By Wayne E. BEAUREGARD
ALMATY, May 22
(THE GLOBE)
Tangible emotion tonight at Almaty�s Renco�s headquarters at the party organized to bid farewell to prof. Fernand Goldschmit, the administrative director of the Delegation of the European Commission located in Renco�s Arai Bldg. at 41, Kazibek Bi Street, just opposite the company HQ hosted in the Park Palace complex.
The evening has been highlighted by the granting to the moved, ongoing guest of the first honorary deed awarded by The Friendship Congregation, a spontaneous society meant to stress the immortal value of friendship among people of all nations.
The guest, listened to the award motivation, read by Mr. Silvio A. Ippoliti, director general of Renco Kat and resident representative of the Italian group, �for longlasting, outstanding, warming, inspiring companionship, camaraderie, open-handedness and unselfishness�, has expressed his appreciation at having been chosen not only to be extended the deed, but also his pride for having been given the first such recognition.
Prof. Goldschmit, a long time representative of the European Union, has mentioned his regret �at having to leave the Republic of Kazakstan, tomorrow, after nearly 5 years spent in the country�. Five fruitful years during which he has established relations both under a professional and personal point of view, on the tracks of friendship and mutual respect with Kazaks and foreigners alike.
The rather informal ceremony, as it�s suitable among friends, has been followed by a banquet offered by the Italian company in its premises, which has seen the participation, among others, of Renco�s expatriates Messrs. Fantin, Tallarico and Ippoliti and the representative of the Italian firm Rapellini, Dr. Salvatore Iadarola.
Prof. Goldschmit is due to leave tomorrow by car, his 4-WD Mercedes Benz, with which he will cover the distance up to Turkey where he�ll embark a ferry-boat to Europe, to resume later the trip inland to his Luxembourg home. Of course, his return voyage will be set in stages and the first one will bring him tomorrow to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
The EU representative leaves Kazakstan being reaching his retirement age, at 65, by the end of this month: he takes the chance of enjoying some due vacation days to travel all the way back to Europe, due to be reached in a dozen days.
Fernand Goldschmit, born in 1934 at Differdange, Luxembourg, in the southern French-speaking part of the Grand Duchy, is a polyglot commanding at least five major European languages of which he has made use in his wandering professional career.
He has spent 18 months in his national army, starting in 1953, where he�s been taught to fight for freedom, a lesson that he has never forgotten, together with the unfortunate experience that his family experienced during W.W.II when it had known the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. After the army period young Fernand resumed his university studies becoming a nuclear engineer in 1958.
In September of that year he started working for Euratom, the agency of the European Commission, in Bruxelles, being transferred in the course of years to the Netherlands, Italy�s Ispra, on the Lake Maggiore shores, and to Luxembourg where from �69 to �73 he�s been active on the European Nuclear Documentation System, the first on-line method to transfer nuclear datas, later to be also adopted by Japan and India.
After that exciting experience he was a nuclear inspector until 1985, �almost everywhere � to put it with his own words � in charge of inspections on nuclear reactors�. In that period he also served in Italy at Bologna�s Agip Nucleare site.
His first diplomatic assignment has come in 1985, when he�s been sent to Africa, in charge of development programs at the Delegation of the European Commission in Guinea. A position he has retained until 1988 when he resumed his nuclear inspector duties till 1992.
With Serbia�s aggression to Bosnia-Hercegovina he�s been appointed observer in that war-torn country at the beginning of 1992 for 6 months, when his detective and diplomatic skills have been used, while ombudsman, to prepare the first free elections in South Africa, from October �92 to January �94.
By that time an experienced diplomat, Mr. Goldschmit has been assigned the relevant task of establishing the EU Delegation of the European Commission in Kazakstan in the then capital Almaty.
He came first on a mission during the spring of that year and then on a steady basis in August: he started up the Delegation in his hotel room at the Dostyk Hotel, enlarged a bit later into a 2-room office, moved a little later to a nearby apartment until Renco�s Arai Bldg. was completed in Kazibek Bi Street on August �95. On the 15th of that month Mr. Goldschmit was able to operate the actual Almaty EU�s premises all alone, a condition that lasted utill December when finally he was joined by further European diplomats.
