UN News Center
Jan 28 2005

UN agency grants Armenia new loan to boost its impoverished rural
economy

28 January 2005 – With output in Armenia still only about 65 per cent
of its level in 1990 when it gained independence from the former
Soviet Union, the United Nations is granting a new $15.3 million loan
to help boost the economy of rural areas, which cover about 80 per
cent of the impoverished Caucasus country.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian today visited the Rome
headquarters of the International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD) to mark the agreement, which was being signed by IFAD
President Lennart Båge and the Armenian Agriculture Minister Davit
Lokyan.

The loan, on highly concessional terms, will support the Rural Areas
Economic Development Programme, building on the progress made by
IFAD’s three previous initiatives in Armenia, which involved total
financing of $36.5 million to improve food security in rural areas
and meet the challenges of a market economy.

The new programme targets unemployed men and women, small and medium
farms, rural entrepreneurs, agro-processors and traders. It consists
of a package of measures, including: loans for investment and working
capital; grant-financing of small-scale infrastructure; and training
in developing a business. It is expected that thousands of small- and
medium-sized enterprises in rural areas will be created or enlarged
as a result.

The programme also aims to increase returns from farm labour,
bringing higher levels of disposable income and to facilitate
farmers’ access to markets. Most of the funds will be channelled
through private banks and other financial institutions by means of an
innovative refinancing facility.

IFAD is a specialized UN agency dedicated to eradicating rural
poverty in developing countries. Seventy-five per cent of the world’s
poorest people – 900 million people – live in rural areas and depend
on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. Through
low-interest loans and grants, IFAD works with governments to develop
and finance programmes and projects that enable rural poor people to
overcome poverty themselves.

There are close to 200 ongoing IFAD-supported rural poverty
eradication programmes and projects worldwide, totalling $6.5
billion. IFAD has invested about $3 billion in these initiatives.

OSCE mission accepts Azeri evidence on illegal settlement in Karabakh –
official

Turan news agency
28 Jan 05

BAKU

Settlement on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan is being carried
out directly by Armenia, Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister [Araz
Azimov] said at today’s press conference commenting on the 28 January
meeting in the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry with the co-chairmen of
the OSCE Minsk Group and with members of the international mission
which is to probe into settlement on the occupied districts.

He said that the meeting was attended by the National Security
Ministry, the State Border Service and the State Committee for Land
[and Cartography]. During the meeting, Azerbaijan presented to the
mission maps, video and audio materials proving settlement on the
occupied territories. The mission regarded the evidence as justified
and accepted it.

The Armenian authorities are directly involved in settlement on the
territories and some 23,000 people have been illegally settled on the
occupied lands, Azimov said. The settlement policy has many forms,
including the implementation of special targeted economic and
infrastructure projects. Settlement on the occupied territories does
not have a positive impact on the negotiations on resolving the
conflict.

The mission also received information on the use of the occupied
territories for drugs trafficking and for organized criminal activity.

The fact-finding mission will reach the territories in several
days. They will first visit Kalbacar and Lacin districts and will then
head for other territories, including Susa District.

The investigation will last 10 days. A report will then be prepared on
the basis of the gathered evidence. Next, the report will be presented
to the OSCE Minsk Group and to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.

Azimov also commented on the PACE resolution on Nagornyy Karabakh. He
said that the resolution objectively reflected the occupation of
Azerbaijan’s land and ethnic cleansing. Azimov said that the current
talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan discussed ending the military
conflict and removing its consequences. An agreement should be
prepared and signed on the results of the discussions, Azimov said.

When the time comes, there will be discussion with representatives of
Nagornyy Karabakh’s Armenian community and with the Azerbaijani
community which will by then return there. “Azerbaijan will be
discussing the issue of communities with its citizens and the public
should realize that,” Azimov said.

