Phrygian

American-Armenian Investors Open Armenia's First 5-Star Hotel September 21, 2004 Largest US Direct Investment Ever in Armenia's Privatizing Economy BOSTON, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Representing the largest US direct investment ever in the Republic of Armenia, the historic Hotel Armenia, located in the republic's capital, Yerevan, has opened as a 5-star, world- class Marriott hotel following a multi-million dollar restoration. AK Development, the Boston-based investor group of American and other "Diaspora" Armenians, defied all odds to manage the privatization process, luring critical investment dollars and instituting "best of" practices previously unknown in this Caucasus-region nation, once a part of the Soviet Union. The Armenia Marriott Hotel is the first project in Armenia to receive funding through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a US government agency, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank. OPIC is the senior lender for the project, extending an $18 million loan; IFC is a $4.9 million equity partner. AK Development, which paid $10.4 million for the hotel and attendant office and development parcels, secured this funding for the $42 million project following a more than two- year due diligence process. Hotel operator Marriott International is a lending participant, with $1.3 million of subordinated debt. "The Armenia Marriott Hotel, Yerevan, will have a strong demonstration effect and promote investor confidence in the wake of Armenia's transition to a market economy," said Mr. Edward Nassim, Director of IFC's Central and Eastern Europe Department. With Armenia's independence in 1991, and its difficult transition in the following decade away from obsolete, unproductive Soviet-era practices, a group of Armenian Diaspora sought a permanent investment that would stimulate their ethnic homeland's emerging market economy and serve as a model for future foreign investment there. Recognizing tourism as a powerful engine for economic change, a hotel investment fit their investment criteria. In 1997, the Hotel Armenia was offered for sale through a privatization tender offer process conducted by Merrill Lynch International with a key stipulation that the winning bidder partner with an internationally recognized hotel brand. AK Development was formed to acquire and restore the hotel and was represented by East-West Financial Services of Washington, D.C., a specialist in project financing in emerging markets with extensive business dealings with Marriott International. Investors closed on the property in August 1998, with additional financing secured by early 2000 and renovations begun in 2001. The Armenia Marriott Hotel is nearby historic attractions and boasts 225 guestrooms, approximately 14,000 sq. ft. of meeting space; five restaurants; fitness center; retail shops; and modern services previously unavailable to travelers to Armenia. Armenia is located in the Caucasus region and bordered by Turkey, Iran, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Armenia Marriott Hotel is located in Yerevan on Republic Square, 375010 Armenia. For hotel information call 374 1-599000. To reach AK Development, call 617-225-2152. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040921/netu020_1.html http://marriott.com/property/propertyPage/EVNMC

http://www.eaif.org/histmonth.htm California Legislature Names October "European American Heritage Month" October has been designated "European American Heritage Month" by the California legislature, which unanimously approved the resolution in late August 1999. "Public school students can now study and celebrate the many contributions that people of European origin have made to California and the United States," says Lou Calabro, head of the San Bruno-based European-American Issues Forum, which drafted the resolution. Calabro said his group modeled the resolution after those celebrating other racial/ethnic groups. Calabro called upon parents and other interested individuals to contact local school districts and help them create special projects and curricula to highlight European-American heritage this October. No funding for the event has been made available by the legislature or the California Department of Education. "With today's focus on multiculturalism, the legislature's support serves the interests of fairness and diversity by recognizing the European-American community as as a distinct, valued segment of our society," says Calabro, who noted Novato-resident Stan Hess suggested Heritage Month. Assemblyman Lou Papan sponsored Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 91, which marks the first official recognition by the State government of the 16 million Californians of European ancestry, including such diverse groups as Anglo-Saxons, Armenians, Basque, Celts, French, Germans, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, Scandinavians and Slavs. "The State's recognition of the European-American community is a breakthrough that we hope will give us a seat at the table when decisions that affect our lives are being made," said Calabro. The European-American Issues Forum is a civil rights group formed to discuss and take action on social, economic, cultural, political and related issues that particularly affect European-Americans in Northern California and beyond. For more information, please contact : European-American Issues Forum 297 El Camino Real, #155, San Bruno, CA 94066 Phone: 650/952-8489 o Fax: 650/869-7215

An Historical and Geopolitical Analysis of the Crisis in Beslan by Robert Steuckers Synergies Européennes translated by Michael O'Meara Translator's Note: The following piece was written 4 September, the day following the Islamic butchering of 350 people, mostly children, in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, located in the Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. Posted on 5 September at the French national-revolutionary site Voxnr, it was signed "Synergies Européennes," a movement led by the Belgian Robert Steuckers, who is probably the piece's actual author. Some National Vanguard readers may have encountered Steuckers in translation on the web. He is one of Europe's great frontfighters and our finest geopolitical thinker. A linguist by training, the young Steuckers was a disciple of the late Jean Thiriart and later an early participant in Alain de Benoist's GRECE. Like Guillaume Faye, with whom he occasionally associates, he broke with Benoist in the late 1980s and went on to form Synergies Européennes, which for years was one of Magna Europa's most important metapolitical "think tanks." In the last several years, for reasons unknown to me, Synergies Européennes has been absent from the nationalist scene. Steuckers's voice, however, can still occasionally be heard, and whenever it is his message is inevitably worth attending. The following is an abridged version of the original posting; the remarks in brackets are those of the translator. -- Michael O'Meara WE CONDEMN IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS the horrible acts perpetuated against the children of Beslan by the Chechen terrorists, who have been shamelessly supported by Turkey, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the Western press, especially Le Soir [here in Brussels]. The blood of Beslan's children, their teachers, their parents, the soldiers and paramedics who tried to rescue them -- their blood has been spilt and Western journalists, like those of Le Soir, must bear responsibility for it because they have provided the terrorists the media support, without which they would never have committed their abominable deed. These [hired pens, who incessantly attack Russia for resisting the Islamic insurgence in Chechnya,] have at last revealed their true colors, for all their fine words and moralistic posturing [on behalf of the Chechens] turns out to be nothing but a smoke screen for sadistic assassins. With no less force, we denounce the cowardice of the present Georgian government, which continues to repress the Ossetians [within its borders] and which is allowing the United States to build a military base in the South Caucasus -- a base which will contribute to Russia's encirclement and lend support to Turkish territorial claims in the region. Ankara, though, has no historical right to these Caucasian lands, which formerly belonged to the [White Christian] peoples of Armenia and Byzantium, just as they have no right to the Balkans, the northern shore of the Black Sea, or the Hellenic Aegean, which they also covet. The unspeakable crimes committed by the Chechen vermin in Beslan, we believe, was part of a Turko-American plan [to secure control of the Caucases] by striking at one of Russia's most loyal supporters, the indomitable Ossetians, descendents of the ancient Scythians. The installation of American troops and Turkish military personnel in Georgia is obviously linked to the terrorist activities in Ossetia, in Ingushetia, and in Chechnya. [Virtually unreported by the Western press, the terrorists at Beslan were outfitted in Western military gear]. Like the British before them, the Americans hope to push the Russians out of Caucasia [so as to tighten their anaconda grip on Russia's southern flank]. Synergies Européenes declares its solidarity with the Indo-European peoples of Caucasia, specifically the Ossetians and Armenians. We do so in the hope that Russia's presence in the region will be strengthened, that the ominous American installation in Georgia will be contained, and that a bloc against a Turkish or Iraqi Kurdistan will be formed, so that access to Mesopotamia, whose economic and geopolitical significance is of the utmost importance, will not be lost. For since the American occupation, France, Germany, Russia, and Belgium have been excluded from Iraq. We cannot afford to lose access to this strategically crucial region. It does not seem coincidental that the terrible tragedy in Beslan took place immediately following joint Russian-Armenian military maneuvers in the Armavir region along the Turkish border. These maneuvers were observed by the Greek military command, which ought to be congratulated, for, although a member of NATO, Greece has not hesitated to demonstrate its solidarity with the embattled Armenians. The Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian has also announced that these maneuvers will be even more extensive next year. Armenia's army is presently expanding, having had its budget recently augmented by 10 per cent. Its active forces now number about 60,000, with a reserve of 320,00 (out of a population of 3.2 million!) and a "reserve of the reserve" of 350,000 -- for Armenia [which is one of the oldest Indo-European nations] is prepared to mobilize every able-bodied man between the ages of 15 and 59 [if ever its genocidal Islamic neighbors, who have a long history of murdering White Christian peoples, should threaten it]. In addition to these forces there are 20,000 soldiers defending Nagorno-Karabagh [an Armenian enclave in what was formerly Azerbaijani territory], along with 60,000 reservists prepared to take up arms if the Azeris, allies of the Americans and Turks, should attempt to retake these Armenian land. Fortunately, the Armenian Army is [one of the most competent and powerful in the region], equipped with the most advanced missiles and planes. Russia also maintains 30 Mig-29 fighters in Karabagh and several batteries of S-300 missiles, capable of reaching Ankara or Baghdad. The Armenians also stand out as being one of the few White peoples to have maintained their ancient warrior heritage. Long ago, our Crusaders came to appreciate their military prowess, as they joined them in repulsing the Seljuk Turks from the "Holy Lands." [Having always been surrounded by powerful and murderous enemies], the fiercely-nationalist Armenians have had to learn to fight the superior forces arrayed against them. Encircled by Turkic and Muslim peoples [who now occupy lands formerly belonging to the White Christian peoples of Byzantium], the Armenians are not likely to retreat before these forces, willing, as they are, to transform their mountainous land into an eagle's nest, if need be. In fact, it was just this determination, combined with the close solidarity between Armenians, Russians, and Ossetians, that forced their Islamic-Turko-Chechen enemies to carry out a murderous attack on their children, [as if by breaking the hearts of these Caucasian peoples that they would be able to conquer them]. In the clearest and most unambiguous terms, the Armenian president Robert Kotcharian (pictured) has declared his total solidarity with Russia and Ossetia -- a declaration which we Europeans support without reservation. At the same time, Serge Sarkisian announced on 5 September that Armenia remains committed to defending Karabagh, [now liberated from the Muslim yoke], as well as the land corridor linking it to Armenia [won in the 1992-1993 war with Azerbaijan]. American and Turkish support for Azerbaijan in this dispute has failed to weaken the Armenian resolve, which shows that a people's determined commitment to their heritage can make them almost invincible. Indeed, it was for just this reason that the American-Saudi-Azeri-Chechen forces resorted to terror [on 3 September] to break the Russian-Ossetian Armenian alliance -- somewhat like the way the US Air Force firebombed the schools and civilians of Hamburg 60 years ago to force the Germans to capitulate. Armenia, though, has a much different geography than the North German plains or the Mesopotamian river valley. It will not be invaded [without the most horrendous of struggles]. The children massacred at Beslan's Middle School One were Ossetians, an Indo-European people speaking a language related to ancient Persian. The 300,000 Ossetians of today are the descendants of those Indo-European horsemen known as the Scythians, the Sarmatians, or Alans, who frequently appear in ancient Roman sources. These people [who once occupied the south Russian plains] were driven by Turko-Mongolian hordes [in the period of the late Roman empire] into the mountain regions of the Caucasus, now known as North Ossetia. One branch of these Scythians was, however, swept up into the wanderings of the Germanic peoples of the period. As a consequence, Scythians were scattered throughout Western Europe, the Rhineland, and the British Isles (where they had a part in fostering the Arthurian legend). Others followed the Vandals into Spain and North Africa. Of the Scythians who took refuge in the Caucasus, many of their descendents made up the most important military forces of the Byzantine Greeks. In 1767, [after centuries living under the oppressive heel of the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Byzantium and Caucasia in the 11th and 12th centuries] these people were finally liberated by the Russians. Their language was given its literary form by the great poet Kosta Xetagurov (1859-1906) and the French academician George Dumézil was the first major scholar to examine their epic literature. (See Georges Dumézil, Romans de Scythie et d'alentour [Paris: Payot, 1978]) Much of Dumézil's scholarly work [perhaps the most important ever to have been produced on "Indo-European civilization"] begins, in fact, with the Ossetians, for they retained some of the most primordial Indo-European characteristics. Not coincidentally, their folklore possesses an astonishing beauty and charm. It was, then, against the children, the rising generation, of this small, ancient, and very proud people that the Chechen vermin, with the complicity of the Turks, the Americans, Islamists, and journalists like those of Le Soir, carried out their genocidal attack, for no other term than "genocide" does justice to the character of this sort of barbarism -- and indeed follows the logic of the Turks' earlier attempt to exterminate the Armenian people [in the period 1915-1922, when close to two million Armenians were shot, butchered, or starved]. We call on all European peoples, from Dublin to Vladivostock, to condemn this assault on the existence of the Indo-European peoples of the Caucasus. Against the murderous enterprise of these Islamic forces supported by the globalists, it is necessary to affirm that Caucasia is Indo-European. All non-Indo-European populations and religious confessions have no legitimacy there. This does not mean that we deny the right of other religions or peoples to exist in this region. But with the utmost clarity we proclaim that they have absolutely no authority to dictate the politics or the way of life of those established by the Ossetians, Armenians, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, and the Russian Tsars. The region's geopolitical axis has historically extended from the [White] North to the [non-White South] -- not from the South to the North or the East to the West. This axis, moreover, is vital to the very existence of European peoples. Those among us who say otherwise are either traitors or fools. For the triumph of Turkish-American geopolitics in the Caucasus will have the effect of driving the Russians northward into their tundra region and Europeans to the westernmost reaches of their peninsula. Any European defending such a geopolitics condemns his people to a slow death. . . Our history calls on us to continue this struggle for Caucasia -- which implies our unconditional support for Vladimir Putin, the courageous, martyred Ossetians, and the Armenia of President Kotcharian. Against the traitorous lowlifes who would weaken our support with false scruples and hairsplitting sophistries, we declare that the struggle between Euro-Russia and Islam is one without the slightest nuance. For it is a struggle for our survival and one that must be followed by an aggressive counter-attack -- a counter attack which will force the Americans out of Eurasia, curb Turkish ambitions, satisfy Greek, Armenian, Ossetian, and Kurdish grievances against the Turks, liberate Cyprus, contain Morocco below Gibraltar, chase the Pakistanis from Kashmir, and liberate the Philippines of the Moro terrorists. (image: Sir Halford Mackinder) The globalist forces guided by Washington are hoping to neutralize the Caucasus by Islamicizing it. This strategy aims at creating a bloc, neutral in appearance, but totally subordinate to the neoconservatives' plan to establish a "Greater Middle East" [under the control of Washington and Tel Aviv]. Once this plan is realized, the Americans will become masters of Mackinder's "heartland," which will enable them to dominate the markets and peoples of the entire Islamic world. This will greatly restrict Russian and European influence, reducing them to declining peripheral zones. It was, then, with the aim of realizing this two-prong project -- of dominating the Eurasian heartland and marginalizing Russia and Europe -- that the children of Beslan were murdered. http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=3788

Can anyone still buy alcohol, porn and cigarettes in Armenia or since the introduction of the new drivers licences people are actually being carded? How about when entering strip joints, bars etc.? Is there a government regulation that fines or suspends the licenses of stores and bars that sell booze and cigarettes to minors? If yes, is it enforced? I imagine a lot of people don't drive so is there an alternative identification card with birthdate, photo and name that all citizens carry?

Azeri police arrest Japanese student suspected of spying for Armenia Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku 13 Aug 04 An act of sabotage by Armenia was foiled in Baku today. Employees of [baku's] Sabayil district police department detained Japanese citizen (?Ogawa Siniawa), 28, when he was taking photos of the Azarbaycan Hotel and other facilities. The preliminary investigation showed that the Japanese resident, who is a first-year student of Yerevan State University's social studies department, arrived in Tbilisi from Yerevan on 1 August and went to Saki [northern Azerbaijan] two days later. He stayed in Saki for three days, arrived in Baku on 6 August and stayed at a hotel in Baku. He came to Azerbaijan as a tourist. The investigation is continuing. http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg91657.html

Irish Times Jul 16, 2004 World rankings of the 2004 Human Development index The index is based on per-capita income as well as educational levels, health care and life expectancy: 1. Norway 2. Sweden 3. Australia 4. Canada 5. Netherlands 6. Belgium 7. Iceland 8. US 9. Japan 10. Ireland 11. Switzerland 12. Britain 13. Finland 14. Austria 15. Luxembourg 16. France 17. Denmark 18. New Zealand 19. Germany 20. Spain 21. Italy 22. Israel 23. Hong Kong 24. Greece 25. Singapore 26. Portugal 27. Slovenia 28. South Korea 29. Barbados 30. Cyprus 31. Malta 32. Czech Republic 33. Brunei 34. Argentina 35. Seychelles 36. Estonia 37. Poland 38. Hungary 39. St. Kitts and Nevis 40. Bahrain 41. Lithuania 42. Slovakia 43. Chile 44. Kuwait 45. Costa Rica 46. Uruguay 47. Qatar 48. Croatia 49. United Arab Emirates 50. Latvia 51. Bahamas 52. Cuba 53. Mexico 54. Trinidad and Tobago 55. Antigua and Barbuda 56. Bulgaria 57. Russia 58. Libya 59. Malaysia 60. Macedonia 61. Panama 62. Belarus 63. Tonga 64. Mauritius 65. Albania 66. Bosnia and Herzegovina 67. Suriname 68. Venezuela 69. Romania 70. Ukraine 71. Saint Lucia 72. Brazil 73. Colombia 74. Oman 75. Western Samoa 76. Thailand 77. Saudi Arabia 78. Kazakhstan 79. Jamaica 80. Lebanon 81. Fiji 82. Armenia 83. Philippines 84. Maldives 85. Peru 86. Turkmenistan 87. St. Vincent and the Grenadines 88. Turkey 89. Paraguay 90. Jordan 91. Azerbaijan 92. Tunisia 93. Grenada 94. China 95. Dominica 96. Sri Lanka 97. Georgia 98. Dominican Republic 99. Belize 100. Ecuador 101. Iran 102. Palestinian Territories 103. El Salvador 104. Guyana 105. Cape Verde 106. Syria 107. Uzbekistan 108. Algeria 109. Equatorial Guinea 110. Kyrgyzstan 111. Indonesia 112. Vietnam 113. Moldova 114. Bolivia 115. Honduras 116. Tajikistan 117. Mongolia 118. Nicaragua 119. South Africa 120. Egypt 121. Guatemala 122. Gabon 123. Sao Tome and Principe 124. Solomon Islands 125. Morocco 126. Namibia 127. India 128. Botswana 129. Vanuatu 130. Cambodia 131. Ghana 132. Myanmar 133. Papua New Guinea 134. Bhutan 135. Laos 136. Comoros 137. Swaziland 138. Bangladesh 139. Sudan 140. Nepal 141. Cameroon 142. Pakistan 143. Togo 144. Republic of Congo 145. Lesotho 146. Uganda 147. Zimbabwe 148. Kenya 149. Yemen 150. Madagascar 151. Nigeria 152. Mauritania 153. Haiti 154. Djibouti 155. Gambia 156. Eritrea 157. Senegal 158. East Timor 159. Rwanda 160. Guinea 161. Benin 162. Tanzania 163. Ivory Coast 164. Zambia 165. Malawi 166. Angola 167. Chad 168. Democratic Republic of Congo 169. Central African Republic 170. Ethiopia 171. Mozambique 172. Guinea-Bissau 173. Burundi 174. Mali 175. Burkina Faso 176. Niger 177. Sierra Leone

Իրենց հրամանատարներն են ապաստարան փնտրում :lol: Azerbaijan investigates officer's disappearance BAKU (AFP) Jul 09, 2004 Azerbaijan's defence ministry said on Friday it was looking into the whereabouts of one of its senior officers, who was reported to have applied for political asylum while studying on a NATO course in Belgium. Unconfirmed reports in the local media say that Lieutenant Colonel Firuz Gassymov went absent without leave from his course in Brussels and approached an unnamed foreign embassy to ask for asylum. Defence ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov declined to confirm the reports but said: "Things are unclear at the moment. We are conducting an investigation." If the reports are confirmed, it will be a serious embarassment for Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic which prides itself on the strength of its armed forces. But it is not the first time that the military has created awkward moments for the country's leaders. Last year, almost the entire student faculty at Azerbaijan's most prestigious military academy went absent without leave in protest at their living conditions. And earlier this year, an Azeri officer on a NATO course in Hungary was charged with murder after an Armenian officer studying alongside him was hacked to death with an axe as he slept. The Azeri officer is now in jail in Budapest awaiting trial. Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the early 1990s over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dispute which is still unresolved. http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040709163855.0e95g0af.html

http://www.independent.com/cover/cover917.html The Karabakh Conflict 6-17-04 Traveling Into a Dark Corner of the Former Soviet Union by Matt Kettmann Toward the end of my third week in the little known, officially nonexistent republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, the answer to everyone's question—"Why are you going there?"—smacked me square on the forehead. The smack was literal, provided by a decorated though drunk colonel from the Karabakh Army who was bumping his head into mine and slapping me on the back during an afternoon of proud toasting to the independence, strength, and natural riches of the Karabakh peoples. Had the shots of vodka been as sizable and numerous as the toasts, we would have all been hammered by now—and we’d only been in the room about 10 minutes. My photographer friend Jonathan, our translator, and I were surrounded by a dozen or so uniformed military officers, all of them smoking cigarettes and drinking. There was also a suspicious-looking fellow in a dark blue suit who told Jonathan to put away his camera. We'd been led into this room by a commander whose regiment, based in the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert, was renowned as one of the best in the tiny, fledgling republic. Over the next few days, this commander would become our good friend—teaching us how to shoot automatic rifles at night, sharing with us some of his best cognac, even personally driving us home in his Uaz jeep a couple times—but at this moment, we weren't sure what to make of him or his comrades. We'd come to the base in the first place to photograph and observe the daily life of a Karabakh soldier, but with a national holiday just two days away—specifically the 12th anniversary of a critical military success during the Karabakh people's war for independence against Azerbaijan from 1991 to 1994—we'd come on the wrong day. The soldiers were being treated to a rock concert in the auditorium—not the normal routine. So our task of putting an accurate face on these people, who, despite a promising democracy and evolving economy in a notoriously unstable region, have lingered in the international limbo of "not officially recognized" for 10 years now, would have to wait. We learned that today was not the day over about an hour of translated, pre-vodka conversation with the commander, jibing jovially about the NHL ice hockey playoffs and honestly about the ongoing situation in Iraq. Then he asked if we’d care for a drink. We were game and followed the commander to a small, smoky room down the hall. The scene was disorienting at first—on the television a movie was playing in which black men and scantily clad women were kung-fu fighting—and through the smoke I could see that the black lacquered table was packed with bottles of pricey vodka, fine Armenian cognac, Coca-Cola, and sparkling water. Four shot glasses sat empty, apparently waiting for us. Within seconds, we were clinking glasses and downing their contents with vigor, and soon the red-faced colonel was slapping my back and jubilantly head-butting me. "What's he saying?" I asked our translator, confused as to whether this display was affectionate or hostile. Our translator answered with a chuckle that the colonel was now toasting us as journalists who wanted to tell their story to a world that knew next to nothing about their post-Soviet Union battle for independence or their ongoing diplomatic struggle for international recognition. So we slammed the shots again. On the eve of our final week in Karabakh, this particular experience—getting drunk with the George Washingtons, Ethan Allens, and Paul Reveres of Karabakh—was an unexpected and priceless treat, the most vivid and bizarre afternoon we'd had yet. It topped off another day of success, for that morning, we were finally allowed access, after talking personally with the Defense Minister, to visit and photograph a hot spot of the ongoing sniper war that plagues the Karabakh-Azerbaijan front line. And by this point, it had already been a bountiful journalistic mission. We'd done enough traveling, interviewing, and photographing to come up with a handful of articles, ranging from a standard travel story to a piece on the reemerging Karabakh wine industry to a report on the politics of a region of Christian Armenians surrounded by powerful Muslim nations that, with just the littlest imagination, could serve as the trigger point for the world’s next horrific ethnic conflict. When we got up to leave a few toasts later and were led down a hall toward some mysterious place—with Armenian and Russian as the lingua francas and almost no English spoken at all, we didn't know what was going on most of the time—I realized that such experiences are exactly why I travel in the first place, to find myself in unique situations among unique people doing unique things. The richness of the experience nearly brought a tear to my eye. But then, maybe that was just the vodka. Out of Soviet Shadows Funnily enough, everyone we met in Armenia had heard of Santa Barbara, thanks to the popular eponymous daytime soap opera of the late ’80s and early ’90s, but until late last year, I might have guessed that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was one of the lesser known locales in the movie Star Wars. I began researching the republic’s true whereabouts, history, and current political situation after hearing about the plight of the Karabakhi people through my photographer buddy Jonathan Alpeyrie, who had just returned from the Congo, where he shot a stunning photo essay published in The Independent (“Lost Children of the Congo,” February 17, 2004). Over a sushi lunch, the French-born, American-educated war photographer mentioned that his next trip was to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which I spelled out phonetically and Googled with gusto back at the office, as Jonathan had said he was looking for a writer with whom to travel. What turned up were various Web sites discussing the Karabakh war for independence from Azerbaijan, which took place from 1991 to 1994 and their ongoing plight to become recognized as a real country by the international community. It was an enclave of ethnic Armenians that, under Soviet rule since the 1920s, was officially an autonomous region within Azerbaijan, the Karabakhis separated from their Armenian brothers and sisters by a few dozen miles of Azeri-dominated landscape. It was a fairly typical situation rooted in the former Soviet Union, of which Armenia was also an integral part, where disgruntled peoples still struggle daily to become their own nations. But unlike Chechnya, Abzakhia, or South Ossetia, Karabakh seemed pretty stable, with only sporadic gunfire from sniper rifles at the front lines. And while Alpeyrie can usually be found in places where bullets must be dodged, I generally draw the danger line at going to places where I can guarantee being shot at. When I concluded that Karabakh (which translates as “black garden”) was relatively obscure and reasonably safe, I volunteered for the ride. Descending into the Armenian capital city of Yerevan, which has a population of two million—roughly two-thirds of the Armenian population—I had expected a cacophony of lights, but the city was strangely dark for a large developing city, at least by our Western standards. On the ground at Zvartnots International Airport, we ran the customs gauntlet, grabbed our stuff, and found our driver, who’d been set up for us at a reasonable price by the president of the Yerevan Press Club, who I had contacted from the States. Our driver spoke absolutely no English, an indication of things to come. The 2 a.m. drive into Yerevan took us past a mini-Vegas strip of small casinos right past the airport and a huge booze factory marking the beginning of the city proper. We checked into the Erebuni Hotel, where a dependable yet dreary staff was our introduction to the cold hospitality that survives as a leftover from the Soviet era, when hoteliers and other service workers were supposed to be more utilitarian than nice. And with a watchman on every floor who jumped out of his tiny room every time a door opened, getting in and out of the place always proved humorous, but at least we knew our bags were safe. The next morning, I awoke to the constant sound of loud booms and walked out onto our balcony, which overlooked the southern half of the gray city. Though the booms sounded like the marching of some Kalishnikov-carrying army, they turned out to be coming from the cranes that decorated the Yerevan skyline. The reliable rhythm of the booms played the perfect soundtrack to Armenia’s ongoing march of progress. We investigated such progress over the next week, as we got to know the city while obtaining the necessary visa and paperwork for our mission into Karabakh. I began to understand that Armenia was not a developing country in the regular usage of that phrase, which more easily fits into the third-world puzzles of Central America or Africa. Instead, Armenia is facing a much different task, one of redevelopment. As the shadow of the former Soviet Union recedes from Armenia—a shadow that long assured safety, stability, and normalcy under communism—the people struggle to re-establish themselves from the ground up. “The Soviet Union was not a country in the normal sense,” a wise man named Gevorg Gabrielyan explained to me in perfect English one evening. “It was the entire world.” Everything, he said, was defined by and derived from the Soviets, so when the Republic fell, the sky came crashing down. Now, half the people in Armenia are below the poverty line and unemployment is prevalent—some estimates place the number of unemployed as high as 38 percent—evidenced by the swarms of working-age men who spend most of their time chewing sunflower seeds and congregating on street corners beneath the massive, pink-stoned government buildings built during the zenith of Soviet success. Beggars can be seen in Yerevan now, a sign that the communist times of food for everyone are no longer, replaced by the more cutthroat reality of capitalism. Hope is only now starting to return, and faced with internal problems ranging from abandoned factories to politicians who lock up opposition leaders and a continual exodus of Armenians, the dilemma of Karabakh (an arguably rogue state located about 200 kilometers southeast of Yerevan) is not an everyday concern for people of Armenia. The people of Yerevan are certainly informed about the Karabakh situation and have strong opinions, but they’ve simply got bigger things to worry about, especially since the military battles in Karabakh ended a decade ago. At the same time, however, the Karabakh situation, when viewed from Armenian eyes, resonates profoundly because many considered the plight of the Christian Karabakhis to be the latest fight against Muslim oppressors. And Muslim oppression is at the essence of what it means to be Armenian, arguably more so than either the Armenian language or Armenia’s allegiance to the Armenian Apostolic Church, an orthodox Christian faction founded in 301 AD, when Armenia became the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion. But thanks to Soviet dominance and the sublimation of all things holy, Armenians moved away from Christianity and began speaking Russian for official purposes as well, leaving a legacy of struggle against the Muslims—from Turks and Azeris to Persians and Tartars—as the remaining beacon of national pride. Armenians across the globe are quick to bring up the 1915 genocide, where some 1.5 million Armenians were killed in what was then western Armenia—now eastern Turkey—or sent to die of starvation in the Syrian desert by a radical faction of land- and power-hungry Turks. That holocaust is always on the lips of Armenians largely because a significant chunk of the world—the United States included—has refused to recognize the incident because of alliances with Turkey, the only Muslim superpower not run by fundamentalists. The 1915 ethnic cleansing sparked the Armenian diaspora, which explains why there are more Armenians in places like Fresno, Glendale, and Paris than in all of Armenia itself. Look at the Karabakh conflict through a similar lens—adding the fact that Armenians generally refer to Azeris as Turks—and it’s clear that Karabakh’s struggle for recognition, which began militarily when Azeris started taking over villages and telling Armenian residents to leave, could have been perceived as the start of the next Armenian holocaust. We got an up-close look at the face of Armenian nationalism on our last day in Yerevan, the annual Genocide Remembrance Day when tens of thousands flock to the genocide monument on a hill overlooking the city to bring tulips and flower arrangements to place around the rim of the eternal flame. By the end of the day, the flame was barely visible from behind a wall of petals and stems. Throughout the morning’s solemn procession, I noticed a few extra tears shed and flowers laid for the 5,000 or so who died during Karabakh’s war for independence, for a handful of those soldiers’ graves line the path toward the memorial. Along the Silk Road We hired a driver to take us across the border from Yerevan to Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh located about six hours by bus to the southeast. The road passes beneath rugged, snow-covered peaks into alpine valleys of green grass and white ice, and through remote mountain villages where columns of smoke plumed from a house or two. These are the sights of the South Caucasus Mountains, a region whose craggy peaks and impenetrable faзades have provided the natural defenses over the past couple millennia to preserve distinct ancient bloodlines and cultures. Muslims live just over the pass from Christians and nomadic shepherds may walk on the south side of a mountain while a stationary farmer plants his crops just around the bend. Situated between the Caspian and Black seas, the Caucasus and their temperamental splendor have long been the crossroads of the world, serving as the entry point to Europe or the Middle East, depending on the direction traveled. The Silk Road passed through this range and various tides of Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Persians, Turks, Armenians, Russians, Georgians, Tartars, and the like crashed upon these peaks and valleys in the long history of world conquest. As the crossroads of the world since the beginning of mankind, it’s no wonder that the South Caucasus bred the Nagorno-Karabakh situation, where an enclave of Armenians became isolated from Armenia proper after taking off to the mountains (“nagorno” means “mountainous” in Russian) while Muslim peoples flooded the plains. Striking in both appearance and importance, the Caucasus have become the battleground of numerous ethnicities fighting for freedom since the Soviet Union crumbled. From the Chechens of southern Russia and Abzhakians of Georgia, freedom fights are frequent and brutal, and it’s hardly a stretch to say that the Karabakh movement toward independence—begun in 1988 with demonstrations in Stepanakert and Yerevan and made official with a 1991 referendum vote of the Karabakhi people in favor of self-determination—was the final straw on the Soviet camel’s back. But while many other former Soviet republics followed Karabakh’s lead throughout the early ’90s and became free with little violence, the newly named Nagorno-Karabakh Republic wasn’t so lucky. Since Karabakh was not a formal republic—but an autonomous region within the borders and control of the Azerbaijan Soviet State Republic—the laws for self-determination established by Mikhail Gorbachev did not exactly apply. Azerbaijan responded to the Karabakh peoples’ vote for independence with an iron fist, taking over villages and mobilizing the military, and the subsequent war for Karabakh independence raged from 1991 to 1994. The Karabakh side, bolstered by help from Armenia and, rumor has it, Russia, eventually won the ground battle, which was arguably the last conventional tank-and-troop war of the 20th century. By all accounts, it was an ugly war. The Azeris indiscriminately lobbed Grad missiles into Stepanakert, the Armenians were accused of massacres at the Azeri town of Khojaly. Villages of both sides were burned, and more than 30,000 soldiers and civilians died. More than 50 times that number of Azeris and Armenians became refugees. The Karabakh countryside was littered with landmines that still kill more than one person a month, usually children. And in an economically crushing diplomatic blow, Azerbaijan convinced Turkey to set up a blockade against Armenia and Karabakh; that embargo, which harms humanitarian and development projects throughout the region, still exists today. As the Karabakh army pushed into Azeri territories, a ceasefire was arranged in May 1994. A front line was drawn, leaving some lands that were historically considered Azerbaijan under Karabakh control, to provide a buffer region, according to Karabakh military men. Also, a few small traditional Karabakh lands in the north, south, and east remained under Azeri control. Since then, the ceasefire has remained intact, save for an ongoing sniper war that’s killed around 100 soldiers over 10 years. It is one of the few embattled regions on the planet that has not required international “peacekeeping intervention,” of which Karabakhi leaders are proud, but they’re less proud of the battle that’s still being waged by diplomats and international lawmakers: the fight to get the rest of the world to recognize and respect the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as an independent nation. Into the Black Garden After nearly 14 hours of driving, our hired car rumbled up through heavy fog to the cliff-top town of Shoushi, the once and future cultural and religious capital of Karabakh that’s become a de facto refugee camp and a telling image of the war’s most destructive results. In the morning, the dizzying, moist mountain fog stayed put, but it did little to hide the destruction of war that was visible right outside our window. Before getting back in the car for the short drive into Stepanakert, we took a brief walkabout, finding mostly blown-out buildings and even one unexploded mortar near the recently refurbished cathedral. Like the abandoned villages we’d seen the day before, the sight of children playing on the skeletal remains of former buildings became normal during the next couple weeks, but the first impression left a feeling of hopeless despair and sadness. Indeed, the aftermath of war provides the most compelling argument against armed conflict. Perhaps more foreboding was the realization that such scars of war serve as a ubiquitous yet stark reminder that such conflict in these parts is commonplace. Bombed-out buildings offer only one message—that the next war might not be far off. In my pre-trip research, I’d read that Stepanakert was nothing more than a necessary administrative evil, a Soviet-developed capital city of about 30,000 with no aesthetic quality. But with its hilly, tree-lined streets, numerous parks, and pristine setting amid verdant foothills and snow-capped mountains, Stepanakert reminded me oddly of San Francisco, and I quickly grew to like it for its friendly people, reliable restaurants, potable water, and bustling urban feel. Our daily routine consisted of leaving our rented flat—next door to the Karabakh president’s house, no less—around 9:30 a.m. and, depending on the day’s itinerary, walking the couple blocks to the Asbar travel agency (which arranged all of our tourist and wine country trips as well as a driver and translator when necessary) or a few blocks more to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (who played our advocate in getting important interviews and arranging access to military spots). Along the way, we became familiar faces to the purveyors of restaurants, markets, and Internet cafйs, though the staring, pointing, and giggling at our strange clothes by people of all ages—who, except for brightly clothed children, generally dressed stylishly in dark colors—never ceased. But despite the growing familiarity, the language barrier blocked even the simplest pleasantries and compliments. I’ve traveled to numerous world destinations, but this was the first time that I’d experienced the comfortable loneliness that comes with not being able to communicate. Pantomiming became de rigueur as a means of communicating while mastering the most basic phrases—“barev” for hello, “merci” for thanks, and “svet lava” for very good—became a priority. We spent most of our first week traveling through the reemerging Karabakh wine country and to the numerous historical and natural curiosities that have become mandatory for the 3,000 tourists, most of them diaspora Armenians, who visit Karabakh every year. We saw crumbling monasteries from the 6th century, schoolrooms from the Middle Ages, mysterious church services of the Apostolic church, raging rivers in impressive gorges, wild foxes and birds of prey throughout the ridiculously green countryside, and dozens upon dozens of abandoned and/or war-torn villages. We also spent a day with the Halo Trust, a British nonprofit responsible for clearing the minefields leftover from the war, a particular problem this year because of the bumper crop of wheat. By the end of that first week, we’d traveled to almost every non-militarized corner of Karabakh, a region barely larger than Rhode Island but much larger in experience, thanks to the unrelenting mountain landscape and slow roads. Yet our quest to uncover the realities of the political and military situation proved, in line with what we’d been told, to be much more difficult than non-controversial aspects of the Karabakh republic. Our first trouble occurred during the second week, when we were finally granted a trip to the front lines. After meeting with the regiment commander, a friendly war hero who suggested with a chuckle that we keep our heads down when at the front, we followed a pair of officers out past the former Azeri city of Agdham (once a hub of 40,000-plus, but now abandoned and militarized) toward the front line. The bushes got thicker the closer we got, and a hush came over the five of us in the car, before nervous laughter erupted when the officers began driving in circles in what was likely a minefield. Our driver, himself a war vet who limps now because of a mine explosion, said something like, “Where the hell are they going?” and his expression of angry fear needed no interpretation. We didn’t blow up, thankfully, but our excitement at reaching this outpost was quickly quelled by a particularly uncooperative officer who wouldn’t allow any freedom and made sure Jonathan only took close-ups of soldiers. The day was, in many ways, a bust, and we returned to Stepanakert knowing we needed to talk to the Defense Minister himself if we were to get our way. So began our impromptu tutorial in international diplomacy, as we played ambassadors by offering thanks and praise at every step toward our goal and strived to remain overly polite in the face of frustrating adversity. Within two days of such dialogue with members of both the Foreign Affairs and Defense ministries, we were sitting in the Defense Minister’s waiting room, ready to plead our case. It worked. Not only would the minister personally see to it that our journalistic needs were fairly met, he granted me a 45-minute interview, which was conducted over small cups of the strongest coffee we’d tasted yet. The next day we went back to the front, this time in a hotter spot where we had to duck and run to enter the trench. Lined with wood and mortar, these trenches are where every 18- to 20-year-old Karabakh male spends a few months of their lives, watching for Azeri snipers as close as 50 yards away while keeping one hand on the automatic Kalishnikov hanging from their shoulders. While the young men there said their jobs were exciting, most didn’t plan on staying in the military past the compulsory two years. Later that day came our vodka-fueled meeting with the commander of the Stepanakert regiment, who would become our confidant over the next week, taking us out to shoot automatic rifles called AK-74s and providing us unlimited access to training drills. Between trips to the base, where we finally got a good sense of the soldiers’ daily routines, more interviews were arranged with the Foreign Affairs Minister and the Chairman of the National Assembly. From those talks, I began to grasp a feeling for what the Karabakh situation was—an underdog war for freedom held up because of the geopolitical situation of the Caucasus and the desires of superpowers such as the United States and Russia. But perhaps even more relevant, I developed the notion that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was the shining light of democratic and developmental hope for the entire post-Soviet world. Not only have their elections been deemed fair by international observers, they’ve managed to create an economic system that rewards investment in such a way that other countries facing similar circumstances of conflict and blockade have begun copying them. But despite such apparent against-all-odds success, the Karabakh people have effectively been shut out of the negotiation process altogether, as Azerbaijan strategically denies the republic’s existence and Armenia’s leadership seems happy to play the lone pro-Karabakh negotiator. I began wondering why, if the United States-led Western world is in favor of widespread democracy, why the Karabakh people hadn’t been rewarded for their efforts. It wasn’t until I got back to the States and had some breathing room that I realized things were not quite as simple as they seemed. After some more research and interviews, I learned that the Karabakh conflict is so complicated and contentious in both ancient history and modern geopolitics that finding a solution agreeable to all is an impossible task. Not even the shrewdest diplomats—specifically, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell—could muster a deal between the Armenian and Azeri presidents over Karabakh. And typically, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan who do broker a deal are bound to lose at the polls, for any move toward give-and-take becomes powerful fodder for opposition parties. When it comes to talking about a free Karabakh, doom is the prevailing notion in those parts and there’s no shortage of reasons why. Backdraft When I got back to Santa Barbara and began digesting what we’d learned in our month in the South Caucasus, it was with a reluctant sense of journalistic duty that I tried to give the Azeri view of the conflict its rightful due. So I began a series of email interviews with an Azeri named Murad Guluzade, whose father Vafa was the Foreign Affairs Minister of Azerbaijan during the war. He was critical but understanding of my dilemma in having seen only one side of the story, and began relaying responses to my biased questions and statements of what I had begun to consider fact. His explanation of the situation from an Azeri standpoint was so contradictory and apparently propaganda-inspired—including a claim that all of the monasteries I visited in Karabakh weren’t actually Armenian, but rather Caucasian Albanian, the presumed Christian predecessors to modern-day Muslim Azeris—that it caused me to laugh at times. But even if he was just relaying the latest Azeri propaganda—which can be found with a blatant anti-Armenian bias on almost every Azeri Web site—Guluzade proved both knowledgeable and genuine in his belief that the war was an aggressive act by Armenia supported by that nation’s longtime Russian allies, an attempt to keep the region unstable and under the influence of Moscow. I also managed to contact and interview Steven Mann, the American diplomat and South Caucasus expert who was recently assigned to be one of the co-chairs in the ongoing negotiation process under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Mann made it clear that while some positive steps toward negotiation had recently occurred, this was not an easy situation to find either hard truths or agreeable terms. He refrained from giving odds to an expected timeline or outcome and, after we’d talked on the phone for about 45 minutes, wished me good luck in my goal of uncovering the Karabakh conflict with a noticeable sense of doubt. Had I been that naпve? Could I have been summarily duped by an entire population? Were things not as they seemed, the Karabakh government actually corrupt, the people all told to lie through their smiling lips to visitors from abroad? It’s been almost a month now since I’ve been back, and those questions ring louder in my mind than ever as I try to grasp the reality of the situation. I now understand why all writings devoted to explaining the region turn out to be books and that nothing short of a 10,000-word essay could explain half of the problem. So I won’t even go there for now, because in some weird way, I feel like I know less about the truth of the Karabakh conflict than I did even before I ever heard of the place. Tainted by numerous experiences of unbound Karabakhi kindness—from the penniless peasants who without even considering their circumstance would shower us with coffee, tea, candy, and their freshest food to my new friend Artur, a cafй owner who took us out on a vodka-drenched barbecue in the woods, to the young girl in our neighborhood who told me multiple times in her little English, “You are beautiful!”—my heart will forever remain on the side of the Karabakh people. And after witnessing the early machinations of a budding democracy, the astute and forgiving minds of Karabakh’s government, the hope of a resilient economy in the face of a post-war, blockaded world, and the plain-faced reality of an undeniably established country with working infrastructure, no crime, and a painfully learned message of peace, my mind too leans in favor of the Karabakhi cause. But I can’t help shake the notion that had I spent some time in Azerbaijan, interviewing their refugees and veterans, getting wined and dined by their parliamentarians, I might have come to a different conclusion. Who’s right, who’s wrong, what should be done? These are questions I’m not qualified to answer. Perhaps the most overriding notion of everyone I spoke to about the Karabakh conflict—from proud war vets and government leaders to young translators and the everyday folk—is that war is bad and peace is good for all. And since nothing short of another war would put Karabakh under Azeri control, freedom for the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within the next decade is—whether right or wrong—where I’d bet my money. In the meantime, I plan on returning to the magical South Caucasus sometime soon, perhaps this time with a sojourn to Azerbaijan as well. Maybe then I’ll get to the bottom of the story.

Keep in mind this is from a georgian perspective. http://www.messenger.com.ge/issues/0636_ju...news_0636_3.htm Local Armenians see suppression in what others call bad times for everyone By Till Bruckner AKHALTSIKHE - "Our most severe problem is youth migration," says Robert Muradian, the only ethnic Armenian member of the city sakrebulo in Akhaltsikhe, a town of 18,000 in southern Georgia. "Young people are emigrating to Armenia, Russia, or western Europe. Some people say the situation is being created artificially by the authorities so that the Armenians will leave this region." He lights a cigarette. "They call it 'white genocide,'" he says in an allusion to the events of 1915. "Armenians in the regions often misinterpret the situation," counters the program director of a large international development organization. "They think they are being purposefully neglected by the government because they are Armenians. In fact, the previous government completely neglected all the regions, irrespective of who lived there." In all discussions here, access to jobs and resources emerges as a major issue. Unable to make a decent living, people see themselves forced to look for a better life elsewhere. Muradian has prepared a list of his constituent's concerns. After the exodus of the young generation, he names overdue pensions and salaries, followed by high local taxes that people cannot afford. "We cannot sell our agricultural products," says one of Muradin's constituents who stops in the office to report, "they do not let our apples across the border into Armenia." Asked if this is a case of ethnic discrimination by Georgian border guards, the man looks baffled. "No, the Georgians let us through. Armenian customs don't let us in, because the Armenian mafia makes a killing by importing apples from Iran. Armenians in Yerevan do not care about Armenians here." The situation in Akhaltsikhe reflects the ambiguous and often confusing relationships between - and often within - different ethnic groups in the southern province of Samtskhe-Javakheti. Large Georgian and Armenian populations set the tone in a bewildering mosaic of ethnicities that also includes Azeris, Russians, Jews, Greeks, Meskhetian Turks, Ossetians, Ukrainians and gypsies that is hard for outsiders to grasp. Sometimes even locals find it difficult to decide where to draw the lines. "They say they are Armenians, but they originally came from India," Muradian says of the gypsies, adding that they have Armenian surnames. "Actually, these days, they are proud to be called gypsies," he corrects himself, "That's what they have started calling themselves now." Although people everywhere in the regions have suffered from state neglect, many Armenians feel that they are being singled out for additional discrimination. "A senior security official recently told me that Armenians have been given three places of their own - their cemeteries, their schools, and their church. Outside, he said, we have no rights," recalls Ludwig Petrosian, the outspoken head of an Armenian organization often branded as extreme. "There are hardly any Armenians working for the local and regional government here. In the gamgeobas there were traditionally two places reserved for Armenians, and now it's only one." Angrily, he leans over the table. "You know why? It's so that if there is a conflict, they can send their lone Armenian to sort it out. The Armenians they tolerate do not really represent their people, they represent the interests of the Georgians who require our support every four years on election day and then treat us as second-class citizens for the rest of the time." It is difficult to determine what support his views have. Petrosian claims his is the only organization that has not sold out to Georgian interests, and is the only one that attracts a large local following. His detractors allege that he is a puppet bankrolled by the government in Yerevan. However, even moderates like Muradian - who literally squirms in his chair before saying anything that might sound even vaguely confrontational - admit that there is a problem. "If I have a dispute with a Georgian, the courts will always support him," he confesses, immediately adding that part of the problem is that member of his constituency often speak no Georgian and need intermediaries to interact with official structures. "Also, it seems that Armenian villages usually only have three hours of electricity a day, while Georgian villages have five or six hours of light. And there are very few Armenians in the police force." Muradian lights up again, and waves his cigarette around in the air. "People here want jobs." Jobs are at a prime in Akhaltsikhe, which independence suddenly transformed from a Soviet border outpost to a forgotten town on the edge of a failing state. "In this town, there are eight different organizations - both banks and NGOs - that offer micro- and small- credits, but there aren't even eight businesses that are working properly," says an ethnic Georgian loan officer who used to work for a bank but is now employed by a development organization. "It's difficult to find even one person in this region who can write a good business plan. Some people received a lot of compensation money when the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was routed through their land, but those who put it into business are almost all bankrupt now." Asked whether Armenians find it more difficult to get loans, he replies that all clients are the same for his organization. "I don't check passports," he insists. According to him, Armenians are generally better at business, and more likely to pay back loans. "Even if we don't give Armenians credit, they have money," the loan officer grins, reflecting the widespread view amongst Georgians that Armenians are better off. Despite his protestations at impartiality, he estimates that only ten per cent of his clients are Armenian - one-fourth of their share of the local population. In impoverished rural Georgia, international donor funds are often a major factor in the local economy, providing a source of cash and jobs. Opinions are divided on whether Armenians are receiving their fair share. "We noticed that Armenian proposals for micro-projects had to be twice as good as those submitted by Georgian villages to receive funding within one project we ran in Samtse-Javakheti," admits the country director of a large international NGO, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The Georgians who made up the selection board gave preference to their own." Other observers caution against generalizations. "We never came across ethnic issues in Akhaltsikhe," says Gia Glonti, who runs a project for CARE in the region. "I can't remember a single issue brought before us that was framed in ethnic terms." Asked why his Akhaltsikhe staff of eight only includes one Armenian, he explains that the project hired staff strictly based on merit. "We were looking for the most highly qualified staff, regardless of their ethnicity. For the four positions that we advertised, only one Armenian applied - and we took him on. In contrast, in Tsalka we consciously tried to hire staff that reflects the ethnic makeup of the area, but that was because there are strong tensions there." Petrosian strongly disagrees. He claims that donors and NGOs ignore discrimination against Armenians. "International organizations don't want to see the problems," he fumes, complaining that his own organization had not received any grants because it was singled out as too radical. "Nobody likes it if you uncover problems, but if you do not uncover them, you cannot solve them." After years of stagnation in which there were few jobs outside the government sector and the aid industry, the situation in Akhaltsikhe changed dramatically when construction of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline began. However, initial high hopes soon turned into disappointment and outright resentment. "They said that they would hire workers from Akhaltsikhe," Petrosian recalls, "and they partly did that. But they hardly hired any Armenians." For once, his rival Muradian agrees. "There are only five or six Armenians from Akhaltsikhe now working for BP," he claims. "Georgians employed on the pipeline outnumber Armenians ten to one." According to Muradian, there is a lack of transparency. "I am a representative of the sakrebulo, but I have no information," he complains. "I went to see BP and they told me that they are a private company, and that it is their private matter." "That's a lie," counters Khatuna Zaldastanishvili, the community relations manager of SpiePetrofac, which is responsible for pipeline construction and employs 134 locals at its camp in Akhaltsikhe. "We have recorded and followed up every single complaint. There are plenty of complaints, but not one based on the nationality issue." The company has internal data which tracks the ethnicity of employees, but refuses to release it. "This is a sensitive issue and we do not want to highlight it," Zaldastanishvili says, giving a high figure she asks not to print for the Armenian share of jobs in the predominantly Georgian town. "Discrimination is impossible," she insists, explaining that unskilled and semi-skilled jobs are distributed in a random process involving the public drawing of names. I ask her about the recent influx of workers from India into Akhaltsikhe, which has sparked off a fresh round of rumors. Some believe that the Indians were called in to replace Georgian employees who were stealing too much, others whisper that the Indians undercut local wages by working for seventy dollars a month. "The 270 Indian citizens were brought in by our sub-contractor PunjLloyd," Zaldastanishvili says defending the move. She is adamant that all expatriates employed on the pipeline are skilled workers who do only those jobs that locals cannot do, but refuses to disclose how much the Indians are earning, claiming it would violate their privacy. In the information vacuum of Akhaltsikhe - the only local newspaper is a tame monthly that boasts a print run of 500 - the line between rumor and reality is blurred, and fact and fiction become two sides of the same coin. Take the assertion of 'white genocide.' On the one hand, the overall population of Akhaltsikhe town has plummeted by a third since 1989, and there is no question that people in the area are leaving. On the other hand, census data shows that overwhelmingly mono-ethnic towns elsewhere, such as Gori and Vani, have suffered similar drops in population. In addition, the number of Armenians living in Georgia has declined from over 430,000 to less than quarter of a million since independence, seemingly supporting the assertion that Armenians are being subtly pushed out. However, the population declines within the Ukrainian, Jewish and Greek minorities is even more marked. In a country where many young people see emigration as the best path to a better future, the explanation could be that Armenians find it harder to get out than minorities who can easily claim foreign passports, but are more mobile and skillful than Georgians when it comes to seeking opportunities abroad. Many hope that with the new government, things will change for the better in sleepy Samtskhe-Javakheti. "Now we Armenians have good friends in the national government," says Muradian, who is a member of the governing National Movement party. His living room is host to a never-ending series of petitioners who complain of the lack of opportunities, the corrupt and unresponsive local government, and the dismal education system - problems familiar to everyone living in Georgia's regions. Indeed, maybe it is not only the problems that are similar. While Armenians and Georgians in Akhaltsikhe never seem to tire of highlighting how fundamentally different they are, outsiders find it hard to tell the two groups apart. "I've been living with a Georgian family in an Armenian neighborhood for two years," smiles the town's only American resident, "and apart from the fact that they speak different languages, I just can't tell the difference."

Kerkorian takes casino crown By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY 6/17/2004 Las Vegas has always had its share of dreamers and big shots, but never one quite like Kirk Kerkorian. As majority stockholder of MGM Mirage, he would have had every reason to publicly join in the hoopla Wednesday about Mandalay Resort Group's acceptance of MGM's $4.8 billion cash buyout offer. The deal makes Kerkorian the mogul among moguls: He'll control more Las Vegas hotel rooms than Howard Hughes or Stephen Wynn could ever assemble. If the deal passes regulatory muster, MGM will become the world's largest gaming company. It will lord over 11 casino resorts on the famed Las Vegas Strip alone, including jewels such as Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and Luxor along the hottest stretch. Kerkorian's empire would extend to 17 other gambling halls in Nevada, elsewhere in the USA and Australia. "This is the king of all deals in the gaming business," says Rod Petrik, gaming analyst with Legg Mason. "He will be the No. 1 operator on the Strip, with the best properties." Even in triumph, Kerkorian, 87, characteristically stayed out of the limelight. At an age when most people are retired, Kerkorian struck his biggest casino deal and declined to be interviewed about it. That's in contrast to the flamboyance that has marked Strip tycoons such as gangster Bugsy Siegel, who opened the Flamingo as the Strip's first flashy casino in 1946. Mandalay's board approved the deal Tuesday night amid antitrust concerns. MGM Mirage CEO Terrence Lanni said in an interview that his board is "very comfortable" with lawyers' assurances that antitrust issues won't be a problem. MGM is paying $71 a share cash, in a deal that, along with convertible securities and assumption of debt, is valued at $7.9 billion. Wednesday, MGM shares fell 62 cents to $48.88. Mandalay dropped 8 cents to $67.80, short of the $71 acquisition price, in recognition of the year it could take for the deal to close and the chance that regulators could interfere. Besides the potential to own half the 75,000 rooms on the Strip, MGM would acquire about 2 million square feet of meeting space in the nation's largest convention city. MGM would also become better positioned at the high and low ends of the gambling market, better able to attract $500-a-hand blackjack players and nickel-slot aficionados alike. That helps spread the risk as Wynn is about to open a megaresort on the north end of the Strip next year, which could siphon the most profitable high rollers. "I'm very excited," Lanni says. Mandalay "has wonderful properties and great brands." The consolidation comes as greater Las Vegas, one of the nation's fastest-growing metropolises, continues to attract new visitors. The Mandalay acquisition is Kerkorian's second big casino deal in four years. In 2000, MGM acquired Wynn's Mirage Resorts for $4.4 billion. Then, as now, Kerkorian stayed behind the curtain. He is publicity-shy but not reclusive. The Southern Californian plays a mean game of tennis, buys a ticket and stands in line for movies and is known to frequent plush but unflashy restaurants. Like Howard Hughes, he's a former pilot who dallied in the movie business. Unlike Hughes, he hasn't locked himself in a hotel casino penthouse, grown a long scraggily beard and shunned all but his closest cronies. Chasing deals For him, the elixir of life is love of the deal. The bigger, the better. Among the builders of modern Las Vegas, "Kerkorian is one of the most enigmatic and interesting figures," says Hal Rothman, a history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. "He is uncanny in his ability to read the market." While others ignored Las Vegas as a garish, sweltering pool of excess, Kerkorian saw how both the masses and the elite would come to embrace it. In the course of amassing a $6 billion empire, Kerkorian has constructed the world's largest hotel on three occasions: the International, which later became the Las Vegas Hilton, in 1969; the MGM Grand, now Bally's, in 1973; and the present MGM Grand in 1993. "He's the smartest man I know," says Alex Yemenidjian, CEO of Kerkorian film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. "It takes three minutes for him to figure out something that takes me three days." Yemenidjian, who speaks to Kerkorian by phone daily and plays tennis with him most weekends, adds: "I don't know anybody else who has created more jobs in Las Vegas or been more charitable." Kerkorian, No. 65 on Forbes list of billionaires, has, without fanfare, donated at least $150 million, often to his ancestral homeland of Armenia. Through his Tracinda holding company, named after his daughters Tracy and Linda, he owns 57% of MGM Mirage. He also has large holdings in DaimlerChrysler, which he is suing for $1 billion for allegedly defrauding investors in the 1998 merger between the giant automakers. A verdict is expected in the fall. He keeps residences in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He's involved in his businesses but doesn't dabble in details. He's "a very big-picture person," Lanni says. Kerkorian came to know Las Vegas the way most first see it: as a gambler. The Fresno-born son of an Armenian immigrant, Kerkorian was a scrappy boxer as a youth and later ferried bombers from Canada to England during World War II for the Royal Air Force. In 1947, the year Siegel was shot and the Flamingo started showing a profit, Kerkorian paid $60,000 for a plane to shuttle movie stars and high rollers. He built it into a $104 million charter business that was sold to Transamerica in 1966. He used the profits to build the International and buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio. He would buy and sell it three times. As Kerkorian was about to emerge as a force in Las Vegas, Hughes was king. Hughes bought some of the biggest casinos of the time, including the Desert Inn, Sands, Landmark, Frontier, Silver Slipper and the Castaways. All were puny compared with the room counts of today's giants. Fire dealt setback Kerkorian had setbacks. The hotel then called the MGM Grand, predecessor to the one by that name further south on the Strip, caught fire in 1980, and 81 people died. "After the fire, he ... stayed underground," says John L. Smith, who has written several books about Las Vegas and is a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "It is something that bothered him for a long time." Kerkorian eventually re-emerged. His new MGM Grand remains Las Vegas' largest resort, with 5,034 rooms. It was built with a concert hall and an amusement park for the town's family-friendly era. When adding Wynn's former Mirage Resorts properties, including Bellagio, Mirage and Treasure Island, MGM made sure the properties kept their own personalities. In Mandalay Bay, for instance, Kerkorian is getting a property known for its hipness. Kerkorian's power play comes as Sin City is enjoying a resurgence. It had more than 12.5 million visitors through April this year, up 7.5% from the first four months of 2003, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority says. "If there's any place to double down, Nevada is the place to do it," says analyst Eric Hausler at Susquehanna Financial. The Mandalay purchase, like any gamble, has risks. Riverboat and American Indian gaming are growing, particularly in the key California market that feeds gamblers to Las Vegas by bus and car. The number of people arriving by air rose about 15% in the first four months of 2004, vs. the same period in 2003. Another terrorist attack could leave MGM/Mandalay dangerously exposed if there's a plunge in visitors. "This will be a huge concentration of properties betting on Las Vegas," says Dan Ahrens, portfolio manager of the Vice fund, which is 28% invested in gaming stocks. Few would bet against Kerkorian even if he's out of sight. "Kerkorian is still at the helm here," says author Smith. "The lion never sleeps." Contributing: Matt Krantz, Thor Valdmanis and Darryl Haralson http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2004...mgm-cover_x.htm God bless Kirk Kerkorian!

