The Russia Journal
Apr 30, 2004, 23:59 (Moscow time)

Russia supposed to help Azeri in oil export

WORLD/CIS » :: Apr 30, 2004 Posted: 11:02 Moscow time (07:02 GMT)

STRASBOURG – The president of Azerbaijan Ilkham Aliev expressed his hope
that Russia can do much for Karabakh settlement, while addressing a news
conference at the Palais de l’Europe in Strasbourg.

The President hopes for Russia to join the USA and France, other Minsk group
co-chairs, together to fix up Karabakh conflict.

Azeri petroleum exports were another principal theme of the news conference.
Their northern route, via Russia, needs much improvement. At present, an
annual 2.5 million tonnes of Azeri oil is going abroad by the
Baku-Novorossiisk mainline, and another six million by the Baku-Supsa. Both
terminals are Russia’s and Georgia’s Black Sea ports respectively.

Another mainline is being laid from Baku to Ceyhan, Turkish terminal in the
East Mediterranean. Azeri exports may amount to fifty million tonnes a year
after the line is commissioned toward next year’s end. “This does not mean
we shall give up the Baku-Novorossiisk line-a route which has to be
improved,” said Mr. Aliev.

An Azeri-Russian ad hoc team is negotiating prospective improvements, he
added. /Neftegaz.ru/

AA1 Plus | 15:29:16 | 27-04-2004 | Politics |

OPPOSITION REPRESENTATIVES LEFT WITH NO OPTION BUT TO REJECT DIALOGUE

Dialogue between the ruling coalition and the opposition had to be held
today.

As it is already known that MPs Victor Dallakyan and Arshak Sadoyan, who
represent the opposition, intend to reject the dialogue, because the
authorities have blocked roads to Yerevan to prevent people from attending
the opposition-announced rally.

A1 Plus | 18:10:01 | 28-04-2004 | Social |

“GREEN SLAUGHTER” IN YEREVAN

This morning the residents of N 143 building of South-Western block
have held a protest action demanding to preserve the park they have
themselves planted nearby their houses. It has been given to someone
to build a shop there.

The residents are more concerned about the fact that Municipality has
rejected their application on improving and protecting the territory.
People say the park where the Monument for War Fighters is located was
sold at an auction. Trees were already cut for constructing the shop.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian defence minister denies “political” arrests

Arminfo
28 Apr 04

YEREVAN

The chairman of the Security Council under the Armenian president and
defence minister, Serzh Sarkisyan, does not agree with the
opposition’s statements that repression and political arrests are
under way in Armenia and that the free movement of citizens in the
republic is being restricted.

“It is another issue that the police have been conducting inspections
on the republic’s roads, which is the duty of the law-enforcement
agencies in conditions when aggressive political forces announce their
plans to change power in the republic by force,” Sarkisyan told
journalists.

As for the discussion of the internal political situation in Armenia
by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Sarkisyan does
not think that this may lead to serious consequences.

Council of Europe hearings on Armenia of benefit to Turks, Azeris – premier

Arminfo
28 Apr 04

YEREVAN

The discussions on the internal political situation in Armenia during
the spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe [PACE] totally meet the interests of Turkey and Azerbaijan,
Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan said at the Armenian
National Assembly today.

According to Markaryan, this is proved by the fact that the Turkish
and Azerbaijani parliamentary delegations have voted for the inclusion
of this issue in the agenda of the PACE spring session. Rumours are
being disseminated in Strasbourg now that several opposition MPs have
been deprived of their immunity in Armenia, he said.

Markaryan believes that all this is being done to discredit Armenia in
the international arena and worsen the internal political situation in
the republic. “What is going on in Armenia and Strasbourg at the
moment is of benefit to Azerbaijan and Turkey,” he added.

At the same time, Markaryan expressed his confidence that the Armenian
delegation will not lose its mandate in PACE. Armenian Defence
Minister Serzh Sarkisyan has expressed the same opinion.