ArmenPress
Jan 28 2005

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT MEETS POPE JOHN PAUL II

VATICAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Robert
Kocharian who is in Italy on a four-day official visit met today with
UN World Food Program Director Jacques Deuffi. The latter highly
assessed the pace of cooperation with Armenia.
In his turn Armenian President expressed hope that the cooperation
with UN World Food Program will expand more in future. At present
Armenia and this organization implement 5 programs costing 1.7
million USD.
Robert Kocharian also met with the head of the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD) L. Bogey and the latter highly
assessed the reforms that are being implemented in Armenia in the
agricultural sphere.
L. Bogey assured that the present speed of the cooperation will
continue. After the meeting a credit program costing 20 million USD
was signed – 10 millions will be provided for the development of
agricultural economy and the other 10 million for the development of
village communities’ infrastructures.
Armenian President Robert Kocharian visited today Vatican where he
met with Pope John Paul II.
“Your presence here reminds me of our first meeting in Vatican in
March, 1999, on the opening occasion of Rome-Armenia exhibition and
also of our meeting in Yerevan on the 1700th anniversary of the
adoption of Christianity by the Armenians. I use with pleasure the
opportunity to greet all the people in Armenia and those Armenians
who are in different parts of the world but united by Christian and
cultural ties,” said John Paul II.
The Pope referred to the good relations with Holy See and said “I
know that Catholic community is respected in Armenia and all its
initiatives promote the increase of prosperity of the whole people.
The relations between the Catholic and Armenian Apostolic churches
are based on mutual respect and relationship.”
After the meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Armenian
President visited the Saint Grigor Lusavoritch monument which was
erected in Vatican and blessed by the Pope on January 19. Here the
President was greeted by the Armenian Catholic clergymen. Later the
President met with the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berluskoni.

Sofia News Agency/Novonite, Bulgaria
Jan 28 2005

Sofia Exhibits Unique Glimpses from Turkey’s Top Peak

Photo reporter K. Atanasova (R) was heartfully greeted by M. Behar,
CEO of M3 Communications Group, Inc., while opening her exhibition on
Turkey’s Mount Agri. The event is held under aegis of H.E. Ambassador
Haydar Berk (L). Photo by Y.Nikolova (SNA)

An exclusive photo exhibition dedicated to Turkey’s Mount Agri opened
in Sofia to offer rare images from this remote and slightly known
region believed to keep the biblical Noah’s Arch.

The pictures were taken by Sofia News Agency’s young photo reporter
Kameliya Atanasova, who climbed the dormant volcano last summer in a
joint expedition of Bulgarian and Turkish alpinists.

The lavish opening of the exhibition attracted scores of official and
ordinary people intrigued to peep into that another world caught in
pictures.

The expo was organized by PR leader M3 Communications Group, Inc.,
and held under the aegis of the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey and
H.E. Ambassador Haydar Berk.

Snowcapped Agri rises to a height of 5165 m, and is Turkey’s highest
peak. It overlooks vast areas bordering Iran, Iraq and Armenia.

Agri is the famous biblical Mount Ararat, the legendary site of the
second beginning of the world. It is believed that Noah’s Ark rested
on its summit during the big flood, and the wide plain of Igdir at
the foot of the mountain is the first place where Noah set foot after
the disaster.

Interfax
Jan 28 2005

Azerbaijan says Armenia illegally populating occupied lands

BAKU. Jan 28 (Interfax-Azerbaijan) – Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev has accused Armenia of illegally populating lands it has
occupied in Azerbaijan and has called this one of the obstacles to a
lasting settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia
over Nagorno- Karabakh.

Aliyev, who was speaking at a meeting with the co-chairmen of the
Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE), expressed hope that a planned inspection of the
occupied territory by the co-chairmen would be instrumental in
stopping Armenia from populating the area.

Newark Star Ledger, NJ
Jan 28 2005

Grandma’s basement full of secrets

BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

Leslie Ayvazian had a feeling that when she went into the
sub-basement of her grandmother’s house in Leonia, she was going to
find something special.

She did indeed: the diaries kept by her maternal grandmother, Marie
Bedikian. They’re the basis of “Rosemary and I,” Ayvazian’s new play,
which begins a three-week run at the Passage Theatre Company in
Trenton on Thursday.

In 1989, after Bedikian’s death, Ayvazian inherited the Bergen County
home and moved in with her husband, Sam Anderson, and son, Ivan. She
then began exploring, somehow expecting to find a hidden treasure or
two.

There were many more. “Drawers and drawers full of diaries,” says
Ayvazian, still sounding astonished at the discovery. “Very little
was in English, and much was in her native Armenian — and in three
other languages, too. I had no idea that she knew five different
languages.”

Ayvazian had Bedikian’s diaries translated — and found more
surprising information.

“She had never told me that she once had a singing career,” Ayvazian
says. “She actively sang for 10 years — in seven different languages
— and even appeared at Carnegie Hall.”

The diaries yielded some tragic stories, too. In 1915, Ayvazian’s
grandparents were living in the Armenian section of Istanbul, where
Bedikian was studying with noted Armenian composer Solomon
Solomonian, better known by his pseudonym, Komitas.

“She was on her way to a lesson,” says Ayvazian, “when a neighbor
leaned out the window and told her to go home because Komitas had
been arrested, and the Armenian massacre by the Turks had begun.”

Komitas was among some 500 Armenians shot by the Turks, yet he
survived the bullet wounds. He went mad from the experience and died
20 years later in a Paris asylum.

“I learned,” says Ayvazian, “that he never spoke another word as long
as he lived.”

Within weeks of the massacre, Ayvazian’s grandparents were on their
way to New York. “They took linens, tablecloths, rugs and trunks full
of other things,” she says, “and yet they kept them in this
sub-basement and never opened them. I found my grandmother’s
costumes, too, made of the most gossamer material.”

Ayvazian started writing. Some of the stories wound up in her play,
“Nine Armenians,” which was produced off-Broadway by the Manhattan
Theatre Club in 1996. Yet the idea of a writer who’s having a
difficult time learning about her family’s hushed-up history turned
into what is now “Rosemary and I.”

“I’d been working on it, on and off, for all these years. For a long
while, it didn’t have a title. I have a problem with titles,”
Ayvazian admits. “My son was 4 days old before we decided on a name
for him. Then, after Rosemary Harris played my grandmother in a
reading — and did it so well — I renamed the character after her.”

Now Passage theatergoers will see the results under the direction of
Blair Brown — the same Blair Brown who won a Tony Award in 2000 for
her performance in “Copenhagen” on Broadway and starred in the 1987
TV series “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.”

Their collaboration was engineered by Lisa Loosemore, who’s
Ayvazian’s manager and Brown’s agent. “Lisa read my play ‘Lovely
Day,’ about a Vietnam vet who believes his son should fight in the
current war, while the boy’s mother does not,” says Ayvazian. “She
gave it to Blair, who liked it, and when we met and I told her I
belonged to a writing group, she asked if she could come one night.”

Ayvazian gave everyone writing assignments that night. “No matter
what I asked,” she says, “everything Blair wrote concerned how much
she wanted to be a director. One thing led to another, and now she’s
directing ‘Rosemary and I.’ She even designed the poster, too.”

And she cast Ayvazian as Rosemary’s daughter, Julia — a character
based on Ayvazian’s mother.

“I usually like to sit back and see my plays performed, but when I
did a reading (Passage artistic director) June Ballinger thought I
should do it, and Blair agreed,” says Ayvazian, who’s now commuting
from that Leonia home to Trenton. “But I promise I won’t do the next
production.”

Las Vegas Sun
Jan 28 2005

Reid’s phone call to Ridge spurs LV sisters’ release from federal
custody

By Timothy Pratt
<[email protected]>
LAS VEGAS SUN

The Las Vegas teens who have spent the last two weeks detained in Los
Angeles pending deportation to Armenia were scheduled to arrive at
McCarran International Airport this morning.

Last night 18-year-old Emma Sarkisian and her 17-year-old sister,
Mariam, were told they would be freed and got the word back to their
family and lawyers.

Family, friends and strangers who rallied behind the family are
expected to be celebrating their return into the evening. This
morning, the girls’ Russian-speaking father, Rouben Sarkisian, who
runs Tropicana Pizza in Henderson, said through an interpreter that
today it will be “free pizza for everybody!”

Then he laughed and admitted he doesn’t know exactly how he and his
daughters will celebrate their reunion after the emotional roller
coaster of the last two weeks.

“I will see how they feel and what they want to do,” he said. He
added that he understood many residents of the Las Vegas Valley might
want to greet the sisters — whose photos and stories have been in
the media nonstop since their Jan. 14 detention — so he would
probably bring them by the pizzeria this afternoon.