Severe theological disputes regarding the nature of Christ, ecclesiastical administration and church rituals often flared into open warfare between Byzantine Armenian, Persarmenian as well as the various Armenian kingdoms after Avarayr. These disputes eventually weakened the Eastern front and the Sejuks easily advanced. This invasion of barbarians would change the course of history and usher in centuries old dark ages for the entire region. So what led to this? As you know during the time of the Council of Chalcedon Eastern Armenians were fighting against a Sassanid invasion to convert Armenians back to Zoroastrianism before Eastern parts of Armenia turn pro-Byzantine just like the Western Armenians (geographically speaking). Because of this war Armenians missed the Council of Chalcedon and for that reason the Armenian Church is now wrongfully labelled "monophysite". The non-Byzantine Armenian bishops did not bother to accept the Council of Chalcedon since they missed, not because they considered it Nestorian but because that would give a lot of power. In her teachings the Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church (that is the full name) is NOT monophysite and never has been. That is a very common misunderstanding and unfortunately it is still in circulation not only among lay people but also among clergy. The formula adopted by the Armenian Church is the one of Cyril of Alexandria. Note that the Council of Chalcedon pronounced clearly that Cyril is most orthodox. The Armenian Church adhered to the view that Jesus Christ is ONE Person and has, in the concrete reality, ONE nature in which the DIVINE nature and the HUMAN nature are UNITED or made ONE. St. Nersess the Graceful – 1173 further elaborated on the issue saying that there is not much difference between “two natures, divine and human, united without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” and “one nature, divine and human”. Both parties agreed that Jesus Christ is One Person and that He is God and Man. More over, the Armenian church vehemently condemned Arians (not to be confused with Aryans ),Nestorians, Apollinarianism and other –isms that were “fashionable” at that time. Even the Armenian sectarian Paulicians and their offshoots Tornikians were persecuted by both Chalcedonian Armenians of the West and non-Chalcedonian Armenians of the East. The only issue of controversy with the Eastern Orthodox was the unleavened bread and red wine, not mixed with water. They accused us of following the Jewish ways, but after all although not a Jew, Jesus himself was raised in a Jewish environment, and this was the way he did it. Interestingly, the Armenian church had never had problems with other churches with regard to Holly Trinity. In conclusion, the rejection of Chalcedon was not a theological issue. First of all, Christianity is monotheistic. We believe in One God…. (see the Nicean creed). Secondly, I think Greco-Romans were inclined to think and perceive Jesus as multitude due to their pagan multy-theos pagan believes. Such statement might be naïve but, not overlooked. Opposite to that, Armenians prior to becoming Christians were pagan, but monotheistic. They believed in supremacy of One God - Sun, Fire, Light. The concept of multiple gods was long abandoned. Thirdly, there were very clear political reasons. The influence of Roman Empire (culturally and politically) was ever growing. Armenian clergymen were scared of that influence and tried to keep their status and independence (and their administrative “chairs” and benefits. Being the first “official” Christians, Armenians thought that their supremacy in the field of Christian establishment would be endangered, and probably to certain extend rejection of Chalcedony was just act of pretense, kind of “Who are you to tell me what is right and what is wrong”, which for good or worst is still very popular as an attitude among many even lay Armenians. There were also political reasons. Armenia was involved in imminent war against Persia. Much needed help from our Christian brothers was denied. At that time Attila was knocking on the door of Rome and preparing to invade the East. Armenians realized that if they accept Chalcedon, due to the strong Byzantium influence Armenian people would be gone as Greeks were pretty much gone despite Greek being the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire. Today, most probably we all would have been something else. Greek and Syrian languages were in circulation along with Armenian. The only good thing is that after a few centuries, after the Seljuk Turks invasion the first independence movements among Christians were marked with struggles for Autonomous Churches. Armenians were spared that struggle, because they were recognized different from East Byzantium Orthodoxy.