Armenian foreign minister urges authorities, opposition to honour PACE
demands

Mediamax news agency
30 Apr 04

YEREVAN

Armenian Foreign Minister today expressed his confidence that the
authorities will seriously treat the recommendations, envisaged in the
28 April PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]
resolution.

At the same time, Vardan Oskanyan said that part of the facts in the
resolution “do not correspond to the realities”, and the Armenian
authorities would react to them “in writing”, Mediamax news agency
reports. Moreover, the minister said that Yerevan was planning to draw
the Council of Europe leadership’s attention to a circumstance that
the resolution did not say that the Armenian opposition was airing
radical and anti-constitutional demands.

Vardan Oskanyan is happy about the fact that the PACE did not support
representatives of the Armenian opposition in the resolution, who
tried to include their demand on the conduct of a referendum on
confidence in the president of Armenia. The Armenian foreign minister
said that “no country or international organization support the demand
to conduct such a referendum in Armenia”.

Oskanyan described as important the fact that the PACE resolution did
not cast doubt on the outcome of the 2003 presidential elections in
Armenia, and called on the authorities and the opposition to start
dialogue without any pre-conditions.

“The opposition should finally realize that their demand on the
conduct of the referendum or the president’s resignation are hopeless
and could only reach an impasse,” the foreign minister said.

Oskanyan said that the Armenian authorities and opposition are equally
responsible for honouring of the requirements and recommendations
envisaged in the PACE resolution.

“If the problems mentioned in the resolution are not resolved until
September and our delegation is deprived of the mandate in the PACE,
not only the authorities but the whole of Armenia will suffer. And the
opposition will suffer and their representatives will lose the PACE
rostrum,” Oskanyan said.

PRESS RELEASE
April 27, 2004
ANCA-SD
Contact: Garo Artinian (ANC SD Chair)
Telephone: 619-596-4332

ARMENIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF SAN DIEGO AND UC SAN DIEGO ARMENIAN STUDENTS
HOST INAUGURAL GENOCIDE CONFERENCE

San Diego, CA : The Armenian National Committee of San Diego announced
that it will be hosting an academic conference on Genocide and Denial on
Saturday, May 8, 2004 at the University of California, San Diego campus.
The event is the first of its kind to be held at UC San Diego and is
cosponsored by the UC San Diego Armenian Students Association.

The conference, entitled “Western Response to Genocide”, will cover various
topics including the Armenian Genocide, the Jewish Holocaust, the Rwandan
Genocide and others. The intended emphasis of the conference will be how
the Western Culture has dealt with genocide. The conference will address a
number of genocide-related issues, including definition, history, politics,
literature, acknowledgment, prevention, associated trauma (both individual
and collective) and reconciliation and reparations. The conference will
address the many genocides of the 20th century and draw similarities and
identify differences between these crimes against humanity.

A number of panelists will participate in the conference, including:
Laurence Baron, Ph.D., Director of the Lipinsky Institute for Judaice
Studies; Rubina Peroomian, Ph.D., lecturer at the University of California,
Los Angeles; Levon Marashlian, Ph.D., Professor of History and Political
Science at Glendale Community College, Dan Alba, Regional Director of the
Los Angeles Offices of Facing History and Ourselves, and Ardashes
Kassakhian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of
America – Western Region.

The conference will take place at the University of California, San Diego,
Peterson Building and will begin at 10 A.M. Parking for the conference is
free and Armenian style barbecue will be served during the break for $7.

Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters
throughout the United States and affiliated organizations around the world,
the Armenian National Committee San Diego actively advances the concerns of
the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.

KDKA-TV

Europe’s new outsiders between bitterness and hope as EU enlarges

Friday April 30, 2004
By DAVID McHUGH
Associated Press Writer

While new European Union members celebrated Friday, their left-out neighbors
stood outside the rope and watched the party, wondering when or if they will
join Europe’s exclusive club of the stable and prosperous.

An entire swathe of countries, from Belarus and Russia in the north to
Albania in southern Europe, are seeing their relative poverty and outsider
status reinforced with the eastward push of the union’s borders at the
stroke of midnight.

