Author: Taslakhchian Andranik

San Francisco Chronicle, CA
April 22 2004

SAN FRANCISCO
A dynasty built with petals and stems
Family has operated flower stands on S.F. streets for nearly a
century

Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

In an age where every store comes in a big box, and they all seem
part of some giant chain, it’s hard to imagine a family business
where the product is as perishable as the flowers of springtime, and
the store is on the sidewalk.

That’s the world of San Francisco’s premier small businesses — a
half dozen or so flower stands — that have graced the downtown area
for more than a century, in good times and bad.

“I think of this as the heartbeat of the city,” said Harvey
Nalbandian, who runs Paul’s Flowers at Powell and Market streets,
where the cable cars turn around and thousands of people walk by
every day.

The flower stand has been on the block for 88 years, ever since Paul
Nalbandian, an Armenian immigrant, opened for business. “My father
came to the city in 1915 for the World’s Fair,” said Harvey. “He
liked it so much, he stayed.”

After the old man died during World War II, Harvey’s older brother,
Albert, took over the Powell Street stand, but he bought another
flower operation from Mike Egian, an old-timer and a relative of the
Nalbandians. Harvey took over on Powell Street, and Al went into
business at Stockton and Geary, near the famous old I. Magnin store.

The stand was named after the store. I. Magnin is gone, but the
flower stand is still there, and so is Al.

“This my 59th year on this corner,” said Al, who, like his brother,
runs a seven-day-a-week operation. “I come in six days a week and
relieve my helper on the seventh,” said Al.

The two can’t go on forever; Albert is 82, and Harvey is 79. Both of
them say they are getting tired, but both don’t plan to quit any time
soon. Both men are native San Franciscans. Both wear ties to work
every day; Harvey wears a brown hat.

Both men went to college, Albert to the University of San Francisco,
Harvey to UC Davis. Albert majored in drama, Harvey in agricultural
science. But flowers were in their blood.

“It’s family pride that keeps these things going,” said Albert.

The origins of flower stands are lost in the mists of the city’s
past, but sidewalk flowers have been around since at least the turn
of the last century and were always part of the city’s charm.

More than a hundred years ago, flower vendors set up stands along
Kearny Street, a street that was more important then than it is now.
They took them down at night and stored flowers in boxes for the next
day. Flower stands sprang up in front of every office building; they
were everywhere, and the sellers jockeyed for position.

It must have been a flowerly mess, because in 1904 the city decided
to regulate the stands. They cleaned up their act, set up
semi-permanent stands and became as famous as the cable cars as a
symbol of San Francisco.

Flower vendors will tell you that San Francisco is the only city in
the country, maybe the world, with year-round flower stands. It’s the
climate, they say. The April days, alternately misty and sunny, are
perfect. It’s not freezing in winter, not hot in summer — not like
Paris in the summer, when it sizzles.

“San Franciscans buy more flowers than citizens of any other American
city,” wrote Charles Caldwell Dobie in 1933. “Every street corner in
the shopping district is ablaze with blossoms.”

“In the days of my father, people bought violets by the dozen,” said
Harvey. “That’s a thing of the past.”

Now, however, the market has shifted. Flowers are sold in
supermarkets, in malls, in BART stations, even in corner stores. It’s
made it tough on the little guy on the sidewalk who is an island of
bright color amid the rivers of people that flow up and down the
city’s streets.

“The whole world walks by here,” said Margaret Karssli, who is
Harvey’s assistant at Powell and Market. “Where else can you see
people from all over the world?” She pauses. “And some from other
planets.”

At Powell and Market, Harvey’s flowers compete for attention with the
cable cars, with street musicians, with a bare-chested tap dancer,
with street preachers, with street hustlers, with sirens, cops and
sometimes robbers.

The business is eclectic. On a slow afternoon the other day, a
customer came fresh from an ATM machine to buy a big bouquet of
lilies and ferns for $18. The next man had only 65 cents, so he got a
single rose for 50 cents. “You see all kinds,” said Margaret.

Harvey’s stand does all right; it’s a living, he said. Al says much
the same thing, but the flower business is famously dependent on
public mood, even on the weather. The March heat wave was a killer;
flower stands everywhere had to throw out their goods, or give them
to charity.

Rainy days are slow; Mondays are slow. Grant Avenue, once the flower
capital of the city, is slow these days. The business has ebbs and
flows. On Grant and Post Street, the Giants Dugout store is empty and
covered with graffiti, and the nearby flower stand is open only
intermittently.

Another Post Street stand seems to be abandoned: The shutters are up.
The cash register is covered with dust. A newspaper sitting on the
tiny counter is 3 months old.

Everyone says business is kind of off, that this Easter season laid
an egg. “It’s the dot-com bust,” said Rebecca Johnson, who has been
helping out at the stand just across Stockton Street from Albert
Nalbandian’s enterprise.

Al thinks it’s the war, gloomy times. “We’re doing the best we can,”
said Patricia Lee, who runs a stand at Stockton and O’Farrell
streets, “We have a good corner here.”

One thing about flowers — they cheer you up. “Most times people buy
flowers for a happy reason,” said Johnson, who has been selling them
for 19 years.