Their freedom had been won, said one of their lawyers, Jeremiah Wolf
Stuchiner, “apparently due to the intervention of (Secretary of
Homeland Security) Tom Ridge,” whom Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., had
asked in a phone call Wednesday to give the case “personal
attention.”

That sort of phone call has rarely, if ever, occurred to stop an
order of deportation, which is “like a death sentence” in its legal
finality, said Stuchiner, who has worked on immigration issues for
nearly 50 years, first as a federal official and then as a lawyer.

Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
said “a collective decision had been reached … to use our
discretionary authority and grant a deferred action on the case.”
That means the sisters still have no legal status and will have their
case reviewed on an ongoing basis, she said.

Several immigration experts said the case drew attention to a larger
problem, with thousands of children facing deportation because of the
actions of their parents.

Jeanne Butterfield, executive director for the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, a Washington-based group that has 9,000 members
nationwide, said “the case illustrates that we need changes in our
law — especially for minors who are having trouble with their legal
status through no fault of their own.”

But Thursday night at Tropicana Pizza the mood was giddy.

The restaurant had been ground zero for the growing public campaign
in support of the girls in recent weeks. Their framed photos sat on
the counter, behind two sheets of paper with phone numbers for
members of Congress and immigration officials.

Michelle Sarkisian, 13, stood outside the pizzeria around 8:45 p.m.,
exchanging text messages via cell phone with Mariam.

Though the scene was typical American tech, the pizzeria in a mall,
the surrounding suburbs, it arose from a labyrinth of immigration
law, international diplomacy and Capitol Hill maneuvers.

Mariam was hiding in the federal holding tank’s shower and using the
cell phone that had been forbidden to her to tell her sister she was
due to be freed.

“We’re coming home tomorrow!” Mariam wrote.

The case had turned on a series of events stretching back more than a
decade. Rouben Sarkisian arrived in the United States in 1991 and had
three more daughters with his wife, Anoush. He then divorced his
wife, married a U.S. citizen, and through that marriage gained the
status of legal resident — the step below citizenship. He later
divorced the U.S. woman.

But Sarkisian never gained any legal status for his oldest daughters,
though he has said on several occasions that he thought he had. He
even took them to a Las Vegas immigration office in July to obtain
the paperwork he thought would show their status, in order to obtain
a driver’s license for Emma.

That visit set in motion the steps that led to the Jan. 14 detention
of the girls. Immigration officials said they had been ordered
deported in 1993 and were just following the law.

The Sarkisians’ lawyers argued that the government should give Rouben
a few months to finally become a citizen, which would then give him
the right to petition for his daughters to become legal residents.

Now that they are being released, the lawyers will withdraw their
writ of habeas corpus still before Magistrate Judge Robert Johnston
at the George Federal Building, since “the purpose of the habeas was
to stop detention and have them released,” Stuchiner said.

Rouben Sarkisian said Thursday’s events, as well as the two weeks
before, had been “like life — one time up, one time down.”

That up and down included placing an advertisement in recent days to
sell the pizzeria, since he thought he would need money “to fight to
keep my daughters here.”

Thursday night, he didn’t know whether he would still try to sell the
business. “The girls have worked hard in the pizzeria and … and
being together is what drives the business,” he said.

Rouben said it was hard to focus on the future for now. He reviewed
the day’s events, which began at 9 a.m. when he had attended a
hearing at the George Federal Building and was told the girls would
not be released to his custody while Johnston decided in the coming
weeks whether they would be deported.

“I thought it was over,” he said. Then the sisters themselves were
told they would be freed in the afternoon, news that eventually got
back to Las Vegas only because a member of their legal team, lawyer
Troy Baker, called them to brief them on the results of the hearing.

Baker had been given a phone number to reach the teens in their
detention cell because Johnston had ordered the federal government to
give lawyers access to the girls.

“I called them about 6 p.m. to tell them where we were going from
here, after their release had been denied,” Baker said.

“But while I was on the phone, someone told them they would be set
free. I told them, ‘Don’t start jumping up and down until I confirm
this.’ ”

Baker said the girls had been told several times in recent days that
they had lost the legal battle and would be sent back to Armenia,
even though no decision had been made. The girls were born in Armenia
but don’t speak its language and have no family there, the Sarkisians
have said.