During his stay in Kazakstan prof. Goldschmit has served under two ambassadors, Mr. Kremer, a fellow Luxembourger, and H.E. Michael Humphreys, the current chief of delegation. Given his experience in dealing with Renco he has counselled the European Commission in the transaction with the Italian group for the lease of the EU ambassador�s Moscow residence in Russia. It was there the he first met Mr. Ippoliti, at the time in charge of Renco�s Moscow operation, in November 1995.
Mr. Goldschmit is an extremely well known figure in town, due also to his personal activity in favour of the international organization �MSF � Doctors Without Frontiers�, during his own free time, that has achieved the remarkable result of providing the former capital�s medical university with an antibacteriologic laboratory to fight TBC, a disease particularly plaguing Kazakstan. Also due to his personal connections with the government of Luxembourg , Almaty�s hospitals have benefitted of some $ 600,000 aid in medicines.
This activity in favour of the Kazak health system has convinced Prof. Muminovic to award him, on behalf of the Kazak Medical State University of which he is rector, the title of honorary professor in autumn 1996. A recognition of which Mr. Goldschmit is particularly proud of, having been the first of that kind ever bestowed by the prestigeous institution.
Fernand Goldschmit is also a dedicated Rotarian, a member of the worldwide non profit organization meant to serve the people of the world. In fact he has helped establishing the Rotary Club of Almaty back in 1995. Later he has been appointed in charge of the international relations from 1997 to �98, while as treasurer he has administered the club from �98 till few days ago when, due to his imminent leaving, he has left the position.
Far to be retiring from� active duty, Prof. Goldschmit is waited for in his native Luxembourg where he is going to represent the Republic of Guinea as honorary consul in the Grand Duchy: another jewel on the crown of his remarkable, polyhedric activity.
Indeed it can be said that Mr. Goldschmit�s departure leaves in Almaty, as a whole, a vacuum hard to be filled. Good luck, professor!
Prof. Goldschmit (R) receiving his honorary deed from Mr. Ippoliti.
Michail SERGEEV
ALMATY, May 24
(THE GLOBE)
�This seminar is one of the many events, which are supposed to assist development of women�s business in Kazakhstan,� the representative of the association �Business women of Kazakhstan� announced at the press-conference devoted to the opening of the seminar �Start your own business� in Almaty.
The seminar will be held in the southern capital of Kazakhstan from May 24 to June 7, 1999. According to the representative, this seminar is a continuation of the Program on training potential businessmen and people wishing to perfect their business, started in 1998.
�After the seminar the participants will be able to prepare and to defence their business-plans, to plan and to do their business,� she said.
Representatives of the women�s organisations of Almaty will study the basic analysis of strong and weak aspects of business, plan of profits and expenses, taxation and juridical responsibility of the business subjects.
The seminar was organisationally supported by the Economic Committee of the akim of Almaty and the professional-technical Lyceum No. 15.
It is supposed, that people who will successfully defend their business-plans may get loans and credits.
Bakhytzhan ZHUMALIEVA
ALMATY, May 24 (THE GLOBE)
Tomorrow, May 26 the next meeting of the Special Working Group on preparation of the Conference on Interaction and Trust Measures in Asia (CITMA) will be held. Issues connected with the completion of the Declaration providing the principles of interrelations of the CITMA states, as well as preparation of agenda, resolution and joint announcement of the heads of the Foreign Ministries of the countries-members are to be considered at the meeting. The Conference is planned to be held in September 1999 in Almaty.
The Conference on Interaction and Trust Measures in Asia (CITMA) takes an especial place among the other urgent issues of the external policy of Kazakhstan.
For the first time the idea to establish the regional security system was suggested by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev when he spoke at the 47th session of the UN General Assembly in September 1992. The Kazakhstani leader emphasised, the essence of his initiative was to recommence the previous unsuccessful efforts to create an effective and universal structure to guarantee security in Asia, where unlike the others regions this mechanism had not been developed.
During six years after that, the Kazakhstan initiative became a weighty factor of the regional policy. Sixteen Asian states, such as Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Palestine, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan take part in realisation of the above mentioned initiative. Australia, Indonesia, Korea, USA, Ukraine and a number of the international organisations (UNO, OSCE, League of Arabian States) joined the process as observers.
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