Author: Mamian George

SwissInfo, Suisse
Lundi 7 mars 2005

Micheline Calmy-Rey se rendra en Turquie fin mars

ISTANBUL – Micheline Calmy-Rey se rendra à la fin du mois en Turquie.
La cheffe du Département fédéral des affaires étrangères (DFAE) est
attendue à Ankara le 29 mars pour une visite de deux jours, a indiqué
le ministère turc des affaires étrangères.

la visite était originellement prévue en septembre 2003, mais elle
avait été repoussée en dernière minute en raison d’un différend sur
la question arménienne. Les autorités turques s’étaient indignées
contre la décision du Grand conseil vaudois de reconnaître le
massacre des Arméniens par l’Empire ottoman en 1915 comme étant “un
génocide”.

Elles avaient alors annulé le déplacement de Mme Calmy-Rey en
représailles. Les désaccords avaient toutefois pu être aplanis l’été
dernier à l’occasion d’une visite à Ankara de la commission des
affaires étrangères du Conseil des Etats.

–Boundary_(ID_XhP8jytaExih82TDV1Aezw)–

UzReport.com

CENTRAL ASIAN, SOUTH CAUCASIAN AGRICULTURE SPECIALISTS MEET IN TURKMENISTAN

UzReport.com [12:10] 08.03.2005

The Eighth regional meeting of the agricultural research centre in arid
areas of Central Asia and South Caucasus was held in Ashkhabad,
Turkmenistan.

Selectionists of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia,
Tajikistan, Armenia and Turkmenistan as well as famous agriculture
specialists attended the meeting, AzerTaj reported.

The meeting focused on the questions of agriculture development, rational
use of soil and water resources.

Saturday, March 12

.c The Associated Press

Today is Saturday, March 12, the 72nd day of 2005. There are 293 days
left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

641 A.D. – Chinese Princess Wen Cheng goes to Tibet to marry the
Tibetan ruler. The marriage is the basis for China’s claim to
sovereignty over the region.

1470 – In the War of the Roses, English King Edward IV defeats rebels
at Empingham.

1664 – New Jersey becomes the British colony as King Charles II grants
land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of York.

1799 – Austria declares war on France.

1832 – Captain Charles Boycott, the Irish estate manager who caused
boycotts, was born. He earned a reputation for unfairness that drove
peasant tenant-farmers in his charge to organize against him in an
1879 act of civil disobedience. Hence the derivation of the word,
‘boycott.’

1848 – Revolution breaks out in Vienna with university demonstrations.

1854 – Britain and France conclude alliance with Turks against Russia.

1854 – In Sydney, James O’Farrell attempts to shoot visiting Duke of
Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, in the back. O’Farrell is later hanged.

1867 – Napoleon III withdraws French support from Maximillian of
Mexico.

1868 – Britain annexes Basutoland, South Africa.

1912 – Juliette Gordon Low starts the Girl Guides, which later becomes
the Girl Scouts of America.

1930 – Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi begins
a 322- kilometer (200- mile) march to protest a British tax on salt.

1933 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt delivers the first of his
radio “fireside chats,” telling Americans what was being done to
deal with the nation’s economic crisis.

1938 – The “Anschluss” takes place as German troops enter Austria,
completing Adolf Hitler’s mission to restore his homeland to the Third
Reich.

1939 – Pope Pius XII is formally crowned in ceremonies at the Vatican.

1940 – Finland and the Soviet Union conclude an armistice during World
War II. Fighting between the two countries flares again the following
year.

1947 – U.S. President Harry Truman establishes what became known as
the Truman Doctrine to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.

1966 – General Suharto is sworn in as acting President of Indonesia
after President Sukarno is stripped of authority.

1968 – Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, a British colony, proclaims
its independence.

1972 – Britain and China agree to exchange ambassadors, 22 years after
London first recognized the Peking government.

1980 – A Chicago jury finds John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of murdering
33 men and boys. He is executed in 1994.

1984 – The British ice dancing team, Torvill and Dean, become the
first skaters to receive nine perfect 6.0 scores in the world
championships.

1986 – Susan Butcher becomes the first woman to win the 1863-kilometer
(1158-mile) Iditarod Sled Dog race in the Alaskan wilderness.

1987 – The musical “Les Miserables” opens on Broadway in New York.

1988 – South African government bans church-led opposition group
headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “threat to public safety.”

1989 – Students and workers demanding overthrow of President Roh
Tae-woo battle riot police in Seoul, South Korea.

1990 – Mongolian Communist Party leadership approves opposition
demands for sweeping political reforms.

1991 – Anti-government sources say Iraqi troops have retaken two
southern cities as rebel forces slow their advance out of concern for
5,000 civilian hostages.

1992 – A cease-fire is shattered when the city of Agdam comes under
heavy shelling that kills 25 people in the battle over the Armenian
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

1993 – A series of bombs explode in Bombay, and at least 200 people
are killed and 1,100 injured; Janet Reno is sworn in as the United
States’ first female attorney general.

1994 – The Church of England ordains its first women priests.

1995 – A Canadian court releases on bail the captain of a Spanish
fishing trawler caught in a spiraling trans-Atlantic dispute over
North Atlantic fishing rights.

1996 – Chinese combat planes and warships open eight days of war games
off Taiwan meant to dampen pro-independence sentiment.

1997 – Burundi authorities arrest five people, including two soldiers,
after they attempted to kill Burundian leader Maj. Pierre Buyoya.

1998 – Astronomers debunk a warning that a mile-wide asteroid might
collide with Earth on Oct. 26, 2028, saying the calculations were off
by 600,000 miles.

1999 – The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO in a ceremony
at Independence, Missouri.

2000 – Attackers wound leading Iranian reformist Saeed Hajjarian, a
close confidant of President Mohammed Khatami, shooting him once in
the face. He was the focus of hard-liners’ anger after the reformist
sweep of parliamentary elections.

2001 – Thousands of Iraqis begin military training when President
Saddam Hussein orders the formation of 21 military units. As many as 7
million volunteer to fight with the Palestinians against Israel.

2002 – A Texas jury finds Andrea Yates, a mother with a history of
psychosis and postpartum depression, guilty of capital murder in the
drowning deaths of three of her five young children.

2003 – Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic dies after being struck
by two bullets as he walked from his car to a government building in
Belgrade.

2004 – Iran abruptly freezes further U.N. inspections of its nuclear
program for six weeks, throwing into turmoil international attempts to
verify Tehran’s claims that it is developing atomic power and not
weapons.

Today’s Birthdays:

Thomas Arne, English composer (1710-1778); Jack Kerouac, American
writer (1922-1969); Elaine De Kooning, U.S. painter (1929-1989);
Edward Albee, U.S. playwright (1928–); Barbara Feldon, U.S. actress
(1941–); Liza Minnelli, U.S. singer-actress (1946–); James Taylor,
U.S. singer (1948–)

Thought For Today:

If power corrupts, being out of power corrupts absolutely – Douglass
Cater, American author and educator.

03/04/05 19:01 EST

Backstory: Viva Las Merger

Las Vegas Mercury
Thursday, March 03, 2005

By Michael Green

Last week, MGM Mirage, Mandalay Resort Group and Nevada gaming
regulators made history…repeat itself.

Not to minimize the $8.7 billion merger that will, at least for now,
give Kirk Kerkorian control of the MGM Grand, New York-New York,
Bellagio, Mirage, Treasure Island, Monte Carlo, Mandalay Bay, Luxor,
Excalibur, Circus Circus, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear
tree. It’s a highly significant moment in Nevada’s history–and, in
some ways, American history. But it’s certainly not the first great
concentration of economic power in Nevada.

So, how has history repeated itself?

– On the Comstock Lode, William Sharon ran the Bank of California’s
Virginia City branch. He and the bank controlled most of the
Comstock’s major mines and mills, a water company, transportation
companies and a railroad.

With the Tonopah-Goldfield boom of the early 20th century, George
Wingfield followed in Sharon’s footsteps. He owned most of Nevada’s
leading mines, Reno’s top hotels and several Nevada banks until the
Great Depression gutted his empire.

The next leaders were casino operators. You could make a case for
Meyer Lansky, to whom some Las Vegas operators apparently funneled a
lot of money. Or, in the 1930s and ’40s, Kell Houssels, who owned
parts of several downtown clubs, a popular restaurant and bus and cab
companies. Or Cliff Jones, an attorney involved in gaming and
well-wired everywhere. Or Moe Dalitz, whose finger could be found in
nearly every local pie. Or Howard Hughes, whose story is well-known.

Steve Wynn not only owned several resorts but was politically and
socially influential in a public way that Kerkorian prefers to
avoid. But when some called Wynn Nevada’s most powerful man, they
apparently hadn’t heard of Sharon or Wingfield. Kerkorian certainly is
powerful–and part of a tradition–but hardly grasping in the way
Sharon and Wingfield were.

– Birds of a feather flock together. Sharon faced competition from the
Silver Kings, led by John Mackay, who hit the Big Bonanza, then bought
or built their own mills, banks and transportation firms. Sharon
wasn’t popular with Mackay and his colleagues. But when Sharon bought
the Territorial Enterprise, Virginia City’s great newspaper, he ended
up with about 80 percent of it. Most of the rest belonged to Mackay.

When Wingfield’s empire collapsed, the men around him–attorneys like
George Thatcher and William Woodburn, businessmen like Norman Biltz
and John Mueller–didn’t burn him in effigy. They latched onto Pat
McCarran, the U.S. senator who had fought them and Wingfield for
decades and succeeded Wingfield as Nevada’s political boss.

In early Las Vegas, the railroad ruled the roost. Even if William
A. Clark

wasn’t too hands-on, his company, in partnership with the Union
Pacific, was the seen and unseen hand. Ed Clark, Pop Squires, John
S. Park, Walter Bracken and Peter Buol seemed to invest in everything.

Before corporate gaming, the state frowned on multiple ownership, but
casino operators found ways. Del Webb owned several casinos. Several
investors had points–shares–in several places, from Eddie Levinson
in the Sands, Fremont and Horseshoe to Jackie Gaughan in, it seemed,
every casino off the Strip. They ran their own places but often were
involved in others.

Wynn and Mandalay built the Monte Carlo, then Kerkorian got half of it
and now all of it. And he has a partner in the Atlantic City Borgata,
Bill Boyd, who has a few casinos of his own. Birds of a feather? Yes.
Big birds.

– Kerkorian. In a history filled with business people great and evil,
visionary and predatory, Kerkorian is a story unto himself. He’s
certainly a Horatio Alger story–rags to riches, and no one doubts
hard work has been at the center of it. He’s built and bought
companies and tends not to be sentimental about them. But it’s worth
bearing in mind that he has built the largest hotel in Las
Vegas–indeed, the world–on three different occasions: The
International, now Hilton, in 1969; the MGM Grand, now Bally’s, in
1973; and the new MGM Grand, in 1993. Each time, he set a new
standard.

He also has played a significant role in the entertainment, airline
and auto industries, among others. He obviously is a key figure in Las
Vegas history, but also in American business history generally, and
that combination is rare.

– Las Vegas is not unique. If you read this online via AOL–that is,
Time Warner Turner HBO aol.com–or you watch the Knappster on that
affiliate of CBS, which Viacom owns along with Comedy Central, the MTV
networks, Nickelodeon and TV Land, among other outlets, you should
know monopolies or near-monopolies, for good or ill, are part of the
past and present, whatever the industry or party in power. And the
next merger, between Harrah’s and Caesars, will be even larger than
this one.

Kerkorian, MGM Mirage and Mandalay are part of the story of modern Las
Vegas and modern America. That’s the fun part of this history: It’s
being written as you read it.

PHOTO CAPTION: “Kerkorian: Not the first Nevadan to amass such
economic power”.

The Las Vegas Mercury is Nevada’s Largest Alternative Newsweekly.

PUTIN TO VISIT ARMENIA ON MARCH 25

Azg/arm
3 March 05

Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, is going to visit
Armenia on March 25. He will participate in the opening ceremony of
the Russia’s Year in Armenia. A number of arrangements in the spheres
of culture, trade-economic relations, education, science, information
and sports are envisaged for 2005. in 2006 Armenia’s year will be held
in Russia.

After the visit of the Russian President, the mission of Anatoly
Dryukov, current RF Ambassador to Armenia, will end. Nikolai Pavlov,
Representative of RF Foreign Ministry to the Federal Region of
Siberia, former RF Ambassador to Mongolian Republic, will replace
Anatoly Dryukov in Armenia.

Anatoly Dryukov was the third Russian ambassador to Armenia (since
1998). Vladimir Stupishin (1992-94) and Andrey Urnov (1994-98) were
the Russian Ambassadors to Armenia before Dryukov.

NKR PRESIDENT ARKADY GHOUKASSYAN: PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH
CONFLICT HAS NO ALTERNATIVE

STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 28. ARMINFO. “Peaceful settlement of Karabakh
conflict has no alternative. The life has shown that the war cannot
solve the problem: we have won the war, but the problem still
remains. And the issue’s solution is impossible in conditions of the
continuing mutual hatred.” NKR President Arkady Ghoukassyan made this
statement in the course of his meeting with the teaching staff of
Artsakh State University.

At the same time, the president noted that the parties were not ready
for the problem’s solution. “There are requested and real positions in
the negotiation process; it is clear that non of the parties can get
everything yielding nothing. In other words, a reasonable compromise
is required,” the president said. He pointed out that speaking of
compromises when the parties feel mutual hatred was impossible, and
the hearted was artificially stirred up by Azerbaijan, first of
all. “One can yield to a friend, colleague, opponent, but never to the
enemy,” Ghoukassyan said.

“To improve the situation a relevant propaganda and preparation of
public opinion is necessary,” he said. “Development in our region will
become possible when all the conflict issues are settled. I am sure
that it is possible, just a good will of all the parties is required.”

The president assessed bellicose statements of Baku as blackmail and
an attempt to frighten NKR. He reiterated that NKR was for peaceful
resolution of the conflict, but in case of war, it would be ready to
protect itself. He expressed confidence that Azerbaijani leadership
was well aware of that.

As regards the prospects of the negotiation process, Ghoukassyan
pointed out that the main guilt for lack of active negotiations within
the framework of OSCE MG laid on Azerbaijan that had refused to
negotiate with NKR. He noted, “When the process within the framework
of OSCE MG starts, NKR will participate in it.”

Pointing out the usefulness of the meetings of the presidents and
foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Arkady Ghoukassyan said
that these meetings could not replace the negotiation process within
the framework of OSCE MG. He said that the country had managed to
create bases for democratic development and would create a democratic
state to come out as a country living in conformity with international
standards. “We shall not refuse from our independence,” NKR President
said.

PanArmenian News
March 1 2005

HEAD OF UNION OF ARMENIANS OF RUSSIA: “REVOLUTION NOT FOR ARMENIA”

01.03.2005 14:50

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Revolution is not for Armenia,” stated Chairman of
the Union of Armenians of Russia and the World Armenian Congress Ara
Abrahamian in the course of a press conference in Yerevan, Regnum
news agency reported. In his words, the attempt to realize a
revolution scenario in Armenia should be prevented. “We have an
elected President and there is the Constitution, which we should
follow. I am against “pink”, “orange” or any other revolutions. We do
not know yet which consequences these revolutions will have in
Georgia and Ukraine,” Abrahamian noted.

AZG Armenian Daily #035,
26/02/2005

Social

BEING DISABLED IS NOT A DISEASE BUT A SOCIAL STATUS

25-year-old Zaruhi Batoyan is a third-year student at the Yerevan State
University and is the editor of Arevatsakhik magazine. She is a first group
disabled and is sure that one should trust his abilities in order to be
successful in life. Zaruhi entered University 7 years later after her she
finished school. She has been working at the Bridge of Hope NGO since 1997
now and took the post of Arevatsakhik magazine editor in 1999. “To be
competitive we need higher education but besides our wish we need the state’s
backing. Though we are granted possibility of free education, those disabled
of first and second groups have to produce documents from doctors allowing
them to get certain kind of specialty. But no one has the right to decide
for me what profession to choose”, Zaruhi says.

Arevatsakhik publishes articles on the rights of the disabled. The magazine
also writes from time to time about disabled peoples’ achievements in
different spheres. “We want to prove to everyone that disablement is not a
disease but a social status. It is not necessary to run as fast as everybody
does or see and speak as others in order to live a full life”, she says.
Zaruhi also plays roles at the Bridge of Hope theatre and performed key
roles few times. There are 115 thousand disabled in Armenian today. The head
of Bridge of Hope NGO thinks that the first priority is to employ the
disabled. “We need such a legislative field that will encourage employers
take on disabled people most of whom today are unemployed. Besides, the
state institutions are not adjusted for the needs of the disabled”, the head
of NGO, Susanna Tadevosian, notes. The NGO organizes seminars occasionally
to raise public’s awareness as regards disabled people. Disabled people lead
the seminars themselves.

By Arevik Badalian

Interfax
Feb 24 2005

Terrorist attack prevented in Chechnya

GROZNY. Feb 24 (Interfax) – Law enforcers have prevented a major
terrorist attack in Chechnya’s Kurchaloi district.

A landmine was discovered by the side of a highway leading to the
village of Tsatsan-Yurt. A special police battalion killed two
militants in the Gudermes district, while carrying out a
reconnaissance operation, the local police department told Interfax
on Thursday.

A law enforcement source said one of the dead militants is believed
to be an Armenian citizen.

Kurdistan Observer,UK
Feb 20 2005

Kirkuk, the capital of South Kurdistan
A crucial first step

By:Adil Al-Baghdadi

Brussels 19 February 2005

[email protected]

The elections in Kirkuk represent not only a great victory for
freedom loving democrats who fought for many decades to highlight the
threat posed by demographic changes to the city after it was emptied
from its Kurdish population, it is a victory for everyone who has an
interest in human rights.

The very fact that barring more than 100,000 Kurds – a figure which
is well below actual number of original Kurds driven out of Kirkuk –
from voting in the much reduced size of Kirkuk governorate would have
posed a great threat to the integrity and credibility of the new
Iraq.

As the Kurdish leadership involved in redressing the ills of the past
know, it would not be an easy task. There are a many powerful players
who do not see it in their interests to recognize, let alone accept
the rightful return of original inhabitants of Kirkuk.

The obstructive stance of Turkey and its ally, the Turkoman Front,
did not make one iota of difference to the task of reversing decades
of oppressive measures, which were aimed at ethnically cleansing this
historically Kurdistani province and characteristically Kurdish city
of Kirkuk.

Turkey and its ally that welcomed and applauded Arabization and the

de-Kurdification of Kirkuk city and its province, have tried to
undermine the inclusion of all of Kirkuk Kurds in the province’s
council election at every opportunity.

To this end they funded a campaign of disinformation and paid for
false reports intended to discredit the right of Kirkuk’s indigenous
population to reclaim their land and their history, and attempting to
create mistrust when confidence is required, fear when peace is
required and malicious lies when truth is required.

So today is a great victory. But it is only the first battle in the
campaign against falsehood and deception because there is much to do
to undo decades of inhuman and deliberate neglect and marginalization
of Kirkuki Kurds, which Turkey and its ally want to preserve.

The international community has made it clear during years leading to
the conflict in former Yugoslavia, that it finds ethnic cleansing as
an abhorrent and criminal act that should be reversed, and that such
practices destabilise the country which pursues such polices. This
word of warning should have also been extended to the biggest
enthusiast of such practices, Turkey.

The next candidate for EU membership makes no apology for its
relentless campaign to assimilate and Turkify every non-Turkic
element within Turkey, be it 20m-25m Kurds, Armenians, Arabs as well
as Greco-Byzantine history and many more historical and cultural
aspects of this once non-Turkic region of Anatolia.

Forcible assimilation and ethnic cleansing pose a threat to the very
essence of humanity and coexistence between nations, as we know it
and have witnessed in former Yugoslavia, as well as in countries
which Kurdistan is divided among them, namely Iraq, Turkey, Iran,
Syria.

A regional rise in these unlawful practices as a result of Kurdish
achievements will threaten millions of Kurds with increased
oppression and violations of basic human rights, including summarily
arrests, imprisonment, torture and death. Millions more will find
their properties and life at risk from state-sponsored terror aimed
at stifling dissent and moves emulating the gains made by their
brethrens in South Kurdistan.

To tackle this threat with confidence Kurds from all various parts of
Kurdistan and diaspora need to come together to build a strong
consultative body and to act collectively.

The UN has an essential role to play in leading a regional action to
stop physical and cultural crimes against Kurds in other parts of
Kurdistan, and if it is to carry out the role effectively it must do
it in a more vocal way not just as a bystander as in the past.

Turkey’s vociferous objection of election results in Kirkuk is on the
one hand part of the plot to maintain the legacies of the past and on
the other to feed the anti-Kurdish Turkish media and sadly the
ill-informed and indoctrinated sections of Turkish public opinion
against the Kurds’ lawful, legitimate and genuine results in Kirkuk,
the rightful capital of South Kurdistan. This policy also forms a
cornerstone of Turkey’s relentless effort against the right of
self-determination for the Kurds of North Kurdistan.

As the advantages of election results in Kirkuk become apparent, not
just for Kurds, but also for Turkomans, Arabs and
Chaldo-Assyrian-Syriac Christians, the Kurds will want the province
to be reincorporated back to its rightful place, the federalist
region of Kurdistan. Making Kirkuk the capital of South Kurdistan is
not just good for the democracy; it will also insure ever lasting
peace, stability and prosperity for all ethnic and religious groups
in South Kurdistan.

Indeed, elections results in Kirkuk have sent a powerful message to
governments of Turkey, Iran and Syria and the world that tackling and
reversing decades of ethnic cleansing against Kurds and some
Turkomans is a priority and that ignoring the problem will inevitably
bear grave consequences.

However, the other more worrying message for these countries, which
fought the Kurds and never sought their friendship, is that all of
Kirkuk constituents will have a role to play and all will enjoy
political, cultural and all the rights that are associated with a
healthy democratic society.

In the short term, Turkey and its ally in Kirkuk will embark on the
usual campaign of sewing seeds of hate, fear and provocation, but
their current dependence on Ba’thist and anti-Kurds elements can not
be sustained. There are many shifting paradigms and many unknown
variables, but what’s certain is that the tide of freedom is sweeping
across the region and it is already blasting the shores of bastions
of tyranny and oppression.

Iraq as a whole and in particular South Kurdistan, with its capital
Kirkuk, have already been blessed by this change, raising
international community’s understanding about Kurdish issue and the
absence of freedom in other neighbouring countries including the
other three parts of Kurdistan, North Kurdistan in Turkey, East
Kurdistan in Iran and West Kurdistan in Syria.

Reaching political agreement to protect the rights of Kurds from
continued oppressive measures and cultural assimilation and to
achieve political rights is no easy task in these countries, and
democratic means and peaceful campaigns by Kurds, particularly in
North Kurdistan, need international support in the shape of a UN
resolution.

Kurdish leadership in South Kurdistan, on the other hand, has already
indicated its intention to put the full implementation of Article 58
of the Interim Iraqi State Administration Law1 firmly on the agenda
of the new government of Iraq. More importantly both Kurdish leaders
must make use of their role within Iraq and South Kurdistan to insure
that the Kirkuk model of governance is far more inclusive than all of
Iraq’s hostile neighbours and envy of all multi-ethnic societies in
Middle East.

More efforts are needed to maintain the political momentum generated
by the alliance between the two main Kurdish parties and to find the
best way forward that works for incorporating others regions, such as
Khanaqin and parts of Diyala province, Sinjar and some parts of Mosul
back within the boundaries of South Kurdistan with its eternal
capital Kirkuk.

1. Article 58 stipulates that situation in Kirkuk should be
normalized and those brought in as part of Arabization campaign
should be repatriated and Kurds to reclaim their properties and
receive compensation.