Weekend: Spirit: Wellbeing: STRIKE A BALANCE: This week: David Dickinson

The Guardian – United Kingdom
Apr 03, 2004

INTERVIEW: STEVIE BROWN

I’m 62 now, and have got to a stage where I feel comfortable with my
life and confident in myself. To relax, I go in the garden with my
wife – she likes gardening; I sit in a deckchair and soak up the rays.

I smoke a packet of cigarettes a day, started when I was 14 or
15. I’ve thought about giving up, especially at my age when you get
wheezy. It’s a fool’s game.

To be on form when filming, I’m in bed by 8.30pm. I am bloody tired
after a day in front of the cameras, and I can be filming for 10 to 15
days straight.

I am conscious of keeping my appearance smart, but not in an
egotistical way. I go on holiday as many times as I can. I have olive
skin as my grandfather is Armenian, and when I spend a week in the
sun, it stays for a couple of months. It’s not from a bottle. Sipping
a cool drink, sitting around the pool, I am happy.

David Dickinson presents BBC’s Bargain Hunt. His autobiography, The
Duke: What a Bobby Dazzler (BBC Books), is out now.

Weekend: Space: Food: SWEET TEMPTATION: Trays of sticky Middle Eastern
pastries will not only infuse your kitchen with the sweet aromas of
the Levant, but they will also offer an exotic alternative to the
usual Easter parade of cakes and chocolate, says NAYLA AUDI

The Guardian – United Kingdom

Apr 03, 2004 NAYLA AUDI

I’ve always been in the enviable position of coming from two religions
– at least, when it came to the delicious world of Lebanese sweets. As
a child, I longed for the Muslim Eid (festivities) to begin. I’d wait
impatiently for my paternal grandparents to bring two huge, flat trays
from the sweet shop. One tray would be filled with a dizzying array of
baklava, all drenched with sticky syrup made from sugar, water and
orange blossom, and sweets cooked with a heavy ashta (clotted)
cream. The other would hold several kilos of maamoul – traditional
semolina-based pastries – all of them individually wrapped. The
baklavas would be reserved for the family, but the dozens of maamoul
were duly handed out, along with a steaming cup of Arabic coffee, to
the many visitors who would come over the Eid to wish us good
fortune. (According to Lebanese tradition, guests should be served a
meal before the maamoul are passed around, but these days they only
get the biscuits.)

Our guests would either eat the maamoul there and then, or take some
home. Either way, I’d always manage to hide a few of these delicious
little pastries for myself, and would later munch them in my room,
savouring the crumbling, shortbread-style pastry filled with either
crushed walnuts, almonds and pistachios or crushed dates, and then
covered with powdered sugar.

No sooner is the Eid over than the Christian festival of Easter
begins. As tradition dictates, women in my mother’s family gathered a
few days earlier and began the ritual of making the Christian version
of maamoul. These are similar to the Muslim kind, just smaller. Once
the semolina and butter was mixed, my strict Armenian Orthodox
grandmother would then pass the dough through incense, to “purify it
against the evil spirits”. The dough was then shaped – either with
old-fashioned wooden moulds or by hand – and stuffed with crushed
dates or nuts. The walnut, almond and pistachio-stuffed maamoul were
formed into oval, egg-like shapes; the date variety were more circular
and doughnut-like. The shape was important: the round maamoul
signified the crown worn by Jesus as he was led to be crucified, while
the egg-shaped one symbolised the sponge he was given to quench his
thirst. Each woman would then be handed a small pair of tweezers and,
with meticulous care, we’d pinch the surface of the maamoul, the
resulting effect symbolising the thorns on Jesus’s crown. The dozens
of maamoul were stored away and taken out to offer to well-wishers.

Unlike the Muslim version, however, the Christian maamoul are not
wrapped. They are eaten on Easter day itself – as a way to break the
40-day Lent. Real eastern Christian fasting requires abstention from
animal products, including butter, eggs and milk, so the maamoul
pastry made with butter was a perfect way to break the fast. Modern
women, however, see Lent as a way to abstain from sweets altogether
(as a great weight-loss technique) and use the maamoul to ease
themselves back into the world of desserts.

Today, such traditions remain relatively unchanged. As Easter
approaches, the main question among Christian women is still, “Have
you made the maamoul yet?” (I must add that sampling each other’s work
, and seeing whose are best, is a great source of gossip.) Sweet shops
do a roaring trade to those who didn’t perform the Easter ritual.

