Small Wonder
by Emily Bearn

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 16, 2004, Sunday

When Charles Aznavour started singing, no one thought he’d last long.
At 5 ft 3 in, he seemed an unlikely pop idol, and one of his vocal
chords was rumoured to have been paralysed. As one critic wrote: “To
put oneself before the public with such a voice and such a physique is
pure folly.” It has proven to be one of the most magnificent follies
of all time. Sixty years down the line, Aznavour’s melancholy love
ballads have spawned sales of more than 100 million records. He
has houses in Geneva and St Tropez, he has had relationships with
Edith Piaf and Liza Minnelli, and it takes him 52 days a year to sift
through his fan mail. His devouringly raspish voice has made him one
of the world’s greatest music-hall troubadors and few quibbled when,
in 1998, Time magazine pronounced him “The Entertainer of the Century”.

He has frequently expressed his indifference to fame (“I am not a star,
I am just the man next door”), and his dressing-room at the Palais des
Congres in Paris betrays few trappings of it. The room is furnished
with a couple of hard chairs and an antiquated television, while his
dressing-table is bare save for a photograph of his grandchildren.

He says he does not wear make-up on stage, as it makes him look like
“a Peking duck”. As it is, he is dressed in a brown tweed suit and
his shortness is striking, but less so when he is standing against
his manager, who comes up to his shoulder: “He is shorter than me,
but don’t write that!” he pleads, hissing with delight. “I don’t want
him going craz-eee!” Aznavour himself appears to have no qualms about
his height: “I tried elevator shoes once, in America,” he recalls.
“But they were stupid. I felt like an idiot. A taller idiot.”

Aznavour claims to be unsure of his English, yet he appears to be as
fluent as the melancholy prose of his lyrics – as he muses in one song,
“You’ve got to leave the table when love’s no longer being served”,
and his conversation is strikingly practical. It gallops between
the iniquities of French taxation – he is furious that he is not
allowed to offset the cost of the handkerchiefs he drops on stage
during his signature song, La Boheme – with the career prospects of
his grand-children.

Oh, come on Charles! Parlez-moi d’amour! But as he politely explains,
that is not his wont: “People believe that in life I am somebody who
talks like I write, but it’s not true. I talk like anybody else.”

In France he is known as the “love pixie”, but he doesn’t entirely
act the part. He is effortlessly charming – his face animated with
what at times looks like a suppressed giggle – but his immediate
concerns seem to be less with love than with survival. He tells me
he would like to be remembered as “the oldest man in the world” and
enthusiastically outlines his dietary regime. Breakfast is a 10in
baguette, cheese on one side, jam on the other. Lunch is cooked,
dinner is cold, and occasionally taken with one-and-a-half glasses
of wine. “I’ve been a good drinker,” he explains. “I used to go out
every night; and I used to smoke four packets of cigarettes a day,
but now I tread water in the pool for 30 minutes every morning.”

His boulevardier days may be over, but he still appears as vital as
a cheetah. At times he seems so resonant with energy that I marvel he
can endure our 58 minutes sitting still. He still performs regularly,
and is about to give one of a series of 24 concerts held to mark his
80th birthday next Saturday (he looks nearer 60). It is only 90 minutes
before the curtain rises on an audience of 3,800, which Aznavour,
accompanied by a 20-piece orchestra, will entertain for two hours.

It is a prospect that does not appear to unnerve him: “I shave,
I change my suit, and then I am ready,” he says. “One of the good
things about getting old is that the critics run out of things to
criticise. What can they say any more? All my concerts are sold out.
I have become a sacred cow.”

The pandemonium outside suggests that this is so. A dozen or so
young Frenchwomen are at the stage door, clamouring for an autograph;
at the entrance a queue snakes around the block, hoping for ticket
returns. When the doors finally open, there is a further stampede for
the concert-hall shop, which swiftly sells out of T-shirts and posters.

I later watched the show, in which Aznavour left little doubt that he
is still worth queueing for. He performed 21 songs without a hint of
flagging, his voice so forceful that his three back-up singers were
rendered virtually inaudible. For his more doleful songs, he simply
cradled his microphone; during the faster ones he cavorted around
the stage like a tap-dancer.

He has a strong female following, but the audience was at least
half-male and, for the most part, fairly venerable. The woman on my
left looked about 50; the man on my right was nearer 90. Either way,
he was greeted with youthful fervour. He bowed out to a six-minute
standing ovation and a shower of red roses.

Since the passing of Piaf, it is Aznavour who has probably done most
to keep the tradition of the French chanson alive. His songs range
from cliched evocations of lost love to more off-beat themes, such
as a husband lamenting that his wife is fat. One of his most famous
songs is She, which reached number one in Britain in 1974 and, more
recently, was used in a cover version by Elvis Costello as the theme
to Notting Hill. His songs are wistful, but he rebuts the suggestion
that they are sad: “They are realistic. But they can be a little
melancholic. I was a visionary in that I believed that the chanson
had to change and be more personal. I came up with things nobody had
written before. Nobody had the guts to do so, and I’m proud of that.”

Until 1960, several of his songs were considered sufficiently risque to
be banned by French radio. The biggest rumpus came in the 1950s when,
years before gay liberation, he scandalised France with a lament about
a struggling homosexual. “Every time people wrote about homosexuality,
they were making fun,” he says. “It was a form of segregation and
I hate segregation. I’m not a homosexual, but someone had to defend
them.”