“We’ll do well this week,” she said brightly. “It’s National
Secretary’s Week. No, wait. They don’t have that any more. Now, it’s
Executive Assistants Week. Wednesday was Administrative Professional
Day, and you know what they say about a rose by any other name.”

One of the things that make the job worth doing, the flower people
agree, is the product.

“Philosophers, poets and lovers have praised flowers for a thousand
years, ” said Harvey. He likes to quote a note he got from a lady
friend at the turn of the year. “I hope 2004 will bring you every
good thing … may the year be for you as beautiful as a flower.”

E-mail Carl Nolte at [email protected].

Los Angeles Times
April 22, 2004 Thursday
Home Edition

THE ARTS;
POP MUSIC;
Now it’s personal;
System of a Down is playing a benefit concert to bring attention to
the Armenian genocide.

by Susan Carpenter, Times Staff Writer

Tackling everything from shortsighted social policies to media
consolidation to the lemming-like conformity of the masses, System of
a Down is one of the most overtly political bands in modern rock, but
don’t call them a political band. The Los Angeles four-piece prefers
the more neutral “art” label.

Even so, they’ll be using their art to make a loud political
statement when they headline “Souls, 2004,” a concert benefiting
organizations working to eradicate genocides across the globe and to
encourage recognition of the Armenian genocide. The concert takes
place Saturday, on the commemoration of the Ottoman Empire’s killing
of about 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923. It’s an atrocity
few Americans know about. It isn’t written in most school textbooks,
nor is it formally recognized by the U.S. government, despite decades
of promises from various presidents and present-day Congressional
initiatives. But it’s a deeply personal issue to the band’s members,
all of whom are of Armenian descent.

“My grandfather never knew how old he was because so much of my
family history was lost in the Armenian genocide,” said guitarist
Daron Malakian, the only member of the band who was born in the U.S.

“If not for my grandfather’s memories, I would know nothing of my
family tree before his lifetime,” said singer Serj Tankian, whose
accent still bears traces of a faraway land.

“It’s just really personal for all of us,” bassist Shavo Odadjian
said. “There’s a lot of political issues of course that go with it,
but the reason why it’s called Souls for me is there’s all these
souls that aren’t at rest right now. Their deaths are overlooked.”

The subject of the Armenian genocide is not the group’s only concern,
though it has long been addressed by the band. The band’s 1998 smash
success, the self-titled “System of a Down,” concluded with an
incendiary, metal-edged takedown called “P.L.U.C.K. (Politically
Lying, Unholy, Cowardly Killers).” Three years later, on their
Grammy-nominated follow-up, “Toxicity,” they again brought it up on
the short but effective “X.”

With “Souls, 2004,” they take the power of those lyrics and turn them
into direct action. The second in what they hope will be an annual
concert series designed to raise awareness of the issue and exert
political pressure on the U.S. and Turkish governments to recognize
the genocide, the band expects to raise about $100,000 from this
weekend’s concert at the Greek Theatre.

But the show will not be a political rally. There will be no fiery
speeches, no sloganeering, no banners, though booklets about the
genocide will be available for those who are interested. Everyone
else can just rock out to System’s unique, thinking man’s metal,
which will be primed with warmups from Saul Williams, Zach Hill and
Bad Acid Trip, the latter of which is signed to Tankian’s label,
Serjical Strike.

“People don’t like hearing speeches,” Tankian said. “We’re just gonna
play.”

Playing is, after all, what they do best. Long before their signing
to American Recordings in 1997, they had developed a huge following
based entirely on their live shows — tireless episodes of intense,
hard-core mayhem led by the cynically messianic Tankian and propelled
by a tightly wound rhythm section. Seven years and three records
later, their shows have lost none of their spit and sizzle.

Heralded as the vanguard of the nu-metal scene — another label they
disdain — the group is at work on its next record. In the North
Hollywood studio where System rehearses, more than 20 songs are
listed on a marker board, but how many or which of those songs will
make it on the record hasn’t been decided. Nor has the record’s
release date.

All the group will say about the new album is that “it will make you
think and laugh at the same time,” according to Malakian, who pens
the music. In other words, it will do what their records have always
done — juxtapose the absurd and the serious while playing with
tempos and temperaments.

During a recent interview with the band, the conversation danced from
subject to subject with little prompting — the evils of television,
short-attention-span political coverage, corporate mind control,
two-party politics, individualistic selfishness, apathetic teens, the
Armenian genocide, spirituality. How much, if any, of those topics
will be addressed on their new record is unknown. What’s clear is
that ever since the group’s first hit single in 1998 — the lyrically
sarcastic, vocally schizophrenic and rhythmically nonlinear “Sugar”
— System of a Down hasn’t played by conventional rock rules.

“We’re a band that reflects life,” Malakian said. “Even though we do
talk politics, life is all around us. Politics is a part of life. We
just mesh it all into our art. We’re more a social band than a
political band.”

Perhaps more accurately, they are a social band concerned with
political issues that are shaped by a common ancestry and anchored
with a deep spirituality.