Baker said he didn’t want them to be given incorrect information
again.

Stuchiner, who Baker said has an impressive “black book,” made a few
phone calls Thursday night and confirmed the news about the release.

The Sarkisian case had already brought surprises, including twice
turning the sisters back from flights to Moscow within hours of
take-off — once due to an administrative order and once due to a
judge’s order.

A retired Armenian archbishop in Los Angeles whose diocese has an
estimated 600,000 followers had also been lobbying Armenian and U.S.
authorities to let the girls go. And — in what the lawyers said was
the key to the release — dozens of local residents let their
congressmen know they thought the sisters should be with their
family.

Rouben said Thursday night that he did not blame anybody and was not
bitter about what his family had been through in recent weeks.

“I think everybody tried to do what they were supposed to do,” he
said.

“And in the end, common sense and good people — they prevail in
America.”

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
January 27, 2005, Thursday
19:59:04 Central European Time

Lebanese cabinet approves draft election law

Beirut

The Lebanese cabinet voted Thursday in favour of a new election law
drafted by pro-Syrian Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh which has
ignited wide criticism by opposition figures. Twenty-four ministers
voted in favour of the law, while six abstained – four of these loyal
to Shiite house speaker Nabih Berri, Information Minister Elie ferzli
said. The draft was referred to parliament for making it a law that
would regulate general elections slated for spring. The new bill is
based on the 1960 election law, with some modifications. These
include a proposal reducing the voting age level to 18 years, a
control on campaign spending and provisions for solitary ballots
guaranteeing voting privacy. The draft comprises 75 articles, key
among which are articles 2 and 3 specifying the number of
constituencies and the sectarian deputies in each. Beirut would have
three constituencies, the first with six deputies (four Moslem
Sunnis, one Christian Orthodox and one Druze), the second with nine
deputies (two Moslem Sunnis, two Moslem Shiites, three Orthodox
Armenians, one Evengelical and Catholic Armenian) and the third with
four (one Catholic, one Orthodox, one Maronite and one for
minorities). All in all, Lebanon will have a total of 26
constituencies. In initial reaction, former prime minister Rafik
Hariri threatened to resign from parliament along with his bloc if
the legislative body passed the draft into law, sources close to the
premier said. Hariri rejected especially vehemently the way the
Beirut cosntituencies were drawn up by Franjieh, a Christian
Maronite, one of Syria’s staunchest allies and a supporter of
Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud. Hariri charged the
constituencies have been tailored for political goals and could spark
sectarian sedition. Hariri’s parliamentary bloc, Beirut’s Choice,
includes 18 MPs. Hariri said earlier he would run for election in the
third constituency instead of the first if the draft remained as it
is. His aim would be to ensure balance between the constituencies.
Hariri’s ally Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said the upcoming
parliamentary elections were very important for the country’s future,
adding: “Our aim is to end the Syrian tutorship via democratic means
and turn the page of the war to no return.” Jumblatt, once a Syrian
ally, fell out with Damascus after it influenced the Lebanese
parliament to extend the term for Lahoud for another three years.
Since then, Jumblat has been leading a campaign calling for
implementing the Saudi-sponsored Taif accord, on the basis of calling
for the withdrawal of some 14,000 Syrian troops in the eastern Beka’a
region and ending the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence agencies’
meddling in Lebanese domestic affairs. Maronite cardinal Christian
Mar Nasrallah Butros Sfeir also criticized the draft, saying: “The
law should be fair to ensure an honest and fair elections and keep
away from any outside influence.” dpa wh sc

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
January 28, 2005, Friday

On a road trip to an Oscar Review Witty and brilliantly acted, with
endearingly offbeat characters, this odd couple odyssey deserves to
be named Best Film

BY Sukhdev Sandhu

Sideways

15 cert, 127 min

At last – Sideways. Alexander Payne’s slanted and enchanted follow-up
to About Schmidt is utter joy, pure 100 per cent-proof bliss, the
most laugh-out-loud funny film to come out of America in years. It’s
a Last of the Summer Wine for grown-ups, a road movie of impeccably
slack structure, effervescent but with a strong bouquet of melancholy
and more than a faint trace of bawdy. Never thought you’d see a
comedy that used Pinot as a metaphor for all that is, or could be,
good about the human spirit? This, most assuredly, is it. Million
Dollar Baby and The Aviator be damned; this, if there’s any justice
in the world, should walk away with the Oscar for Best Picture.