Eastern promise for outsourcing software 09.06.2004 With numerous European companies caught in a dilemma of growing technology demands and shrinking IT budgets, outsourcing software development to Russia and the Newly Independent States (NIS) is an increasing attractive option. ADONIS, an IST programme-funded project, is meeting the challenges of this dilemma by assisting European organisations and businesses to outsource software development in collaboration with programmers in Russia and the NIS of the former Soviet Union, primarily Ukraine and Armenia. This is a win-win endeavour - European companies can offer their products and services at competitive prices, while opportunity is created in the participating NIS. Both benefit from rich research and development collaboration. The 10-member consortium collaborated to set up and test a pan-European network of services for outsourcing software tasks. Project partners have since formed a Brussels-based company, NewAdonis SPRL. Outsourcing to NIS and Russia holds "very high potential", according to project manager and company Director Dr Ruben Vardapetian. "The results of 16 pilot projects are still being analysed, but the three countries, including Belarus, have a huge intellectual capital largely unexploited by Europe and unused by their own countries," he explains. Global software outsourcing is a lucrative, multibillion-euro business, with the lion’s share going to India. But Russia is among the rising stars with an annual turnover of Ђ400 million. NIS and Russia offer rapidly growing economies and large, highly educated populations willing to work for lower wages than their European counterparts. Outsourcing is not an entirely new phenomenon in the region. Vardapetian notes that Armenia was producing both hardware and software for the Soviet military since the 1950s. What is new, however, is the growing recognition of companies in Europe and across the Atlantic of its benefits. Outsourcing is becoming synonymous with outsmarting, offering companies the ability to reduce costs, focus on core business activities, compensate for lack of IT staff and access specialised expertise at a highly competitive price. Contact: Dr Ruben Vardapetian NewAdonis SPRL Chaussйe de Wavre 352 1040 Brussels Belgium Tel: +32 -2-2306916 Email: [email protected] http://www.innovations-report.com/html/rep...port-30107.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20040517/comet.html http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1110824.htm Halley's Comet Portrayed on Ancient Coin By Heather Catchpole, ABC Science Online Halley's Comet Nucleus May 19, 2004 — A rare ancient coin may feature an early record of Halley's Comet, researchers say. The coin features the head of the Armenian king Tigranes II the Great, who reigned from 95 to 55 B.C. A symbol on his crown that features a star with a curved tail may represent the passage of Halley's comet in 87 B.C., say the Armenian and Italian researchers. Their research will be published in Astronomy & Geophysics, a journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Halley's comet, which was last visible in 1986, has cropped up periodically in the Earth's history, with regular observations in 1531, 1607 and 1682. This led Edmond Halley to declare in 1705 that this was the same comet, with an orbit taking it past the Earth about every 76 years. He predicted successfully it would return in 1758, and the comet was named after him. Now researchers have found further evidence that the comet was significant thousands of years before Halley was born. Tigranes could have seen Halley's comet when it passed closest to the sun on Aug. 6 in 87 B.C., according to the researchers, who said the comet would have been a "most recordable event." The appearance of the comet in Armenia, which borders Turkey and Iran, could be useful to date the coin accurately. While the coin dates back to before 83 B.C., when Tigranes conquered the ancient city of Antioch, the capital city of Syria at the time, researchers do not know its precise date. Halley's comet is a ball of dirty snow and ice about 15 kilometers long. Like other comets that periodically pass the Earth, it has a highly eccentric orbit that changes as the larger planets pull at its orbit. Astronomer Vince Ford from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Canberra's Australian National University said the comet would have been bigger and brighter 2000 years ago. "As comets come round the sun they lose a lot of material, up to 10 percent," he said. Although Halley's comet wasn't losing that much, it would still get smaller over time as the sun burnt away icy dust and gas. Like other comets that return within 200 years, Halley's comet is thought to come from the Kuiper belt, a disc of comets and icy planets including Pluto, which periodically sends icy material hurtling into the solar system. Ford said the oldest confirmed observation of Halley's comet was from Chinese recordings on May 25 in 240 B.C. Art had often been the source of evidence of sightings of Halley's comet, he said. For example, the Bayeux tapestry depicted the comet in the lead up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But art had also mislead astronomers, Ford said. "Giotto painted it into his nativity scene, probably because he has recently seen Halley's comet and he was impressed," Ford said. "But the comet only appeared in 12 B.C., way before the birth of Jesus."

An Evening with Bernard Lewis: Terrorists, Tea and Hatred May 13, 2004 "The only solution, Lewis concludes, is the Western recolonization of the Arab world, starting with Iraq .." By Sarah Whalen The Palestine Chronicle I wonder. What is a terrorist? Saudis, Wahhabis, Muslims who follow the shariah, and suicide bombers, Orientalist Bernard Lewis told a rapt audience of mostly Jewish Americans in New Orleans last week. Lewis, a British Jew who studied law but failed to finish, apparently hates the sharia only slightly less than he hates Saudi Arabia generally and Wahhabism specifically. “A lunatic fringe in a marginal country,” he sneers. The West’s present troubles, Lewis avers, arise from “an unholy combination of two events:” the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the discovery of oil there. The audience titters at the word “unholy.” Encouraged, Lewis warms to his subject. “Imagine,” he offers, “if the Ku Klux Klan obtained the oil wells of Texas, and had all that money…a pale approximation” of what happened with Saudi Arabia. “Imagine,” Lewis urges, “that the KKK used all this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom, peddling their particular brand of Christianity.” The audience gasps and shudders at the thought of Christianity being spread. Or is it a “KKK” brand of Christianity? Or Islam? Lewis is unclear, but on a roll. Suicide bombing also has Islamic origins, Lewis insists. He admits Islam “clearly forbids suicide.” But this doesn’t stop Muslims from doing it, says Lewis, who shifts to the Assassins, spinning lurid tales of the dagger-wielding, supposedly hashish-smoking Ismaili sect’s practices in the 11th and 12th centuries that terrorized Crusaders and most of “Persia and Palestine.” The Assassins, Lewis claims, were “eventually suppressed” only to “reappear in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” And their heirs, ignoble, modern suicide bombers, Lewis warns, may soon become a metaphor for the whole Middle East, locked into “a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression.” The only solution, Lewis concludes, is the Western recolonization of the Arab world, starting with Iraq. But why stop there? An American-Israeli Ottoman empire awaits. The audience wildly applauds. Lewis takes questions from lesser beings, all of whom bask in his genial but insulting answers. Then, the audience storms the table laden with The Crisis of Islam, and What Went Wrong, manifestos that made Lewis the Bush Administration’s chief neocon ideologue. Lewis graciously signs purchases. I stand in line and wonder: Do these new Lewis fans, many of whom descend from Holocaust victims and survivors, know that a French court once fined him for denying the Armenian genocide? Do they know that today’s date—April 24—marks the Armenian genocide’s 89th anniversary? It is my turn: “You claim the Ismaili Assassins are the precursors of modern Palestinian suicide bombers. I wanted to ask about Masada—“ Lewis jumps, as though poked with a pin. “Masada!” he says emphatically. “Damn! I meant to say something about that.” I nod. “I wonder whether this tradition actually started much earlier in Palestine with the Jewish tradition of the Sicarii.” Lewis’s eyes narrow suspiciously. The Sicarii, Lewis knows, were Jewish Zealot assassins specializing in murder by “sicae,” small daggers. During the 66 CE Jewish rebellion, some Sicarii fled to Masada, King Herod’s fortress, slaughtered the Roman garrison stationed there, and plundered nearby settlements, including Jewish villages. The Masada group eventually numbered 960 men, women, and children. In 72 CE, the Roman governor Silva besieged Masada with the 10th Legion. Jewish historian Josephus recorded the testimony of two Jewish women and five Jewish children, the sole survivors of what happened next, on Passover Eve, 73 CE, when the Sicarii announced that rather than surrender, the Jewish men would murder their wives and children, then “cast lots to choose ten men to dispatch the remainder,” with the lone surviving Jew then running “his sword entirely through himself.” This they did. Lewis glares. “Well,” he says, “Judaism so abhors suicide that there is not a word about Masada in any Jewish history or rabbinical period text, only by Josephus.” And he chuckles and remarks that in writing down the truth, Josephus became a despised Roman collaborator. I nod. But I ask: “Why do we ignore murder-suicide’s place in ancient Israeli-Palestinian culture? Modern Israelis made murder-suicide into a national shrine at Masada. But there’s nothing heroic about murdering your wives and children and all your male friends, and then killing yourself, which is what the Sicarii did. So why glorify them, as Israel does?” Lewis does not blink. So I press on. “Israeli Army recruits take oaths of allegiance at Masada. And since every Israeli serves some time in the armed forces, they’re all indoctrinated into this view. Zionist youth groups hike to Masada, there promising to support the Israeli state unto death. How can you blame 11th century Ismaili Assassins for inventing suicide bombings, when the Sicarii predated Islam by hundreds of years?” “At least,” Lewis snaps, “the Jews only killed themselves at Masada, and not anyone else.” But surviving Sicarii groups fled to Alexandria and Thebes. Scholars say Ismaili fringe traditions originated out of Egypt. And Egypt is the home of the Muslim Brotherhood. So who taught who how to be a suicide bomber? Is recolonizing Israel an option? Lewis turns away. I wonder. http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.ph...040513103628345

Georgian squashed Armenian flag 13.05.2004 13:29 YEREVAN (YERKIR) - The Georgian TV station Imedi broadcast a program on May 11 at 11 p.m. about the clash between the Armenians and Ajarians in the Tsalka district. A Georgian participant of the clash, following a live interview, squashed the Armenian flag in dirt. http://www.yerkir.am/eng/index.php?sub=news_arm&id=6246 Georgians living in the Tsalka region meanwhile rallied in front of the State Chancellery in Tbilisi on Tuesday, demanding to meet with President Saakashvili to discuss disarmament of the Armenian population in Tsalka. The rally participants said that almost all the Armenian families keep firearms.

http://etorussia.com/modules.php?name=News...e=article&sid=9

WWII hero returns medals to Britain in protest 23.04.2004 18:18 YEREVAN (YERKIR) - Haroutiun Shilkarian, a former British Air Force serviceman, held a news conference on Friday to announce he was returning the two medals he was awarded by the British Government in October of 2003 for his participation in the World War II. The Armenia Revolutionary Federation (ARF) member said he was returning the awards in protest of the UK Ambassador Thorda Abbott-Watt's remark that the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were not a genocide. Shilkarian also expressed his disappointment with the inadequate reaction the Armenians showed after the British diplomat's impertinent statement. "I thought people would march in peaceful protest against the embassy," he complained, adding the Armenians would have done so had the incident happened anywhere else in the world. http://www.yerkir.am/eng/index.php?sub=news_arm&id=5778 WWII VETERAN GIVES BACK MEDAL AWARDED BY UK GOVERNMENT YEREVAN, APRIL 23. ARMINFO. WW II veteran Haroutyun Shikhlanyan has given back the medal granted to him by UK government for serving in the British air forces during the war. The reason is the statement of UK ambassador to Armenia Thorda Abbot-Watt that the Armenian massacres in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 were a crime but not a genocide. Shikhlanyan regrets that this statement received no appropriate reaction. This is the second case of genocide denial after the one by Israeli ambassador to Armenia. Shikhlanyan says that the Armenian government must adopt a law banning such statements impairing the dignity of the Armenian people. "This is not the ambassador's personal opposition but the stance of the British government. I advice them to search in the archives for the notes of the British ambassadors of the early XX." Shikhlanyan was born in Jerusalem in 1923. In 1943 he was drafted to the Royal British Air Troops. He perused air photos to find possibilities for attacking the enemy. Shikhlanyan took the photos of the leaders of the ally-countries during the Cairo discussion of D Day. He also accompanied alliance bombardiers during their sorties in Germany. In 1963-2002 Shikhlanyan lived in the US. He came to Armenia in 2002 and decided to stay.-

God bless Quebec, Bloc Quebecois introduced this motion!!!!!! http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...822/?hub=Canada MPs recognize Armenian massacre as genocide Canadian Press OTTAWA — Canada became one of the few countries to formally recognize the genocide of Armenian Turks during the First World War in a strongly worded motion adopted 153-68 in the House of Commons on Wednesday. Government members were discouraged from voting for the opposition motion, which is sure to anger a Turkish government that has never recognized the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians starting in 1915. Following a charged debate at their weekly closed-door caucus meeting, Liberal backbenchers voted massively in favour of the Bloc Quebecois motion while the party's cabinet contingent rejected it. Prime Minister Paul Martin was absent during the politically sensitive vote but Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham defended the government's opposition to the motion. The Turkish government has warned that recognizing the genocide could have economic consequences and Graham said he wanted to maintain good relations with Turkey. "Turkey is an important NATO ally in a region where it is a Muslim country with a moderate government," he said. "What we seek to do in our foreign policy is to encourage the forward dimension, we're forward-looking. We'd like our Armenian friends and our Turkish friends to work together to put these issues in the past." The Turkish government rejects the charge of genocide as unfounded and says that while 600,000 Armenians died, 2.5 million Muslims perished in a period of civil unrest. The motion read: "That this House acknowledges the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemns this act as a crime against humanity." Liberal Hedy Fry supported the motion but said it's important to note the atrocities were carried out under the Ottoman empire, which has faded into history and was long ago replaced by a modern Turkish state. "I think we need to recognize the past," she said. "I think it doesn't mean we've broken ties with the current regime in Turkey. They are our colleagues, they are our NATO allies. They are a moderate, Muslim government and I think we need to work with them. Recognizing what happened in the Ottoman empire shouldn't affect Canada's diplomatic relations with Turkey, she said.

