Tehran: Khatami begins tour of three regional countries

Khatami begins tour of three regional countries

IRNA, Iran
Sept 8 2004

Tehran, Sept 8, IRNA — President Mohammad Khatami left here Wednesday
for Yerevan, the Republic of Armenia, in the first leg of his regional
tour which will also take him to Belarus and Tajikistan. Heading a
high-ranking delegation, Khatami`s one-week visit is taking place at
the official invitations of his counterparts

Robert Kocharian, Aleksandr Lukashenko and Emomali Rakhmonov of
Armenia, Belarus and Tajikistan, respectively.

During his visit to Armenia, which is in response to the 2001 visit
to Tehran of President Robert Kocharian, Khatami and senior Armenian
officials will discuss the latest regional developments as well as
expansion of Tehran-Yerevan cooperation in all areas, energy and
transportation in particular.

While in Belarus, the two sides are to review implementation of
Tehran-Minsk bilateral agreements and major regional and international
issues.

A number of new agreements in the fields of customs, economy and
agriculture will be signed between Iran and Belarus. Khatami will
also deliver a speech at the Academy of Sciences of Belarus. In his
second visit to Tajikistan, Khatami and Tajik officials will discuss
ways of consolidating trade, economic and cultural relations between
the two countries.

On the last day of his visit, Khatami is to take part in the summit
meeting of the member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization
(ECO).

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf,
Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Safdar Hosseini and

Commerce Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari are accompanying President
Khatami in his regional tour.

Iran ready to assist Karabakh settlement, envoy says

Iran ready to assist Karabakh settlement, envoy says

Mediamax news agency
3 Sep 04

Yerevan, 3 September: Iran is in favour of the continuation of
bilateral meetings between the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaderships.

Mediamax news agency has quoted the Iranian ambassador to Armenia,
Ali Reza Haqiqian, as telling a news conference in Yerevan today that
these meetings help build confidence between the conflicting sides.

“We cooperate with the OSCE Minsk Group and are ready to render
assistance to the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict,”
Haqiqian said.

Fresno drive-by kills 1, wounds 3

Fresno drive-by kills 1, wounds 3
Assembly Member Samuelian’s aide is among those hurt.

By Louis Galvan and Jennifer M. Fitzenberger
The Fresno Bee
(Updated Saturday, August 21, 2004, 6:51 AM)

A woman was killed and three other people were wounded in a drive-by shooting
early Friday outside a home in northeast Fresno.

Police were not releasing the names of any of the people shot near Fashion
Fair mall, but one of them, Bo Patatian, is an aide to Assembly Member Steve
Samuelian, working out of Samuelian’s Fresno office. Patatian is in critical but
stable condition at University Medical Center.

Samuelian, R-Clovis, said Patatian, a staff assistant, underwent surgery and
is expected to recover. He reportedly was shot once in the abdomen and twice
in the shoulder or arm.

Another member of Samuelian’s staff, Lisa Hawkins, witnessed the shooting but
was not injured, Samuelian said. Hawkins is a field representative from
Kingsburg.

The two staffers had been out celebrating someone’s birthday and were among a
group of people outside a house when someone opened fire from a car,
Samuelian said.

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said the shooting was reported in the 600
block of East Keats Avenue shortly after 2 a.m.

Two men and two women, all reportedly in their 20s, were hit by the gunfire
and taken to UMC where one of the women, a 27-year-old, died about two hours
later.

The other two victims were being treated for injuries described as not
life-threatening. Dyer declined to release any names pending further investigation.

The victims were outside a two-story home among a group of people, some of
whom reportedly had just walked back from a nearby nightclub, when the shooting
occurred.

A dark-colored car drove by and made a U-turn, and someone in the car started
shooting, Dyer said; it was not clear whether the car came to a stop or was
moving when shots were fired.

The car was last seen going west on Keats.

Dyer said a motive has not been determined and that it was not known whether
the shooter was aiming at a specific person or just shooting into a crowd.
Investigators were also trying to determine whether anything had occurred at the
nightclub that might have led to the shooting.

The club, On the Rocks, is a few blocks away on First Street just north of
Shaw Avenue.

A club employee who would not give his name said the group had rented a VIP
lounge to celebrate a woman’s birthday. Members of the group arrived between
10:30 and 11 p.m. and left at 1:45 a.m., he said. The employee also said there
were no disturbances at the club and that no one was escorted out by bouncers.

Dean Hoffinger, an events promoter in Fresno, said he has known people in
that group of friends for five years. Some attend his social events, he said.

“They’re people that are well-known,” he said. “They’re nice people. They
don’t cause problems.”

Sgt. Gregg Sanders said there was no reason for police to believe the
shooting had anything to do with Samuelian’s office.

“It may just be two people from his office that happened to be at the wrong
place at the wrong time,” he said.

Samuelian was in Sacramento early Friday when he found out about the
shooting. He drove to Fresno and visited Patatian in the hospital.

“Bo’s recovering very well. He’s a strong person,” he said. “I was able to
communicate, and he was able to communicate back.”

Samuelian said he did not know the woman who was killed.

“I am deeply saddened and trouble by that, and my sympathies and heart go out
to her family,” he said.

The shooting at the normally peaceful, well-groomed neighborhood left police
and residents shaking their heads.

Lt. Jose Garza said he couldn’t remember the last time police had been sent
to the neighborhood, and residents said the sound of gunshots was foreign to
them.

John Manson, 31, who lives across the street from where the shooting
occurred, said there was no mistaking what woke him and his roommate up from a sound
sleep: “I heard boom, boom, boom. I heard people screaming. I walked out the
door. … I thought I was dreaming. I saw people lying around.”

Manson said he could not believe the shooting was random.

“It was not just a drive-by. It was something that escalated and followed
them here,” he said. “This is a nice area. There has to be a motive.”

Another neighbor, a longtime resident who asked not to be identified, said he
also woke up to shots and screams.

The neighbor said he didn’t know too much about the residents of the home and
only knew one of them by his first name.

Around noon Friday, two men, who declined to comment, rinsed a path to the
front door of the shooting scene. Two women stopped by the house and dropped a
bouquet of flowers near the curb. They declined to be interviewed, but one of
them, apparently referring to the slain woman, described the victim as “full of
sunshine.”

The killing was the fifth slaying in the city since Sunday, bringing the
number of homicides this year to 38 — two more than the total for last year.

Samuelian said he was troubled “that this type of unfortunate incident can
happen in our community.”

“To think that violent criminals can prey on innocent victims as they did in
this case is very unfortunate,” he said.

Bee staff writers Vanessa Colón and Tim Eberly contributed to this report.
The reporters can be reached at [email protected],
[email protected] or (559) 441-6330.

Regular exercises of the united Russian-Armenian troops launched

REGULAR EXERCISES OF THE UNITED RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN TROOPS LAUNCHED

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 30, 2004, Monday

The exercises have been launched at the marshal Bagramyan Center in
Armenia. The firing practice is scheduled for August 27, the closing
day. The exercises are aimed at practicing the defense interaction
of the sides, which will be represented by the mechanized infantry,
fighting and assault aviation, antiaircraft artillery units. A
reinforced mechanized infantry regiment will take part on behalf of
Armenia and servicemen of the 102nd Military Base of Russia (stationed
in Armenia) will represent Russia. Lieutenant General Mikhail Grigoryan
of Armenia is head of the exercises.

Source: Krasnaya Zvezda, August 26, 2004, p. 3

1st World Hegemony and Mass Mortality – from Bengal to Afghanistan

Mathaba.Net, Africa
Aug 23 2004

First World Hegemony and Mass Mortality – from Bengal to Afghanistan
and Iraq
Posted: 08/23
From: Muslim Weekly

The world has now been confronted for a dozen years by the continuing
devastation of strategically-located, oil-rich Iraq by Anglo-American
armies and their allies. Afghanistan has been devastated by a quarter
century of war intimately connected with First World rivalries and
both Russian and US desires for Indian Ocean access to Central Asia.
These extensions of what was once called the “Great Game” between
Britain and Russia have had an appalling human cost.

Using United Nations population statistics for the period 1950 to the
present it has been possible to calculate the “excess mortality” (or,
essentially, the avoidable mortality) for every country in the world
for this period. “Excess mortality” is simply the difference between
the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a
decently-run, peaceful country with the same demographic
characteristics. The results are startling and horrifying. The total
post-1950 “excess mortality” has been 5.2 million for Iraq, 16.2
million for Afghanistan, 550 million for the Muslim world, 1,230
million for the non-European world – and 54 million in total for all
the countries of Europe, North America and Australasia.

The French have a saying “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”
(the more things change, the more they stay the same). We can go back
in history and see that the same greed, violence, racism, dishonesty
and criminal immorality involved in continuation of First World
hegemony in the world today is closely mirrored in the European
expansion into the non-European world over the last 500 years.

Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British and French expansion into the
Americas brought disease that, in addition to egregious violence,
wiped out millions and destroyed sophisticated civilisations. The
subsequent slave trade from Africa transported 15 million to America
but associated deaths in Africa may have been much greater. While
knowing of the deadly transmissibility of disease in the Americas (23
million victims) and from the medieval Black Death (24 million
victims), the Europeans happily devastated Australasia and the
Pacific through disease in the 19th century (1-2 million victims).
The Europeans carved up Africa in the 19th century and imposed
horrendous colonial regimes. Thus the Belgians butchered some 10
million Congolese in exacting rubber supplies; colonial wars
slaughtered millions more. The Europeans left a crippled continent in
the 1960s.

Two hundred and fifty years ago Bengal was a prosperous province of
the Muslim Mughal Empire in India. Bengal led the world in its
agriculture, civil administration and textiles. The textiles were so
fine it was said that you could pass a sari of Dacca silk through a
wedding ring. However in the mid-18th century the East India Company
turned its attention seriously to Bengal and the British set up a
trading post called Fort William at the site of what is now Calcutta.
Steady pressure from the British (as well as from the French, Dutch,
Portuguese and Danes) eventually elicited Bengali resistance and in
1756 the Muslim Nawab (or Prince) of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah,
captured Fort William.

British-Bengali machinations may have meant that the Nawab was merely
supposed to besiege Fort William and then a palace revolution would
secure “régime change” in favour of the British. In the event, Fort
William was taken and all school children in the British Empire were
subsequently told the dreadful story of the Black Hole of Calcutta –
how, supposedly, 146 British prisoners were incarcerated overnight in
a small prison cell in captured Fort William and in the morning only
23 survivors (including the one woman) emerged alive. This story is
believed by many historians to have been greatly exaggerated. However
for a quarter of a millennium it has very successfully demonised
Indians and, by extension, all non-Europeans who resisted European
hegemony.

In 1757 the British returned with a vengeance, bribed important
Bengali princes to withhold their troops and, at the Battle of
Plassey, Robert Clive won a stunning victory over numerically vastly
greater Bengali forces. Siraj-ud-daulah was hunted down, captured,
chopped into pieces and demonised forever. A key plotter was Mir
Jafar and he was rewarded by being made the next Nawab by the British
(just as the US helped install the Shah in Iran and Saddam Hussein in
Iraq). After the British had installed their puppet Nawab they set
about taxing the Bengalis. Taxes that formally would go successively
through collectors, zamindars and the Nawab to the Mughal Emperor to
pay for civil administration now started to flow to the East India
Company and its officers. Robert Clive returned to Britain in 1767 as
its richest man. In responding to Parliamentary cross-examination in
1773 about his excessive wealth from the down-trodden Bengalis, Clive
declared “By God, Mr Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at
my own moderation”. The vast wealth flowing from India with the East
India Company and its returning officers (the so-called “nabobs”, a
corruption of “nawab”) helped fund the Industrial Revolution and 2
centuries of British global domination that has variously devastated
peoples and cultures on 6 continents.

Unfortunately the British exceeded themselves and a mere 12 years
after the Battle of Plassey a temporary food shortage in Bengal
translated inexorably into the man-made Great Bengal Famine of
1769-1770 that killed 10 million Bengalis, one third of the
population. Over-taxed Bengalis who could not meet the escalating
price of grain simply starved. The East India Company, concerned
about its diminishing profits, sent Warren Hastings out to Calcutta
to reorganise taxation of the half-starved, surviving Bengalis.
Hastings succeeded and indeed greatly extended British control in
India. However his rapacious excesses (from the robbery of the Begums
of Oudh to famine in the Gangetic plain) led to his impeachment by
Parliament after his return to England and a protracted trial.
Hastings was acquitted in 1795 in what has been Britain’s only war
crimes trial of a major colonial administrator. He has been lionised
by British historians as a great founder of Empire.

Two centuries of British rule in India saw recurrent famines that
killed scores of millions. Further, the British railways, irrigation
canals and shipping spread cholera (endemic to Bengal) throughout
British India at the cost of an estimated 25 million lives in the
19th century. The British taxation system deprived indigenous Indian
institutes of support (noting that education is vital in the war on
disease and want). The Bengal textile industry was destroyed and
Britain exported textiles to India. Well-watered, warm Bengal with an
energetic population is a part of the sub-continent that should never
suffer famine. Nevertheless Bengal suffered repeated famine in the
1860s and 1870s and at the turn of the century.

Of course Bengal was part of an empire “on which the sun never sets”.
The British traded Bengali opium to China for tea and silver, this
trade precipitating the 19th century China Opium Wars and the
subsequent Tai Ping rebellion that took 20-100 million lives.

In 1918-1919 Indian soldiers returning from World War 1 brought
influenza to India (this causing 17 million deaths). Indeed the
global influenza death toll of some 40 million greatly exceeded the
military casualties of World War 1 (8 million). However in the middle
of World War 2 the price of rice begin to rise in Bengal for a
variety of reasons (cessation of supplies from Japanese-occupied
Burma, small seasonal losses from fungal infection and storm damage,
the divide-and-rule granting of food supply autonomy to Indian
provinces, sequestration of some rice stocks and decreased grain
imports via Indian Ocean shipping because of shipping losses in the
Atlantic). However, as analysed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen,
Calcutta was experiencing a war-time boom and effectively sucked food
out of a food-producing countryside. Those who could not afford rice
at 4 times the normal price simply starved under a callous British
administration.

The death toll from the man-made Bengal famine was 4 million as
compared to the deaths from the Jewish Holocaust (6 million), the
Namibian genocide (0.1 million), the Rwandan Tutsi genocide (1
million), the World War 1 Armenian Holocaust (1 million), the Polish
(6 million), Soviet (20 million) and Chinese (35 million) losses in
World War 2, the Chinese Great Leap Forward (16-30 million victims)
and the millions who died in the Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian
famines between the World Wars, the Soviet Gulags and Pakistan-Indian
Partition.

In an astonishing collective act of racist white-washing, the Bengal
famine has been largely expunged from British historical writing.
History ignored yields history repeated and the Bengalis have
continued to suffer: post-Independence Partition massacres and
displacements in 1947, US-backed West Pakistan invasion in 1971 (3
million dead, 0.3 million women raped, 10 million refugees) and
further famine and murderous US-backed régime change (1974). However
the biggest killers in Bengal since 1950 have been deprivation,
malnourishment, disease and illiteracy – the post-1950 “excess
mortality” has been 51 million in Bangladesh (present population 150
million) and about 27 million in West Bengal (population about 80
million).

What can be learned from this sorry tale? The biggest message is that
ignoring or white-washing mass mortality simply allows unimpeded
continuance or repetition. Indeed Bengal is now facing a devastating
prospect of inundation from global warming-induced sea level rises.
The US and Australia, variously linked with Bengal’s previous
man-made disasters, refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol while being
among the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters. In the past month
over two thirds of Bangladesh has been under water from international
monsoon run-off. Afghanistan and Iraq simply illustrate the same
sorts of First World impositions that devastated Bengal for over a
quarter of a millennium in the interests of profit, power and
imperial satisfaction – manipulation, corruption of indigenous
leaders, régime change, vilification and demonization of indigenous
opponents, militarization, debt, economic distortion, economic
exclusion, divide-and-rule, support for intra- and international war,
sanctions, invasion, occupation, extirpation of undesired indigenous
opponents, installation of unelected governments and inclusion into a
new order of global, violence-backed hegemony. Of course, just like
the mythology of the Black Hole of Calcutta, the demonization of
Indians and the asserted nobility of British civilisation and Pax
Britannica, today we have the non-existent weapons of mass
destruction, the demonization of Muslims and the violent and
massively deadly imposition of an Anglo-American vision of “freedom”.

Sensible analysis of the horrendous mass mortality in the world over
the last half century indicates that the First World imposes war for
profit and that war kills massively – but mainly through deprivation
and malnourishment-exacerbated disease that sweeps away 20 million
people a year or 60,000 a day and overwhelmingly in the non-European
world. It is the IGNORING of horrendous global mass mortality that is
the fundamental cause of this continuing tragedy.

About the author: Dr Gideon Polya is a Melbourne-based scientist and
writer. Over a 4 decade scientific career he published some 130
works, most recently a huge, pharmacological reference text
“Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (Taylor &
Francis/CRC Press, London & New York, 2003).

http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=67636

BAKU: Chinese official upbeat on military cooperation w/ Azerbaijan

Chinese official upbeat on military cooperation with Azerbaijan

Ekspress, Baku
21 Aug 04

Text of Alakbar Raufoglu’s report by Azerbaijani newspaper Ekspress on
21 August headlined “Our military students will be trained in China”
and subheaded “Chinese Gen Qian Lihua: ‘As far as I know, conflicts
are usually settled militarily'”

“The Chinese government hopes that Azerbaijan and Armenia will not
miss chances for peace in settling the Karabakh conflict,” Deputy
Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Chinese National Defence
Ministry Qian Lihua told Ekspress newspaper yesterday. China is ready
to help settle the conflict at any level, but on condition that
“discussions are directed towards peace”.

“As far as I know, conflicts are usually settled militarily. But I
hope that this option will not be applied to the Karabakh issue,” he
said. Lihua added: “First of all, the sides themselves must believe in
the need for a speedy settlement to this conflict. There is no other
way out. If the Karabakh issue is not settled, one cannot talk about
lasting stability and cooperation in the South Caucasus.”

Lihua said that China had an interest in expanding military
cooperation with Azerbaijan. He said that there were prospects for
this, “but no efforts”.

Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev met a Chinese delegation led
by Lihua yesterday. The Chinese ambassador to Azerbaijan, Zhang Xiyun,
attended the meeting as well.

“We had successful discussions. We mostly talked about the expansion
of military cooperation,” Lihua said after the meeting. At the
meeting, the sides reached an important agreement on developing ties
in the sphere of security and “discussions of this type make it
possible to develop allied relations in the future as well”.

Lihua yesterday visited the training centre of the Internal Troops. At
a meeting with the centre’s leadership the sides signed a relevant
agreement on the education of Azerbaijani military students in China.

Government to Fund Repairs of Zangezour Copper-Molybdenum Plant

ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT MADE A DECISION TO ALLOCATE FUNDS FOR REPAIR OF
ZANGEZOUR COPPER-MOLYBDENUM PLANT

YEREVAN, AUGUST 19. ARMINFO. Armenian government made a decision to
allocate 50 mln drams for repair of the building of the Zangezour
Copper-Molybdenum Plant cjsc, Deputy Minister of trade and Economic
Development of Armenia Ashot Shahnazarian told ARMINFO.

According to him, these means will be attracted due to the net profit
of the plant received in 2004. It should be noted that on the results
of 2003 the net profit of the enterprise exceeded $7 mln. The
leadership of the Ministry thinks that on the results of the current
year the profit will grow.

Armenian opposition leader says shock in store for authorities

Armenian opposition leader says shock in store for authorities

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
18 Aug 04

August headlined “Let them eat each other up”

Talking to Haykakan Zhamanak, the leader of the National Unity Party,
Artashes Gegamyan, has promised a serious surprise for the Armenian
authorities. “In the first half of September, our party has a surprise
for the current authorities,” Gegamyan said. He advised everyone to
wait several days to see it. Meanwhile, he is waiting patiently while
the power elite devour one another. “Let them eat one another up and
then we shall join in for dessert,” Gegamyan said.

Pasadena: Boy, 8, in freeway accident still in coma

Boy, 8, in freeway accident still in coma

Pasadena Star News
Article Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 – 9:06:33 PM PST

Boy, 8, in freeway accident still in coma

Funeral services for other victims set

By Marshall Allen , Staff Writer

PASADENA — An 8- year-old Pasadena boy remains in a medically induced coma
after a rollover accident last week in which he was hurled from a sport
utility vehicle onto the Gold Line tracks and hit by a train.

Three women, including the child’s mother, Lena Khodaverdian, 41, were
killed and two others critically injured in the one-vehicle accident. The
crash happened about 10 a.m. Thursday on the eastbound Foothill (210)
Freeway just before the Madre Street exit.

The group of eight was from the Armenian Brotherhood Bible Church in
Pasadena. They were traveling to a picnic at the Santa Fe Dam R ecreation A
rea in Irwindale when they crashed for unknown reasons. The California
Highway Patrol is investigating the accident.

Only two people in the SUV, including the driver, were wearing seat belts.
They sustained minor injuries and have been released from the hospital.

Two other women remain in critical condition one at Huntington Hospital and
the other at Los Angeles C ounty- USC Medical Center said Azniv Ailanjian,
the church’s secretary.

The boy lost his foot when he was hit by the train, and he also sustained
head and chest injuries, authorities said. He is being treated at County-USC
Medical Center, where doctors are trying to diagnose any potential brain
injury, Ailanjian said.

Khodaverdian’s funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday at Forest Lawn-
Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.

The memorial service for Alice Basmadjian, 82, is scheduled for 11 a.m.
today at the Armenian Brotherhood Bible Church, 1536 Washington Blvd.,
Pasadena.

Services have not been finalized for Hrepsimi Hadadjian, 77, the third woman
killed in the accident, Ailanjian said.

Funds have been established to help the victims. Donations sent to the
Armenian Brotherhood Bible Church will go to the victims with the greatest
needs. Checks should be made out to the church.

Christ Armenian Church in La Crescenta has established a fund for the boy’s
family. Checks should be designated for “Lena’ and sent to 3857 Foothill
Blvd., Suite 158, La Crescenta, CA 91214.

Marshall Allen can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4461, or by e-mail at
[email protected]

Chess: Mousa and Hassan lead UAE charge

Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
Aug 19 2004

Mousa and Hassan lead UAE charge
By A Correspondent

19 August 2004

ABU DHABI – Grandmaster Taleb Mousa and International Master Abdullah
Hassan were on top among the UAE contingent to attain hard fought
wins on the fourth day of the 14th Abu Dhabi chess festival.

Taleb Moussa outplayed Aarthie Ramaswamy in a keenly contested match
in the endging in 42 moves while Abdullah got the better of Illijin
Nebosia of Romania in 54 moves. Both Taleb and Abdullah came back
into reckoning for title Norms and Elo rating points.

The top board ended as it began as a grandmaster draw with the seeded
grandmasters opting for consolidation rather than risk the points
early at the initial phase. Kobalia was persistent and his deft
defense enabled him to attain a crucial win against Dzhumaev in a
pirc defense.

The players castled on opposite sides and went for all out attack.
Kobalia struck first and his threats gave him material advantage. He
survived a vicious attack against his king and he had to march his
king to fifth rank and clinch victory by a whisker.

Anastasian Ashot of Armenia, Kobalia Mikhail and Gleizerov Evgeny of
Russia shared the lead with 3.5 points in masters section at the end
of the fourth round of the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival held at Cultural
Foundation, Abu Dhabi. Vladimirov Evgeny, Bocharov Dmitry, Kotsur
Pavel, Minasian Artashes, Ghaem Maghami Ehsan and Chernyshov
Konstantin are close on the heels of the leader half a point behind.

Kobalia Mikhail defeated Dzhumaev Marat of Uzbekistan in 33 moves
from a Modern defence. Players castled on opposite sides and Kobalia
was an exchange up. Kobalia had a superior position and he nursed his
advantage to victory. Most of the top board matches ended in a draw.

Top seed Vladimirov Evgeny of Kazakhstan defeated Bistric Faruk of
Bahrain in 37 moves. Vladimirov won a pawn and in a queen and bishop
ending, Vladimirov trapped his opponent’s king and Bistric resigned
on the 37th move when he couldn’t parry the threat for checkmate.

Among UAE players, Taleb Moussa defeated Aarthie Ramaswamy of India
while Hassan Abdullah defeated Illijin Neboisa of Romania. Jasim A.R.
Saleh and Nabil Saleh drew their games against Neelotpal Das of India
and Mohamed Hossein respectively.

In Children section, Azemati Amir and Bajarani Ulvi are at the top of
the table with 4 points. UAE’s Zayed Ali, Mohamed Mubarak and
Abdulaziz Ibrahim are in the second spot with 3.5 points.