He says that he has not lived through all the anguish conveyed in his
lyrics (“If I had, I’d be mad”) although he has certainly weathered
the odd romantic gale. He has had three wives, and his relationships
include an affair with Liza Minnelli when she was 17. “Of course I
had some love affairs with known or unknown people,” he concedes. His
eyes suddenly light with mischief: “But I am a man who will never
talk about that. Some of my girlfriends might have children, or maybe
husbands, so it’s not nice to talk about it. I am a very discreet
man.” He is clearly also a playful one. At times he looks as naive
as a choirboy, but he appears to remain fairly confident of his adult
appeal. When I allude to his womanising days he dismisses the subject
with a nonchalant shrug, as though I were enquiring after something
as mundane as his latest cold.

The actress and singer Juliette Greco once commented that he was also
“a man of extremely stormy and unhappy love affairs. Women adore
Charles, and it’s perfectly natural”. What does he think they see in
him? “I’m not fresh enough to know,” he says, adding that he might
have been more forthcoming had I asked him 20 years earlier. Today,
he is disarmingly modest as to his selling points: “What is love?
Beauty is not the only thing in life – money, power, intelligence,
humour – those are forms of beauty, too. I am known, and that appeals
to people.”

Among those to whom he appealed before he became famous was his
mentor, Edith Piaf, with whom he lived in the 1950s for several
years. He served as her chauffeur, handyman and bottle-washer but
not, as he has repeatedly stressed, her lover. “We were very close.
We had less than love, but more than friendship.

“I learned everything from her. I learned that you must do your work
with love, not because you have to do it. I learned how you have to be
humble on stage, too. I am not a star, I’m a craftsman. And I learned
that from Piaf.” She also persuaded him to have his nose fixed. “It
had been broken when I was a child and I trusted her that this might
improve it.”

He gets upset at some of the rumours fanned about Piaf. She was not
a drug addict (“only things to help her sleep”), and she never peed
on the floor, but he admits that she wasn’t deft with a duster. “She
was terrible with housework. Terrible. She couldn’t cook an egg. But
she had nothing, so there wasn’t much mess. She just had a piano and
a bed.” And an awful lot of clothes: “She used to buy lots of hats,
which she never wore. And when she was in love she’d buy new dresses.
She didn’t wear those, either.”

Like Piaf, who called herself his “sister of the pavement”, Aznavour
was poor. His parents were Armenian actor-singers who fled to Paris
shortly before his birth to escape massacre by the Turks. He made
his stage debut at the Theatre du Petit Monde, at the age of nine.
“People say that they put me on the stage, but I put myself there. It
was natural. It was what I wanted to do.”

At 10 years old he was singing in nightclubs, but it was not until
he started touring with Piaf in his thirties that he discovered the
sort of popularity he now enjoys. He had his first solo success in
Casablanca, which was swiftly followed by top billing at the Moulin
Rouge. “When I started, my height was a disadvantage,” he concedes.
“Everything was. But I proved that even with my kind of voice, with
my kind of look, and as the son of an immigrant, I could make it.
That’s the lesson I give to people.”

He tells me twice that he is “a happy man”, and he certainly looks
it. He attributes this less to his commercial success than to his
third wife, Ulla, a former Swedish toothpaste model who is 17 years
his junior. They married in Las Vegas in 1967 with Petula Clark as
matron-of-honour. Nearly four decades on, they are living “quietly,
and perhaps a little boringly” in Switzerland. For one of her recent
birthdays, he gave her a vacuum cleaner: “She likes to have one in
every room, so I thought it would please her.”

How does she please him? “Because she sees me as Charles Aznavour,
the family man, not Aznavour, the singer. We store my music trophies
in the basement.”

By now it is after 7pm, and fans are converging on the Palais des
Congres to hear the family man sing. Perhaps after 750 songs and
the sale of his 100 millionth record, Aznavour might have started
making plans for his retirement. “Not yet,” he says, bustling down
the corridor in search of his toy-sized manager. “I used to work 24
hours a day, but now I work only 12, so I’m on half-time. But if I
worked any less, I’d die of inactivity.”

Charles Aznavour is in concert at the Palais des Congres, Paris,
until Saturday

Iran, Armenia Sign Agreement on Gas Main Construction

RIA OREANDA
Economic Press Review
May 16, 2004 Sunday

An agreement on construction of a gas pipeline Iran-Armenia was
signed on Thursday. The agreement was signed by Energy Minister
of Armenia Armen Movsesyan and Irani Minister of Petroleum Bijan
Namdar-Zanganeh. According to the agreement, Iran is to supply 1.1bn
cubic meters of natural gas annually, and Armenia is to pay for it
with electric energy. Presumably, the supply volume will be further
increased to 2bn cubic meters per year. Companies to take part in
the project’s execution are to be singled out by means of a tender.
Earlier, the Armenian part had meant to participate in the project
designed by Gazprom and Ukrainian companies. Building of the gas
pipeline will cost the Armenian part about $90mln, and the Irani one
– $120mln.

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part A (Russia)
May 17, 2004, Monday

THE CAUCASUS FRACTURE

SOURCE: Rodnaya Gazeta, No. 18, May 14, 2004, p. 12

by Stanislav Tarasov

The geopolitical intrigue in the Caucasus related to Adzharia had a
different outcome to what many Russian analysts had assumed. Aslan
Abashidze, who was drifting from a position of armed confrontation
with Tbilisi (blowing up the border bridges) to attempts to solve the
problem by political and diplomatic means, finally had to leave
Batumi. The forces that wanted to retain control over the routes for
transportation of Caspian oil to foreign markets by any means with
assistance of Abashidze were defeated. This happened as a result of
intensive consultations of Moscow, Tbilisi and Washington.

Very few people know what kind arguments the parties used in the
course of these very rapid negotiations. But judging by the reaction
of Tbilisi, which emphasizes the constructive personal role of
Vladimir Putin in a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Adzharia, it
is possible to guess that Moscow has managed to achieve some
opportunities for building up its new policy in the Caucasus.

There was a kind of mystic aspect in this situation too and President
of Georgia Saakashvili hinted at it. In Batumi he told journalists,
“I believe the forebodings.” It seemed that Vladimir Putin decided
not to darken his inauguration with a local armed conflict between
Tbilisi and Batumi.

Of course, Tbilisi is triumphing and already announces its readiness
to restore its control over Sukhumi and Tskhinvali. In any case,
majority of analysts presume that it will hardly be possible to solve
these problems according to the scenario of “revolution of roses.” If
Tbilisi uses armed force, appearance of new zones of armed
confrontation in the Caucasus is inevitable and the entire Caucasus
region may start burning in this case. Although this may seem
strange, neither Moscow nor the West cannot offer a “quick-action
vaccine” to the warring parties now that can cure them from the
existing and dormant centuries-long local territorial and
inter-ethnic conflicts. Despite the victory of Tbilisi in Adzharia,
the situation in the region embracing the territory between the
Caspian and Black seas remains very explosive. Events on this
territory can develop according to their own geopolitical logic that
does not take into account the established borders between the
states.

We need to mention another mysterious coincidence connected with the
first days of Vladimir Putin second term in office: the murder of
President Akhmad Kadyrov of Chechnya. Some Western analysts are
linking the issues of Abashidze and Kadyrov, saying that Russia is
allegedly losing its influence in the Caucasus. If the opposition in
Armenia manages to at least influence the government’s foreign
policy, if not to replace the ruling regime, it will be possible to
speak about closing the “Caucasus circle.”

But the question now is this: has Moscow suffered a defeat in the
Caucasus, or is this a case of Russia shaping a new policy doctrine
in this region?

Back in 1919 and 1920, serious debates were going on in the Kremlin:
is it necessary to bind the Caucasus to the mainland or to create a
“sanitary cordon” in the region? For instance, former Colonel of the
Tsarist General Staff Alexeev, who was a military attache of Soviet
Ambassador to Tbilisi Sergei Kirov, wrote the following in his
analytical report: “It is necessary to take into account the historic
experience of Russia’s ownership of the Caucasus. The first option is
not to interfere in the affairs of the Caucasus, to let the processes
develop in a natural way and to deal with the strong afterwards. The
second option is to divide the sphere of influence in this region
with neighboring Turkey and Iran and the West, and to indicate our
presence in the region primarily by economic means. The third option
is to conquer the region by military force: but in this case the
Caucasus will make itself known again in the event of another Russian
geopolitical fracture.”

It is known that the Bolsheviks chose the third option. But it seems
that Vladimir Putin has decided to deviate from Bolshevism in his
policy in the Caucasus. The first and the second scenarios of Colonel
Alexeev have been brought into play. This means that in case of
another fire in the Caucasus, we will no longer need to intervene to
pull anyone else’s chestnuts out of the fire.

Translated by Pavel Pushkin

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 17, 2004, Monday

ILKHAM ALIYEV IS PREPARED TO RECOVER KARABAKH

SOURCE: Izvestia (Moscow), May 14, 2004, p. 1

by Maxim Yusin

IS AZERBAIJAN PREPARED TO RESUME A WAR FOR KARABAKH?

Azerbaijan intends to resume a dispute over Nagorny Karabakh. This is
the essence of a statement made by President Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan at a ceremony of opening of a new military unit in
Nakhichevan.

Aliyev stated: “The Azerbaijani people and the army may at any moment
make moves aimed at restoring the territorial integrity of the state.
International laws let us do this. Azerbaijan will try to solve the
Karabakh conflict by means of negotiations. If we see that the
dialogue is fruitless we will liberate occupied territories at any
price.”

Aliyev announced these threats on May 12, the tenth anniversary of
cease-fire agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In addition,
Aliyev knew that Armenian President Robert Kocharyan would visit
Moscow on Friday. Baku sent a signal to Moscow and Yerevan:
Azerbaijan is not satisfied with the progress of settling of the
Karabakh conflict.

Are Aliyev’s threats serious?

Is Azerbaijan prepared for resuming a war for Karabakh? Such
prospects are unlikely despite Ilham Aliyev’s bellicose statements.

The majority of experts state that the Azerbaijani Army is not
prepared for defeating Armenian units. Of course, the ratio of force
has changed over the past ten years. Azerbaijan has been spending a
substantial part of oil export revenues on the modernization of its
army. At present it’s much stronger than in 1992-1994. Meanwhile, no
one can guarantee that it can win a victory in a war against Armenia.
It is evident that Armenia will use all reserves to help Nagorny
Karabakh. The point is that Armenian President Robert Kocharyan was
born in Stepanakert and headed the state defense committee in Nagorny
Karabakh in 1992-1994.

No one needs this war

It is hardly likely that the war will break out because Azerbaijan
does not need it.

A new armed conflict will be disastrous for the regional economy.
Azerbaijan’s oil sector will become a victim of this war. Foreign
investment will go down. The war will pose a threat to oil pipelines.

It would be advantageous for Ilham Aliyev to unleash this war if
something threatened his positions, and the army and the special
service were unreliable. A “small victorious war” would unite the
nation and improve the leader’s popularity.

However, all this does not concern Aliyev. His regime is very stable.
This means that it’s senseless to run such risk. It shouldn’t be
forgotten that Ilham Aliyev’s predecessors (Ayaz Mutalibov and
Abulfaz Elchibei) were dismissed because of military failures.

Baku’s demarche is a sign for Moscow

To all appearance, Aliyev’s statements in Nakhichevan are a
propagandistic shot in a verbal war. Baku is dissatisfied with the
performance of the Minsk OSCE group, which consists of Russia, France
and the US, and plays the role of an intermediary in settling of the
Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijan is sure that it plays its role
unsuccessfully.

The government of Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated that the conflict
has not been stopped, negotiations do not advance, and seven
Azerbaijani regions remain under Armenia’s control. This means that 1
million refugees from the conflict zone cannot return home. Baku
thinks that the conflict has not been settled yet because of Russia’s
passivity. It seems that Moscow is satisfied with the current state
of affairs.

Ilham Aliyev hints that Azerbaijan cannot put up with such a
situation. If the process of negotiations does not move off dead
center he is prepared to start a diplomatic attack.

Armenian Army

50,000 servicemen, $79 million (4% of GDP)

The Ground Force has four motorized infantry brigades, ten detached
infantry regiments, one artillery brigade, two anti-aircraft
brigades. In addition, the Armenian Army has air, anti-aircraft,
reconnaissance and military engineering units.

Azerbaijani Army

70,000 servicemen, $140 million (2.6% of GDP)

The Armed Forces of Azerbaijan are stronger that the armies of
Armenia and Georgia. They consist of the Ground Force, the Navy and
the Air and Anti-Aircraft Force. The Azerbaijani Army has a huge
arsenal of ammunition inherited from the USSR. The Azerbaijani Army
received 230 tanks, 360 armored personnel carriers, 200 artillery
complexes, combat helicopters, 11 Su-25r assault planes, five
MiG-25RB interceptors and one Su-25 assault plane from arsenals of
the 4th army of the Soviet Armed Forces. Military experts think that
Azerbaijan seeks to create the strongest army in the region. The
command is prepared to deploy troops consisting of 125,000 to 165,000
servicemen in wartime (including reservists).

The Army of Nagorny Karabakh

25,000 servicemen (20% of GDP)

Nagorny Karabakh has ground, tank, missile-artillery, anti-aircraft,
reconnaissance and special battalions created on the basis of the
National Guard.

Translated by Alexander Dubovoi

Caucasus storms Antalya
By Malcolm Pein

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 17, 2004, Monday

THE European Individual Championships have started in Antalya,
Turkey. The tournament has a prize fund of more than 40,000 euros
and 12 guaranteed places in what is described as the 2005-2006 Fide
world championship knockout, but who knows what kind of system will
be in place by then?

The tournament is organised by the Turkish Chess Federation, which
ran last year’s edition at Silviri and cannot be faulted for its
efforts. The problem with the event is that it is not an economic
proposition for most professional players, which is why there are
virtually no western European GMs.

Under the Fide regulations, the players are obliged to stay at the
venue, which, although reasonably priced, makes the prospect of a
profitable stay remote for most. Seventy-two players are competing,
half of them over 2,500 Elo, and the top 15 are ranked in the world’s
top 100 players.

The top seed is Vassili Ivanchuk of Ukraine but he lost horribly
in the first round with White. The winner may well come from the
Caucasus; five members of the Armenian national team are playing,
and there are two of the most gifted young players from Azerbaijan:
the prodigy Teimour Radjabov, who defeated Garry Kasparov at Linares
last year, and the world junior champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

17.g4 is exposed as premature in a very stylish game by the Bulgarian
IM Julian Radulski. Not only does Black get to the open h file first
but with the clever 18b4! he pushed Ivanchuk’s knight out of play
because 19 Ne2 loses the g4 pawn. Then there is a mass invasion down
the h file.

V Ivanchuk – J Radulski

European Ind. Ch. (1.1)

Ruy Lopez

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 c3
Na5 9 Bc2 c5 10 d4 Qc7 11 d5 Bd7 12 b3 0-0 13 h3 Nb7 14 c4 Rfe8 15
Nc3 g6 16 Bd2 Bf8 17 g4 h5! 18 Nh2 b4! 19 Na4 hxg4 20 hxg4 Be7! 21
Nb2 Kg7! 22 Kg2 Rh8 23 Rh1 Rh4 24 f3 Rah8 25 Qe2 Qc8 26 Rag1 Qg8 27
Be1 Rh3 28 Nd1 Qh7 29 Bg3 Nxg4! 0-1

Radulski p p p 7 p a p – k c e Y c p o p c p p o b o p o b p b p a
p p b p p b 8 b p A p Z p X l p p ‘ p 6 *

Ivanchuk

Final position after 29Nxg4! and if 30 hxg4 Rxg3+! 31 Kxg3 Qh3+
32 Kf2 Bh4+ wins

Nigel Short is in the line-up for the annual Super Tournament at
Sarajevo which began on Sunday. The full line-up is Alexei Shirov,
Nigel Short, Ivan Sokolov, Viktor Bologan, Sergei Movsesian, Zdenko
Kozul, Suat Atalik, Bojan Kurajica, Emir Dizdarevic and Borki
Predojevic.

St. Francis may become Armenian church
By SCOTT BROOKS Union Leader Correspondent

The Union Leader (Manchester NH)
May 13, 2004 Thursday STATE EDITION

NASHUA — A Hollis real estate developer hopes to turn the former St.
Francis Xavier Catholic Church into the state’s second Armenian church.

Vatche Manoukian, owner of Mile High Real Estate, successfully
negotiated a $1 million deal last week with the Diocese of Manchester
for the 19th-century French Hill landmark, which he plans to donate
to the Armenian Orthodox Church.

“It’s a very unique opportunity at a very unique time, and he’s
grabbing it,” said Manoukian’s attorney, Gerald Prunier.

The deal is contingent on a judgment in Hillsborough County Probate
Court, where the diocese hopes a judge will declare the sale
permissible under the church’s 1885 deed. However, some Catholic
parishioners, who call themselves the St. Francis Xavier Church
Foundation, opposes the sale and plans to intervene in the case,
the group’s attorney said.

“The parishioners want it to remain the St. Francis Xavier Catholic
Church,” said Randy Wilbert, the foundation’s attorney and former
president. “There’s a statute that says it’s got to be held in trust
for members of the parish. You can’t very well sell it to another
religion and consider yourself in compliance with your obligations.”

Wilbert said he hopes to file a motion to intervene by the end of
this week.

The diocese closed St. Francis in 2003 due to “declining financial
health and waning parishioner attendance,” according to its May 7
probate court filing. With the church on the market, the foundation
offered to buy it for an undisclosed amount of money earlier this year.

Diocesan officials said the foundation’s bid would not be considered.
Bishop John McCormack has said the church can no longer be used for
Catholic worship once it is closed.

Last month, the group responded by petitioning Hillsborough County
Superior Court for a declaratory judgment to keep the church a
Catholic facility.

A judge stayed the case at a pre-trial hearing Monday, allowing the
diocese to pursue a ruling in probate court.

The diocese’s filing argues a transfer to the Armenian Church would not
violate the building’s deed because it would ensure the structure’s”
continued public religious or pious use.”

In its filing, the diocese says net proceeds from the sale would go
to the St. Aloysius of Gonzaga parish in Nashua, which absorbed the
former St. Francis parishioners after their church was closed.

Prunier said his client is seeking word from the Armenian Church in
Jerusalem that it will accept the building. Manoukian, who is 54,
is asking nothing in return, he said.

New Hampshire currently has only one Armenian church, the Ararat
Armenian Congregational Church in Salem.

Manoukian’s brother, Hollis Selectman Vahrij Manoukian, said there
are few nearby churches for the Armenian community. The brothers,
who were born in Lebanon and moved to New Hampshire in 1977, attend
the St. Vartanantz Armenian Church in Chelmsford, Mass., about a
half-hour drive from their Hollis home.

“Nobody wants to travel that far,” Vahrij Manoukian said. “But if we
have one in Nashua, people will do it.”

The purchase and sale agreement is voided if the Armenian Church
refuses the gift, although Prunier said he saw no reason that would
happen.

Manoukian initially asked to conceal his name from the court documents,
but his identity remained visible through the black ink crossing
it out.

“The main reason for that was he didn’t want to be called up by
everyone asking for a donation,” Prunier said. Also, Prunier said,
“He didn’t want to be named as a party in the suit and end up appearing
as the bad guy.”

LaRouche says Bush `dumbest’ president
BY MICHAEL R. WICKLINE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
May 12, 2004 Wednesday

Lyndon LaRouche, a Democratic candidate for president, said Tuesday
that there’s “a feasible escape” for the United States from the
“continuing worsening mess in Iraq.”

At a a news conference at the Radisson Hotel in Little Rock, he said
the nation must “get out of this mess because we cannot solve the
international financial crisis when we are generating and supporting
the kind of conflict we are developing with our potential partners
and allies from around the world.”

LaRouche, 81, of Round Hill, Va., blamed Vice President Dick Cheney
for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and called President Bush “the
dumbest president we have ever had.” LaRouche said the U.S. State
Department should negotiate “a southwest Asia security policy” with
Turkey, Armenia, Egypt, Iran and other nations.

He also said the United States is “in a depression which is far worse
than that of 1929-1933.” The president should declare a national
emergency and launch a $6 trillion infrastructure program for the
next four years.

The program would provide government credit for things such as water
projects, power generation and distribution projects, and health care,
LaRouche said. The government would encourage people to invest in
stocks and bonds of public utilities formed by states and provide
a safe and secure place for people and institutions to place their
savings, he said.

Josh Earnest, Democratic National Committee spokesman, said Arkansans
who are concerned about the nation’s direction under Bush are looking
for “a viable alternative” to Bush. They want a candidate like John
Kerry, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Earnest said.

LaRouche was convicted of mail fraud in 1988. He has run in every
presidential election since 1976.

Kerry, LaRouche and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio are on the
ballot in Arkansas’ Democratic presidential primary Tuesday.

This article was published 5/12/2004

FINDING BEAUTY AMID THE WOUNDS OF WAR
by Jessica Slater, Special To The News

Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
May 14, 2004 Friday Final Edition

“How did I become this sort of man?” asks the central character of
The Daydreaming Boy. Born in Armenia two years after the Ottoman
Turks inflicted genocide on his people in 1915, Vahe Tcheubjian was
sold to the Turks and then left at an orphanage in Lebanon. As an
adult living in Beirut in the 1960s with his wife, Juliana, he tries
to put the past behind him. The novel traces his unraveling
consciousness as the ghosts of his childhood come back to haunt him
with increasing intensity. It’s a stunning portrait of war’s bleak
inheritance. Despite the grueling subject matter, Micheline Aharonian
Marcom’s prose spans the full range of human emotion with
spellbinding and luminous beauty. The novel is broken into short
chapters that skip back and forth in time from Vahe’s married life in
Beirut in the ’60s to his childhood years in the early 1920s at the
Bird’s Nest orphanage and briefly forward to Beirut in 1986, after 11
summers of civil war. Marcom doesn’t provide page upon page of
historical detail about the Armenian genocide. Rather, she draws us
into the mind of a refugee, where memory, history, lies and
imagination chase one another’s tails for so long that they become
inseparable. The disjointed transitions can be confusing, but once
you enter the rhythm of the writing, the juxtapositions become as
telling as the events and recollections themselves. Through the
fractured lens of his consciousness, the answer to Vahe’s question
emerges: “The nows become jumbled, riff, they flow together as the
tributaries will flow into the sea and become one strain of water
indistinguishable from the other waters – because: all of it is me.”
Vahe’s relationships betray the extent of damage inflicted on him by
his experiences. Several characters figure prominently in his
thoughts: the specter of Vosto, a boy from the orphanage whose
arrival provides fresh prey for the boys who had been tormenting
Vahe, thus relieving his suffering but also compounding his guilt;
Vahe’s absent mother and his wife; Beatrice, a young Palestinian girl
who works as a domestic for Vahe’s neighbor in Beirut and for whom
Vahe develops an obsessive longing; and Jumba, a chimpanzee at the
local zoo, where he often walks, and who becomes a measuring stick
against which Vahe tries to fathom his own humanity. Vahe’s marriage
to Juliana is described as the result of “desperate convenience, a
coincidence of time and place and sentiment.” As the intensity of his
obsession with Beatrice increases, so does the loneliness within his
marriage: “Our marriage became a container that held the lonely like
a boy holds an empty soup cup and wants just a small amount, just the
littlest bit more of some fatty soup.” His relationships sink further
and further into the realm of fantasy, and the fantasies are often
disturbingly violent. He perceives himself as a beast, partly because
of his brutal desires but more deeply because of the inhumane
treatment he and his people have endured: “What distinguishes us from
the dark beast?” he asks, drawing parallels between the bars of
Jumba’s cage and the balcony railings that divide his own sight. This
obsession with violence and dehumanization makes hideous sense in the
context of genocide: The Armenian language, writes Marcom, “was
murdered in the summer 1915 when no word or sentence or lyric or ode
to man’s dignity or proclamation or newspaper article or pleading by
the Patriarch or pleading by the girl before the soldier violated or
letter or bill or identity card could say, say it so that it would be
heard, . . . their tongue could not alter the smallest breeze. . . .
It could not say (for pity’s sake, honor’s sake) to the Turkish
soldier gendarme kaimakam: Please, sir. I am a man.” One chapter
describes Vahe’s mother being raped by a Turkish soldier, whom Vahe
refers to as his father. Whether it’s the truth or Vahe’s conception
is uncertain. What matters is that it’s there in his mind, part of
the distillation of experience, history and imagination that has made
him who he is: “Perhaps all of the lies together will form some kind
of truth about the man, the orphan, the refugee. . . . My lies are my
history and they have altered with time. . . . Now I have no
assurance as to what happened or did not and it matters little.” The
Daydreaming Boy is dreamlike – surreal, disturbing and stunningly
beautiful by turn – but its final effect is one of awakening. As the
pieces of the puzzle fall together, the picture that emerges is not
just of one man but of the vast machine of conflict and war that has
made (or unmade) him. Marcom’s astonishing achievement is that this
novel contains enough sadness to crush all hope but enough startling
beauty and strength to ignite it all over again. INFOBOX The
Daydreaming Boy * By Micheline Aharonian Marcom, right. Riverhead
Books, 212 pages, $23.95 * Grade: A

NOTES:
Jessica Slater is technology editor at the Rocky Mountain News.

Los Angeles Times
May 16, 2004 Sunday
Home Edition

Opera;
The lady with cred;
When soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian invests herself in a role, there’s
no faking it. Real feelings, real reactions. You gotta believe.

by Donna Perlmutter, Special to The Times

“We are living in an age where you have to be … credible,” says
Isabel Bayrakdarian, pausing with deliberation before the adjective.
She knows the value of spacing words, weighting them, making a point
artfully.

But then she should.

The Armenian Canadian soprano who will sing Susanna in Los Angeles
Opera’s new production of “The Marriage of Figaro,” opening Saturday,
has won over some powerful figures in the music world — at the 1997
Metropolitan Opera auditions, for instance, where she took first
prize, and at Placido Domingo’s 2000 Operalia in Los Angeles, where
she did the same.

Credibility, in fact, is the coin of her realm.

It figures in her response to the question rousing so much debate
among opera aficionados: Can a supersized singer waddling onstage
persuade audiences to suspend disbelief and think of her as an
irresistibly beautiful, romantic character? Bayrakdarian says no.

“Credible acting, credible singing, credible image — they’re all
important,” says the sylphlike singer, who seems to possess all of
those attributes in operatic spades. “Yes, it’s a delicate matter,
but I’m sympathetic to directors for wanting the whole package. The
voice is not enough. It’s just one element of music theater. Singing
the role and looking the part are both necessary.”

A number of observers have already been persuaded by Bayrakdarian as
Susanna, the maid (and the title character’s fiancee) who floats
somewhat above the fray of social revolution in Beaumarchais’ 18th
century comedy about the servant class versus the nobility, on which
Mozart and librettist Da Ponte based their opera. Indeed, she has
sung the role in two highly regarded productions, Giorgio Strehler’s
and Peter Hall’s, both of which have been seen widely. Until now, the
latter was a mainstay at Los Angeles Opera.

Two years ago, she made her Paris Opera debut in the Strehler
staging, “and it was also my first Susanna,” she says, rolling her
big brown eyes and sipping from a glass of Evian after a recent
rehearsal.

“Imagine doing both those things at once. It could be the most
painful exposure. I just did it. They call me fearless. But no. When
an opportunity comes, you assess it with your good self-knowledge.
Can I do it? That’s the only question. If yes, then tune out the
background noise of doubters and go ahead. There’s nothing left to
think about.”

Fate’s engineering

Bayrakdarian, now 29, was born in Beirut to Armenian parents. When
she was 14, the family moved to Toronto. Isabel, the youngest of
seven children, viewed her siblings, “who all became doctors,” as
role models, and not surprisingly she decided to pursue a career in
biomedical engineering. Then, as it so often does, fate intervened.

Her family was a band of amateur musicians, but it was Isabel who
started studying voice in 1993, as a sidebar to her demanding major
at the University of Toronto. Her aim was “to be a better choir
member at church,” she explains, adding that she fully intended to
continue singing for love, not as a profession.

“Stability was the key to my plans and their goal. Period,” she says.
That was a lesson well learned from parents who stressed pragmatism
with a capital P.

In 1997, about to graduate, she was offered a contract by a leading
Canadian biotech company, where she had worked as an intern. “I would
have been a pioneer in a burgeoning field, one of the few women hired
at that top level,” she says. Simultaneously, however, she was
receiving “feelers of interest” in her singing. Those feelers didn’t
prompt her to consider a different career path, but they did lead her
to enter the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

With her big victory came the moment of truth: “to follow the dream,”
as she puts it. “There was no one day, though, prior to that, when I
imagined my voice could take me to that place.

“But what chutzpah it took to give up so many zeros,” she says,
referring to the lucrative salary she could have expected. “Even so,
all those semesters of getting by on four hours of sleep were not a
waste: I’d had an empowering education. Yes, I can even open a car
hood and know what to fix. It’s true — I’m fearless.

“There were and are no regrets. I never had to think, ‘Oh, my God, if
I don’t make it as an opera singer, I know nothing else to do.’ ”

Still, Bayrakdarian remains humble. She believes in serendipity, that
one thing leads to another, that you take your cues from life —
“traumatic or joyful.” She quotes a Yiddish saying: “You want to give
God a laugh? Start planning.”

Though she still calls Toronto home, she’s now well established as
one of the bright new stars in her category: a lyric soprano with
coloratura assets. Besides Susanna, she’s sung Pamina in “The Magic
Flute,” Rosina in “The Barber of Seville” and Zerlina in “Don
Giovanni” — the “ina” roles, all innocent soubrettes who can, under
the right circumstances, assume greater dimensions.

And she likes to approach those portrayals with spontaneity.

“All you need to do in opera,” she says, “is inhabit your one
character. You take her measure and see what part applies to you.
Susanna is bottled sunshine — yes, a big part of me. Singing her
lines brings joy to my heart. She’s spunky and smart and absolutely
without malice. She’s not a doormat, nor a trapped servant at all,
but actually a confidante, a friend to the countess.”

That is an understatement in Ian Judge’s new staging, with the action
updated to the early ’50s. The director calls that time “the last
great romantic period” and says he wants to get away from the image
of characters “trussed up in costumes like china dolls, to free them
in order to catch the spirit of Mozart instead of what we think the
era is.”

Instinct for spontaneity

A recent rehearsal of Act 2 found a wanton countess lying languidly
on her bed and beckoning to the randy adolescent pageboy Cherubino.
And who was “enabling” the tryst, hovering over the couple, attending
to their whims? Susanna, of course.

“But this only reaffirms for me that the characters are not bound by
18th century niceties, like curtseying,” Bayrakdarian says.

Which brings her to Bayrakdarian Rule No. 2: “Stay in reactive mode.”
In other words, she believes in responding moment by moment to her
fellow singers — if they do their parts, the action stays vital and
true. She insists she never arrives at rehearsals with the kind of
pre-choreographed mannerisms that so many opera stars carry from
production to production.

That instinct for spontaneity is particularly important in an
ensemble romp such as “Figaro,” which is, after all, a household
drama, its characters like family even if they’re not related by
blood. It’s also a comedy of eros, in which libidos run wild and
sexual fantasies run even wilder. Identity confusion — about who is
who and, for that matter, who is what (male or female) — becomes an
integral impetus.

Bayrakdarian says that in Los Angeles, she’s been given the run of
the show. “They’re pretty free with me, because they know I’ve done
‘Figaro’ many times, while the other principals never have” —
meaning, besides the director, conductor Stefan Anton Reck, baritone
Erwin Schrott (Figaro), mezzo Sandra Piques Eddy (Cherubino),
baritone David Pittsinger (the Count) and soprano Darina Takova (the
Countess). “But they also rely on me to feed them lines.”

All of them also stop in their tracks when Susanna gets to sing the
last act’s achingly tender “Deh vieni non tardar.” It’s the moment
when the emotional wraps come off, when disguise belies her deepest
feelings.

“The last thing Susanna wants to do,” Bayrakdarian says, “is deceive
Figaro. It’s their wedding night, and she wants only to kiss him, yet
here she is, in the countess’ dress, not her plan at all. But in the
middle of the aria, she sings just of her longing for him. It becomes
a very sad serenade. She can’t go on with the charade. She can’t be
fake.”

Only credible.

*

‘The Marriage of Figaro’

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: Saturday and May 26, June 2, 5, 11, 16 and 19, 7:30 p.m.; May
29 and June 13, 2 p.m.

Price: $25-$170

Contact: (213) 365-3500

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: OH, SUSANNA! Bayrakdarian is readying for her
“Figaro” role with L.A. Opera. PHOTOGRAPHER: Gary Friedman L.A. Times
PHOTO: Soprano Bayrakdarian has an L.A. engagement. PHOTOGRAPHER:
Gary Friedman Los Angeles Times

Eurasianet Organization
May 17 2004

RUSSIA AND ARMENIA: UNITED BY GEOPOLITICS, DIVIDED BY ENERGY
RESOURCES
Sergei Blagov: 5/17/04

Russia has long viewed Armenia as its most dependable ally in the
volatile Caucasus region. However, a recent pipeline deal between
Armenia and Iran has emerged as a source of discord in Moscow’s
relationship with Yerevan.

The Armenian-Iranian pipeline pact was signed May 13 in Yerevan.
Under terms of the deal, the roughly 140-kilometer pipeline would
cost an estimated $220 million to build (including a $100 million
outlay on the Armenian side), and become operational by January 1,
2007. In addition, Iran and Armenia agreed on a gas-purchase deal
in which Yerevan would buy upwards of 36 billion cubic meters of gas
over a 20-year span, the Mediamax news agency reported.

The pipeline potentially could be extended, via Georgia and Ukraine,
to the European Union. Linking to the EU would require construction
of a 550-kilometer-long underwater section from the Georgian port
of Supsa to the Crimean town of Feodosia at an estimated cost of
$5 billion. The planned gas supply would amount to 60 billion cubic
meters per annum, including 10 billion cubic meters for Ukraine.

For Armenia, the deal has the potential to greatly reduce the country’s
energy dependence on Russia. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian
told Armenian television May 14 that Yerevan placed “great importance”
on Iran’s “balancing role” in geopolitical and economic developments
in the Caucasus. At the same time, other Armenian officials sought
to downplay the impact of the deal on Yerevan’s energy dealings
with Russia.

Until recently, Russia was critical of the pipeline project. After
Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisian said in February that
an Armenia-Iran gas pipeline deal was pending, the Russian daily
Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article entitled: “Yerevan carries
out an anti-Russian gas project.”

In recent weeks, Moscow appears to have softened its stance. On
May 13, Kocharian met Gazprom head Alexey Miller to discuss Russian
gas supplies to Armenia as well as Armenia internal and transit gas
pipelines. They also talked about the ArmRosGazprom joint venture,
which is 45-percent owned by the Russian gas giant. No details were
revealed, but no sharp disagreements surfaced.

What appears to still make Moscow nervous is the prospect of an
extension of the Armenian-Iranian pipeline. Officials in Moscow
are reportedly concerned that an EU extension could create damaging
competition for Russian energy exports. An Iran-EU connection could
also enable Turkmenistan to circumvent Russia’s gas pipeline network.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Moscow may already be working to discourage an extension. On May 15,
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich made an unexpected visit to
meet with Putin at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. Two days
later, Putin met with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi
and described Iran as Russia’s “long-standing and stable partner.”

The Armenian-Iranian pipeline pact was announced the day before
Armenian President Robert Kocharian flew to Moscow for talks with
Russian leader Vladimir Putin – the fifth such meeting between the
two in less than a year.

Both behaved as though Armenian-Russian ties were as strong as ever.
Putin welcomed developing economic cooperation between Russia and
Armenia, adding that in 2003 bilateral trade was 34 percent up year
on year. Putin also hailed “coordinated efforts by Russia and Armenia
on the international arena,” notably among former Soviet states.
Kocharian, likewise, welcomed the strengthening of economic ties.

Armenia has traditionally been Russia’s closest partner in the
Caucasus. Sandwiched between hostile Azerbaijan and Turkey, and
volatile Georgia, Armenia has little option but to remain a supporter
of Russia’s geopolitical moves in the Caucasus.

In 1997, the two countries signed a friendship treaty, under which
they provided for mutual assistance in the event of a military threat
to either party. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The pact also allows Russian border guards to patrol Armenia’s
frontiers with Turkey and Iran. In economic terms, Armenia is heavily
dependent on Russia for its natural gas and nuclear fuel supplies.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Editor’s Note: Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS
political affairs.