DIASPORA IS THE ARMENIAN OIL ”Georgia has a sea, Azerbaijan has oil, and we have a Diaspora. Neither the first president, nor the present Authorities or Opposition profited by its potential”, Armen Zatikyan, USA’ “Justice” Bloc member said during the telephone conversation with us. He is concerned about the state indifference towards Diaspora: ”Robert Kocharyan means ARF when saying Diaspora but the Armenians in Diaspora are neglected”. Zatikyan says that Diaspora is remembered only during the TV-Marathons. ”We all know where the money goes to. Diaspora is treated like a milch cow”. Mr Zatikyan voiced discontent over the Constitution in force, which deprives the Armenians in Diaspora of the chance for dual citizenship. He cited the example of Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili who granted the Georgians all over the world citizenship of Georgia. ”We are the only nation in the world to have 5 times more compatriots all over the world than residing in the homeland. It’s just a high treason not to use that potential”. Armen Zatikyan also says that the state was to spend millions for education of the Armenian people abroad. Now they are multimillionaires, educated and skilled ones but they can’t serve their homeland. ”At present 2 million Armenians reside in USA. If every day each Armenian takes a dollar out of his pocket, it will be possible to support the homeland by $ 2 million daily. If each of them saves 10 $ Armenia will monthly prosper by $ 600 million. But no one takes us and our rights into consideration”. Mr Zatikyan obliges Opposition to mention Diaspora in the programs. ”Opposition has gained 93% of votes from USA. We now demand to join for democracy and releasing power from those who seized it. Why doesn’t Opposition reckon with the Commune? ”. http://www.tipsto.com/world-radio-tv/armenia.htm

Hehhehehe, the coward who escaped from our boys in Artsakh is finally dead. Wrap his body in pig skin FSB http://www.gazeta.ru/2004/03/30/oa_116302.shtml Shamil Basayev, Russia’s most wanted Chechen warlord, has been killed in the Chechen highlands. This report has just arrived. He was killed during a successful security raid carried out jointly by the GRU, the Main Intelligence Department, and the FSB, the Federal Security Service. Security forces tracked down Basayev in a remote mountainous village where he was spending a weekend with his relatives, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin’s mouthpiece for Chechnya, told a news conference, convened urgently for the occasion. That weekend proved to be the last one in the life of the field commander notorious for his murderous deeds. He had just climbed into his Land Cruiser when the vehicle was hit by a high-precision remote-controlled missile. Basayev died immediately, his head being torn off by the blast. Five of his bodyguards were also killed, as well as a flock of some twenty sheep that had been peacefully grazing near the site of the anti-terror strike. The sheep belonged to Basayev’s relatives. The owners will certainly receive compensation in full for the loss of the flock from the federal budget, Sergei Yastrzhembsky assured the press. Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, seated at his side, readily confirmed the pledge. The Chechen government also solemnly pledged to donate a new flock of pedigree sheep to the village where Basayev was killed, since the villagers came over to the federals’ side immediately following the killing. Meat and wool produced by that flock will be supplied directly to the president’s court, the authorities said. Meanwhile, the shepherd will be paid a temporary unemployment allowance and provided with a first-class apartment. Now, let’s imagine that everything stated above, including the tragic demise of the sheep, is true. What should one expect then from, let’s say, the world community? Will it express its enthusiastic and unanimous approval of the extra-judicial execution of Shamil Basayev by Russian security forces, an execution carried out without an open trial, preceded by a thorough investigation without Basayev’s defence lawyers in attendance? Will it submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council condemning the execution as an action further aggravating the situation in rebellious Chechnya? And if it does, what will Moscow’s response be? Will Russia veto the resolution? If anyone still has no clear answers to those questions, we can, to make things easier, consider replacing the name of the strong and fully-sighted Basayev with the name of the wheel-chair bound, blind Palestinian Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The point is that the death of Sheikh Yassin bears a distinct similarity to the imagined death of Basayev outlined above. Although, in Yassin’s case no sheep fell prey to the missile that hit the sheikh’s car. After the photos of the dead spiritual leader of Hamas, with half of his skull literally blown off in the missile attack, appeared on newswires around the globe, almost the whole world joined in condemning Israel. None of Europe’s major politicians, still mourning the victims of the Islamist terrorist attack in Madrid, expressed even the slightest approval or understanding of the motives for the killing. At the same time, none of those politicians who condemned the actions of Israel even bothered to deny that Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was the mastermind of Palestinian terrorism, Israel’s bitterest enemy, with no chance whatsoever for any form of reconciliation with him at the negotiating table. It is possible to understand the Palestinians, hundreds of thousands of whom took to the streets weeping and cursing Jews, driven by their hatred of Israel and vehement desire to avenge the death of their leader. But on the other hand, is it not just as possible to understand the Jews, who proceeded namely from the fact that Sheikh Yassin was the inspirer of the ‘martyrdom’ terrorism against peaceful Israeli civilians, issuing orders for the attacks which claimed tens of dozens of innocent lives? And while for some he was almost a saint or a prophet, for others he was none other than the “Palestinian Goebbels”, who preached that the Jewish state must be wiped off the face of the earth along with all its citizens. And now it transpires that in line with the new policy of the politically correct anti-terror era, the new Goebbels should not be killed, but instead must be taken alive, brought before an international tribunal in the Hague where guilt has to be established in a fair trial dragging on for years, with expensive defence lawyers fighting for an acquittal. Better still, instead of arresting them, such people should simply be brought to the negotiating table and, with great patience, talks should be held, with hints that they could be awarded a Nobel peace prize provided they comply. The US was the only country to vote against the UN resolution condemning the assassination of Yassin by Israel. They vetoed the document even despite the deceased Hamas leader’s earlier statement that he had no intention of moving his terrorist war to US territory. Russia, unlike the US, backed the resolution. At the same time, in private high-ranking Russian officials tried to justify their actions, saying, well, you know, two of our chaps are now in prison in Qatar held on suspicion of killing another sheikh, another spiritual leader of terrorists, Chechen terrorists though – Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. That is why we ought to be more lenient towards THEM. Following Sheikh Yassin’s assassination, Moscow, too, censured – albeit rather reservedly – that extra-judicial execution, which made it sound as if Russia, along with other European nations, was against extra-judicial reprisals. And inwardly Russia must be strongly condemning the assassination not only of Sheikh Yassin, but also of Sheikh Yandarbiyev. Moreover, Moscow is convinced that neither Basayev nor Maskhadov or any other Chechen terror leader must be dealt with that savagely. On the contrary, the suspects must be arrested in a polite and civilized manner, informed of their rights and provided with legal counsel. This probably means that before they are arrested and their rights are read to them, they might even be invited to the negotiating table. For Europe, too, has in fact already recognized terrorists as “a party to the talks”, be it Arafat, Hamas or Basayev, since Europeans suggest looking into the motives of their terrorist activities, citing the Palestinians’ poverty or the Chechens’ unquenchable craving for independence and freedom. And to understand means almost to forgive. But then there is a certain shrewdness in Russia’s position: no one in Moscow seriously considers holding talks with Basayev. Ironically, at the same time Moscow is reluctant to admit that it killed Yandarbiyev, whose involvement in the hostage-taking at the Nord-Ost musical theatre has, by the way, already been established. Nonetheless, Basayev and Maskhadov are still alive and at large. Maybe, Moscow is planning on holding talks with them, after all. The policy of double standards towards terrorists is Russia’s weakness. If the wolves refuse to comply it is not worth portraying them as innocent lambs. At the same time, posing as innocent lambs is just as dangerous – you risk being devoured. 30 МАРТА 17:59

Koshmar Celtic eto dlya tebya: Galatian Armenian: heyr sirdes to galac mayr u elbayr...holund u odeir eir Cilician Armenian: khar tas ti cilicia meiruh ya eghberuh...hoghuh ya odan er English: love your ethnic mother and brother, descendants of your land. http://www.christinyou.net/images/medmap2.gif

Israel, Turkey plan joint weapons deals for Azerbaijan SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COMMonday, February 2, 2004 ANKARA – Israel and Turkey are planning joint weapons projects in Central Asia. Turkish diplomatic and industry sources said Ankara and Jerusalem are discussing the prospect of a weapons sale to Azerbaijan. They said Israel would supply components and technology for the assembly of weapons platforms in Turkey. Turkey would then deliver the weapons to Azerbaijan. Israel and Turkey have discussed the prospect of joint ventures in Central Asian states. But few deals were reached and governments in the region have preferred to deal directly with Israeli suppliers. Azerbaijan could be the first major market for a joint Israeli-Turkish arms effort. On Jan. 9, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul discussed a range of cooperation during his two-day visit to Baku, Middle East Newsline reported. Baku has retained Israeli contractors for security systems, particularly in airport and border security. Azerbaijan's military has also sought help from Israel and Turkey amid a deterioration in Baku's relations with Iran that stems from a dispute over the energy-rich Caspian Sea. "At any rate, Israel has agreed to sell its military equipment -- assembled in Turkey -- to Central Asia and the South Caucasus," the Baku-based Zerkalo reported on Jan. 7. "Should the Azerbaijani authorities and Gul agree on this, Israel will start supplying military equipment to Azerbaijan." Turkey could sell its aging systems to Azerbaijan as Ankara implements its military modernization program. Israel and Turkey were also said to have been discussing the upgrade of Soviet-origin equipment in Azerbaijan's military. On Thursday, the Ankara-based Hurriyet daily reported that Turkey's deputy military chief of staff visited Israel on an unannounced trip. Hurriet said the deputy chief was accompanied by a 45-member delegation from the Defense Ministry and state-owned defense companies. Hurriet said the meeting discussed cooperation in military and defense cooperation as well as intelligence exchange. http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_7.html

Govoryat shto mi i azveri blije drug drugo chem azveri s turkami i mi s Evropeycami. Kto etot Yepiskoposyan? http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/Weale-HG-01-Armenia.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...9&dopt=Abstract

Stan znachet "zemlya" po Farsi, nastayasheya imya Armeniyi po Armyanski Hayq (Khorenatsi itg.) Gruziya po Armyanski Virq a ne Vrastan itg.. Greki izmenili imya ix strani i vibresili ochen mnogo Tureckix i Arabkskix slov iz ixnevo slavarya a pochemu ne Armyani? Ya slishal Xachatur Abovyan predlagal chto nado vibrasit "-stan". My apologies for my inadequate Russian.