Lebanese sweets have earned a distinct reputation worldwide. One
well-known Beirut pastry shop, Bohsali, receives emails from all over
the globe asking for its sweets to be shipped over to ex-pats and
non-Lebanese alike (abohsali.com.lb). It was the same Bohsali family
who, in the middle of the 19th century, first “Lebanised” Turkish and
Greek sweets. Back then, they had a little shop near the port, and the
owner, Salim, came across baklava in shipments from Turkey and
Greece. The sweets were a big hit among Beirutis and, in time, Salim
learned to make his own. Soon, he and his son had expanded their
repertoire, and the store’s reputation began to spread. (In 1914,
while Lebanon was still under Ottoman rule, it was officially
appointed supplier to the king.) The sweets began to grab the
attention of the Lebanese bourgeoisie, who had until then ordered
their baked goods from swinging Cairo, thus establishing Lebanese
sweets as a favourite delicacy.

Last December, the Bohsalis won first prize at the Academie Lebanese
de la Gastronomie (a branch of the international Academie de la
Gastronomie). Today, there are dozens of Lebanese sweet shops
throughout the country and their pastries are distributed worldwide.

Another Lebanese sweet offered regularly is ghoraybeh, an off-white,
crumbly biscuit made with butter and flour. Whether bought in or
homemade, the pastry can either be large or small – the small ones are
only slightly bigger than a nut. Again, it was the Bohsali family who
were behind both the size and initial popularity of ghoraybeh.

Whichever sweet is offered, however, no visit to a Lebanese home is
complete without a cup of hot Arabic coffee. It’s usually made in a
special kettle, or raghweh, which you can buy in most Middle Eastern
shops.

Ghoraybeh

Makes 40 biscuits.

200g butter or lard

100g icing sugar

300g fine semolina

100g shelled pistachio nuts

Work the butter until soft, ideally by hand. Blend in the sugar, then
add the semolina making sure you get a homogenous mixture. Shape the
dough into small round biscuits or into half-moons, sticking the edges
together. Decorate each biscuit with a pistachio nut.

Bake at medium heat (180C/350F/ gas mark 4) for 10 to 15 minutes. The
biscuits should not be allowed to brown – a proper ghoraybeh retains
the initial off-white colour of the dough.

Maamoul

Traditionally, these pastries are filled with a mixture of almond,
pistachio and walnut or with dates. These days, orange blossom water
and rosewater are sold as a matter of course in most major
supermarkets; failing that, try a Middle Eastern store or
delicatessen. These quantities are enough to make 80 pastries – that
may sound a lot, but once you’ve tried one, you’ll get through them in
no time at all.

For the pastry

500g butter, melted

1kg fine semolina

250ml rosewater

250ml orange blossom water

Pour the melted butter over the semolina, mix well, cover, and leave
the mixture at room temperature overnight. The next day, add the
rosewater and the orange water and blend well. The resulting dough is
the basis for the biscuits.

Now make the stuffing of your choice:

Almond, pistachio and walnut stuffing

200g crushed almond, pistachio and walnut

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp orange blossom water

1 tbsp rosewater

Combine the ingredients in a bowl, then stuff the mixture into the
prepared dough either by hand, or with a traditional wooden maamoul
mould. Shape into round or oval biscuits. Bake on medium heat for 10
to 15 minutes.

Crushed date stuffing

200g crushed dates (called tamer, sold ready-crushed in Middle Eastern
stores )

50g butter

1 tbsp orange blossom water

1 tbsp rosewater

Mix the dates, butter, orange blossom water and rosewater, then stuff
and bake as with the nut stuffing above.

Lebanese coffee

You can find this in Middle Eastern stores where it is sold plain or
flavoured with cardamom. Use a small kettle, or buy a raghweh. Use
small coffee cups, one of which should be used to measure out the
correct amount of water. Makes four cups.

6 coffee cups water

7 full tsp Lebanese coffee

6 tsp sugar (optional)

Place the ingredients in a small kettle or pan, then bring to a boil
and take off the heat. Bring the resulting liquid to the boil a
further two times, then begin by transferring the coffee-infused foam
from the top of the pot in to each of the cups. Now pour in the
coffee, leave for several moments, in order to allow the grounds to
settle, and serve piping hot

Now you see them, now you don’t for Cyprus Gypsies

NICOSIA, April 3 (Reuters) – For three days last week, the thousand or
so Dom people, or Gypsies, of Cyprus looked set finally to join
Greeks, Turks, Armenians and others as one of the island’s official
ethnic groups.

But, after 600 years, it was not to be.

Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders negotiating reunification vetoed a
proposal by United Nations mediators to extend minority rights to the
Dom, including a special seat in parliament.

“Neither side wanted to give them the status that including them would
have provided,” said a diplomat involved in the talks in Switzerland
last week. The final draft — which makes no mention of the Dom —
goes to referendums on April 24 in a bid to end 30 years of division
between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

The Dom, whose ancestors came to the island in the 14th century, had,
however, been recognised in an earlier draft of the constitutional
arrangements, seen by Reuters.

Three other minority groups — Latin, Maronite and Armenian Christians
— whose numbers are in the thousands out of a total population of
800,000 have their own, non-voting representative in the Cypriot
parliament under a 1960 constitution.

That constitution offers recognition to ethnic or religious minorities
numbering at least 500 people.

A Greek Cypriot official said he did not know why the Dom, referred to
as Roma by the U.N., had been excluded. Dom were not immediately
available for comment.

04/03/04 06:02 ET

Lew Rockwell, CA
April 3 2004

The Abolition of Grandparents
by Gary North

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the
wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just (Proverbs 13:22).

In this report, I’m going to give you some history (yawn), some
sociological analysis (snore), and a suggestion on how to generate a
stream of income that will keep you from starving on Social Security
and the devalued dollar that it will lead to politically.

The plight of America’s grandparents is on my mind today because
Thursday, I became one for the first time. I won’t tell you that my
grandson is cuter than yours was. That would be bragging. I will tell
you that he is larger: 10 lbs., 11 oz. If your first thought is, “I’m
glad I’m a man,” you get the idea.

Thirty years ago, my father-in-law, who was a remarkable scholar
(30,000 books in his library, one of which he read every day for 60
years), mentioned a social factor in Communist countries that he
believed was a major factor that was hampering the advent of
Communism’s New Man: grandmothers. This was especially true, he said,
in the Soviet Union. Both parents worked outside the home. Because
there was so little housing space under Communism, it was common for
grandparents to live in the same small apartment. So, when the
children came home from school, grandma was there to tell them
stories and thereby transfer part of the pre-revolution culture to
them. The Soviet economy was so bad that the Communists could not
afford to separate grandchildren from grandparents. This undermined
the attempt of the Communist Party and the school system to
indoctrinate the children in pure Marxism-Leninism. There was a
conservative factor at the heart of Communist society that could not
be eradicated.

My father-in-law was alert to this factor because he was an Armenian.
He was the seventh in a line of sons in his family who served the
community as their minister. There was never any other occupation
that his father had wanted for him. Until the Turkish genocide of a
million Armenians in 1915-16, his family had stayed in the same town:
Van. He told me that it was possible to trace his family back to the
13th century in the church graveyard. In the church Bible that had
been left behind in the exodus in 1915, his father had told him that
there was a notation in the margin: “Today, the Mongols came
through.” That is what I would call cultural continuity.

That family continuity was shattered the day his family got off the
boat in New York City in 1916, where he was born. America does what
the Communists could not do: remove the grandparent factor. The
nuclear family, inside which grandparents do not live, is the norm
here. In Armenia, there were sometimes four generations living under
the same roof – a very large roof. That tradition does not survive in
America, although “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” shows that some Greek
communities come close.

In my father-in-law’s family, all of the three children went through
divorces. (A fourth child had died in the family’s exodus across the
border into Russia.) America has this effect on families.

MOVING ON

Paul Johnson is my favorite contemporary historian. He writes better
than the rest of them, and he writes smarter. His book, The Birth of
the Modern (1991), is 1,100 pages long, yet it covers only 15 years:
1815 to 1830. My favorite chapter is Chapter 3, “The End of the
Wilderness.” All over the world, cheap land was opening up: in
Russia, in Argentina, in Brazil, and above all, in the United States.