“I kind of always had the vibe from when we were first on tour, just
the souls of the genocide of our ancestors, of our grandparents, of
our grandparents’ parents, that they had something to do with our
success, spiritually saying, and pushed us along,” Malakian said.

Addressing the Armenian genocide, he said, “is our duty in a way.
There isn’t exactly a million Armenians out there who are so famous
in the entertainment industry.”

Susan Carpenter can be reached at mailto:[email protected].

*

System of a Down

On their heritage and calling attention to the Armenian genocide:

Serj Tankian, vocalist

“Geopolitics or military strategy is not an excuse to deny the
killing of 1.5 million people…. Could you envision us making a deal
with modern Germany if they backed us on the war on Iraq if only we
go back and we destroy the Holocaust museum? Well, that’s what we’re
doing with Turkey.”

Daron Malakian, guitarist

“Everybody used to tell us, ‘Change this, change that. Four Armenian
guys? Who’s gonna buy that?’ … One thing that kept me confident we
were doing the right thing is we have a huge backing on the spiritual
side.”

John Dolmayan, drummer

“We’ve come from very similar places in one respect, and in another,
all four of us come from very different backgrounds. So we have that
heritage in common. It all came out of our love for music. Everything
we have together is built on our love for music.”

Shavo Odadjian, bass player

“To me, it’s not really a political thing, it’s more of a personal
thing because I don’t know beyond my grandparents. My grandfather
never knew his birthday. It’s not just me; most Armenians went
through this.”

*

`Souls, 2004′

Where: The Greek Theatre, 2700 N. Vermont, L.A.

When: Saturday, 7:30 p.m.

Price: $45

Info: (323) 665-1927 or

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (no caption) PHOTO: (no caption) PHOTO: (no caption)
PHOTO: (no caption) PHOTO: PLAYING POLITICS: Lyrics by System of a
Down frequently deal with social and political issues. PHOTOGRAPHER:
Photographs by Rick Loomis Los Angeles Times

Armenian National Committee of Canada
3401 Olivar-Asselin
Montreal, Quebec
H4J 1L5
Tel. (514) 334-1299 Fax (514) 334-6853

April 21, 2004

The Canadian Parliament, With Overwhelming Majority, Recognizes the Armenian
Genocide
–A Historic Day for Canadian-Armenians

OTTAWA, April 21 – On the eve of the 89th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, the Canadian House of Commons, with overwhelming majority,
recognized the Armenian Genocide. The non-partisan vote was 153 for 68
against. When the result of the vote was announced, the House of Commons
chamber, which was packed with Armenians from Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and
other Canadian cities, burst in applause and ringing `bravo.’ Tears of joy
could be seen in the eyes of many Armenians.

Motion M-380, which reads: `That this House acknowledges the Armenian
genocide of 1915 and condemns this act as a crime against humanity,’ was
moved by MP Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ) and was seconded by
MPs Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Liberal), Jason Kenney (Calgary
Southeast, Conservative Party of Canada) and Alexa McDonough (Halifax, New
Democratic Party). Voting, which began at 6: 15 pm, lasted 30 minutes.

Although Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham used every means available
to him to defeat the Motion, he was unable to change the historic outcome.

The second reading of M-380, to recognize the Armenian Genocide, took place
on April 20. During the one-hour debate, only one member of the House spoke
against the motion. The other seven speakers were favoured of the motion.

In the last two days, the Turkish Embassy and its public relations firms had
launched a concerted campaign against the adoption of the bill. A delegation
from the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC) was on hand to counter
the Turkish Embassy’s campaign of falsification and distortion of the
historical facts.

Dr. Girair Basmadjian, president of ANCC, was elated by the result of the
vote. `As an Armenian, I was moved and felt grateful for the respect that
was shown by the Canadian Parliament to the memory of the victims of the
Armenian Genocide. As a Canadian, I am proud that the House of Commons
adopted this historic motion.’

The ANCC was actively involved in promoting the passing of the motion. For
the last six months, the ANCC worked very closely with parliamentarians and
foreign affairs critics of all the political parties represented in the
House. The ANCC received strong support from numerous parliamentarians,
including Jim Karaygainnis, Eleni Bakopanos, Stephane Dion, Derek Lee,
Stephane Bergeron, Jason Kenney, Svend Robinson, Real Menard, and Senators
Raymond Setlakwe and Shirley Maheu. Ms. Libby Davies’ (Vancouver East)
gesture to switch her motion with madam Dalphond-Guiral motion, to allow the
vote to take place before the 89th anniversary commemorations of the
Armenian Genocide on April 24, was greatly appreciated. Within the Liberal
caucus, the contribution of Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre) also
should be noted.

The ANCC mailed a specially-prepared brief to all members of the House. The
ANCC also mobilized the Canadian-Armenian community to counter the Turkish
Government’s propaganda campaign through e-mails, postcards and telephone
calls to parliamentarians.

###

Contacts: Aris Babikian (416) 706-4934 Mobile

Roupen Kouyoumdjian
(514) 336-7095

Paper weighs Azerbaijan’s benefits from situation in Armenia

Zerkalo, Baku
14 Apr 04

The Azerbaijani daily Zerkalo has said Azerbaijan could have used the
situation in Armenia “to at least partially change the situation in
the conflict zone”. The paper sees no reason for Azerbaijani society
to rejoice at the possible power change in Armenia as the opposition
has a “tougher’ stance on Karabakh than President Robert Kocharyan.
The following is an excerpt from report by R. Mirqadirov in
Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo on 14 April headlined “Power change in
Armenia” and subheaded “What a point for us to be happy”; subheadings
in the text have been inserted editorially

The situation in Armenia is uncertain. Another “velvet revolution” in
the South Caucasus is seemingly approaching. Not thinking about
consequences and holding the logic “the worse for them, the better for
us”, many people in Azerbaijan are inspired by the events in Yerevan.
Strangely, a sober analysis demonstrates that neither preserving the
incumbent “throne” nor coming of the new authorities will be good for
Azerbaijan.

“Weak” Kocharyan to come under pressure from the West and Russia

Let us start with a scenario whereby [Armenian President] Robert
Kocharyan manages to withstand the opposition pressure and to preserve
power in his hands. If the situation develops according to this
scenario, Kocharyan’s power will be very weak and susceptible to both
internal and external pressure. Some people believe that Azerbaijan
will benefit from the existence of a weaker leader in Armenia. It is
alleged that the positive aspect of this is the fact that the Yerevan
government will find itself under strong external pressure which can
make Kocharyan take a more realistic position on the Karabakh issue.

But at the same time these people forget that countries of the South
Caucasus, especially Armenia, come under external pressure not just
from one party. Along with the USA and the EU, which are interested
in any settlement of the conflict, Russia can also make a significant
impact on Armenia. But Moscow’s policy in the region is often aimed at
counterbalancing the West. The essence of this policy is in the
formula “what is beneficial to the USA and the EU is against Russia’s
interests”.

In addition, Russia can continue to play its peace-making role in
future as well especially as the official position of the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairmen is that the international mediators will be prepared
to back any scenario of the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh
conflict to be agreed by the conflicting sides. This position enables
Russia to constantly torpedo coordination of any peace proposals with
the help of the Yerevan government, keeping somewhat aloof.

The most interesting point is that there is no need for inventing
anything new. The Yerevan government should simply stand firm – “no to
a stage-by-stage scenario and no to Karabakh within Azerbaijan”. If
the Yerevan government follows this position, the peace talks might
continue forever. It costs the Kremlin nothing to get this out of the
weak Kocharyan authorities.

Opposition to use Kocharyan’s own weapon against him

Even if weak Kocharyan agrees to constructive concessions on the
Karabakh issue under pressure from the West, the opposition in the
country can use this against him. The position on the Karabakh
settlement of the current leaders of the Armenian opposition is much
tougher than Kocharyan’s. They are against the Karabakh clan which
usurped the power in Yerevan. If the Armenian president agrees to
concessions, the opposition may decide to use his own weapon against
Kocharyan because in his time the latter achieved [Armenian
ex-President] Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s resignation by accusing him of
inadmissible concessions on Karabakh.

Kocharyan’s presidency itself demonstrates that Armenia’s weak
authorities will be unable to conclude a peace accord on Karabakh.
Kocharyan was ready to sign a peace agreement before the terrorist act
in the Armenian parliament [in October 1999]. But after that, when he
was accused of organizing the terrorist act and his power weakened as
a consequence, Kocharyan rejected all previous agreements.

Kocharyan may provoke hostilities

On the contrary, under the circumstances Kocharyan may provoke the
beginning of hostilities in the conflict zone to somewhat neutralize
the opposition in the country. After all, in the absence of constant
monitoring of the contact line between the armed forced of the
conflicting sides it would actually be impossible to determine who
made the first shot. After the beginning of the commotion the sides
will be able to make endless claims that they cede to each other the
right of the first shot, as it was the case during the 100-year war
between France and England. But any defeat in this case would mean an
end to Kocharyan.

Baku unlikely to benefit from power change in Armenia

Under the circumstances Azerbaijan is unlikely to benefit from the
power change in Armenia. First, according to the above, the stance of
the Armenian opposition on Karabakh is probably tougher than
Kocharyan’s.

Second, the power change in Armenia as was the case during “the velvet
revolution” in Georgia, will be assessed by the West as a victory for
democracy. In a word, Azerbaijan will then be the only undemocratic
country in the South Caucasus given the Western standards.

[Passage omitted: more of the same and example from Israel’s history
and recap of ex-President Heydar Aliyev time]

Azerbaijan is not planning to start hostilities

Azerbaijan could have used the current situation to its own ends, it
seems it will not do so however. Armenia is in deep political crisis
which also applies to the armed forces. We will hardly have such a
chance again to at least partially change the situation in the
conflict zone for our benefit. But as the Azerbaijani-Turkish
declaration signed yesterday [13 April] in Ankara says, we are going
to settle the conflict “by peaceful means” and with respect for
territorial integrity… [ellipsis as published].

US raps Armenia for crackdown on opposition protests

Tue Apr 13, 3:45 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States expressed concern about the
“sharp escalation” in tension between Armenia’s government and the
opposition, and rapped Yerevan for its crackdown on demonstrators
calling for the resignation of President Robert Kocharian.

At the same time, the State Department called on both the authorities
and the opposition to engage in dialogue and avoid any actions that
could lead to violence or infringe on the right to peaceful assembly.

“The United States is concerned about the current political situation
in Armenia, particularly the sharp escalation in confrontation between
the government and the opposition,” spokesman Richard Boucher said in
a statement.

His comments came after Armenian opposition leaders vowed to continue
their campaign to force Kocharian’s resignation following the breakup
of an anti-government demonstration by police with water cannons,
arrests of protestors and the alleged ransacking of two political
party offices.

The police have defended their tactics, but the United States appeared
to side with the protestors, who claimed the authorities had used
indiscriminate violence against their peaceful demonstrations.

“Physical assaults, raids on political party offices and widespread
arrests and detentions of opposition activists by the police do not
contribute to creating an atmosphere conducive to political dialogue,”
Boucher said.

“We call on all sides to respect the role of peaceful assembly and to
take all steps to prevent violence,” he added.

Armenia’s opposition has been staging almost nightly protests in
Yerevan for the past week to push its demands for the resignation of
Kocharian — blamed by many Armenians for repressive rule and low
standards of living.

The stand-off with the opposition stems from a presidential election
last March that Kocharian’s opponents alleged he rigged to secure a
second term in office. International observers said at the time the
vote fell short of democratic standards.

Haaretz
Tue., April 13, 2004 Nisan 22, 5764

Thousands of Christians gather in Jerusalem to mark Good Friday, Easter

By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Reuters

Thousands of Christians gathered in Jerusalem over the weekend to mark
Easter and Good Friday.

Hundreds of Christians gathered for the Easter service Sunday at the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, led by Latin patriarch of Jerusalem
Michel Sabah.

The number of participants is estimated to be lower this year than other
years due to the closure Israel has placed on the territories until after
Independence Day, for fear of attacks, Israel Radio reported.

On Good Friday, some 11,000 Christians crowded the church, which Christians
consider Christ’s last resting place after his body was removed from the
cross.

A roar of joy burst from the throats of the worshipers crowding the Holy
Sepulcher on Friday afternoon, as out of the darkness the light of two
candles suddenly flickered. They were held by the Greek Orthodox patriarch
and the Armenian bishop. This was the culmination of the Good Friday
procession, in which pilgrims from every strain of Christianity crowded the
streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, retracing Jesus’ path to crucifixion.

Both the Western and Eastern Churches are celebrating Easter on the same day
this year, an event that happens rarely because of different calendar
calculations. Perhaps this is what prompted Pope John Paul’s unexpected
Easter appeal for Christian unity on Sunday, saying he hoped the two
branches of Christianity that split apart a thousand years ago could one day
find reconciliation.

Speaking in Italian at the end of his Easter Sunday mass to tens of
thousands of people in St Peter’s Square, the Pope noted the calendar
coincidence and said he hoped it could become permanent. He said he was
praying that all baptized Christians could one day celebrate “this
fundamental feast of their faith together.

Groups from Russia, Poland, Greece, the Philippines and Ethiopia on Friday
followed the stations of the cross along the cobblestoned Via Dolorosa, or
Way of Sorrows, the route Christ took from his trial to his burial,
according to tradition.

Faith has it that the fire erupting once a year from the sepulcher lights
the candles. But this year another mystery was added. Was it the Greek
patriarch who brought the fire, as the Greeks said, or did the Armenian
bishop accompany him, as the Armenians assert.

The fire-lighting ceremony has been held annually for more than 1,000 years.
For the Orthodox, Armenians, Copts and Assyrians, the ceremony symbolizes
the beginning of Christ’s resurrection. Only a representative of the Greek
Orthodox community and a representative of the Armenian community are
allowed into the holy chapel at the sepulcher’s entrance. A few minutes
later they appear at the windows with candles in their hand. Within seconds
the fire lights thousands of candles held by worshipers in the church.

For the past two years, the Greek Orthodox and Armenian leaders have been
fighting about the access right to the source of fire. This year they asked
the Israeli government to settle the issue. But both previous and present
interior ministers kept putting off their decision.

This year, the Jerusalem police told both sides the ceremony would be held
in the same format as last year. “We told them we would not allow any
riots,” police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. “If they don’t reach an
agreement, there will be no ceremony, or only a very small one.”

Finally, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Irineos entered the sepulcher, with
Armenian Bishop Vicken close on his heels. An armed police force kept watch
inside the church to prevent disturbances.

Outside the church, local shopkeepers – some of whom were selling bootlegged
DVDs of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” – and police said this
year’s Good Friday turnout was larger than any since the outbreak of the
intifada in September 2000.

Worshipers sang and carried icons, candles, flowers and crosses as they
walked along the alleys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

One group of about a dozen people, each wearing a crown of thorns, carried a
large cross. Another group reenacted the Passion with actors playing the
parts of Jesus, Roman soldiers and the disciples.