Adapted by Payne and fellow-screenwriter Jim Taylor from a novel by
Rex Pickett, Sideways is the story of an odd couple – Miles (Paul
Giamatti), a middle-school literature teacher who has yet to recover
from a divorce two years previously and is struggling to find a
publisher for his 700-page novel, and his college roommate Jack
(Thomas Haden Church), a former soap star and commercial voiceover
artist – who go on a driving tour of the vineyards of Santa Barbara.

For Miles the trip is a chance to catch up, to have a mellow
golf-and-Grigio vacation. For Jack, a priapic goat at the best of
times, it’s a final hurrah, a chance to get his end away before he
gets married in a week’s time. The former is in a state of low-grade
depression and thinks of himself as a “thumbprint on the window of a
skyscraper”; the latter, louche and carefree, decides to act as his
feel-good therapist – the chief remedy he proposes being that he
should get his rocks off too.

They’re a double act, then. Straight man and funny man. Except that
Payne is too subtle to leave it at that. Miles, it turns out, is more
than a lovable loser: he cheated on his wife and steals from his
mother’s dresser.

Jack, for all that he comes across as an easy-riding knucklehead, can
pull out of his hat winning quotes from John Kennedy Toole novels. As
they clock up the road miles, they find themselves constantly
switching roles: each serves time as a sulker, helping hand,
emotional goad.

Theirs is the real on-off, affectionate/exasperated love affair in
this film, a relationship based on an intimate knowledge and
acceptance of each other’s flaws. But they both strike gold with two
women: Miles finds solace, though his knock-kneed timidity means he
nearly scuppers this chance, with divorced waitress Maya (Virginia
Madsen); Jack hooks up with single-mother Stephanie (Sandra Oh).

It’s rare to find yourself caring about pretty much every character
in a film. Miles and Jack are flawed, fools sometimes, but probably
no more so than we ourselves are. Giamatti has the most beautifully
glass-half-empty kind of face in American movies today. With his
bloodshot eyes, his pale doughy cheeks that scream out “Hit me! I’m a
loser!”, and his gait that resembles a crippled dog, he makes other
nabobs of sob such as Philip Seymour Hoffman and William Macy look
like classroom clowns.

Payne is unusual for the time he spends lingering on actors’ faces:
Jack’s winking, rubber-lipped Jaggerisms; Stephanie’s penetrating
gaze that’s as testing as it is a seduction; the secret sorrows,
trust, fundamental optimism of soul that we divine whenever Maya
smiles. What layers of unspoken history and biography can be revealed
by directors who dare to keep the camera still.

I’m stressing the more autumnal, pensive elements of Sideways but,
first and foremost, it’s an absolute hoot. Haden Church could make
the Yellow Pages sound hilarious. His denunciation of Miles’s “morose
comedown bullshit” is pure poetry. As for the scenes in which Miles,
commando-style, enters the home of one of Jack’s one-night-stands to
retrieve the wallet left behind when the woman’s tattooed husband
returned, make sure you’re sitting upright so that you don’t die
choking with laughter.

Payne is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as a clutch of
twenty- and thirtysomething directors – Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson and
David O Russell among them – whose films, for all their wit and
visual flair, are too often arch and ironic, shuffling between high
theory and pop culture with a zany ostentation that can grate. Payne,
I think, is closer in sensibility to someone like Richard Linklater.
And, like that director’s 2004 masterpiece Before Sunset, Sideways is
above all a triumph of space and time.

It doesn’t hop or jerk or trade in grabby spectacles. Rather, it
unfurls and unwinds gently, like an especially good vintage, its two
hours passing by in an instant but leaving us with an intense feeling
of how quickly human beings can move from youth to maturity to old
age.

About Schmidt pulled in many plaudits, but for me it was a
half-cocked affair that relied too heavily on Jack Nicholson’s
petrified talents and, as a consequence, seemed rather knowing and
smug. This is a far gentler work.

I sense, and certainly hope, that Payne is trying to craft a new kind
of humanist film-making, one whose landscapes, emotional as well as
physical, are all too rarely presented to moviegoers these days.