Perhaps the most potent of all American virtues, in European eyes,
had nothing directly to do with good government. It was the price of
land. In the early decades of the 19th century, good land – land that
was accessible and secure, ready to be cleared and worked by an
industrious family with a small capital – was cheaper than at any
time in history, before or since. It was a unique moment, which could
never conceivably happen again (p. 209).

So, Europeans came here. By the millions, they came. The birth rate
had been very high in America, but the survival rate was the highest
on earth. Ben Franklin had noted this fact half a century earlier. If
anything, the survival rate accelerated.

In America, from the beginning, community bonds had little power
because of cheap land. In his 1963 book, Puritan Village, Sumner
Chilton Powell describes the break-up of Sudbury, Massachusetts,
because the town fathers wanted to control land sales and allocation.
The sons walked out in protest and started another town, Marlboro.
This became the American way. Never in man’s recorded history has
there been geographical mobility to match America’s.

This is still true. Families in America move, on average, once every
five years.

The Westward movement in the 19th century was immense. The invention
of the steam-powered boat in the era covered in the early pages of
Johnson’s book was followed by the invention of the steam railroad at
the end. The railroad accelerated geographical mobility as no
invention ever had in history. It became possible to go 40 miles an
hour or faster, sitting in a bump-free compartment, reading a book.
With a covered wagon, 30 miles a day was making good time. In a
train, 30 miles an hour was nothing special, and the train traveled
all night.

In America, a man could take his wife and children and head west.
>From 1800 until the 1870s, this probably meant that the grandparents
would not see their grandchildren again. Saying goodbye was not a
formality. It was a permanent break in family continuity. Of course,
most people stayed close to home, but the westward movement was so
great a factor that Americans learned to shape their local
institutions in terms of it. We were the first society in history to
do this. Nomads had always moved, but they moved as communities. Not
in America. Families moved, and they kept on moving. It was cheap to
relocate. As economics tells us, when the price of anything falls,
more of it will be demanded.

CHEAP LAND, HIGH WAGES

When one factor of production is cheap, the complementary factors of
production become more valuable. In Western Europe, land has been
costly ever since the 15th century. It was relatively cheap only
after the bubonic plague of 1348-50, when a third of the population
died in three years. Families in Europe still keep the rural
homestead in the family for three or four centuries.

In a society that has high land costs, labor is not paid well.
Mobility is too costly. People stay put. Opportunities are few. In a
society with cheap but productive land, labor is paid very well. Why?
Because labor is mobile. A man can move somewhere else, where the
cost of living space is lower. Local employers must bid against the
opportunities that beckon. The grass is always greener on the other
side of the river. Dreams lure productive men to distant locations,
where their talents face less competition.

Americans have a 350-year tradition of pulling up stakes, as we put
it, and heading for greener pastures. This is considered normal. It
is even considered desirable. In Europe, in Great Britain, both
English and Scottish, young men moved to the colonies. In Asia, only
China has a tradition of moving away, and only in a few provinces. I
don’t know how long this tradition has operated. The offshore Chinese
have been a major phenomenon, which is one reason why China is a
formidable competitor today.

The willingness to move for the sake of economic opportunity is
fundamental in most entrepreneurial societies. Think of the “movers
and shakers” economically: the British, the Dutch, the Jews, the
Armenians, and the Chinese. They are all noted for their willingness
to move. Only the Japanese seem to break the rule. Instead, they have
imported culture, though not immigrants.

No society has ever been greener-pasture-motivated to the degree that
America has. Geographical mobility is a fundamental aspect of the
American way of life. “Your papers, please” is not a phrase that
Americans have been willing to tolerate. The government is slowly
infringing on this. If you fly on a commercial airliner, an industry
heavily regulated, you must present identification with a photo. But
you can always get on a bus, get on a train, or get in your car. You
can even thumb a ride. If you want to get from here to there, you can
do it cheaply in America.

GRANDPARENTS IN THE WILDERNESS

This has led to the isolation of American grandparents. Geographical
mobility of sons and sons-in-law has always loosened the ties of
grandparents to grandchildren in America. Now the rising divorce rate
has made these emotional ties high-risk between paternal generations.
Fathers lose custody of their children. If they get two weeks in
summer, the grandparents may get a few days of this. That is about
all they can expect. They become distant appendages in the lives of
these grandchildren.

