Author: Toneyan Mark

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 18, 2004 Wednesday

Russia, CIS propose to UN to institute world remembrance day

By Vladimir Kikilo

UNITED NATIONS

Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have put forward a proposal
to the U.N. General Assembly to announce May 8 and 9 Remembrance and
Reconciliation Days.

The proposal to put this issue as additional item on the agenda of
the forthcoming 59th session of the U.N. General Assembly is included
in the letter sent to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan by the
countries. Permanent representatives of these states at the United
Nations signed the letter.

“In 2005 the world will celebrate the 60th anniversary of victory
over fascism,” it is said in an explanatory note to the letter, in
particular.

“The great victory in the World War II was achieved by joint efforts
of peoples of many countries. It gave a powerful impetus to the
international community cohesion, which resulted in the establishment
of the United Nations Organisation. Through the suffering and death
of millions of people the nations of the world came to realise that
there is no alternative to the system of collective security that
took shape in the U.N. Charter for maintaining international peace,”
the message says.

“The peoples of our countries have shouldered the main burden of the
war, so we are convinced like no other that there are no such goals
that would justify unleashing of wars,” it is stressed in the
document.

“U.N. member states should jointly exert every effort with a view to
putting an end to the current armed conflicts using political
methods, preventing the emergence of such conflicts in the future and
promoting the maintenance of a stable and solid peace,” the document
says.

“It is in the common interests of humanity to further strengthen the
role and effectiveness of the United Nations Organisation as the
central element of the collective security system in the fulfilment
of the high task proclaimed in its Charter – to relieve the coming
generations from the scourge of war,” the letter reads.

The authors of the letter proposed to the U.N. General Assembly to
adopt a resolution that would announce May 8 and 9 the days of
remembrance and reconciliation, as well as to hold a special solemn
session of the Assembly in order to adopt a declaration aimed at the
unification of humankind in the name of peace and progress and
prevention of new world wars.

The hazards of a long, hard freeze

Unresolved wars have poisoned the newly independent republics of the
former Soviet south – and could flare anew

The Economist
August 19th 2004

STEPANAKERT, SUKHUMI, TIRASPOL AND TSKHINVALI — If the so-called frozen
conflicts of the Black Sea region are ever thawed
out, somebody will need to be standing by with a very large bucket indeed.
To outsiders, that may seem like an odd warning: unless you have a special
interest in the obscure enclaves of small, impoverished states, where local
feuds have flared up and died down, a frozen conflict may sound like a
conflict you can forget. But such a conclusion would be wrong: the region’s
unresolved wars-in Transdniestria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and
Nagorno-Karabakh-are a big reason why the newly independent states of the
former Soviet south have failed miserably to fulfil their potential. Instead
of enjoying their freedom, they have emerged into the world as stunted,
embittered and ill-governed creatures. And if real fighting flares again-a
process which has begun in South Ossetia (see article)-things could
become far worse.

At the heart of each conflict is a claimed mini-state whose rulers
prevailed, by dint of Russian arms, in a local war. While there are huge
differences, these statelets have things in common. Ten years or more of
isolation under unrecognised governments have left them as harsh,
militarised societies, with few functioning institutions, and economies
open to crime.

South Ossetia is the pettiest, but currently the hottest of the conflict
zones. It is a landlocked province of Georgia which would have no viability
as a legitimate country. It survives as a conduit for smuggling between
Georgia and Russia, mainly in cheap spirits, arms and grain, under the
diplomatic protection of the Russian government and the military
protection of Russian troops.

Of the four statelets, Karabakh comes closest to being a normal society-at
least for the ethnic Armenians who remain there. Nearly a million people
from both sides of the war were put to flight by the fighting which
concluded in 1994 with a big victory by soldiers from Karabakh and
Armenia itself.

Especially since 2001, when a local bully and racketeer, Samvel Babayan, was
put in jail, Karabakh-which calls itself independent but is in practice
virtually joined to Armenia-has had something recognisable as local politics
and a mixed economy. Investment from the Armenian diaspora has boosted the
economy. One new arrival from America, Vartkes Anivian, started a
dairy-products company after the war, and now employs 250 people. Municipal
elections have just been held in the enclave-to the fury of Azerbaijan, to
which Karabakh legally belongs-and there was genuine competition between the
candidates. The atmosphere in Stepanakert, Karabakh’s capital, is
orderly in a post-Soviet way, not chaotic.

So Karabakh might have a decent future if the enclave’s future could somehow
be settled. Four years ago, a compromise seemed within reach: most of
Karabakh would have been joined to Armenia, while the Azeris recovered the
surrounding areas and gained a corridor between their republic’s two parts.
More recently, the mood on both sides has hardened, and a big body of
Azerbaijani opinion longs to recover the land by force.

Small wars, or medium?

The fighting over Karabakh was and could again become a fair-sized war;
South Ossetia by comparison is a small, though strategically significant,
squabble. Abkhazia, in Georgia, and Transdniestria, in Moldova, fall
somewhere in between.

Both Abkhazia and Transdniestria can make claims to special political
status, if not to independence, on historical grounds. Both regimes control
territories and economies capable of standing alone. But both are willing
hostages of Russia, which helped them fight their wars of secession when the
Soviet Union collapsed, and has given them military and diplomatic support
ever since. It has issued passports so freely that probably a majority of
the population in each enclave could claim Russian nationality. But Russia’s
“protection” has also become the main obstacle to a constitutional
settlement. Russia prefers to keep the enclaves as its own pawns. At its
most mischievous, the Kremlin’s strategy may view Transdniestria as a second
version of Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave near Poland-in other words, a
trouble-making outpost on the borders of NATO. And some of the worst
features of Russia’s own governance have been transferred to its protégés in
Georgia and Moldova: organised crime, corruption, and authoritarian
leadership.

For the people of these non-countries, life goes on, after a fashion. “It is
a normal town, but blown up a bit,” says a United Nations official trying to
put the best face on Sukhumi, “capital” of Abkhazia. And there is indeed the
ghost of something lovely in the landscape, where the beaches curve
north to the Russian border.

“It is a normal town, but blown up a bit”

But to call Sukhumi “normal”, even by the elastic standards of the Caucasus,
is stretching things. For one thing, half of its population is missing.
Ethnic Georgians fled the city or were driven out in the civil war of
1992-93. And to say that Sukhumi is blown up “a bit” risks flattering a town
where only about one-third of the buildings are in good shape, one-third are
badly run down, and one-third are derelict. The roads are crumbling, the
pavements are grassing over, and the airport is dead save for a few UN
helicopters. Tourists from Russia are the mainstay, along with agriculture,
of the visible economy. The invisible economy belongs to burly men who drive
smart cars with handguns on their hips. They, or their like, run a
blacker-than-black trade centred on the port. Smuggling probably involves
drugs, arms, fuel and stolen cars. “Whatever you have”, says the UN
official, “it disappears into a black hole when it hits the docks.”

Tiraspol, the capital of Transdniestria, presents a more orderly façade.
Streets are eerily quiet and clean, and almost bare of cars, even on a
weekday afternoon. Nobody in civilian clothes carries a gun openly. A statue
of Lenin looks down from a pink marble column in front of the presidential
palace. The Bolshevik leader looks uncannily like Transdniestria’s own
bearded “president”, Igor Smirnov, a former metalworker from Kamchatka in
the Russian Pacific who moved to Tiraspol in 1987 as a factory manager and
manoeuvred his way into power. Mr Smirnov’s son heads the “state customs
committee”, the second-biggest job in a land which lives largely on trade,
licit and illicit, between Ukraine and the rest of Moldova.

In the past month both Moldova and Ukraine have announced much tighter
customs controls on goods moving out of Transdniestria. Moldova was
retaliating against a decision by the authorities in Transdniestra to shut
schools there still teaching Romanian in the Latin alphabet.

But despite such occasional flurries of firm government, experience suggests
that Transdniestria’s borders will remain porous enough for it to go on
supplying Moldovan markets with untaxed consumer goods, and to go on
shipping its more sinister cargoes, including arms, out through Ukraine or
by air. According to a recent report from the International Crisis Group, a
Brussels think-tank, Transdniestria has five or six arms factories making
small arms, mortars and missile-launchers, for sale to the world’s
trouble-spots. A recent study from the German Marshall Fund of the United
States has called the conflict zones “unresolved fragments of Soviet Empire
[which] now serve as shipping points for weapons, narcotics, and victims of
human trafficking, as breeding grounds for transnational organised crime,
and last but not least, for terrorism”. That may be a bit too hard on
Karabakh, but a fairly accurate account of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and
Transdniestria. It may be time for the world to slop them out.

Armenian government, telecoms operator negotiate in London

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
17 Aug 04

Text of Vahagn Hovakimyan’s report in Armenian newspaper Haykakan
Zhamanak on 17 August headlined “They’re negotiating little by little”

Representatives of the Armenian government and the ArmenTel company
have been negotiating since 9 August in London. The Armenian
government is represented by Justice Minister David Arutyunyan,
ArmenTel by the company’s chief executive officer, Vasilios
Fetsis. The parties are refusing to make any comments on the
negotiation process. However, some information is provided by
unofficial conversations.

In particular, what is most important for the government is to take
back the monopoly given to ArmenTel in the sphere of cellular
communications, which can be considered already done. The developments
showed that ArmenTel does not want to struggle for a de jure monopoly
in the sphere of cellular communications any more, as it is able to
achieve its objectives without this juridical status. Thus, it is not
a surprise that the issue of losing the cellular communication
monopoly will be discussed during the negotiations only from the point
of view of possible ways of interrelations with a new operator.

In relations with ArmenTel, the second important task is bringing the
company back under control. That is, it is necessary for the company
to take no action without the government’s agreement, especially in
tariff policy. Our sources characterize the government’s goal in the
following way: ArmenTel must obey. All the remaining issues, such as
the digitization of stations, upgrading of Internet communication and
others can be considered secondary. For example, there is no doubt
that if ArmenTel does not increase the tariff per minute of fixed
communication, the government, in its turn, can forget about an
improvement in the quality of communications for some time. In the
given case the introduction of a tariff of eight drams per minute is
in question. It is a highly explosive issue for the Armenian
government. However, there is no doubt that in this issue the
government can only gain time at best. That is, in the course of the
negotiations, the government will have to come to an agreement on
tariffs, which means that subscribers will be informed in the near
future when these tariffs, a cause of general horror, will be applied.

According to specialists, the government may only gain time up to the
beginning of next year at best. Our sources close to the government
characterize the negotiations as a “war”, i.e. if the parties have
started negotiations, it does not mean that they are going to yield
their positions, and the past week of the negotiations is evidence of
it. At the same time, it should be noted that in this period, the
negotiations have been slower and the reason is the Olympics in
Athens. However, on the other hand, it is connected with other
circumstances as well. In particular, ArmenTel wants to deprive the
government of its trump card related to cellular communications, that
is, to overcome the deficit in the sphere. Thus, it is not accidental
that ArmenTel restarted the system of prepayment for cellular
communications, the provision of Easy Cards, yesterday in
Yerevan. Thirteen service points will distribute 200 numbers daily.
Easy Cards are provided to those registered during previous
months. However, ArmenTel does not specify what it will do next after
provision of the numbers. According to unofficial data, ArmenTel
intends to make uninterrupted provision of the cards, thereby
liquidating their deficit on the market.

UEFA.com
Aug 18 2004

Pandev ensures perfect start
Wednesday, 18 August 2004
By Igor Panevski

Goals from Goran Pandev, Artim Sakiri and Velice Sumulikoski earned
F.Y.R. Macedonia a 3-0 victory against Armenia in Skopje in 2006 FIFA
World Cup qualifying Group 1.

Strong section
The victory will leave the Macedonians in good heart for their next
qualifying test, a trip to Romania, 2-1 winners against Finland this
evening, on 4 September. Armenia, meanwhile, will hope for better
fortunes at home to the Finns four days later, with the Netherlands
and the Czech Republic – both semi-final losers at UEFA EURO 2004′ –
joined by Andorra to complete the lineup.

Early advantage
S.S. Lazio forward Pandev struck first for the home side at the
Gradski stadium – home of FK Pelister – opeing the scoring with a
fine shot from 16 metres. The forward might have doubled his side’s
lead midway through the first half when he found himself unmarked in
front of Armenian goalkeeper Armen Ambartsumyan but defender Marotyan
Vardanyan recovered well to clear.

Sakiri strikes
With the home side threatening on the counterattack throughout the
first 90 minutes, it was no surprise that such a source lead to a
second goal seven minutes before half-time. This time two Macedonian
players were left with time and space in front of Ambartsumyan’s goal
and Sumulikoski unselfishly squad for Sakiri to roll in.

Ambartsumyan stops
It was nearly 3-0 in the final minutes of the half as Pandev met
Aleksandar Mitrevski’s cross with a powerful header but this time
Ambartsumyan was equal to it. The Armenian goalkeeper then denied the
same player ten minutes after the restart, and also kept out Sakiri’s
close-range header two minutes past the hour.

Decisive moment
The visitors almost found a way back into the match a minute later,
but Andrey Movsesyan’s fine close-range volley struck an upright and
Armenian hopes were effectively ended with 21 minutes left as captain
Marotyan Vardanyan was dismissed for a professional foul on Pandev.

First goal
The points were duly secured in the final minute as another fine
counterattack was clinically rounded off by Sumulikoski from Igor
Jancevski’s pass, his first goal for his country.

Kanatlarovski cheer
“I want to thanks to my players for a good game,” said F.Y.R.
Macedonia coach Dragan Kanatlarovski. “We deserved to win, although I
knew that would be a hard game, but we had several chances to score
one or two goals more. It’s important to earn a victory in the first
match in qualification.”

‘Expected result’
His counterpart Bernard Casoni was more downbeat, saying: “It was the
expected result for us, as we were missing several players. F.Y.R.
Macedonia are a good team and they deserved to win. They scored early
and after the second we knew that we would lose.”

Expatica, Netherlands
Aug 17 2004

European footbal teams begin journey to Germany

16 August 2004

HAMBURG – While most countries throughout the world have long ago
begun their qualifying campaign for the 2006 World Cup in Germany,
the journey for European countries starts only on Wednesday.

Four qualifiers will be played.

In Group 1, Macedonia and Armenia clash in Skopje, with the home side
being the favourites. Not only is Macedonia ranked 92 in the world –
compared to 116 for Armenia, but coach Dragan Kanatlarovski can call
on several players playing throughout Europe.

Midfielder Vanco Trajanov, for instance, has just joined German
Bundesliga club Arminia Bielefeld, while Artim Sakiri plays his club
football for West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League.

The pick of the matches on Wednesday takes place in Bucharest, where
Romania take on Finland in another Group 1 match. With the Czech
Republic, the Netherlands and Andorra also in the group, the two
teams will know that they can ill-afford to drop points at this early
stage.

The home side suffered a setback ahead of the game, when captain
Christian Chivu broke a bone in his foot during beach football whilst
on holiday. Although the foot was put in plaster, it did not heal
sufficiently and requires corrective surgery ruling him out for the
next four international matches.

They still have a host of exciting players to call on, with Chelsea’s
striker Adrian Mutu being one of them.

Finland coach Antti Muurinen had to replace Anderlecht defender Teemu
Tainio and Auxerre midfielder Hannu Tihinen after they both were
ruled out through injury.

In Group Three, two of the weakest teams in European football play
their first games. Luxembourg, who are ranked 157th in the world and
second-last in Europe, seem to have an impossible task away to
Slovakia, who are ranked 86 places above them.

Luxembourg’s record in World Cup qualifiers is – nor surprisingly –
very bad and they have won only two (1961 4-2 against Portugal and
1972 2-0 against Turkey) out of 91 games. They have finished last in
their group every time they have played in the qualifiers.

Luxembourg will, however, fancy their chances to avoid that this time
around as also in their group is Liechtenstein, who are ranked just
three positions above them in the rankings.

Liechtenstein are at home in Vaduz against Estonia on Wednesday.
Although several of their players are part-timers, Liechtenstein
coach Martin Andermatt can call on several players who play for Swiss
clubs.

Andermatt, who took over the side in March, will be looking to
improve on the Liechtenstein record from their last qualifying
campaign, when they were last in their group without a point or a
goal.

The other three teams in Group Three are: Portugal, Russia and
Latvia.

The next qualifiers will be played on September 4, when the majority
of other teams enter the competition.

AS A RESULT OF COMPLEX SURGERY PERFORMED IN VIENNA, EIGHT-MONTH-OLD
ARTUR HARUTIUNIAN’S ARM STARTS FUNCTIONING

YEREVAN, August 10 (Noyan Tapan). As a result of a complex surgery
performed in Vienna, the right arm of 8-month-old Artur Harutiunian
from Armavir started functioning. On July 8, he returned to Armenia
with his mother, Liana Harutiunian, and his brother. The surgery was
performed with the help of the Yerevan Office of the Austrian
Airlines. Being informed about the child’s disease the Airlines sent
the child’s medical history to Vienna. Surgeon Herbert Husley
performed free of charge the complex operation of 7,000 euros in the
local hospital. The Austrian Airlines also provided L. Harutiunian and
her two sons with free air tickets.

L. Harutunian is satisfied with the operation results. She told NT’s
correspondent at Zvartnots Airport that before the operation the child
was not able to move his right hand. The significant progress became
evident only a month after the surgery. According to her, in Armenia
they would have to wait to have such an operation for at least 2
years. In 6 months A. Harutiunian and his mother will go again to
Vienna to undergo a final examination.

According to the Austrian Airlines, the company considers the regular
provision of such charitable help as its prerogative. “Support
provided by our Airlines to the Armenian public is also obvious in
other spheres, for example, in the organization of young
tennis-players tournaments, or in the organization of concerts by
young musicians or plays,” said Werner Kruger, Manager of the Airlines
Yerevan Office.

ARMINFO NEWS AGENCY
August 10, 2004

ARMENIA’S FRENCH FOOTBALL COACH PROMISES GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT

Yerevan, 6 August: “I am not a magician and we will achieve good
results gradually,” the new Armenian national football coach, French
specialist Bernard Casoni, told a news conference today. He was
appointed the head coach of the Armenian national team on 2 August
and arrived in Yerevan the night before the news conference.

Asked by an Arminfo correspondent about the chances of the Armenian
team of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany (Armenia
will play the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland, Romania,
Andorra and Macedonia (in their qualifying group)), Bernard Casoni
noted that it is in matches with such top teams as the Czech Republic
and the Netherlands that teams such as Armenia gain experience and
proficiency. Bernard Casoni acknowledged he knew nearly nothing about
Armenian football and the Armenian national team and in the first
qualifier against Macedonia in Skopje on 18 August he will prefer the
group of players already in the national team, at least for the time
being. The French specialist intends to consult the leadership of the
Armenian Football Federation about players. Footballers playing both
in the Armenian national football league and abroad are expected to
be in the national team. “My first impressions suggest that there are
quite a few good players in Armenia who just need to be brought on,”
Bernard Casoni said. As far as Armenia’s sports facilities are
concerned, the country lacks first-class facilities, but whatever is
in place should be developed and improved.

Asked by an Arminfo correspondent if the national team is going to
play in an attacking style or defensively, Bernard Casoni said that
every single match will define its own tactics.

“Right now, I am thinking only of our forthcoming match with the
Macedonians. I watch films of their matches and think about how to
organize the upcoming match,” said the coach of the Armenian national
football team.

In his turn, Ruben Ayrapetyan, head of the Armenian Football
Federation and a member of the Armenian National Assembly
(parliament), who attended the press conference, said that the
contract with Casoni has been signed for a year. Unlike his
predecessors, expatriates that used to train both the national team
and Pyunik, Casoni is going to concentrate only on the national team
and will give guidance to Armenia’s teenage and youth teams.

“Of course, in view of the group that we have ended up in, we do not
set the objective of qualifying for the World Cup, but we will do our
best to make sure that the national team plays good football,”
Ayrapetyan said.

Kansas City Star (subscription), MO
Aug 8 2004

McCool, Humphrey grew up golden

Two kids with `one-in-a-million’ talent. Two coaches who know how to
make champions. Eleven years spent working toward a dream.

By MIKE DeARMOND

The Kansas City Star

The signs are everywhere. Over the entry door of the Great American
Gymnastic Express in Blue Springs. On the glass of the door panels.
On every inside wall.

In full view of the high bar from which Terin Humphrey is still
launching a spinning dismount as Courtney McCool grasps the low bar
to launch her own routine.

`You worked so-o-o hard,’ is the message of one of those signs. `You
deserve it.’

A different sign maker has added an extraneous `o.’

`I am so-o-o-o proud of you guys!’

Six American women – four of whom are actually teenagers – are headed
to Athens, Greece, hoping to win an Olympic team gold medal in
gymnastics. And then it hits you. Two of them – Terin Humphrey and
Courtney McCool – have trained daily from four to eight hours a day,
in this gym, amid all these little girls who see the dream up close
and personal.

Al Fong, the gym’s founder and coach of Humphrey and McCool – along
with his wife, former Armenian gymnast Armine Barutyan Fong – calls
the afternoon workout to an end in playful fashion.

`Toga, toga, toga,’ Fong chants.

What he means by that, you can see on the front of the special
Olympic Games section you now hold in your hands.

`Greek Goddesses,’ McCool and Humphrey were called when they were
confirmed as Olympians. And in moments, they are transformed by a
last-minute bit of dress-up whimsy.

They stand, Humphrey giggling as the photographer adjusts their
poses, McCool rolling her eyes at the indignity of standing there,
before golden Greek columns, the golden drape, in these
one-size-fits-all Greek tunics, the train of the garments puddling at
the feet of these small but so powerful athletes.

`I thought it was cool that we got to dress up like Greeks,’ Humphrey
later said. `I wanted to wear the hat-thing, though.’

Uh, that would be a ring of laurels, Terin.

McCool rolled her eyes again and offered no comment.

Off to the side, their coaches stood, remembering. Dredging
recollections of 11 years ago, when Terin Humphrey first stepped into
the Great American Gymnastic Express, the day six years ago when
Courtney McCool joined her.

***

Armine Barutyan had been in Kansas City exactly one week, having
finally fled the Soviet gymnastics system that denied her an Olympic
team spot because she would not renounce her Armenian heritage.

She was working with a few girls who showed promise of becoming elite
gymnasts. Al Fong approached her and said he had a girl he wanted her
to check out.

`I said OK,’ Armine said. `We started working. I said, `Well, you’re
not the most flexible person.’ But I liked her work ethic, right
away. I thought, maybe, there’s a chance.’

One day, 11 years ago. But the memory of what happened the next week
still shines in the eyes of Armine Barutyan Fong.

Humphrey came back and obviously had been working hard at everything
Armine had told her.

`I give the kid something,’ Armine said. `She goes home and comes
back with it. It is unusual.

`I remember my own coach telling me, `I had you. I didn’t have
anybody before you. I didn’t have anybody after you. I don’t think
I’m ever going to see another.’

`They just come one in a million sometimes.’

Terin Humphrey was the one in a million for Armine Barutyan Fong.

`The work ethic drives the talent,’ Armine said. `She was like me.
There was a connection.’

It is still there. All these years later. Gymnast and coach
understand each other.

`Sometimes you have to push your thumb,’ Armine said. `Sometimes you
have to be the loving and caring person. I call her my baby sometimes
because we started from zero.’

Sometimes, Armine wants no one else near Terin Humphrey. Even Al.

`Don’t even touch her,’ Armine contends she has told her husband.
`It’s my job.’

Terin Humphrey sees herself transforming, day by day, from a
sometimes shy, sometimes `I need a hug’ little girl, into a
confidently open embrace of the biggest gymnastics meet of her life.

`Right now it’s a lot more fun that it used to be,’ Humphrey said.
`Before, `Oh great, I’ve got to go to the gym.’ It was just for
yourself. Now it’s for the whole United States. The whole United
States is counting on us. I feel it. But I’m ready.’

Humphrey has a real sense of being a member of this team. She is no
longer standing alone, fighting – even McCool – for a spot at the
Olympics.

She is going, and Holly Vise and Chellsie Memmel, two pure-bred
Olympic hopefuls who were not selected for the team, aren’t.

`They were both world champions last year,’ Humphrey said, not
mentioning that she too was a member of the 2003 U.S. world
championship team. `It’s a shock they didn’t make it.

`But we have so many talented girls on this team now. It’s
unbelievable.’

***

Al Fong still kids Armine about the day Courtney McCool’s parents
brought her into the gym in Blue Springs.

`She wouldn’t take the time to even look at her,’ Al said, the
recollection as fresh as the moment it took place six years ago.

`I’m working with my girls on beam now,’ Armine told him. `I don’t
have time now.’

Al tried to persist. Armine gave him one of those don’t-bother-me
looks.

`Everybody knows,’ Armine explained, `if I’m on beam, don’t
interrupt. Unless it’s my mom on the phone, calling in an emergency.’

Al Fong couldn’t blame Armine. McCool didn’t look like the gymnast
that friends had said was better than one of his most seasoned elites
– not Humphrey, Fong said, although he wouldn’t put a name to the
comparison.

`Her mom and dad came in with this little kid,’ Al Fong remembered.
`Her hair was really long. She had oversized sweats on. Oversized
baggy pants.

`She walked into this place looking like a walking, talking bowling
ball.

`I’m looking at her and going, `This is a joke, right? This has to be
a joke.’ They’re comparing her with one of my better ones?’

But a promise of an evaluation was a promise.

`Honey,’ he said to McCool, `can you go over here and do some warming
up?’

Immediately, Al said, he saw a difference. This little girl’s posture
was perfect. Her flexibility was perfect.

`When she pointed her toe,’ he said, `it was perfect.

Still, she was a bit stocky.

`She had no neck,’ Al said, a point of genetics that has become
something of a running joke around the national gymnastics scene.

`Her neck is getting longer,’ national team camp director Bela
Karolyi said recently.

Then Al Fong had McCool do some jumps, simple ones, as a
compulsory-level gymnast might before. Some leaps.

`Oh my goodness!’ Fong said. `All of a sudden, this little, stocky
thing turned into this beauty.’

Fong nearly ran over to Armine. Was rebuffed. Ran back to McCool and
sat her down for a talk. And Al Fong liked what he heard.

`She still didn’t look like she was a gymnast that you would say,
`OK, she’s going to go to the Olympics someday,’ ’ Al said.

But …

`I could tell that she had serious goals. She had never lost a meet.
Ever. She was used to being No. 1. That thing in her eyes, you could
see that she intended to be the best in the world.’

***

A year ago at this time, Courtney McCool was competing at the junior
national level. She wasn’t on the national radar screen.

That changed at the 2004 Visa American Cup, where she earned a trip
to the Athens Test Event. Winning the gold medal there changed
everything.

`She is not the same person,’ Bela Karolyi said. `Just a little
thing. People look at her and say that is not a world-class gymnast.
And then she starts to move. That passion. She is completely
together. She is so strong. It is amazing.’

McCool breaks into a smile almost as wide as she is tall at the
repetition of such comments. But she hasn’t changed, she contends.

`I’ve always thought of myself as equal to everyone else,’ McCool
said.

She proved it by rallying from a fall and finishing fourth at the
2004 U.S. Nationals. She proved it again at the U.S. Olympic trials,
where she finished second and was chosen to the Olympic team along
with Courtney Kupets.

`My dad always tells me to go out there and kick butt,’ McCool said.
`That would be his words, `kick butt.’

`My mom tells me, `Do your best. You can do it. I know you
can.’ ’

Linda McCool – seemingly as taut and trim as her daughter from strict
diet, running, lifting weights and the like – and Courtney share a
special determination upon which Courtney says she feeds.

`If my mom’s not there,’ Courtney said recently, `I’m not all there.’

***

Terin Humphrey thought, after a fall forward to her knee on her final
vault of the Olympic Trials in Anaheim, that she might have blown her
chance at the Olympic team.

`I didn’t want to admit it then,’ she said that night. `But it was
there.’

The mistake dropped Humphrey from fourth in the trials standings to
seventh. She had to sweat out a final evaluation camp at the Karolyi
Ranch in mid-July. And not until she heard Martha Karolyi announce
her name, right after that of Courtney Kupets, Courtney McCool and
Carly Patterson, could Humphrey do more than hold herself on the
aluminum bleachers deep in the nothing heart of Texas an hour or so
north of Houston.

`I think I started crying,’ Humphrey said.

Finally, she was an Olympian, a dream held for longer than Terin
Humphrey can remember.

Certainly, it came after the earliest days, when she used to climb
the drawers of her dresser to switch on the lights in her bedroom.

`I think I was about 2 or 3 when I did that,’ she said.

Lisa Humphrey, Terin’s mom, remembers knowing something was up when
all got quiet in the back seat of the family car.

`If it got quiet back there,’ Lisa said, `you knew you had to pull
over to put her back in her car seat.’

That same little girl now drives her own car, a street-ready if not
collector’s vintage electric blue 1966 Mustang. And she apparently
drives it a bit fast at times.

Last week, her father, Steve, mentioned a special reason that his
daughter was excited about receiving a ceremonial key to Bates City,
the tiny town (population 245, according to the entrance sign) to
which the Humphreys moved from Albany, Mo., so Terin could realize
her Olympic dream.

`She’s hoping,’ her dad said, `it will mean she can get out of any
speeding tickets.’

***

Courtney McCool will have a strong personal cheering section when the
women’s team gymnastics competition begins on Aug. 15 in Athens.
Mother Linda, father Mike will definitely be there. Maybe, at the
last minute, brother Michael will be able to go.

Terin Humphrey’s mom and dad will be there. So will her brother,
Shannon.

Armine Barutyan Fong and Al Fong will be there for every minute of
training. During competition, hopefully alternating days with Evgeny
Murchenko, personal coach of Patterson, Armine anticipates being one
of two official coaches allowed on the competition floor. And Al will
be nearby, perhaps in the stands, with his cell phone.

Front and center, leaping and tumbling, twirling and vaulting, trying
to balance the Olympic dreams that are now a reality, will be those
two little girls who so long ago walked into the gym at the Great
American Gymnastic Express.

– Event: Gymnastics

– KC-area connection: McCool lives in Lee’s Summit and Humphrey lives
in Bates City, Mo. Both train in Blue Springs at the Great American
Gymnastics Express.

– When are they competing? Beginning Aug. 15, with team finals Aug.
17 and individual all-around finals Aug. 19

– What’s their story? McCool finished second to national co-champion
Courtney Kupets at the U.S. Olympic trials in late June. Humphrey
made up for her disappointing trials by securing her Olympic berth at
a last-chance evaluation camp near Houston in July. Making up
one-third of the six-woman team, the two were tapped as
all-arounders.

Noyan Tapan, Armenia
Aug 9 2004

Armenian Church Among Five Bombed over Weekend in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Combined Sources)–The Armenian Apostolic Church condemned
on Monday the weekend wave of bomb attacks on
an Armenian Catholic church and four other Christian worship sites in
Iraq that left 11 people dead and more than 50 others wounded. The
series of coordinated explosions rocked five churches across Baghdad
and the northern city of Mosul on Sunday, killing at least 11 people
and injuring dozens more in the first attacks targeting the country’s
Christian minority since the 15-month violent insurgency here began.

The attacks began just after 18:00 local time, when an attack parked
a vehicle packed with explosives and mortar bombs in front of an
Armenian church in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad. The blast,
just 15 minutes into the evening service, blew out windows and
damaged cars and nearby houses. Some 20 minutes later, as survivors
gathered in the streets and rescue workers streamed to the scene, a
second blast occurred in front of the Assyrian Catholic church only
500 meters away.

There was no word on whether there were any Armenians among the dead.
“I saw injured women and children and men, the church’s glass
shattered everywhere,” Juliette Agob, a woman who was inside the
Armenian church during the first explosion, was quoted by the
Associated Press as saying. The church’s governing Mother See in
Etchmiadzin, said although none of its churches and other property in
Iraq was targeted in the apparently coordinated series of explosions
on Sunday, it is deeply saddened by the loss of life. “The Armenian
Apostolic Holy Church expresses her sympathies to the families of the
victims and all Iraqi people, and wishes complete recovery to the
wounded and injured,” the office of Catholicos Garegin II said in a
statement. “We pray that the centuries of friendship and peaceful
co-existence among Christian and Muslim peoples in the East will not
be endangered by similar condemnable violence; for peace to be
re-established in the region; and that the Iraqi people continue with
the creation of their safe and progressing lives.”

“I saw wounded women and children and men, the church’s glass
shattered everywhere. There’s glass all over the floor,” said
Juliette Agob, who was inside the Armenian church during the first
explosion.

After the second bombing, Iraqi police rushed to search other
churches in the city. The sweeps turned up a sixth bomb, which was
neutralized by American sappers. However, as police hunted for more
bombs, two more explosions occurred, one outside the Chaldean
Patriarchate in the southern district of Dora and the other in New
Baghdad in the eastern part of the city.

The attack on the Chaldean Patriarchate occurred as worshippers began
arriving for Mass around sunset. Five people were killed, including a
child. The LA Times quoted witnesses who described seeing two men
pull up in separate cars, park them near the church, then casually
walk away. Minutes later, the vehicles exploded, hurling shrapnel in
all directions and leaving gaping craters in the road.

The apparent target of the attack in New Baghdad was St. Elya’s
Chaldean Church. However, a nearby Shiite mosque bore the brunt of
the blast. Both the mosque and the church were holding funerals at
the time of the attacks. In the Mosul attack, insurgents parked a
white Toyota Supra packed with explosives and mortar shells outside a
Catholic church. The assailants first launched a rocket toward the
building and then detonated the car bomb, according to a US military
statement. The blast killed a passing motorist and wounded four other
people. The church office was badly damaged, but there was little
damage to the church itself. Police said the toll could have been
higher if all the mortar shells in the car had detonated. The attacks
all used similar modus operandi; carbombs filled with explosives and
crude bombs made of mortar shells were parked in front of the
churches.

The drivers left the vehicles and detonated the explosives by remote
control. None of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers. The
methods and materials used were a departure from the high-profile
attacks on Shiite targets earlier this year, leading some experts to
believe they were carried out by a different group.

Numbering some 750,000, the minority Christians were already
concerned about the growing tide of Islamic fundamentalism, so long
repressed under Saddam Hussein. The majority of the Christians are
Chaldean Roman Catholic, the rest Syrian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox
and Assyrian. Most live in Baghdad and its outskirts and some dwell
further to the north. Islamic radicals have warned Christians running
liquor stores to shut down their businesses, and have turned their
sights on fashion stores and beauty salons. The increasing attention
on this minority community has many within looking for a way out.
Many are in neighboring Jordan and Syria waiting for the security
situation to settle, while others have applied to leave the country.

La Nouvelle République du Centre Ouest
06 août 2004

Danses et musiques d’Arménie

Dans le cadre du festival de Confolens Monts-sur-Guesnes vient
d’accueillir l’ensemble folklorique arménien « Bert » d’Erevan,
groupe constitué en 1963 pour conserver et restituer de façon vivante
le folklore de son pays.

Fougueuses danses des hardis montagnards ou évolutions gracieuses des
jeunes filles, danses paysannes, danses des pêcheurs, chansons
exprimant la peine et les combats du peuple ou la nostalgie de
l’exilé, instruments de musique aux sons étonnants, superbes
costumes, sans oublier le talent des danseurs et musiciens… Une
nouvelle fois, les quelques 2000 personnes qui s’étaient rassemblées
sur la place du Chteau ont pu apprécier un spectacle d’une grande
qualité, a tel point que les quelques gouttes de pluie qui sont
venues se mêler à la fête lors du final, n’ont en rien diminué les
longs et chaleureux applaudissements qui ont salué la prestation de
cet ensemble.

Après ce spectacle, un grand feu d’artifice musical illuminait le
ciel montois de milliers d’étoiles multicolores, véritable bouquet
final à cette soirée concoctée de main de maître par toute une équipe
composée essentiellement de bénévoles.