The procession often ground to a halt as the throng tried to turn sharp
corners or pass through narrow passages. Some pilgrims tearfully kissed the
pillars of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as they waited to get in. Once
inside, many wiped prayer cloths across the Stone of Unction, where Christ
was anointed for burial.

RIA Novosti, Russia
April 9 2004

CIS COUNTRIES HOLD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CONFERENCE

YEREVAN, April 9 (RIA Novosti) – A session of a working group made up
of the chambers of commerce and industry of six CIS countries started
in Yerevan, Armenia on Thursday. Delegates will discuss cooperation
in arranging exhibitions and the development of small and
medium-seized business.

The experts will prepare and coordinate documents that are expected
to be signed at a meeting of the heads of the chambers of commerce
and industry on June 1-3 in Yerevan. The documents include agreements
on economic integration, cooperation of small and medium-sized
business, business information exchange between the chambers of
commerce and industry and developing cooperation in arranging
exhibitions.

Representatives from the chambers of commerce and industry of Russia,
Belarus, Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine will take part
in the meeting. Azerbaijan refused to take part in this session.

Council of Europe head, Azeri leader discuss Karabakh

ANS TV, Baku
8 Apr 04

[Presenter] The Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict and the problem of
refugees were the main topics discussed by Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev and Council of Europe Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer today.

[Correspondent] At the meeting with Council of Europe
Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer, President Ilham Aliyev said that
since the country became a member of this organization, a number of
reforms had been conducted, laws had been adopted and also major work
had been done in the human rights sphere. The head of state said that
the Nagornyy Karabakh problem would be discussed at the organization’s
political council.

[Aliyev] We hope that when this issue is discussed at the plenary
session, the issue will be given an objective political assessment.

[Correspondent] Council of Europe Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer
explained the reasons for his visit to Azerbaijan, which were to learn
how the country’s commitments were being fulfilled and also to discuss
issues concerning the frozen conflict.

[Schwimmer, in English with Azeri voice-over] I met refugees
today. After the meeting with them, I understood that the Karabakh
problem was not a frozen conflict for them.

[Correspondent] Schwimmer promised that the Council of Europe would
help refugees and called on the sides to begin a dialogue.

Afat Telmanqizi and Ali Ahmadov, ANS.

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
April 7 2004

US changing Minsk group spokesman

Baku Today 07/04/2004 12:43

US government will be replacing the US chairman to the OSCE’s Minsk
group, said US Ambassador in Azerbaijan Reno Harnish at a meeting
with Azeri defense minister Safar Abiyev yesterday.
US State Secretary’s senior adviser for the Caspian basin issues
Steven Mann will take over the chairman’s post. Mann will succeed
Rudolph Perini who has been the third US chairman of the Minsk group.

Linn Pasko and Kerry Kavano have been the preceding chairmen of the
group.

OSCE’s Minsk group has been functioning to facilitate a peaceful
solution to the Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Three nations are currently presiding over the group to coordinate
the mediation efforts. Alongside with the United States Russia and
France are the chairmen of the group.

The three nations have been operating in joint chairmanship since
February 11, 1997.

FrontPage Magazine
April 7 2004

The Pulitzer Prize: No Conservatives Need Apply

By George Shadroui
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 7, 2004

The Pulitzer Prizes announced this week demonstrate again the
stranglehold that liberals and leftists enjoy when it comes to
garnering recognition from those who bestow honors for outstanding
journalism and writing.

While it is laudable that Anne Applebaum, who serves on the liberal
Washington Post editorial board, won for documenting the terrors of
the Soviet Gulag, it should be recalled that Solzhenitsyn’s
monumental work on the same subject appeared in the 1970s. Likewise,
the award given to William Taubman for his Khrushchev biography comes
long after the Soviet Union itself had admitted to the crimes and
repression documented. It has apparently taken the liberal and
leftist establishment decades to accept and document crimes that many
anti-communists were assailed for daring to mention back in 1940s and
1950s.

The rest of the awards, however, went pretty much as expected, with
liberal and left-driven journalism taking the honors. In the category
for commentary, the winner and all those nominated were liberals. The
public service writing award went to two PBS leftists. The
investigative reporting award went for a series about American
atrocities in Vietnam, which is standard fare in the awards business.
The national reporting award went to a series attacking Wal-Mart — a
favorite bete noir of the Left. The international reporting award
went to the Washington Post for a series on the reactions of Iraqis
to the American invasion, much of it casting U.S. efforts in a
negative light. The beat reporting award went to a story on college
admissions preferences for the wealthy (not one of the extraordinary
investigations into race preference admissions has ever won). The
drama award went to a play whose lone character is a transvestite.
The non-fiction book award went to a book by a leftist about race
struggles.

In short, like many national awards of this kind, the Pulitzer is a
political prize bestowed almost exclusively on writers, journalists
and thinkers who cater to suitably liberal or left-wing points of
view. It wasn’t always thus, but since the 1960s that’s been the
case. Writers Peter Collier and David Horowitz, for example, were
nominated for a National Book Award for the first of their four
best-selling biographies of American dynastic families. That was when
they were on the Left. Although their book on the Kennedys earned
them the sobriquet “the premier chroniclers of American dynastic
tragedy” and the New York Times described their book on the Fords as
an “irresistible epic,” they were never nominated for an award again.

Having spent more than 20 years working as a journalist or with
journalists, I can attest to what even internal surveys by academics
and journalists have shown: most journalists are either liberal/Left
or so cynical that they resist easy characterization. In fact, in
nearly a decade of working as a local reporter, I do not recall
stumbling across another conservative. So do liberals dominate the
reporting awards? The answer is obvious. And it’s not because the few
conservative journalists don’t write worthy stories. Heather
MacDonald, Michael Fumento, William Tucker, Bill Gertz and the late
Mike Kelly have produced prize-worthy work by any standard, but none
of them have been rewarded by the Pulitzer Board.

Still, many of the awards honor legitimate feats of journalism and
many focus on local news coverage that defies easy ideological
characterization, so let us put aside the journalism categories for
now and look instead at the major book or commentary awards, which
are more high profile and often more slanted. For the purposes of
this analysis, four categories – general non-fiction, commentary,
autobiography/biography and history – are relevant. A review of
winners over 40 years shows that conservatives are basically
excluded.

The category for commentary is an exception. Since 1970, when
commentary was first singled out for recognition as part of the
Pulitzer Prizes, several prominent conservatives have won, including
George Will, William Safire, Charles Krauthammer, Vermont Royster and
Paul Gigot.

But liberals have still dominated, with winners including Mike Royko,
David Broder, Mary McGrory, Ellen Goodman, Russell Baker, Art
Buchwald, Claude Sitton, Murray Kempton, Jimmy Breslin, Clarence
Page, Jimmie Hoagland, Anna Quindlen, Colbert King, Thomas Friedman,
Maureen Dowd and William Raspberry. William F. Buckley, Irving
Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Thomas Sowell, to mention just four
obvious conservatives whose work is impressive in scope and quality,
have never won.

A 4 to 1 ratio is actually a victory of sorts for conservatives when
compared to most other categories or awards. Not a single discernible
conservative has won in the other three major categories being
considered here. Not one. There is a long list of leftists and
liberals, however. Among those honored for their work in history, we
find Dean Acheson, James MacGregor Burns, Leon Litwack, Taylor
Branch, Joseph Ellis, Robert Caro, Stanley Karnow, Gordon Wood, Louis
Menand, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

In the general non-fiction category, winners have included Barbara
Tuchman, David McCullough, Tina Rosenberg, Garry Wills, Richard
Hofstader, Theodore White, Norman Mailer, Frances Fitzgerald, Annie
Dillard, James Lelyveld, J. Anthony Lukas, Neil Sheehan, Jonathan
Weiner, John Dower, John McPhee, Samantha Power and David Remnick. In
the biography and auto-biography category we have W.A. Swanberg,
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Robert Caro, Joseph Lash, George Kennan,
Edmund Morris, Russell Baker, Katherine Graham, David McCullough,
etc.

Some of these awardees wrote great books and their work deserved
recognition, irrespective of ideological pedigree. It cannot be
ignored, however, that conservative authors are totally overlooked
(or snubbed) going back to the 1960s. No awards for Allan Bloom (The
Closing of the American Mind), George Gilder (Wealth and Poverty),
Charles Murray (Losing Ground), Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom
(America in Black and White), whose books helped set the terms of
national discussion and policy.

Why? For starters, Joseph Pulitzer was a crusader who coined a
much-cited definition of journalistic excellence: to afflict the
comfortable and comfort the afflicted. By this standard, documenting
the defects in society is a priority, often with the goal of
stimulating government activism to redress specific issues. When not
pushing for more government to solve seemingly intractable social
problems, the press is routinely focused on corporate malfeasance.
Finding victims and documenting failure is the paradigm through which
journalists practice their craft — except, alas, when it might cut
against the liberal grain. There will be no Pulitzers for exposing
the destructive effects of liberal programs like welfare, for
example, or the political subversion of the public health system by
the AIDS lobby.

To show just how prevalent this bias is, consider for a moment John
Stossel, the Emmy-winning television reporter, who recently published
a book, Give Us a Break, in which he documents how he was ostracized
by the journalism community when he turned his reporting talents from
major corporations to big government. Once a touted and celebrated
reporter, suddenly he was on the outside among the liberal elite.
Bernard Goldberg, in his books, Bias and Arrogance, also documents
the liberal slant of major news organizations.

This political culture within the profession discourages journalists
from tackling certain stories that would provide a more balanced view
of public policy and international issues. How is it, for example,
that the media have gladly focused on the victims of American and
corporate power, yet done so little to document the suffering of
victims of Ba’athist tyranny in Iraq? Could it be that the media is
reluctant to give moral credence to what is an unpopular war among
leftists and Democrats? Prisons were emptied, mass graves uncovered,
and yet coverage that has explored these issues in depth or
interviewed families or victims at length has been scarce since
Saddam was toppled. Certainly, compared to the coverage given Richard
Clarke’s attacks on the Bush policy in Iraq, efforts to document the
atrocities uncovered by our troops has been miniscule. It is as if we
had defeated the Germans and then no one bothered to document the
concentration camps or the Nazi killing machine, but rather focused
on the imperfections of D-Day.

This bias is evident in coverage of Cold War issues, as well. Again,
it took decades before liberals finally documented atrocities
perpetrated by communism. Yet, their work was quickly recognized.
Meanwhile, the work of Richard Pipes, Robert Conquest and Martin
Malia has never received a Pulitzer. As this year shows again, there
is no shortage of honored books or authors who “dare” to report on
American “crimes” in Southeast Asia or Central America – among them
Frances Fitzgerald, Neil Sheehan, Norman Mailer, Tina Rosenberg and
Gloria Emerson – or for work that takes the traditional liberal slant
on our nation’s race problems. The result is that even well-intended
and more fair-minded journalists or historians often seem to view
issues through the paradigms constructed by anti-American critics
like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

Take as one example recent Pulitzer winner Samantha Power. In her
book on genocide, A Problem from Hell, she documents what she calls
the reluctance of the United States to take any action to thwart the
genocidal policies of other governments. Power, it should be noted,
reviewed Chomsky’s recent book, Hegemony or Survival, for the New
York Times. The book is another in a long line of his anti-American
fulminations. Though Power concedes that Chomsky can be one-sided,
her own work is in some ways a testimony to his influence.

Power, like many critics of American foreign policy on the Left,
views American decision-making outside of historical context. She
judges our action or inaction against some unachievable ideal rather
than against what other nations or governments were doing. If our
record is less than satisfactory, it seems fair to ask how it
compares with the action or inaction of others? To attack the United
States because it has neither the capacity nor the will to right
every horrific wrong being committed across the globe is to hold our
nation to a standard unmatched in history. As we are finding in Iraq
today, the choices are not painless or uncomplicated, but these
factors often are forgotten over time.

For example, what would she have had the American government do to
stop the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide beyond exercising our
maximum military and diplomatic might against the regimes
perpetrating these crimes, which we did once involved in both World
War I and World War II? We lost almost a million men in both wars and
it was not a given that we would triumph. Nor is it a given we will
win in Iraq against a clearly fascist enemy, but our harshest critics
for acting against a tyrannical regime are on the Left.

Back in the 1980s, J. Douglas Bates, a former newspaper editor,
offered some criticism of the Pulitzers in his book, The Pulitzer
Prize. He documented a bias evident in the Pulitzers, not against
conservatives, but against those who worked in the heartland or out
West. His argument was that Easterners had the advantage. Bates also
documented the lobbying effort by leftists on behalf of the work of
Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. When a group of leftist writers took
out an ad in the New York Review of Books arguing that Morrison
should win in the fiction category, the Pulitzer Board a few weeks
later honored her novel Beloved. You can rest assured that those
writers never organized on behalf of black author Shelby Steele,
known for his rejection of politically correct views.

Bates has plenty of sympathy for liberals he feels have been
overlooked by the Pulitzers, including I.F. Stone, Leonard Bernstein
and Neil Sheehan for his reporting on the Vietnam war (though Sheehan
would later win for his history of Vietnam). Yet, not once in his
250-page book did Bates explore the issue of bias against
conservative writers or journalists who cut against the liberal
grain.

The awards, of course, are administered by the Columbia Journalism
School, which is itself a bastion of liberal/Left attitudes. One
Columbia University student once reportedly remarked – all my
professors come from The Nation and the Village Voice. There is not a
single identifiable conservative on the Columbia Journalism faculty.
Bernard Goldberg, in his most recent book, Arrogance, reports that a
blue ribbon panel was established a few years ago to review the
school’s operations in an effort to improve its performance and the
practice of good journalism. Goldberg notes that the panel consisted
almost entirely of known leftists and liberals, while prominent and
respected conservatives were not invited to contribute.

Awards are symbolic but also important. They are the trademark of
excellence and they often make or break careers. They should be based
on the quality of the work being considered, not on the political
prejudices of judges or the industry as a whole. Most conservatives,
I am confident, want fair and balanced reporting even when it cuts
against the grain of their own ideology. This is the bulwark of a
free society. What they can’t accept as easily is the kind of
spectacle witnessed over the past couple of weeks, when Richard
Clarke was given unprecedented air time, during a time of war, to
espouse views at odds with those of conservative administration
trying to win that war.

A self critical journalism community must ask itself why such noted
conservative writers and authors as William F. Buckley Jr., David
Horowitz, Peter Collier, Michael Novak, George Gilder, Charles
Murray, Allen Bloom, William Gertz, Gerald Posner, Dinesh D’Souza,
Thomas Sowell, Florence King and many others have been overlooked by
so many contests that honor writing or letters.

However difficult it might be for liberal elites to acknowledge it,
every major award given for writing or public affairs reporting is
dominated or controlled by the leftist or liberal intelligentsia. Is
it an accident that Jimmy Carter was given the Nobel Prize precisely
when a conservative president whose policies Carter detests was
trying to mobilize the international community against worldwide
terrorism?

Those who would claim to be the standard-bearers of excellence and
the defenders of the marketplace of ideas should be embarrassed by
the discriminatory practices evident in these cherished awards. None
dare call it bias – but bias it is.