The positive aspect of social and geographical mobility is obvious to
most Americans: more freedom to choose and more choices. Our society
is the envy of the world. Almost every other society on earth wants
to imitate us. This is a worldwide social revolution in a way that
Communists dreamed of but could not attain through force. But the
acids of modernity do eat away at the foundations of every social
order, including ours. There are no free lunches in life. There are
trade-offs. There are winners and losers. The great losers in America
are grandparents. In second place are grandchildren, especially those
ages three to ten.

Society’s link to the past has always been maintained by
grandparents. In America, we have replaced this link with tax-funded
schools. The yellow school busses that pick up children are the
visible sign of this transfer of social authority. Now that the
public schools are disintegrating, and have been for four decades,
Americans who fear the effects of the school system are pulling their
children out. But home schooling is done by mothers, not
grandmothers.

This had left grandparents with more free time, but less meaningful
work. They have more money and more political clout than oldsters
have ever possessed, but the price has been a social segregation that
is not much discussed. A friend of mine 35 years ago once described
Sun City as “the elephant burial grounds for the white middle class.”
This was accurate, except it is for the upper middle class. Sun City
and similar communities keep out children of school age in order to
keep property taxes low: no public schools. I understand the logic,
but I also recognize the price: a world without family ties.

Parents say, “I never want to move in with my kids. I don’t want to
be a burden.” Then they vote for Social Security and Medicare, i.e.,
stick it to everyone else’s kids. They substitute the State for the
family as the legal caregiver. This does to oldsters what the same
political process does to parents: it makes them socially irrelevant.
While there are no visible marks of this transfer of power that match
the yellow school bus, the transfer is equally powerful. Americans
have voted for a State run by bureaucrats with their tax money.
Americans have transferred to tax-funded bureaucrats the social
function of preserving society’s links to the past.

Then the television set breaks what few links survive this two-fold
severing: parents from children, grandparents from children and
grandchildren. Children today are being shaped mainly by the public
school and the television set. Parental influence is slipping away.
Grandparental influence no longer exists as a meaningful social
factor.

The war for our children, and therefore for the future of American
society, is being fought between the public school and the TV script
writers and their associates on Madison Avenue. Parents are becoming
bystanders. Grandparents are not even bystanders.

WHO WILL TEACH CHILDREN TO PRODUCE?

Schools teach children to obey. Television teaches viewers to spend.
Who teaches youngsters to produce?

Parents used to. They knew that they would become dependent on their
children in their old age. Their children were their capital. This is
still true in rural India and rural China, but it is fading fast even
there.

Grandparents have always provided positive sanctions. They have
rarely provided negative sanctions. Parents concentrate on pulling up
weeds. Grandparents are allowed to water flowers. Parents discipline
children. Grandparents spoil grandchildren.

In the old days, this spoiling process had a side-effect: linking the
child to the past. They went to visit grandmother, and grandfather
was allowed to impart general wisdom to the grandson, while
grandmother taught the granddaughter to make cookies. (I am not
speaking of Hillary Clinton’s grandmother, I suppose.)

We learn by seeing, then by doing. This is not bureaucratic
education. Bureaucratic education for the average student is learning
by reading and – when young – by reciting. The education of the rich
and powerful in prep schools concentrates on writing and public
speaking: rhetoric. But public school teachers are hard-pressed just
to maintain order. They don’t like to grade papers. They prefer to
give objective tests: true/false, multiple choice. In junior college,
a machine grades these tests.

Who will teach our children the skills that are necessary to become
economically productive? Bureaucrats reproduce themselves in the
classroom: obedience counts far more than creativity. Teachers are
paid to maintain order. If there is actual teaching going on, no one
cares too much, one way or the other, unless the teaching is superb.
Then envy takes over on the faculty. Pressures are applied. The
creative teachers eventually leave. If you want evidence, go to
Google and search for “John Taylor Gatto.”

Grandparents for thousands of years watered the flowers. Their
unofficial job was to discover what a child did well and encourage
the child to do it even better. It was the parents’ task to maintain
order. Uprooting weeds was the parents’ task. The grandparent could
concentrate on more productive matters.

“Grandma, look what I made!” was followed by, “That’s wonderful!”
Then, “Would you like me to show you how I made those when I was a
little girl?” In every society I have ever read about, there is some
version of this crucial verbal exchange. We can mark the decline of a
society by the departure of this verbal exchange.