Some, like Croatia and Romania, have a chance to get in over the next
several years. Others, burdened by shriveled economies and international
concern about human rights, can only dream of meeting the tough requirements
for economic reform and democracy.

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, leader of one of the biggest outsider
nations, testily accused the EU of erecting a new wall to replace the ones
torn down at the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“We regard it as historically unjust that we are outside this system,” he
told a Warsaw conference this week. “We are not asking for charity, we are
simply announcing to Europe that there is such a country as Ukraine.”

Kuchma’s emotional reproach was greeted with a bland thank you from EU
enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen, sitting on stage a few feet away
at the privately organized European Economic Summit.

He left no doubt, however, where Kuchma stands.

“For the time being, accession of the Eastern European countries Russia,
Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine is not on our agenda,” Verheugen told reporters.
“It makes no sense to make promises which are not realistic.”

The newcomers are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania,
Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, and Cyprus. And there’s a clear pecking
order for outsiders.

The former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Macedonia and former Soviet
satellites Romania and Bulgaria have applied for EU membership and could
start getting in as early as 2007.

Turkey, eager to become the EU’s first Muslim-majority member, saw a setback
Thursday when French President Jacques Chirac said Ankara likely will not
meet the bloc’s conditions for another 10-15 years.

In the Balkans, Serbia and Montenegro and even impoverished Albania have a
theoretical chance to get in years down the road.

Others have no real chance for now. Russia has dismissed the prospect of
getting in, and its view of Caucasus nations such as Georgia and Armenia as
belonging in its sphere of influence may place a long-term lid on any faint
hopes there.

Then, there’s isolated, authoritarian Belarus, which refused permission for
an EU enlargement ceremony in the capital Minsk and canceled a visit to the
Warsaw economic summit by Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has struggled economically since becoming independent
with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. European officials have
expressed concern about the pace of democratic progress, most recently
criticizing local elections won by a pro-presidential party this month amid
accusations of widespread vote fraud.

Killings of independent journalists have alarmed human rights observers, and
corruption, bureaucracy and a weak legal system weigh on Ukraine’s economy.

Still, Ukraine and Belarus may be able to get more aid and sympathy at the
urging of Poland, which shares a border with both.

Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski was the only figure to publicly
console Kuchma, promising to try to “change views of Ukraine” and vowing
that “the message from Warsaw is: The door remains open.”

Other distant outsiders at the economic summit, such as Georgia’s new
President Mikhail Saakashvili, choose to look on the bright side.

“We are working on it every day,” said Saakashvili, whose country
struggles to keep the electricity on in its cities and has lost control of
the Black Sea province of Abkhazia to separatist rebels.

“We are going to go for it, whatever it takes I think we can make it, so
you should welcome us and wait for us.”

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

THE PASSING OF ARCHBISHOP ZAREH AZNAVORIAN

Antelias, Lebanon – His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, members of
the Brotherhood of Cilicia, announce with deepest sadness the passing of His
Eminence Archbishop Zareh Aznavorian, on Friday, April 30, 2004, in
Antelias. His Eminence was 57 years old.

Archbishop Zareh faithfully served the Armenian Apostolic Church as an
ordained celibate priest for 38 years, most of which was spent at the
Catholicosate of the Holy See of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon, except for
two years in Rome where he pursued higher education and three years as the
Prelate of Cyprus.

Archbishop Aznavorian served as professor of biblical studies in the
Theological Seminary and the Hamazkaine Institute of Armenology. He has been
the editor of “Klatsor” (yearbook of the Seminary), and “HASK” (official
periodical of the Catholicosate), and conductor of “Shenorhali” choir of the
Catholicosate.

Archbishop Zareh was the Director of Christian Education Department of the
Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia. He was the chairman of the Religious
Council of the Catholicosate of Cilicia. He was a noted composer of both
religious and secular music, a gifted scholar, a Biblical translator, and an
author of textbooks and commentaries. He was considered to be one of the
most noted Biblical scholars within the Armenian Church.

The Extreme Unction will take place during the Divine Liturgy service at the
Cathedral of St. Gregory the Illuminator in Antelias, on Monday, May 3.
Interment will follow in the Mausoleum of the Holy See of Cilicia.