The America he offers us is a smiling, tacitly inclusive place. Not
that any of the characters mentions or is even surprised by it, but
it’s striking that Stephanie is the half-Chinese daughter of a white
mother and is herself the mother of a half-black daughter. Jack,
who’s about to get married to an Armenian anyway, doesn’t even raise
an eyebrow at this and loves playing with the kid.

Through a windscreen blearily, we see Jack and Miles travel past hazy
vineyards and blue remembered hills. One gorgeous scene, a long-range
snapshot of human happiness perhaps, shows the two picnicking couples
laughing away and sipping wine while sprawled out in a field with the
sun going down behind them. Southern California has rarely looked as
good as this on screen. Nor sounded as good: Rolfe Kent has fashioned
a charmingly low-key jazz score that drifts, gambols and puckers up
in perfect harmony with the ebb and flow of the men’s emotional
fortunes.

I could go on and on about Sideways. Brilliantly acted, cannily paced
and immaculate in rhythm and tone, I wish it had gone on indefinitely
too. That said, it has an ending as exquisite as that of The Office
Christmas special. Make sure you see it. Then make sure you see it
again. Like good wine, it improves with age.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
January 28, 2005, Friday

HUMAN RESOURCES

SOURCE: Rossiiskie Vesti, NN 1 – 2, January 20 – 26, 2005, p. 8

by Sergei Pikhtov

President of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, dashed to Kiev for a
meeting with his new counterpart as soon as Viktor Yuschenko’s
victory in the presidential race was unofficially proclaimed. The two
presidents enjoyed some skiing and signed the so called Carpathian
Declaration, a document calling the latest developments in Ukraine
“the third wave of liberation in Europe.”

The trip to Ukraine was preceded by a visit to Estonia where
Saakashvili discussed new forms of co-operation with this Baltic
state. The Georgian leader proposed Political Initiative 3 3 several
days later, an idea of co-operation between Lithuania, Latvia, and
Estonia on the one hand and Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on the
other. The Baltic states are supposed to help the republics of the
Caucasus in rapprochement with Europe within the framework of the so
called “politics of neighborhood”. What the idea is essentially about
is establishment of a new regional organization where presence of the
seventh member, the United States, can be seen with an unaided eye.
Anti-Russian bias of the future organization is undeniable too.

Washington’s political games in the region can only be applauded.
Using EU money and giving its puppets of ally’s specific tasks to
perform, the White House expects to reach its objectives with minimum
effort and resources expended. Where promotion of geopolitical
interests is concerned, American diplomats could teach their Russian
opposite numbers a thing or two.

What does Washington need it for? Primarily, it is a continuation of
its policy of finding political vassals on the borders of Russia and
simultaneous promotion of America’s “vital interests”. Proclaiming
co-operation with post-Soviet countries as a priority of its foreign
policy, the Kremlin made it plain that the Commonwealth was the last
realm it still had the stamina for.

Reaction of the US Department of State was prompt. Madame Rice’s
structure saw its chance to effectively and cheaply bind Moscow’s
hands and dampen activeness of Russian diplomacy in other spheres.
Cold War methods gave way to political technologists who already
proved their effectiveness in the struggle for power in the
pot-Soviet zone. Among other things, the matter concerns formation of
twin parties by the Americans, New Time in Latvia and Republic in
Estonia. They ousted the right-nationalist movements that had played
their role already. Financed and assisted by the Americans, actively
making use of the administrative resources, these parties easily won
the majority of seats in national parliaments. Approximately the same
scenario was used in the elections of president of Latvia and
Lithuania who had returned to their native countries after years of
life in the United States. Georgia’s turn came then where the Velvet
Revolution scenario was tried on orders from the same
decision-makers.

Russia is losing this contest of political technologies. It lacks the
necessary resources and a coordinated policy. Russian businesses do
not understand the necessity to take interests of the state into
account. As far as they are concerned, profits right here and now are
more important than interests of the state or long-term stability of
their own operations.

Moreover, what role are the Baltic states supposed to play here? They
are expected to show something in return for their membership in the
European Union and NATO. They make a fine Trojan horse in the EU,
criticizing the countries that try to emphasize their independence
from Washington in dealing with purely European problems. At the same
time, the Baltic states as Russia’s antagonists impede the EU-Russia
rapprochement which also plays into Washington’s hands.