THE DAY CARE

In our day, grandma is distant. Mom works outside the home. The
children are farmed out – an ancient phrase that has little economic
relevance today – to day care centers. Then, when the yellow buses
roll, they are farmed out to the public schools. The latch-key child
is the result.

Mom works because the State extracts 40% of most families’ incomes.
This is the result of voting patterns of grandma’s generation and her
parents’ generation. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets . .
. worse. Social Security/Medicare is going to take an ever-larger
percentage of working parents’ income.

The day care is therefore as sure a business venture as the home for
invalids.

I am a grandparent. I am not planning to become dependent on Social
Security/Medicare. I also do not plan to move in with my children. I
am mostly hoping none of them moves back in with me. So, I plan to
open a day care. I have looked at the economics of day care. I know
of no more obvious way to make a lot of money. I have written about
this in the past.

Most people my age won’t do this. There is too much hassle. This is
not true of home-based day cares. If they started a home-based day
care, they could easily pull in an extra $30,000 a year. In Alabama,
which allows 12 children in a home, it’s closer to $60,000 a year.

The economics are astounding: $100/week/child, 50 weeks a year.
That’s $5,000. Multiply this by 5 or 6 children — 12 in Alabama.

Then do what grandparents have done for millennia: teach.

Teach them phonics. Read to them. Let then do show and tell. (They
love show and tell.) Let them run around in your fenced back yard.
Teach them songs. Teach them manners.

Pay attention to them. “Watch me!” may be the second most popular
phrase for pre-schoolers. “Why?” is the most popular phrase. Put both
phrases to good use.

If your grandchildren are far away, let local parents pay you $30,000
a year to rent your professional grandparent services.

If you don’t think you are capable of doing this, start a free day
care for two or three children for three months. You’re just
entertaining a few children for the day, with their parents’ written
permission. Since it’s not a business, you don’t need to get the
business zoned. You don’t need licensing. You may not need insurance
beyond what you’ve already got. Try it. See if you like it. Then, if
you like it, go through whatever zoning hoops are in place to open a
home-based day care. There are few licensing rules.

Have mothers pack the lunches and snacks. Don’t get into the
meal-preparation business. But you can bake cookies with a little
help from your friends. Think of it as a treat. Think of it as
educational. Think of it as enraging Hillary.

If you want a free manual on the basics of running a full day care
program, which is a lot harder than running a home-based day care,
click here.

I have encouraged the author to write a shorter version for home day
cares. He says he will. But don’t wait. Skip the chapters on
licensing and similar barriers to entry that do not apply to home
based day cares. Just read the chapters on teaching, curriculum, and
discipline. Also read the chapter on Social Security. That ought to
motivate you!

Burbank Leader , CA
LATimes.com
April 3 2004

Parade date stirs controversy

Burbank on Parade organizers set event for April 24, not realizing it
is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

By Jackson Bell, The Leader

BURBANK – After a tumultuous four months that almost led to the
cancellation of Burbank on Parade, organizers have discovered a
planning gaffe that could exclude thousands of residents from the
annual event.

In mid-February, organizers scheduled the parade for April 24, the
same date as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Many of the city’s
estimated 10,000 Armenian-American residents will not join the
celebration because they will spend the day at homes, churches or
rallies throughout the area, remembering the victims of the 1915
massacre, local Armenian leaders said.

“It’s unfortunate that they couldn’t change the date,” said Razmik
Hovanessian, a Burbank resident and Armenian-American activist. “We
expect our [city] leaders to be smart and wise and avoid coincidences
like this.”

But the parade, which has traditionally been on the last Saturday in
April, cannot be rescheduled this year because of the challenge in
coordinating youth bands, drill teams, equestrian entries and
representatives from local organizations, organizers said.

“All the plans have been made and $25,000 has already been spent,”
Parade Chairwoman Joanne Miller said. “At this point, the parade is
so far in the can that it’s too difficult to switch the date.”

Hovanessian and Miller were among several city officials, parade
organizers and prominent members of the city’s Armenian-American
community who met Thursday evening at Vice Mayor Marsha Ramos’
request.

The outcome, Ramos said, resulted in an end to any future conflicts.

“There are more details that need to be worked out in terms of next
year’s date,” she said. “But there is a firm commitment that this
will never again happen on April 24.”