##

View printable pictures here:

*************
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

Russia’s economic diplomacy
Vladimir Radyuhin
5/1/2004

RUSSIA’S UAZ Automotive Factory has set up a joint venture
with an Indian company to assemble famous Ural off-road trucks and
buses in West Bengal; two Russian power firms tied up with India’s
Soma to build a hydropower station in Arunachal Pradesh; Silovye
Mashiny corporation signed a contract to supply Russian electric
turbines to NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation).

These are but a few recent examples of growing interest Russian
business takes in Indian and other foreign markets.

Encouraged by Russia’s re-emergence as a global political player and
boosted by five straight years of economic growth after a decade of
decline, captains of Russian business have entered the path of
international expansion.

The Norilsk Nickel giant last month laid out $1.16 billion to buy a 20
per cent stake in South African gold miner, Gold Fields, which has 4.3
million ounces of annual gold production and 84 million ounces of
mineral reserves. A month earlier, Tatarstan’s Tatneft oil major
snapped up Turkey’s Tupras, which controls 87 per cent of the
country’s refining capacity, for $1.3 billion.

More investment projects are in the pipeline. Russia’s natural gas
monopoly, Gazprom, has teamed up with GAIL India Ltd. to develop
offshore gas fields in the Bengal basin, the Russian premium telecom
corporation, Sistema-Telecom, is ready to sink $1 billion in Indian
mobile telephone industry, while the aluminium giant, RusAl, is
waiting to pounce on the National Aluminium Company (NALCO) when its
disinvestment plan is reactivated.

The President, Vladimir Putin, told the nation that Russia was still
facing a win-or-die battle it had fought in the Cold War, even if the
rules of the game had changed.

“There is a tough, competitive battle going on in the world,”
Mr. Putin told the country in his annual teleconference in
December. “As different from the past, this battle has moved from the
realm of military conflict to economic competition.” Accordingly,
Mr. Putin has recast Russia’s foreign policy priorities, charging the
Foreign Ministry with the overriding task of helping Russian business
abroad. The move has won the praise of Russian businessmen.

“I think there is a gradual revolution taking place in foreign
economic relations,” said Mr. Kakha Bendukidze, co-owner of Silovye
Mashiny, which won the electric turbine tender in India earlier this
year. “There is a growing recognition in the Foreign Ministry and in
the Economic Development and Trade Ministry that they need to support
Russian businesses abroad, including attempts to make investments
outside Russia.”

For the first time in more than a decade the Russian Government has
set aside a modest $500 million in state guarantees in this year’s
budget to support exports. In a more significant move, a new law will
come into force this summer that simplifies rules for transferring
cash out of the country for investment purposes.

The first stage in Mr. Putin’s global expansion plan is to win back
the former Soviet states. As the U.S.-led NATO moves troops to
Russia’s borders, Moscow is pushing to reassert its domination in
neighbouring markets. It wields the most powerful weapon at its
disposal, energy, being either the sole supplier of oil and gas to
ex-Soviet republics or providing the only route for their energy
exports to outside markets.

The state-controlled electricity monopoly, United Energy Systems
(UES), has brought under control four-fifths of Armenia’s
hydroelectric power capacities and bought up most of Georgia’s energy
facilities. The UES has acquired stakes in electricity assets in
Kazakhstan, is about to buy major stakes in 10 of the 27 Ukrainian
energy companies, and plans to participate in the disinvestment of
power assets in Moldova. In Kyrgyzstan, UES has set up a joint venture
with two local companies to build a cascade of two hydropower stations
on the Naryn River in the mountains that will meet the electricity
needs of Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian states.

“We have very aggressive plans that cover most countries of the CIS
(Commonwealth of Independent States),” the UES chief , Anatoly
Chubais, said in a recent interview.

