Author: Badalian Vardan

TRYING TO ELBOW RUSSIA OUT OF KARABAKH PROCESS
by: Yuri Roks

Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Nov 14 2011
Russia

THE UNITED STATES IS OF THE MIND TO REPLACE RUSSIA AS THE
PRINCIPAL BROKER IN THE AZERBAIJANI-ARMENIAN TALKS; Self-proclaimed
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is prepared to accept Azerbaijani refugees
but on its own terms.

European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy Catherine Ashton begins her tour of the countries in the
southern part of the Caucasus, tomorrow. Ashton’s tour will take her
first to Azerbaijan, then to Georgia, and finally to Armenia. Meeting
with the leaders of these counties, Ashton will promote a more active
role of the EU in settlement of conflicts, and particularly the
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. It is also rumored that the United
States is of the mind to replace Russia as the principal intermediary
in the Azerbaijani-Armenian talks.

Kristian Vigenin of the European Parliament confirmed Europe’s
dissatisfaction with stagnation of the Karabakh peace process the
other day. Vigenin said after a meeting with Armenian President Serj
Sargsjan, “We believe that the EU ought to be playing a more active
part in the process of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution… The
OSCE Minsk Group has failed to bring about the desired results.

Something has to be done about it.” In fact, the European Parliament
already discussed replacement of the French co-chairman of the OSCE
Minsk Group with someone representing the European Parliament, with
Ashton herself perhaps. “We think that we need new players involved,”
said Vigenin.

Azerbaijani media outlets in the meantime quoted local political
scientist Rasim Agayev as saying that the United States was of the
mind to engineer withdrawal of the countries of the Caucasus from
the Russian orbit. Washington therefore initiated Larger Caucasus,
a project charted in George W. Bush’s days meant to enable the
United States to get a foothold in this region and start promoting
American interests in it. Considering that Georgia actually hates
Russia and that the Azerbaijani ruling elite is pro-Western rather
than pro-Russian, Washington has only one obstacle to overcome in
the region, and this obstacle is Armenia, Russia’s strategic partner.

“Orchestrating Armenia’s withdrawal from the zone of Russia influence
is a difficult goal but not impossible at all,” said Agayev.

Political scientist Ashot Manucharjan living in Berlin, Germany, said
that elbowing Russia out of the Karabakh peace process and out of the
Caucasus as such was impossible. Among other things, he explained, it
required the consent from all involved parties which some participants
in the talks would never give. “Trust Russia to refuse to let the
United States or European Union become the principal international
intermediary in the [Azerbaijani-Armenian talks. This indication of
Russia’s helplessness in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will give the
Western community an excuse to ignore Moscow and its opinion on other
conflicts and international problems… say, its opinion on North
Korea, Iran, or Afghanistan. Russia will never go for it, particularly
with Vladimir Putin soon to be the president,” said Manucharjan. On
the other hand, Manucharjan allowed for the possibility of some changes
in the talks, something like the return of the Karabakh delegation.

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov meanwhile said in
an interview with the Austrian Standart that “peaceful co-existence
of both communities” could become a trigger of progress in the
solution to the problem sadly lacking so far. The diplomat said,
“The compromise Azerbaijan might accept in conflict resolution stands
for the transfer of no territories to Armenian jurisdiction.”

Stepanakert, the capital of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic, immediately responded to Azimov’s statement. Commenting
on the interview, David Babajan of the presidential secretariat,
said that some fragments of the interview instilled optimism. “For
example, we accept the premise that no territories ought to be turned
over to Armenia. The Karabakh conflict is not a territorial conflict
between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It is a conflict between Karabakh and
Azerbaijan, a conflict whose resolution requires a direct dialogue.”

As for the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Karabakh Azimov had
mentioned, Babajan said that it was fine by Stepanakert. “No problems
at all,” he said. “As long as the refugees are prepared to become
citizens of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic properly and adequately
integrated into Karabakh society.”

THREE ARMENIAN CITIZENS SUFFER FROM BLAST IN TBILISI

ARMENPRESS
NOVEMBER 14, 2011
TBILISI

Three citizens of Armenia suffered from the explosion that took
place in Tbilisi November 13 at night, Armenpress reports citing
“Caucasus-Press”. A Volkswagen car burnt in fire and then exploded
in one of gas charging stations in Tbilisi.

Four Armenian citizens were in the car. They have received various
injuries and are getting medical treatment in a hospital. The fourth
passenger who remained unharmed told that they wanted to charge the
car but the heating device near the station caused the fire. The
police are clarifying the real circumstances of the incident.

Spokesman for the Foreign Minister Tigran Balayan told Armenpress
that all the details of the incident are being clarified.

DAVUTOGLU SAYS TURKEY OPPOSES TO ANY ATTACK ON IRAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
November 14, 2011 – 12:55 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Turkey strongly opposes any military strike on
Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said last weekend,
warning that speculation risks destabilizing the region.

“We do not think it is right even to talk of possible military
intervention in the region. We are against such intervention and
believe it would create more instability,” Davutoglu said at a press
conference before his departure to Serbia for a formal visit.

Davutoglu said Turkey could not accept even “the slightest chance
of any military intervention” in the region, “not only this or that
country, the whole region must be free of nuclear weapons. It is
unacceptable that countries suspected of having nuclear weapons cause
new tension in our region.”

His comments came amid speculation that Israel could launch a strike on
Iran with President Shimon Peres warning last weekend that an attack
was becoming “more and more likely.” Tehran responded by threatening
to hit back against any attack or even the threat of military action.

The Turkish Foreign Minister called on both Iran and the UN atomic
agency to be “clear and open” in their allegations and responses.

“Allegations by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran’s
answers to those allegations should be crystal clear. We cannot afford
ambiguities and unnecessary tensions on this issue,” Davutoglu said.

Davutoglu said talks between Iran and Western countries should resume
at once over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He also said Turkey supported
the contents of a letter sent by EU’s High Representative Catherine
Ashton to Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Hurriyet Daily
News reported.

FUNDAMENTAL REFORM
HAKOB BADALYAN

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 13:23:01 – 14/11/2011

The Haykakan Zhamanak reported that the case involving Sashik
Sargsyan’s and Ruben Hairapetyan’s bodyguards has been dismissed. They
will not be held responsible for the shooting at the Harsnakar
Restaurant.

So, everything is fine now, otherwise it would be strange if the
authorities punished the bodyguards of the president’s brother and his
close oligarchs. After all, Serzh Sargsyan did not instruct them not
to have bodyguards and not to let them shoot wherever they want. He
only said they must not have long escorts.

So, they cannot hold responsible for something which is not a violation
of the president’s instruction.

Otherwise, it will mean that fundamental and courageous reforms have
been launched, and it does not matter whether the offender is a common
citizen, an opposition activist, an oligarch or his bodyguard close
to the government. The law enforcement system will not pay attention
to their social status any more.

But everyone can breathe with relief now. Everything is as it used
to be. Again, the top government ensures the international community
and the citizens of Armenia that it is committed to reforms but they
change nothing for their own families, friends and oligarchy.

Does it happen so? Hardly ever! The point is that in Armenia the word
reform is a synonym to violation of the personal interests of the
oligarchy and the government. It does not matter whether the reform
will be carried out along a revolutionary, evolutionary or fundamental
path. It will remain a synonym of violation of the personal interests
of the ruling elite because the interest of the ruling elite is the
synonym of illegality in Armenia.

Tsarukyan’s “Next Lesson”

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 11:59:51 – 14/11/2011

The candidate of the Bargavach Hayastan Party won the mayoral elections
in Ijevan. The BHP deployed ‘troops’ in Ijevan including members of
parliament, NGOs and sportsmen.

The polling stations were under rigid control, and the Republicans
did not support their candidate actively.

The mayoral election in Ijevan is remarkable for several reasons.

First, the election campaign was conducted in a “separated” community,
all the forces and election technologies were tried out. Then, the
local phase of the Republican-Bargavach Hayastan “conflict” was tested
under the conditions of relative passiveness of the Republicans.

But the most interesting thing is that in Ijevan the election was
marked by an “all parties v the Republican” situation.

The Armenian National Congress, ARF Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage somehow
supported the BHK candidate. This circumstance can be important first
because the Armenian political forces, despite their disagreements,
actually “unite” for a common goal in election processes.

Of course, this goal can seem very local at this moment but this fact
proves that the political forces can cooperate for holding a normal
election and any refusal to cooperate for this aim is unacceptable
for the society.

The next point is the fact that the Republicans did not resort to
“traditional” methods this time for the victory of their candidate.

Instead, the RPA can reprove its coalition partner BHK and other
political forces for showing “excessive activeness” in a mayoral
election.

L’EUROPE SE DIT PRéOCCUPéE POUR LA LIBERTé DE LA PRE
Laetitia

armenews.com
lundi 14 novembre 2011

Dans une lettre datée du 11 novembre 2011 adressée au ministère
des affaires étrangères, Edouard Nalbandian, la représentante
de l’Organisation pour la Sécurité et la Coopération en Europe
(OSCE) sur la liberté des médias, Dunja Mijatovic, s’est montrée
préoccupée par le nombre croissant de plaintes en diffamation
déposées contre des organes d’informations en Arménie, et a
appelé les autorités a poursuivre la réforme de la législation
pour protéger les médias en cas de diffamation civile.

” La dépénalisation de la diffamation en Arménie, qui a été
mise en application en mai 2010, a été une étape importante pour
assurer un environnement médiatique convenable. Malheureusement,
près de 30 procès en diffamation ont été intentés depuis contre
les journaux, dont 11 cette année ”, a déclaré MijatoviÄ~G, selon
le site officiel de l’OSCE. ” Dans la plupart des cas, l’indemnité
demandée est hors des proportions avec le préjudice prétendument
causé”

” MijatoviÄ~G a souligné que l’indemnité accordée dans des procès
en diffamation civile devrait être proportionnelle aux dommages
réels et ne doivent pas conduire a la fermeture d’un journal, qui
aurait pour effet de limiter la liberté de presse.”

MijatoviÄ~G faisait référence, entre autre, a un procès intenté
contre le journal Hraparak par un avocat qui demandait plus de 34.000
euros (environ 46.400 dollars) de dommages et intérêts pour des
commentaires soi-disant diffamatoires publiés par des lecteurs
sur le site du périodique. Un tribunal d’Erevan a ordonné le 8
novembre 2011 que la propriété du journal sera saisie en attendant
une décision sur l’affaire.

Dans sa lettre au ministre Nalbandian, la représentante de l’OSCE a
déclaré que son bureau est prêt a aider l’Arménie a poursuivre la
réforme sur la législation concernant les médias et la promotion
de la liberté des médias. Ã~@ titre d’exemple, elle a évoqué un
séminaire de formation organisé a Erevan le 1er Novembre par l’OSCE,
pour aider a familiariser les juges arméniens a prendre de meilleures
décisions en matière de diffamation.

” J’espère que cette initiative va aider a contenir la vague de
procès en diffamation déposés contre les médias arméniens ”,
a souligné MijatoviÄ~G.

Tous les journaux professionnels doivent être prêts a se défendre
contre les poursuites en diffamation.

Aslamazian a salué l’initiative du médiateur Karen Andreasian
sur la question de la constitutionnalité de certaines dispositions
concernant la diffamation et l’injure a la Cour constitutionnelle.

” La Cour constitutionnelle devrait préciser certains points dans
ses décisions. Je pense alors que nous pourrions considérer que
cette période douloureuse de la communauté arménienne des médias
s’améliorera peu a peu”, a déclaré Aslamazian.

L’expert a ajouté que, malheureusement, la question est beaucoup
plus politisée pendant la période pré-électorale en Arménie.

LES DIFFERENTS CONTINUENT AU SEIN DE LA COALITION
Laetitia

armenews.com
lundi 14 novembre 2011

Le Parti Republicain d’Armenie (HHK) a raille les observations
faites par le representant de son partenaire de coalition qui a
suggere qu’un vote en 2012 donnerait au parti” Armenie prospère ”
(BHK) une majorite au parlement.

Vartan Bostanjian, un legislateur du BHK, a declare aux medias locaux
jeudi que si les elections de mai 2012 se deroulent dans de bonnes
conditions a l’Assemblee nationale, son parti obtiendrait plus de
voix et pourrait etre le vainqueur.

Le HHK detient actuellement 64 sièges a l’Assemblee legislative sur
131 sièges et beneficie du soutien d’une majorite des 17 membres ”
non alignes ” elus de circonscriptions uninominales. En revanche,
le BHK, qui represente la deuxième faction la plus grande dans le
corps legislatif, ne contrôle que 18 sièges parlementaires.

Les deux partis politiques ont ete des partenaires dans le gouvernement
armenien depuis les elections parlementaires de 2007.

Toutefois, les medias armeniens ont observe ces derniers mois que
des differences entre les deux partenaires de la coalition etaient
de plus en plus marquees en ce qui concerne les prochaines elections
legislatives et le scrutin presidentiel prevu pour 2013.

En depit d’un memorandum signe en fevrier dernier, qui engage
effectivement le BHK et le parti de coalition, Orinats Yerkir, a la
sauvegarde du leader du HHK et celle de la candidature presidentielle
du president Serge Sarkissian lors des prochaines elections, le BHK
reste vague sur ses pochains projets. Cette position a egalement
alimente les speculations au sujet du retour en politique de l’ancien
president Robert Kotcharian. Ce dernier pourrait utiliser le BHK
comme une base de soutien politique. Aucune declaration officielle
ne confirme ces hypothèses.

Lors d’une interview avec le service RFE / RL (Azatutyun.am), le
porte-parole du HHK, Edouard Sharmazanov, a affirme que la declaration
de son collègue du BHK concernant le potentiel republicain a remporter
les elections l’an prochain devrait etre traite ” avec beaucoup
d’humour. ”

” Mais pour parler plus serieusement, je dois dire que les recentes
elections locales, les sondages d’opinion actuels et les politiques
efficaces menees par le President Sarkissian sont la preuve que
le Parti republicain a le plus de chances d’atteindre un succès
convaincant lors des elections legislatives “, a souligne Sharmazanov.

Le HHK n’a jamais cache ses ambitions d’augmenter sa representation
actuelle a l’Assemblee nationale. Ces deniers mois, le Premier
ministre, Tigran Sarkissian,qui est egalement un membre du HHK,
a averti que ceux qui ne coopèrent pas avec le parti au pouvoir
seraient a ” reduit a neant “.

Sharmazanov a reitere que le gouvernement ” a la volonte politique
de creer des conditions egales aux elections ” et que ” toutes les
mesures des autorites visent a permettre de tenir des elections libres
et democratiques “.

Les autorites d’Erevan ont affirme a plusieurs occasions qu’elles
souhaitaient une bonne conduite pour les elections parlementaires
de mai 2012.Le Premier ministre, Tigran Sarkissian, a declare que
le prochain vote de l’Armenie sera plus democratique que n’importe
quelles autres elections organisees dans le pays depuis l’independance.

Les forces d’opposition en Armenie sont restees sceptiques quant a ces
assurances. Elles ont egalement rejete les recentes modifications du
Code electoral qui permettraient d’eviter des falsifications de vote.

Lors d’une interview a RFE/RL, Michael Getto, le chef de la Fondation
basee a Washington, a declare que pour l’instant les autorites
armeniennes semblent etre engagees a organiser des elections qui
seraient libres et equitables.

LE CO-FONDATEUR D’APPLE RECOMPENSE
Laetitia

armenews.com
lundi 14 novembre 2011

Steve Wozniak, l’un des fondateurs de la societe Apple, a recu un
prix du President Serge Sarkissian vendredi 11 novembre 2011 a l’issue
d’une visite de deux jours en Armenie.

Wozniak, un ingenieur de 61 ans et programmeur informatique americain
qui a ete au coeur de la compagnie ” Apple Computer ” en collaboration
avec le regrette Steve Jobs et Ronald Wayne, a ete honore par les
dirigeants armeniens pour ” sa contribution exceptionnelle a l’humanite
“.

Le president Sarkissian a annonce que Wozniak est ” une personne qui
a revolutionne le monde. ”

” J’espère que ce prix special et l’exemple de Steve Wozniak vont
inspirer les familles en Armenie afin d’encourager leurs enfants a
faire des etudes “, a declare M. Sarkissian.

Wozniak est connu pour avoir invente les ordinateurs d’Apple et Apple
2 dans le milieu des annees 1970, qui a lance la revolution des
ordinateurs personnels. Il est parti d’Apple en 1987, après avoir
passe 12 ans dans cette societe. Depuis, il est devenu un eminent
philanthrope et a aussi invente la première telecommande universelle
programmable. Enfin, il a contribue a creer le premier système
mondial de positionnement sans fil, et a contribue au developpement
de la technologie de plusieurs start-ups. Il est maintenant patron
de Fusion-io, une societe de stockage de donnees et serveur.

Le Prix annuel de l’industrie informatique a ete instituee en
Armenie en 2009 et son premier recipiendaire a ete Craig Barrett,
ancien president et directeur general de Intel Corporation. Un
des objectifs de ce prix est d’encourager les contacts entre les
principales personnalites du monde et celles de l’Armenie.

Avant de recevoir son prix au Palais presidentiel a Erevan, Wozniak
a rencontre le Premier ministre, Tigran Sarkissian, d’autres hauts
fonctionnaires du gouvernement armenien, ainsi que des cadres
de l’entreprise de l’industrie informatique et les etudiants
universitaires.

Lors d’une conference de presse avant la ceremonie officielle, Wozniak
a incite les jeunes en Armenie a etre creatifs dans le domaine de
l’informatique.

Il a affirme que sa reconnaissance en Armenie pourrait egalement
devenir une source d’inspiration pour les ingenieurs locaux.

” Quand j’etais jeune, je m’inspirais des histoires dont j’entendais
parler autour de moi. Cette recompense est grande et pourrait etre
une source d’inspiration pour les jeunes ingenieurs armeniens, a-t-il
affirme. Je vais rentrer chez moi et je vais m’inspirer des ressources
d’ici, de l’intelligence, des technologies, de la mise en place des
installations de developpement et de formation [en Armenie]. ”

Le gouvernement armenien a declare qu’il developperait le secteur
informatique qui emploie plus de 5000 personnes. Selon les donnees
du gouvernement, des produits informatiques representaient 8,5%
des exportations armeniennes, en hausse de 3,6% en 2009.

REVIEW: BOOKS: HISTORY: THE GATHERING OF GREAT WAR GHOSTS
by Ian Thomson

The Observer
November 13, 2011
England

By following 20 ordinary people through the horrors of the first world
war, Peter Englund has created a work of unconventional brilliance,
writes Ian Thomson: The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History
of the First World War, Peter Englund, Profile £ 25, pp544

The long summer that led up to the last days of peace in Europe in
1914 gave little hint of the storm to come. After the assassination
of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo on 28 June, however, and the
ensuing mobilisation of German troops, Kaiser Wilhelm II engulfed
defenceless Belgium, and the world was set to witness one of the
deadliest conflicts in human history. Through poison gas, starvation,
shell fire and machine-gun, the first world war killed and wounded
more than 35 million people, both military and civilian. The figure
is so unimaginable, so monstrous, that it numbs. Few had reckoned on
such a long, drawn-out saga of futility and wasted human lives.

By the conflict’s end in November 1918, from the eastern border
of France all the way through Asia to the Sea of Japan, not a
single pre-war government remained in power. The once great German,
Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires had fallen. Amid the moral and
material ruins of postwar Europe, many hoped to see a heroic prelude
to healing and renewal. Friends and family hurried to embrace the
troops returning home; yet within days the exhilaration of their
homecoming had evaporated. Paradoxically, some demobbed servicemen
began to fear death in a way they had not encountered at the front. “I
ought to have felt great joy, but it was as if a cold hand took me by
the throat,” records a Belgian fighter pilot. Was this the collapse
that follows on from a “great relief”? The pilot’s insight into his
psychological state was rare among surviving combatants. Few were
aware of the disturbance that lay ahead so soon after the armistice
had been declared on 11 November.

In The Beauty and the Sorrow, an extraordinary new history of the
first world war, we follow the lives of 20 people caught up in the
conflict. Among them are an American ambulance driver, an English
nurse in the Russian army, a South American adventurer fighting for
the Turks, a 12-year-old German girl and several other civilians. In
the course of 227 short chapters (some of them no more than a page
long), they take turns to tell us what they saw or felt on a given
day. Interspersed with authorial commentary, their testimonies make
up a haunting chronicle, and a convocation of ghosts.

This is by no means a conventional history. Peter Englund, a Swedish
academic historian and former war reporter, has created a sort of
collective diary in which the unknown (or now largely forgotten) lives
intertwine minutely and often poignantly. Throughout, effective use is
made of diary accounts, letters, memoirs and other first-hand material.

For Laura de Turczynowicz, the American-born wife of a Polish
aristocrat, the war is less an event to be followed than a condition
to be endured. She has found herself stranded on the wrong side of
the frontline in German-occupied Poland. Having commandeered her
husband’s estate, German troops begin to use starving Russian PoWs
as slave labour. Laura reports her deep shock at the sight of men
transformed into “animals, or even things”. However, once people have
been deprived of their humanity, it is much easier to kill them. All
future dictatorships were to understand this. (The Jews in Hitler’s
cattle trucks were so degraded by their journey to Auschwitz that they
were no longer Menschen – human beings – but animals to the slaughter.)

The book is thick with other forebodings of the second world
war. A dapper Ottoman official, on orders from his paymasters in
Constantinople, stands calmly by as Kurds bestially slaughter Armenian
Christians in present-day Turkey. “He represents a new species
in the bestiary of the young century,” says Englund – that of the
well-dressed, articulate mass murderer who condemns thousands to death
at the mere stroke of a pen. In Nazi Germany such bureaucrats would
become known as Schreibtischtater – “desk-murderers”. Apprenticeship in
Ottoman obedience in April 1915 required a stunted moral imagination;
lack of imagination (not sadism) had made the official cruel.

According to the author, the 1914-18 conflict heralded a new age of
atrocity and diminished individual responsibility for it. Politicians,
ideologues and army generals, by delegating unpleasantness down a
chain of command, were able to ignore the moral consequences of their
work. In a village deep in the Austro-Hungarian empire, an English red
cross nurse called Florence Farmborough witnesses a “new and terrifying
sound”. Austrian artillery have begun to open fire simultaneously,
again and again, to create maximum terror and destruction. “This is
something new – artillery fire as a science,” Englund comments.

Throughout the war, sympathy for victims was increasingly diminished by
physical distance. The Austrian artillerymen were only dimly aware of
the civilians and soldiers they targeted. If they could have seen the
human devastation, how might they have reacted? In one extraordinary
episode, an Allied airman is devastated to see a German pilot spiral
fatally to the ground after his plane has been hit.

Finally the airman has come to see “the human being” instead of
“some kind of gigantic insect”.

Many of the young men who joined up so eagerly in 1914 were quickly
disillusioned. The “plodding drudgery” of trench warfare in Flanders
and on the Somme took its toll. Day after day, the dead remained
unburied; horses were slaughtered for food; amputees crowded the field
hospitals. The nouveaux riches of Europe, meanwhile, grew fat on the
munitions industry. In France and pre-fascist Italy the so-called
pescecani (sharks) flaunted their war wealth in fancy clothes and
conspicuous restaurant dining. The idea of a war without end suited
them well: only the men at the front were pacifists now. Most of
them would do anything to go home (even purposely contract venereal
disease).

Michel Corday, a French civil servant, watches in disgust as
black-marketeers in Paris fleece the unsuspecting war-wounded. To him,
the glorious “war to end all wars” is now nothing but a “bitter and
disillusioning defeat”.

Inevitably, The Beauty and the Sorrow is a chronicle of human loss,
atrocity and famine. What happened at the Marne, in the Ottoman
province of Armenia, on the Gallipoli peninsula, at Ypres, in the Piave
and on the Asiago plateau was tragic, inhuman. (“I have seen and done
things I want to forget”, PJ Harvey sings on her dark, Somme-haunted
album Let England Shake.) Yet the horror is recorded here in plain,
everyday speech. Amid the symbolic poppies and wreath-laying,
Peter Englund’s book stands out as a work of magnificent, elegiac
seriousness.

Ian Thomson’s biography of Primo Levi is published by Vintage. To
buy The Beauty and the Sorrow for £ 20 with free UK p&p call 0330
333 6847 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk

Captions:

The destroyed cathedral of Peronne, Somme circa 1918. Photograph:
Ullstein Bild

Laura de Turczynowicz, the American-born wife of a Polish aristocrat,
reports her shock at the sight of men transformed into ‘animals,
or even things’.

DARCHINYAN TRADES BLOWS WITH BIGGER BOXER
BY: Adrian Warren

AAP Newsfeed
November 12, 2011 Saturday 2:32 PM AEST
Australia

Vic Darchinyan has traded blows with a renowned warrior several
divisions above him, as he prepares to fight the much taller Anselmo
Moreno in a bantamweight boxing unification world title bout.

IBO champion Darchinyan left Australia on Saturday bound for Los
Angeles where he will continue his preparations for the December 3
clash with Panama’s WBA Super title holder.

Fellow southpaw Moreno will enjoy a considerable height advantage of
around seven centimetres.

He has spent much of his career at bantamweight while Darchinyan has
moved through the divisions from flyweight.

Darchinyan has been sparring with Filipino lightweight and southpaw
Czar Amonsot, who is almost as tall as Moreno and is best known for
his epic 12 round contest with Australian Michael Katsidis.

“He’s given me good sparring, I’m happy with my speed and my power,”
Darchinyan told AAP.

“Czar is heavier than me by five weight divisions and I know my power
is good enough for my opponent.”

Darchinyan says he may very well be the underdog against Moreno,
who has reeled off 25 straight wins since his one professional loss
nine years ago.

He isn’t concerned that at 35 he is almost nine and a half years
older than an opponent with a 31-1-1 record.

“When I overcome him and destroy him everyone will see that 35 is
not too old,” Darchinyan said.

“My career hasn’t finished yet. I will find out when it’s the time.

I love to train, I love to show my power.

“It’s not about age, it’s about mentally how you are preparing
yourself.”

As ever, the confident Armenian-born boxer is predicting a knockout,
though Moreno’s sole loss nine was by decision.

Renowned for being too impetuous earlier in his career, Darchinyan
has learnt the virtue of taking his time.

“I always want to go for a knockout, but first in boxing you have to
be smart, don’t be impatient,” said Darchinyan, whose record stands
at 37-3-1, with 27 KOs.

He reiterated he intended moving up to super bantamweight unless
he got more opportunities to unify the bantamweight division if he
beats Moreno.

The Sydneysider would certainly like a rematch against a winner of
the other big fight on the December 3 card, the IBF bantamweight
world title clash between Abner Mares and Joseph Agbeko, the last
two men to beat the Australian.

“If the winner of that fight will fight me, I will stay at bantamweight
and wait for that fight, if not I’m moving up a weight division,”
Darchinyan said.

“I would love to become undisputed world champion at bantamweight,
but I’m not going to wait too long.

“I’m going to challenge champions and if they don’t accept, I’m moving
on and moving up a division.”