The trouble started when organizers in December sent a letter to the
city announcing their decision to no longer proceed with the parade,
citing difficulties working with the city’s License and Code
Compliance Division and Parks, Recreation and Community Services
Department.

But after the problems were ironed out and the event resumed,
awareness of the sensitive date fell under the radar.

“The next thing we knew, the date was publicized and everything was
planned in a very short time,” Ramos said of the parade, in its 23rd
year.

The meeting, however, helped to clear up something that could be
perceived negatively by the Armenian-American community, said Hoori
Chalian, a resident who is involved with the Armenian National
Committee of Burbank.

“I now understand that this was done with no malice,” Chalian said.
“But it is an unfortunate coincidence, and I appreciate the
opportunity to explain where I’m coming from.”

IranMania News
April 3 2004

Iran, Armenia finalize gas accord

TEHRAN, April 2 (IRIB) – Negotiations with Iran regarding the
construction of a gas pipeline to Armenia reached the final stage,
Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsesyan said.

The sides have already reached accords on the main technical
parameters of the pipeline. Iranian oil minister is expected to
arrive in Yerevan in early April to sign an agreement on building of
a gas pipeline, Movsesyan said.

According to the minister, the construction, due to begin later this
year, will last 20 months and to be completed in 2006. Either country
will be fully responsible for laying its stretch of the pipeline.
According to preliminary estimates, the Armenian section will cost
dlrs 100 million to lay, and the Iranian stretch, slightly more.

According to the draft agreement, Iran will deliver gas to Armeniain
amounts sufficient only for the country’s domestic consumption,
Movsesyan said. The question of extending the pipeline farther to
carry Iranian gas to Europe was not considered, contrary to
allegations by some mass media.

The gas pipeline from Iran will ensure continuous gas supply to
Armenia and enhance its energy security.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
April 3 2004

OMBUDSMAN OF AZERBAIJAN RECEIVES RETURN MAIL FROM HUNGARY

Commissioner on Human Rights in Azerbaijan Republic Elmira
Suleymanova has recently sent a letter to Ombudsman of Hungarian
Republic to ask the latter to ensure rights of Azerbaijan military
officer Ramil Sarfarov detained in Budapest for murder of the
Armenian servicemen on February 19, promote unbiased investigation
and keep the issue under control. The letter also clued up on the
roots of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, and infamous actions of the
Armenian aggressors including the Statement issued on the occasion of
the 12th anniversary of Hojali genocide resulted in mass annihilation
of innocent people.

In his return mail, Ombudsman of Hungarian Republic Albert Takashin’s
has expressed gratitude for the confidence to his office, and noted
in particular that the information provided in the letter had made
him think. `This detailed information will facilitate investigating
authorities to take fair decision,’ the letter said. Mr. Albert
Takashin pointed out that although the Hungarian law on Ombudsman did
not empower him to directly interfere the investigation, however, he
had sent all the documents to Prosecutor General, who had invited him
to monitor the process, receive information on the facts established,
and hear out the complaints from the suspect.

The Ombudsman of the Hungarian Republic assured his Azerbaijan
colleague that representatives of his office would regularly visit
Ramil Safarov to keep him informed of the efforts being taken by his
country to help him, and to learn of his needs and problems.
From: Baghdasarian

The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
April 3, 2004 Saturday Final Edition

Home-grown terrorism: A reporter suggests lax laws and haphazard
security make Canada a haven for terrorists

by Jeff Lee

COLD TERROR: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around The
World

By Stewart Bell

John Wiley & Sons, 288 pages (36.99)

Stewart Bell is unapologetic, if nothing else, in his contempt for
what he sees as a Canadian bureaucracy that condoned and fostered the
establishment of terrorist organizations.

But Bell, the author of an unvarnished look at how Canada became a
haven for terror groups, raises valid questions about why the country
failed to act, time and again, in identifying and expelling the bad
guys.

In his book Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism
Around The World, Bell argues that Canada has contributed, albeit
indirectly, to the deaths of innocent people, and that it is
incapable at this point of mounting an effective counter-terrorism
campaign.

Everyone now recognizes Al Qaeda as the preeminent terrorist
organization around the world. But Bell points out that Al Qaeda’s
forerunners and cousins had been established in Canada long before
the Sept. 11 attacks levelled New York’s World Trade Center towers.

Bell, a former Vancouver Sun reporter who now writes for the National
Post, recounts how more than 25 years ago terrorists looked above the
49th parallel and found a place from which to raise funds for their
causes. He takes us back to what he believes was the first true act
of Canadian terrorism, an assassination attempt in 1982 by Armenians
wanting to avenge the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of Turks.

This was not something Canada was used to. Factional disputes between
ethnic neighbourhoods were one thing; attempts at political
assassination were another. Then the bloody 1985 attack on an Air
India passenger jet raised Canadian culpability in terrorism to a new
level.

And yet, Bell suggests, Canada did little to prevent the incursion
and development of terrorist organizations on its soil. The result,
he says, was a conscious understanding by groups such as the Tamil
Tigers of Sri Lanka, Sikh separatists, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda that
the could operate from here with impunity.

“The list of specific government failures is extensive, from an
immigration system seemingly incapable of deporting even known
terrorists, to laws that have proven ineffective at shutting down
charities and ethnic associations fronting for terror,” he writes.
“But it all stems from a political leadership unwilling to take a
stand and secure Canadians and their allies from the violent whims of
the world’s assorted radicals, fundamentalists and extremists.”

Bell uses a network of security sources, both named and unnamed, to
spin stories demonstrating his thesis that Canada has long lacked the
chutzpah to stop terrorists. He also points out that Canadian
citizens have partaken in terrorist attacks abroad, from the 1993
World Trade Center truck bombing to the bombing of a Bali nightclub
in 2002 and the bombing of Western housing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a
year later.

“Canadian terrorists spill blood around the world,” he writes
harshly, as if somehow we should have expected otherwise.

In the end, Cold Terror is little more than an argument for tougher
laws and a tougher strategy for combating terrrorism.

Here, in suggesting Al Qaeda is governed by “irrational religious
zealots,” is Bell’s entire premise:

“What is needed to combat such fanaticism is a forceful security and
intelligence response that seeks to dismantle the terror networks
within Canada, coupled with an overseas military strategy that
attacks the dens of terror. That cannot happen as long as the
government is in denial and fails to recognize that terrorists have
declared war on our values, our way of life and our society.”

GRAPHIC: Photo: Istsuo Inouye, Associated Press Files; The Bali bomb
blast in October 2002 is an example of Canadian involvement in
terror.; Photo: COLD TERROR: How Canada Nurtures and Exports
Terrorism Around The World By Stewart Bell, John Wiley & Sons, 288
pages (36.99)

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 3, 2004 Saturday 7:20 AM Eastern Time

Armenia lauds Russian-Armenian military cooperation

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

Armenia considers the Russian-Armenian military cooperation to be
“part of the country’s national security and believes that the
presence of the Russian military base in the Armenian territory is
right and essential for Armenia,> said Armenian Defence Minister and
National Security Council Secretary Serzh Sarkisyan who received a
group of Russian journalists on Saturday.

He explained that Russia’s military presence promoted stability in
the region.

Armenia is interested in military cooperation with Russia because its
armed forces are armed with the Soviet or Russian weapons, Sarkisyan
told Russian journalists.

He said Armenia purchased spare parts for military hardware in Russia
and added that many problems in this area had been solved as a result
of favourable conditions created for Armenia within the framework of
the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.

Armenian officers receive training in Russia free of charge. The
defence minister said 700 Armenian citizens studied in Russian
military schools and academies.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 3, 2004 Saturday

Armenia’s defence minister satisfied with CIS air defence system

By Tigran liloyan

YEREVAN

The Commonwealth of Independent States’ (CIS) Joint Air Defence
System is capable of fulfilling any task, Armenian Defence Minister
Serzh Sarkisyan said at the meeting with Russian journalists on
Saturday. He said he would like that system to be armed with
state-of-the-art combat means.

The minister said, “Armenian air defence troops are mission capable
and they have proved it in the course of joint exercises at the
Russian air defence test range Ashuluk.”

“The armed forces are the main guarantor of the country’s security.
They have all the necessary means to protect the borders of their
homeland,” the minister said. Mechanised units led by career officers
with vast combat experience form the bulk of the Armenian armed
forces, the minister said.

“The important component of Armenia’s national security is the
Russian military base,” he stressed.