Establishment of the anti-Russian alliance of the Baltic states and
republics of the Caucasus answers the same interests. No other
economic or political reason can explain this conspicuous and even
obsessive intention to develop bilateral contacts between countries
that are so different in commerce as such only the sale of Georgian
wine and Armenian cognac may be profitable, only in theory and only
marginally. According to the Estonia Foreign Ministry, Georgia is
108th on the list of Tallinn’s trade partners. Export from Georgia to
Estonia amounted to less than 100,000 euros in 2003. That is a laugh
even by the standards of a single company.

In fact, “friendship” between Estonia and Georgia does not begin
right away. Estonia with its Western partners’ money already trained
Georgian officials and military in answering NATO and EU requirements
to enable official Tbilisi to talk to Brussels so that it would be
understood. The whole training took the form of seminars and
consultations because the Estonians themselves cannot offer anything
more productive.

These contacts were bilateral until now. An attempt is being made now
to elevate them to a regional level and set up something like GUUAM.
It stands to reason that GUUAM must have some weak link that worries
the Americans. The matter clearly concerns Armenia and its President
Robert Kocharjan. Armenia’s reaction to the 3 3 initiative was
branded as “hesitant” in the very first comments. “The policy was
proclaimed but what exactly is meant has not been formulated yet.
Contents of the policy are being formulated at this point,” Kocharjan
said.

Kocharjan said as well that his country is prepared for closer
co-operation with the Baltic states within the framework of the
policy of “new neighbors”. He said that he would continue
consultations with Saakashvili of Georgia but he himself “is not sure
that the Baltic states themselves have a consensus on the matter
yet.”

Kocharjan’s stand on the matter is understandable. A veteran
politician, he immediately saw the initiative for what it really was
an attempt to drag him into a confrontation with Russia. He does not
want to turn it down out of hand, however, because Moscow is unlikely
to offer his country more than the Americans can. It does not
therefore take a genius to guess that President of Estonia Ruutel
discussed precisely this initiative with the Armenian leadership on
his visit to Yerevan last fall, offering the experience of his own
country in becoming a NATO member. Following the talks, Prime
Minister of Armenia A. Margarjan announced that Armenia was prepared
to develop bilateral co-operation with Estonia in the sphere of
security and defense and did not object to discussion of an
appropriate accord between defense ministries. Speaking of
development of relations, Margarjan also mentioned the importance of
the 3 3 co-operation initiative. Time will show if he really meant
something by that.

Analysis of the matter will be incomplete without consideration of
the problem of the Baltic consensus. After all, it certainly seems
that they perceive the new form of co-operation differently. In the
Caucasus, the rapprochement initiative belongs to Georgia. In the
Baltic states, the idea is promoted by Estonia. These are the two
countries whose relations with Moscow leave particularly much to be
desired.

Neither Lithuania nor Latvia displayed any particularly vivid foreign
political interest in the Caucasus until now. Bearing in mind certain
discord in the relations between the Baltic states which is bound to
worsen now that their objective (membership in the EU and NATO has
been reached); it makes sense to expect this consensus to be formal.
The situation being what it is Russia should exploit the weaknesses
of the construction instead of relying solely on its relations with
Armenia to thwart the initiative as such.

As for the weaknesses in question, it will not hurt to mention the
growing anti-Americanism in Estonia the local authorities are finding
it more and more difficult to counter and keep in check. Political
scientist Paul Goble who settled in Estonia was shocked last autumn
to be told of results of an opinion poll indicating that the locals
dislike the Russians and the Americans equally. There is nothing odd
about this attitude with regard to the Russians, but when it applies
to representatives of the Empire of Virtue, it is certainly worth
some serious contemplation.

Goble believes that it is happening because the Estonians are sick of
showing their gratitude, because they have finally seen that this
doggy devotion annuls their own accomplishments. It means that the
Kremlin may tentatively count on appearance of an other weak link in
the chain, the people of Estonia that may find these political games
with construction of the Baltic-Caucasus bridge under supervision of
the American foreman oddly familiar, remembered from its own not very
distant past.

ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN