THE BASIC CONCLUSION
Hayots Ashkharh Daily
19 Aug 2008
Armenia
What conclusion must Armenia draw from Georgian-Ossian "four-
days" war?
Political scientist Davit Babayan believes: "The key conclusion must
be the maintenance of our army like an apple of an eye, as well as
the development of democracy. One thing must be clear for us, the
military efficiency of Artsakh army is the number 1 factor of the
maintenance of ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh."
IN EARLY 2009 ARMENIA AND IRAN ARE EXPECTED TO AGREE ON TERMS OF PARTICIPATION OF IRANIAN COMPANIES IN CONSTRUCTION OF WATER POWER PLANT ON ARAX RIVER
arminfo
2008-08-20 18:08:00
ArmInfo. In early 2009 Armenia and Iran are expected to agree on the
terms of participation of Iranian companies in the construction of
water power plant on Arax River, Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah
said during a meeting with Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsissyan.
IRNA reports that during the meeting the ministers discussed
prospects of bilateral cooperation in the energy sector and the
military-political situation on Armenia’s borders.
Fattah said that Iran gave high priority to the development of its
trade-economic relations with Armenia and was concerned over the
last events in Georgia, which had aggravated the military-political
situation on Armenia’s borders and in the whole Caucasus. Iran believes
that peace and security are the key prerequisites for the development
of normal political and economic relations in the region.
The Armenian-Iranian energy cooperation is developing quite
successfully.
The Iranian side is already finalizing the projects of a dam and a
reservoir in Meghri and a water power plant on Arax River.
The construction of Arax WPP will be a large-scale joint energy
project. It may be started shortly provided that the sides secure
necessary financing.
Fattah pointed out that Iran was running increasingly short of
electricity because of strong drought and stoppage of water power
plants. In this light, Iran is ighly interested in increasing the
import of electricity from Armenia.
Movsissyan said that the war in Georgia had damaged some of the power
facilities (power transmission lines and gas pipeline) Armenia used
for importing and exporting energy.
Now Armenia is forced to search for other routes in order to ensure
the safety of its communications.
President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to visit Armenia in
early 2009. By that time the sides are planning to finalize the Arax
WPP project and to find necessary financing so that the Iranian and
Armenian leaders could sign an agreement on the terms of financial
and technical participation of Iranian companies in the project.
Movsissyan urged Iranian engineering and construction companies to take
a more active part in the construction of water works and power plants
in the territory of Armenia. He said that Armenia had big potential for
increasing the import of Iranian engineering and construction services.
NATIONAL YOUTH FOOTBALL TEAM OF ARMENIA TO PLAY AGAINST TURKISH TEAM IN YEREVAN ON AUGUST 20
Noyan Tapan
Au g 19, 2008
YEREVAN, AUGUST 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The national youth football team
of Armenia will play against the Turkish team at Yerevan’s "Hrazdan"
Stadium on August 20 (start at 9 pm) by the group tournement program
of the European Championship Qualifying Stage.
To recap, the Armenian team was included in 2nd group, it played 6
matches and in the 5 teams’ struggle took 4th place with 7 points.
The return match with the Turkish team is scheduled for September 10.
Hayots Ashkharh , Armenia
Aug 9 2008
The Georgian Blitzkrieg fails. This can become a lesson to Azerbaijan
as well
The Georgian army took control of two regions of South Ossetia and the
capital Tskhinvali in just a few hours as a result of a large-scale
attack initiated by Georgia on the night of 7-8 August.
The international community expressed an ambiguous approach to the
large-scale attack initiated by Georgia. Only a few standard
peace-loving statements were made. The debates at the UN General
Council, initiated at Russia’s demand, did not produce any
results. The Georgian authorities first announced to the whole world
that they were forced to take these actions – to put an end to
provocations in the conflict region.
Some time later such statements were replaced by explanations about
"restoring constitutional order" and "destroying the criminal
administration in Tskhinvali". Even Tbilisi’s intentions of providing
large financial aid to the South Ossetian population were announced.
But only in the first hours, in the afternoon of 8 August at about
1500-1600 [local time], sources in South Ossetia and Russia started to
report the retreat of the Georgian troops from the South Ossetian
capital Tskhinvali. The Georgian news agencies have not denied these
reports for the time being.
[Passage omitted: description of the Russian media behaviour while
covering the events]
Such a course of events shows that the Georgian Blitzkrieg, which was
initially quite successful, has already failed, and [Georgian
President Mikheil] Saakashvili’s administration is facing a difficult
dilemma. Georgia can still slow down the course of the hostilities by
announcing nationwide mobilization, but it is obvious that its
military defeat is predetermined.
Moreover, it is cannot be ruled out that units of South Ossetia and
the Russian volunteers who have joined them will occupy the Georgian
villages that are not controlled by Tskhinvali and even enter
Georgia’s territory. Besides, Abkhazia’s army has been mobilized and
has come closer to the border with Georgia. Its clash with the
Georgian troops is being prevented for the time by the peacekeepers
stationed in the area of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. Consequently,
only international intervention, first of all by the USA and the EU,
can get Georgia out of this situation with credit. However, to this
end the Georgian side should first of all halt the attack, withdraw
its detachments from South Ossetia, which is not the case for the time
being.
The hostilities, which started in South Ossetia, are of interest to
Armenia as this is the first serious attempt to settle a conflict in a
military way in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan also already masters the
political technologies and PR tools that were used in it.
The Azerbaijani government has repeatedly announced its intention to
settle the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict in a military way. Now that
Georgia initiated its first serious attempt to occupy South Ossetia on
the example of Serbian Krajina, the further behaviour of our neighbour
Azerbaijan will largely depend on its final results.
If South Ossetia, which is weaker than Nagornyy Karabakh, manages to
withstand this ordeal, the first attempt to turn the South Caucasus
into Balkans will fail, which cannot but serve as a lesson to
Azerbaijan as well.
Although the Armenian government is prudently maintaining its
neutrality in regard of the large-scale war started in South Ossetia,
it is clear that the issue of its outcome is of great importance to
Armenia. The military-political situation in the South Caucasus,
unlike that in the Balkans, shows that an attempt to exact revenge on
an opponent in a military way encounters counteraction from forces
interested in the region.
The hostilities that have started in South Ossetia are becoming a
peculiar "political text" in the issue of selecting peaceful or
military ways of settling conflicts in the South Caucasus. We hope
that the expected failure of Georgia’s attempt to solve the conflict
in a military way will become a lesson to Azerbaijan and will prevent
senseless attempts to solve political issues in a military way.
[translated from Armenian]
The participants of demonstration were arrested in Beijing
armradio.am
16.08.2008 17:54
Five activists of `Students for Tibet’s liberty’ organization have been
arrested in Beijing for organizing a demonstration. Two of them `
British and Canadian, climbed the building of TV-centre in Beijing and
pasted wallpapers `Freedom to Tibet’ written in English and Chinese.
The representative of Great Britain’s Embassy in China informed that
the British diplomats were in connections with the authorities of China
connected those events. It was noted that the British demonstrator will
be deported from China.
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT SENDS MESSAGE OF CONDOLENCES TO GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI
ARMENPRESS
Aug 14, 2008
YEREVAN, AUGUST 14, ARMENPRESS: Armenian President Serzh Sargsian
sent today a message of condolences to Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili. Presidential press service told Armenpress that the
message particularly says, "On behalf of Armenian people and myself
I express our true deep condolences on the death of many people
caused during the recent happenings in Georgia. Please convey our
true sympathy and support to the relatives and friends of the victims.
We want to see peace and restoration of stability in our neighbor
Georgia which is an important element of regional security. Armenia
is ready to provide necessary humanitarian assistance and solve the
issues which may occur."
"HIMA" ANNOUNCES ITS DECISION TO JOIN ARMENIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
Noyan Tapan
Au g 15, 2008
YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, NOYAN TAPAN. "Based on the necessity of making
crucial reforms in Armenia and increasing the role of the youth
in this issue, and being guided by the determination of People
Movement’s leaders to give a pivotal role to young forces, we state
that we support the Armenian National Congress, considering it an
evolutionary and victorious key point of People’ Movement and we
join this structure to bring this final stage of the struggle to a
successful finish and create a dignified and free Armenia," is said
in the August 15 statement of "Hima" youth initiative.
The authors of the statement see the only way to get the state out of
the inadmissible situation, which has formed as a result of systematic
violations of laws and the Constitution, in the consistent struggle
of People’s Movement.
MONGOLIA THE NEXT RISING STAR IN MEDALS PER CAPITA LIST
Los Angeles Times
5:38 PM, August 14, 2008
CA
Medals Per Capita adores getting all snooty at the snooty big countries
and lavishing attention on the chronically overlooked and, in that
vein, will take this opportunity to salute to the hilt one Mongolia.
Now, the proper noun "Mongolia" doesn’t tend to come up in day-to-day
American dinner conversation, but Medals Per Capita aspires to change
that by announcing that after Thursday’s results in Beijing, Mongolia
barged from No. 10 clear to No. 3 in the real rankings of the Olympics.
These rankings, of course, represent a rational, prudent, authentic
antidote to the thoughtless, sloppy, phony Medals Table, which simply
lists medals won and calls it a shiftless day. The top of the Medals
Table features some sort of fracas between China and the United States,
blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, plying standard ignorance to ignore that it’s
a lot more commendable to wring two Olympic medals from a population
of 2.9 million (Mongolia) than to get, oh, 35 from 1.3 billion (China)
or 34 from 303 million (United States).
Those "big two" are having some sort of snit because one side’s
gymnasts seem quite possibly 11 years old, while at least both have
ample agreeable weather — one even has a California in it — while
Mongolia, now…
Mongolians reside on soil seldom arable and in cold so remorseless
that Ulan Bator finishes No. 1 in the World’s Coldest Capital City
(WCCC) standings, so they would be 2,996,081 of the most rugged,
fibrous human beings on Earth, starting with Tuvshinbayar Naidan.
Naidan, a former wrestler, evidently threw a bunch of people around
the judo rink, reaped his nation’s first-ever gold medal and said to
reporters, "There are no words that can describe my happiness."
Medals Per Capita would like to agree, given MPC’s chronic fondness
for the sparsely populated. Why, Mongolia would be the most sparsely
populated independent country on Earth, 2,996,081 residing in space
roughly the size of Alaska, earning a description from Reuters as
"the windswept Central Asian nation," yet forging a glistening MPC
of 1,498,041.
That placed the Mongolians just behind the No. 2 Australians with all
their flip-flops and cute animals and swimming prowess, even while
both trail a gathering Armenian dynasty that’s getting serious here.
Armenia, another country of 2.9 million, coming off zero medals
in Athens that followed one in Sydney and two in Atlanta, suddenly
has hoarded four bronzes, the latest from Greco-Roman wrestler Yuri
Patrikeev in the 120-kg event. It romped to its third straight day of
MPC throne-sitting, and you could feel the entire MPC board shudder
— or at least I could — by a classic MPC intimidation that lowered
Armenia’s MPC from a dreamy 989,529 to a celestial 742,147.
The top 10 (with a special nod to Cuba, which finished third in Athens
MPC and is getting noisy in Beijing):
1. Armenia (4) – 742,147 2. Australia (16) – 1,287,554 3. Mongolia (2)
– 1,498,041 4. Georgia (3) – 1,543,614 5. Switzerland (4) – 1,895,380
6. Cuba (6) – 1,903,992 7. Slovenia (1) – 2,007,711 8. Azerbaijan
(4) – 2,044,429 9. The Netherlands (7) – 2,377,902 10. Hungary (4)
– 2,482,729
Selected Others:
15. South Korea (16) – 3,077,053 22. France (15) – 4,270,519 23. Italy
(13) – 4,472,717 34. United States (34) – 8,936,019 36. Russia (14)
– 10,050,150 40. Spain (2) – 20,245,526 43. China (35) – 38,001,274
46. Brazil (4) – 47,977,146 50. Mexico (1) – 109,955,400 52. India
(1) – 1,147,995,898
Check the first-day listings, led by Australia, here. And further
updates here and here.
–Chuck Culpepper
Culpepper is a contributor to The Times.
AFTER 15 YEARS IN GEORGIA, UNT PROFESSOR LEAVES ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE AMID BOMBING
By Anna M. [email protected]
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Aug. 13, 2008
TX
You know it’s summer when chupacabra shows up Seat belts could have
saved many in bus crash, official says
Despite the jets flying overhead and the sound of constant bombing,
UNT professor Reid Ferring didn’t want to leave Georgia.
But after a bomb blast knocked him out of bed near his archaeological
site in southern Georgia on Monday, he knew that he needed to leave
his research project on medieval ruins and temporarily stop his work
on building a cooperative relationship between the Georgian National
Museum and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.
"We knew things were hot, and we had been hearing Russian jets
overhead. But the bomb that shook me out of my bed was a signal
that there was some danger," said Ferring, a geology and archaeology
professor at the University of North Texas and a board member of the
Fort Worth museum. "They were bombing all over the country."
He contacted the U.S. Embassy and ultimately joined a caravan of four
buses and 25 to 30 private vehicles on a five-hour drive south across
the border to Armenia. There he caught a flight to Munich, Germany,
and then to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on Tuesday night, wrapping up
about 50 hours of travel.
Ferring is among 170 Americans evacuated from Georgia as fighting
between Russian and Georgian troops escalated after the outbreak last
week in Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia.
"We knew days before that things were steaming up," said Ferring,
60, who has worked on and off in Georgia on this project since the
early 1990s. "They were lobbing shells across the border into Georgia."
But he continued his research on the oldest archaeological sites
outside Africa — this one being Dmanisi in south Georgia, 1.75
million years old.
"After the ground invasion began, they said we needed to get out,"
he said Wednesday.
UNT officials called Ferring late last week after a computer system
set up to track students and professors notified them that he was
in Georgia.
They reached him on the phone by Friday afternoon and started working
on backup plans in case he couldn’t reach the U.S. Embassy in the
capital, Tbilisi, about 135 miles away, or needed emergency help.
"We got lucky," said Eric Canny, UNT’s director of international
initiatives, who worked with Ferring. "We didn’t need the fallback
plans. We were ecstatic knowing he was on his way back."
"I had mixed feelings about leaving," Ferring said from his home in
Denton. "I wanted to get out, but part of me wanted to stay there
with my Georgian friends, to show them that Americans do care.
"I’ve been working there for 15 years and have a lot of friends
there. All of them were saying, ‘Where’s America? Why aren’t you
helping us?’ What could I say?"
Just that he would be back, but perhaps not until next summer.
"I’ll go back as soon as I can," he said. "At this point, I’m just
terrified of what the final situation is going to be in Georgia.
"I’ve watched it from a newly free state to a country that is building
new roads, schools, hospitals and truly becoming an emerging democracy
and an ally of the U.S.," he said. "I hope that system is preserved."
Q&A: PROFESSOR M. STEVE FISH COMMENTS ON RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN CONFLICT
By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
UC Berkeley
13 August 2008
CA
BERKELEY – Tensions appear to be mounting in the continuing violent
conflict between Russia and Georgia that began last Thursday over
the separatist Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The
number of dead exceeded 2,000 and the number of Georgian refugees
was more than 30,000 within a few days.
M.Steve Fish Georgia borders the Black Sea between Russia and
Turkey. It was ruled by Moscow for almost 200 years before the Soviet
Union’s breakup in 1991. Russia has backed the separatist movements
in Georgia of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
M. Steven Fish, a UC Berkeley professor of political science, has
written extensively about contemporary Russian history and culture and
answers below some basic questions about the situation in Georgia. He
also has a video presentation about Russian autocracy on YouTube.
He also is among a few of UC Berkeley’s experts available to talk
about the clash between Georgia and Russia.
Q. Can a cease-fire hold?
A. Since so many conflicts in the contemporary world are between
stateless entities, observers of world politics have come to regard
"cease fire" as a virtually meaningless, made-to-be-broken rule,
but in the conflict between Russia and Georgia, we’re talking about
two states and two national military organizations.
It is definitely in the best interests of both countries to adhere
to a cease fire, hopefully sooner rather than later.
The Russians might not want to be seen as violating a cease-fire they
agreed to; and the Georgians might want to adhere to the cease first
because the Russians showed that they were willing and able to tear
Georgia apart, so for Georgia to violate any cease-fire agreement
would verge on national suicide. On the other hand, the Russian
government might want to demonstrate — to Georgia, other neighbors,
the world as a whole, and its own people — that it will act at will,
unconstrainted by law and formal agreements, even those it has signed.
Here we see the arrogance of the aggrieved, insecure great power that
seeks to demonstrate its might by thumbing its nose at international
disapproval. If the Russians choose this path, they won’t be alone;
such a posture has characterized the Bush administration’s mentality
and actions ever since 2001.
Q. What are the prospects for peace?
A. The prospects for a lasting, truly peaceful settlement are dim
because of the national antagonism between Russians and Georgians
(the people, not just the governments); the untenability in political
and legal terms of the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (formally
part of Georgia but de facto annexed by Russia); and the Russian
government’s deeply-rooted, long-term intention of reestablishing
dominion (not full formal control, but very extensive influence)
over the south Caucasus (meaning Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan).
Q. How might presidential politics in the United States impact what
happens between Russia and Georgia?
A. Some of the prospects for peace rest on what happens in the United
States in November. Bush and McCain have both eagerly sought a new
Cold War with Russia, and part of their policy has been forming an
intimate, almost client-like relationship with Georgia.
Absent that kind of relationship with the United States (and I
think a Democratic president would be much more savvy and much less
confrontational in relations with Russia), no Georgian government
will engage in the kind of antics that this one did by launching
the (legally justifiable but politically idiotic) military play for
South Ossetia.