Russia’s Gazprom controls practically all natural gas flows to and
from former Soviet republics. Even energy-rich Azerbaijan imports from
Russia over half of its gas needs to the tune of 4.5 billion cubic
metres. Earlier this month, Gazprom signed a deal with Uzbekistan to
develop a major gas field in that Central Asian republic that could
entail an investment of $1.4 billion in Uzbekistan’s energy sector. In
January, Russia’s oil major, Lukoil, signed an accord for the
investment of $3 billion into joint development of Kazakhstan’s oil
and gas fields in northern Caspian.

Russia’s aggressive economic expansion is reflected in growing mutual
trade with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which unites
12 out of 15 former Soviet states. Russian trade with CIS registered a
30 per cent hike last year, increasing at a higher pace than with
other countries. This helps Russia resist Western attempts to weaken
its positions in the former Soviet Union.

Earlier this month, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to Russia said his country
planned to increase oil exports to and across Russia from the current
20 million tons a year to 250 million tons by 2020. In other words,
Kazakhstan will pump all its oil exports through Russian pipes, making
the U.S.-pushed $3.6-billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline a
profit-losing project, as Azerbaijan admittedly does not have nearly
enough oil to fill the pipe.

Russia’s Minister for Industry and Energy, Viktor Khristenko,
described the Russia-driven integration of energy systems in the
former Soviet states as “an instrument of solving political issues in
the CIS.”

Ukraine’s political elites may have declared a strategic choice in
favour of Europe, but the country’s economic interests push it towards
Russia. According to some information, Russian investors control about
80 per cent of Ukraine’s oil refineries, practically all non-ferrous
industry, a quarter of privatised electricity companies, half of cell
phone operators and 30 per cent of dairies. By the time Ukraine is
ready to join NATO and the European Union, most of its industry will
belong to Russian business.

Russian expansion into neighbouring economies has been a major factor
behind Moscow’s successful efforts to push reintegration plans in the
former Soviet Union. Even Ukraine, which had long rejected these
plans, signed last September a common market pact with Russia,
Kazakhstan and Belarus which envisions a customs union, free movement
of goods, capital and labour, and unification of tax, monetary and
foreign trade policies.

Winning commanding heights in former Soviet economies gives Russia a
stepping-stone to expansion beyond the former Soviet borders.

“We are not going to confine our expansion to the CIS,” Mr. Chubais
said last week. Having restored unified electricity grids with the
former Soviet republics, the company now plans to buy assets and
export electricity to a total of 12 countries from Norway in the north
to Slovakia in the west, Iran in the south, and China in the east.

Energy is the driving motor of Russian expansion. LUKoil, Russia’s
second biggest oil producer, won the rights in January to develop a
potentially huge gas field in Saudi Arabia in a tie-up with Saudi
Aramco. The deal strengthened newly emerging links between the world’s
two biggest oil producers that could give Russia greater leverage in
global energy markets. Gazprom, which is the major supplier of natural
gas to Europe, is in talks with Ukraine, Germany, France and Italy to
set up a gas transportation consortium that will help consolidate
Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. The energy tool has helped
Russia win important trade concessions from the E.U. ahead of its
expansion into Eastern Europe next week.

As one analyst put it, “In the old days of the former Soviet Union,
Russia’s political clout was measured by the 14,000 nuclear missiles
it had pointing west; now it’s measured by the pipelines it has
pointing west.”

Russian business has even made first inroads in the
U.S. market. LUKoil has bought 2,100 gas filling stations in the East
Coast and plans to bring up the number to 3,000 stations, while the
steel giant, Severstal, has purchased the Michigan-based Rouge
Industries for $286 million.

A World Bank report released earlier this month concluded that
Russia’s 23 largest business groups control more than a third of its
industry. This is an upshot of Boris Yeltsin’s corruption-ridden
privatisation deals of the 1990s.

However, rather than reverse privatisation or break up monopoly
groups, Mr.

Putin has instead used them as locomotives of Russia’s expansion to
global markets under government control. Oversees acquisitions may
eventually transform Gazprom, LUKoil, Norilsk Nickel and other Russian
industry tycoons into multinational corporations. This fits into
Mr. Putin’s strategy of building up Russia’s economic clout globally
and in the former Soviet Union, and convert it to political clout.

………………
The Hindu

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress