is a winding walkway on the harbor side of the four
blocks between Christopher Columbus Park and High Street. It is
scheduled to be dedicated in October 2008. Another 100 pavers will be
reserved for participants in three city youth programs, including the
YMCA of Greater Boston.

"If there’s an additional massive demand, we could install additional
pavers," said Linda Jonash, the conservancy’s director of planning and
design. The Mothers’ Walk has a total of about 7,800 stones that could
be engraved.

Pavers already laid in the Mother’s Walk will be removed, engraved
with specifically prescribed wording, and replaced in a line along the
walk’s edge.

"I think actually it’s a pretty good idea," said Gary Hack, dean of
the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and chairman of a
group of professionals that advised Greenway designers. Although
buying bricks for fund-raising has become common, he said. "It’s a
terrific way people can gain and feel some attachment to the place."

Hack said some places on the Greenway may be appropriate for
remembering individuals. "There’s a great deal of public pressure to
use the public domain as a place to make people’s contributions or
faiths memorable," he said. "This is a time when people want to
memorialize everything."

The Greenway’s 30 acres of parks and sites for nonprofit facilities,
stretching from Causeway to Kneeland streets, is scheduled to be
substantially completed this year, with a formal opening next fall.

The Greenway park in Chinatown officially opened last month. Other
blocks, including one of the two park parcels in the North End, are
open to the public but have not yet been officially inaugurated.

Brennan said selling the engraved pavers is only one means the
conservancy is considering for raising money needed to maintain and
organize events for the parks, which have replaced the old elevated
interstate highway. The flower beds need support, too.

"We’re thinking about ‘buy a bulb’ for $50 each," Brennan said.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at [email protected].

(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Source: /greenway_plan_etched_in_stone/

The Armenian Weekly On-Line
80 Bigelow Avenue
Watertown MA 02472 USA
(617) 926-3974
[email protected]
menianweekly.com

The Armenian Weekly; Volume 73, No. 41; Oct. 13, 2007

Commentary and Analysis:

1. Lessons from the United States Senate 1927
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.

2. Names and Language
By Garen Yegparian

***

Lessons from the United States Senate 1927

Honorable Ms. Pelosi,

I am writing to you regarding H.Res.106, which would recognize the Armenian
genocide of 1915. You have received several letters asking you to prevent
the resolution from reaching the House floor, including the letter dated
Sept. 25, jointly signed by eight former U.S. Secretaries of State. I would
respectfully refer you to a similar situation that was faced by the United
States Senate in 1927.

At the conclusion of World War I, the United States signed a treaty with
Turkey on Aug. 6, 1923. Many statements for and against ratification of the
Treaty with Turkey were published during the following three years. On Jan.
3, 1924, the Honorable Charles Hughes, the former Secretary of State,
addressed the Council on Foreign Relations. ("Foreign Affairs," Supplement
to Vol. II, No. 2). He indicated, just as the letter you have just received
indicates, that should the United States fail to ratify the treaty with
Turkey, our economic and political interests would be in jeopardy. He even
quoted a letter by Dr. James L. Barton, who was the Secretary of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, saying that "If the
treaty (with Turkey) should be rejected, I am convinced that the continuance
of the American institutions in Turkey, with their large investment
interests, would be jeopardized" (Nov. 24, 1923).

Mustafa Kemal himself, the first president of the modern Turkish state,
indicated in an interview on Jan. 9, 1927, a week prior to the U.S. Senate
vote on the treaty, that the United State’s "present policy reacts against
America" and that "our mineral recourses which are awaiting American
engineering ingenuity and capital, when properly worked up, would furnish to
America much of the raw material that her country is not able to produce."

Despite all this rhetoric and the implicit-and explicit-threats, the
Democratic Party, lead by Senator William King of Utah, stood in unity and
rejected the treaty on Jan. 17, 1927. This was one of only three treaties
outright rejected in the history of the U.S. Senate. In his statement in the
New York Times, on Jan. 18, 1927, Senator King indicated the reason for his
principled stand: "The treaty was opposed upon three major grounds. Namely,
that it failed to provide for the fulfillment of the Wilson award to
Armenia, guarantees for protection of Christians and non-Muslims in Turkey,
and recognition by Turkey of the American nationality of former subjects of
Turkey."

"Obviously," he continued "it would be unfair and unreasonable for the
United States to recognize and respect the claims and professions of Kemal
so long as he persists in holding control and sovereignty over Wilson
Armenia-now a No Man’s Land, while a million Armenian refuges and exiles are
people without a country."

I am confident that you and your esteemed colleagues of the 110th Congress
will be able make a similar principled stand and bring H.Res.106 for a floor
vote.

Respectfully,
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.
——————————————— ————————————————– –

2. Names and Language
By Garen Yegparian

Identity. In the diaspora, that’s what it’s all about. It may be denigrated
in the U.S. as "identity" politics," but as survivors of genocide with lots
of time and dead people to make up for, maintaining Armenian
identity-Armenianness-in dispersion is critical.

Obviously, we have the genocide as a unifying focus. But once the struggle
for recognition is over, even though we have much more important issues to
resolve, some of the cohesion we now enjoy will dissipate. Some of us will
breathe a collective sigh of relief and fade to the margins of our
community, or even completely out of it. Meanwhile we’ll still have battles
ahead requiring even better "armies" than the ones we now have deployed.

While we’re on the topic of recognition, make sure to contact Rep. Jane
Harman, who is nominally a co-sponsor of H.Res.106, but it turns out was
working undercover (what do you expect-she’s on a Congressional committee
dealing with America’s spies) AGAINST the resolution, until the ANC’s
pressure made them reveal it. Tell her how unforgivable her sneakiness is.
Contact her at (202) 225-8220, ask for Jay Hulings, or e-mail him at
[email protected]. You can now see the letter at

Returning to the topic of this article, two news items in the LA Times
appearing over the last five months are instructive and suggestive.

On May 2, "Indigenous pride rising with name issue in Mexico," described the
case of a two-year-old girl who is still officially nameless. It seems the
government’s computers can’t handle the accents and such around the letters
that would represent the sounds of the indigenous language. The parents have
persisted and refuse to Spanify their child’s name. This lesson in pride in
one’s own culture as manifested in names is one that ought not to be lost on
us. So many of our compatriots are busy Jennifer-ing, Hamlet-ing,
Rene(e)-ing their children’s names that it is an epidemic. We are Armenian
through our difference from others, not by naming our boys Artur (sic) after
some legendary English king, or Scarlet after a character in a movie. This
is the kind of slow, almost imperceptible assimilative activity that leads
to loss of identity.

A related concern is the diminution of the number of names we use, out of
concern that the odars will mispronounce the name or tease the child. So
what? That’s exactly what will help cement awareness of the difference of
being an Armenian.

In the same vein of loss of national identifiers is language. Obviously,
this one is an even bigger deal. On Sept. 19, a piece titled "Researchers
say a language disappears every two weeks" ran. It turns out that in the
last 500 years, half the world’s preexisting languages have disappeared. We’re
down to 7,000. Half of these are expected to disappear in the next century.
How far behind can Armenian be? What do we have left, two, maybe three
centuries?

But why does any of this matter? Certainly just giving a child an Armenian
appellation won’t make him/her Armenian, nor will speaking the language. It
is the combination of these two and many other cultural aspects that
constitute the creature known as an Armenian. We are all lacking in one
aspect or another of this Armenian constitution. If we’re serious about our
national persistence, then we must be alert to the slow erosion of our
attributes. And, this concern applies just as much to Armenia as anywhere
else.

You know right from wrong on this. Act accordingly.

le3081855.ece

The Independent

Out of America: Grandmaster with a moral message for the White House
To tackle the ‘new tsar’ in the Kremlin, the US must first get its own
house in order, Garry Kasparov warns

By Rupert Cornwell
Published: 21 October 2007

For an old Moscow hand, it felt just like old times, back when Soviet
dissidents would summon a few Western correspondents to a clandestine
meeting. They would denounce the evils of the unaccountable and
unassailable regime in the Kremlin, and suggest how America and its
allies might nonetheless bring pressure to bear.

Today another and equally unshakeable regime runs Russia, and new
dissidents have emerged. But their basic message has not changed: if
this or any other White House wants to change the Kremlin’s ways, it
must first of all avoid double standards in its dealings with the
world.

This, of course, is 2007, not 1977. The setting was not the kitchen of
one of those cramped Moscow apartments that I remember so well from my
days as a reporter there, but a smart theatre auditorium in a wealthy
suburb of Washington DC. And the speaker was not some tousled academic
or minor poet, but Garry Kasparov – a household name wherever chess is
played, believed by many to have been the greatest player in the
game’s history.

Now Kasparov is taking on an even more daunting task than holding the
world championship between 1985 and 2000. Three weeks ago he was
chosen as candidate for the "Other Russia" opposition party in the
presidential election next March, to take on whoever is handpicked by
Russia’s present tsar, Vladimir Putin, to succeed him.

It is, of course, a hopeless fight. Kasparov may not even be allowed
to stand. If he does, polls suggest Other Russia will get only 3 or 4
per cent of the vote. But the man is nothing if not a fighter. He
likens the moment to his epic challenge in 1984 to the reigning
champion, Anatoly Karpov.

Kasparov, the brash outsider, was taking on the champion of the
Communist system, the favourite of the Kremlin establishment. The
winner was to be the first to six victories, and at one point Kasparov
trailed 5-0. But he gradually wore his opponent down. After he
narrowed the gap to 5-3, the authorities called the match off, saying
both men were exhausted. Karpov indeed was, and the following year
Kasparov captured the crown.

But chess games can’t be fixed in advance. Politics can. With
quasi-total control of the press and TV, Putin has made himself as
unassailable as the Communist rulers of yore. Times have changed, of
course – superficially, at least. Kasparov can travel in and out of
Russia to promote his new book, How Life Imitates Chess, one of those
how-to-succeed-in-life manifestos that Americans love. But the reality
is darker. Opposing the Kremlin and its interests is a dangerous
business.

If they are clever, the Putin crowd will let Kasparov’s campaign go
ahead, as proof that the election, however pre-ordained its result, is
"democratic". After all, when there are two security policemen and
hired hecklers for every participant at an Other Russia rally, not
much can go wrong. But very nasty things can happen – as they did to
the campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead in Moscow,
and Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London.

I asked Kasparov if he thought he was in personal danger. "Yes, I am
afraid. I take care," he replies. "But what can I do? I have no
choice." He avoids flying on Aeroflot and eating at restaurants he
doesn’t know. His wife and child spend much of their time in New
Jersey. In Russia he pays a small fortune for private security. "I
like to think there are limits on what they might do. But if they
decide to go after me, all precautions will be useless."

So what can the rest of us do? As those dissidents of the past used to
argue, Kasparov says that America’s most powerful weapon is moral. It
must lead by example. It must practise what it preaches, and avoid
double standards. So "when Putin acts badly, you must criticise him.
When he behaves like … Mugabe, he should be treated the same way."

Alas, this White House has turned double standards into an art form.
This last week alone offered a fine example, with the intense pressure
by the Bush administration on Congress to drop the resolution
condemning the 1915 genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, on
the grounds that it would upset Turkey, a key ally in the war against
Iraq.

Nothing has created greater double standards than the "war on terror".
In the absence of WMD, the revised justification for the invasion of
Iraq is that it was meant to bring freedom and democracy to the heart
of the Middle East – remember the stirring stuff in Bush’s 2005
inaugural address, about abolishing tyranny from the earth. Except, of
course, if you happen to sit on a great deal of oil, like Saudi
Arabia, or are a key regional ally, like Pakistan. And what price
liberty and the rule of law in the era of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay
and "extraordinary rendition"?

The greatest casualty of the "war on terror" is America’s good name.
Of all the wounds inflicted by the Iraq conflict, this one will be
hardest to heal. And, as Kasparov realises, for Putin it is a godsend.
Last week, speaking to today’s US correspondents in Moscow, the
Russian President likened himself to Franklin D Roosevelt, as social
reformer and national saviour. A stretch? Of course. But that’s what
you get when you operate double standards.

World War 4 Report, NY
Oct 19 2007

Dalai Lama pawn in Bush’s oil wars?

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Fri, 10/19/2007 – 12:49.

We’ve already had to warn the heroic Buddhist dissidents of Burma and
colonized Uighur people of China’s far west against allowing
themselves to be exploited as propaganda fodder by the Bush White
House. Now it seems we have to warn the Dalai Lama – whose official
website boasts the text of his Oct. 17 Capitol Hill acceptance speech
upon being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is truly
perverse to witness a single news story in the Los Angeles Times that
day in which Bush defends his decision to attend the ceremony for the
Dalai Lama (and to hold a private schmoozing session with him at the
White House a day earlier) – while calling the Armenian genocide bill
"counterproductive" meddling in Turkish affairs! This double standard
should clue the Dalai Lama in that he is being used. Turkey is a
strategic ally that Bush needs keep on good terms to stabilize
Iraq – and, at this moment, to restrain from threatened military
incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan. China is an imperial rival in the
critical scramble for Africa’s oil – and the key nation now falling
under the rubric of the 1992 Pentagon "Defense Planning Guide" drawn
up by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby which said the US must
"discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our
leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

China is reacting to the Congressional award much as Turkey is
reacting to the progress of the Armenian genocide bill. "We solemnly
demand that the U.S. cancel the extremely wrong arrangements,"
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Oct. 16. "It seriously
violates the norm of international relations and seriously wounded
the feelings of the Chinese people and interfered with China’s
internal affairs." China was protested the honors for the Dalai Lama
by pulling out of an international strategy session on Iran sought by
the US and planned for the same day the award was given. (AP, Oct.
16) The day after the ceremony, Yang summoned US Ambassador to China
Clark T. Randt to lodge a formal protest. "The move is a blatant
interference in China’s internal affairs. It has hurt the feelings of
the Chinese people and gravely undermined bilateral relations,"
ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news briefing. He urged
Washington to correct "the terrible effects of its erroneous act and
stop conniving with, and supporting, ‘Tibet independence’
secessionist forces." (China Daily, Oct. 19)

The Dalai Lama’s speech anticipated that he would be accused of
"hidden agendas":

On the future of Tibet, let me take this opportunity to restate
categorically that I am not seeking independence. I am seeking a
meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people within the People’s
Republic of China… I have no hidden agenda. My decision not to
accept any political office in a future Tibet is final.

The Chinese authorities assert that I harbor hostility towards China
and that I actively seek to undermine China’s welfare. This is
totally untrue. I have always encouraged world leaders to engage with
China; I have supported China’s entry into WTO and the awarding of
summer Olympics to Beijing. I chose to do so with the hope that China
would become a more open, tolerant and responsible country.

Ironically, principled activists concerned with Tibet, Burma and
Darfur, as well as sinister neocons who seek to exploit these issues,
might consider the Dalai Lama too soft on China! Nonetheless, most
telling that His Holiness is in danger of being co-opted by the
all-too-worldly agenda of the Bushites is that his speech contained
not even the most allusive criticism of the war in Iraq – a nation
being ravaged by US imperialism as surely as Tibet has been ravaged
by Chinese imperialism.

Regnum, Russia
Oct 19 2007

Serzh Sargsyan called Pentagon to give equal military aid to Yerevan
and Baku

Armenia’s Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan met US Defense Secretary
Robert Gates in the United States. As REGNUM is told at the press
office of the Armenian government, during the meeting, noting the
high level of the Armenian-US relations, Serzh Sargsyan expressed
satisfaction with the development of the military and political
cooperation and thanked for the persistent assistance rendered by the
USA to the Armenian armed forces.

Speaking on rendering military assistance to countries in South
Caucasus, Serzh Sargsyan particularly noted importance of preserving
the parity in rendering military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan. On a
request by Robert Gates, the Armenian prime minister informed him on
the activity of the Armenian government.

Speaking on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, Serzh Sargsyan
noted that Armenia supports sooner and political settlement of the
conflict grounding on mutual concessions. He informed that the dialog
within frameworks of the Minsk Group will bring about necessary
results.

NewsOK.com , Oklahoma
Oct 19 2007

Tone deaf: Pelosi should spike genocide resolution

The Oklahoman Editorial

It’s trouble when members of Congress get ahead of the State
Department on foreign policy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced
to backtrack this week on a controversial resolution that would be an
affront to Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Pelosi had promised a floor vote on a resolution labeling the mass
killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as "genocide.’
The speaker’s tone deafness on the issue was underscored when Turkey
recalled its ambassador from Washington after the measure passed in
committee last week.

The problem, apparent to many but not to the speaker or the
resolution’s authors, is that the Ottoman regime went out of business
not long after World War I. House passage of the resolution would
leave the current Turkish democracy bearing the sting even though
it’s in no way responsible for the acts of its defunct predecessor.

The cost of damaging relations with Turkey is huge, given its
willingness to be a transit point for U.S. military equipment bound
for Iraq and Afghanistan – not to mention Turkey’s unique role as a
Muslim democracy in the Middle East.

President Bush has applied considerable pressure to get the
Democratic House leadership to rethink the resolution. "Congress has
more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the
Muslim world,’ he said. In addition, eight former secretaries of
state wrote a letter expressing concern about the resolution’s
potential impact. It looks like the arguments finally sunk in. Pelosi
said Wednesday she was reconsidering her pledge and was noncommittal
on when or if the resolution would come before the full House.

Certainly, the world shouldn’t stand by while new acts of genocide
unfold. But embarrassing a valuable ally over a tragedy from nearly a
century ago doesn’t make sense. Pelosi should sideline the resolution
and leave diplomacy to the diplomats.

ARMENIA-GEORGIA
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Oct 17 2007

The parties will have increased chances

Held on October 15-16, the Sixth Session of the Inter-Governmental
Committee of the Armenian-Georgian Economic Cooperation can, without
exaggeration, be considered a turning point in both countries’
economic and political history.

During the past years, Armenia and Georgia were considered in the
world as poor countries with limited economic capacities, and the
international structures which maintained relations with them acted
as donors. The maximum that has been realized with joint efforts
up to date was the unhampered work of the life support systems. At
difficult moments the parties have always found relevant solutions to
the issues regarding the shipment of goods, gas and electricity supply.

Being in an economic blockade, Armenia managed, during the past years,
to open simultaneously two windows, one of them looking to Georgia
and the other – to Iran.

The last evidence of the above-mentioned is the opening of the Iranian
ports of Enzel and Bender Abas for the Armenian goods carriers. This
comes to supplement and replenish the shipments carried out via the
ports of Poti and Batumi. In such conditions, when Armenia is becoming
faced with serious alternatives, the issue of economic cooperation
with the neighboring Georgia is acquiring a mutually beneficial
character for two main reasons: First: the prospect of forming an
Armenian-Georgian Common Economic Area is viewed by the West as a
most important condition for the South Caucasian republics in terms
of strengthening their independence and integrating to Europe.

Second: this kind of prospect allows Georgia to overcome the
consequences of unilateral inclusion in or exclusion from the
Turkish-Azerbaijani economic and political area, and enables Armenia
to further increase its chances of joining the European and the
World Markets.

Therefore, without the slightest exaggeration we can already insist
that the Sixth Session of the Inter-Governmental Committee of the
Armenian-Georgian Economic Cooperation was the actual beginning of
the process of realizing the long-range program aimed at forming
an Armenian-Georgian Common Economic Area. Instead developing into
regular interstate negotiations, this actually changed into a joint
meeting between the two countries’ Governments.

In the course of their activities, which lasted no more than two
days, Prime Ministers Serge Sargsyan and Zourab Noghaidely managed to
sketch the general picture of the Armenian-Georgian Common Economic
Area and predetermine the primary problems. And they immediately gave
recommendations to the relevant structures of their countries for the
solution of those problems. That is, the decisions made during the
session became specific program of the two countries governments the
goal of the program being the formation of a market with its trade,
investment, energy, communication, customs and other components.

As justifiably noted by the Georgian Prime Minister Z. Noghaidely,
the South Caucasus is forming a relatively big and extensive market,
which already has 8 million consumers. It is natural that there will
be considerably chances and interests for making investments in this
market will increase considerably. There will be an increased interest
especially on the part of those Western financial and economic circles
that have learnt to work in a large market which, though composed of
independent countries like the European Unions, is economically united.

Of course, the European Union’s aspiration to make the newly-formed
South Caucasian market our economic and political fulcrum will play its
positive role as well. Considering both countries’ common past as well
as the fact of their belonging to the Christian world, this kind of
political-economic area will be viewed as one of Western Asia’s pivotal
points shifting the focus of the EU programs to its side. And this,
in turn, promises to considerably increase the two countries’ general
attractiveness in the World Market, as well as create prerequisites
for gaining privileged conditions in cooperation with other markets.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that the diaspora Armenian
businessmen also get greater chances for investments and transit trade.

Thus, the Armenian Georgian Inter-Governmental Session marked the
beginning of the process of transforming the two countries’ economic
cooperation into economic integration. The agreements achieved
during the Session went beyond the framework of solving the current
economic problems between Armenia and Georgia and predetermined the
new political prospects that are opening for the two neighboring and
friendly countries and peoples.