Author: Chalian Meline

NOTES FROM DAVOS
By Taha Akyol

Turkish Press
Jan 29 2008

MILLIYET- I was in Davos for the Turkish Night on Saturday. Victor
Halsberstadt, an international relations expert, compared Turkey
and Russia, saying both used to be empires, both countries are
nationalistic, the economies of both are rapidly growing, the strategic
positions and roles of both are impressive, and they~Rre both modern
countries. He said by ~Qmodern~R he meant they are governed by
elected politicians with a central, rational bureaucracy. Despite
this comparison, he said Turkey is on better ground, because it~Rs
open to postmodernism. In other words, Turkey is ahead of Russia
on such issues as the development of civil society, decentralized
administration gradually gaining ground, pluralism, openness to the
world, and a dynamic entrepreneurial class.

Hanzade Dogan Boyner of the Dogan Group touted Turkey’s role as
a strategic corridor by citing figures on international oil and
gas production and consumption. As a banker, Suzan Sabanci stressed
Turkey’s economic dynamism in the eyes of finance. Foreign Minister
Ali Babacan got positive reviews for his speech full of detailed
economic data and covering such issues as Armenia, the Kurds, Article
301, the military and democracy. Then I ran into UN Development
Program head and former Economy Minister Kemal Dervis and told him
Bill Gates’ ‘humane capitalism’ was like his ‘social-liberal
synthesis.’ ‘Yes, it’s like that in terms of humane pursuit and
sensitivity towards poverty,’ Dervis said. He added that but he
wouldn’t use the term capitalism, because, as its name indicates,
it’s pro-capital. Dervis also said that it’s something good that
this humane need is felt in the capitalist world. According to Dervis,
no economic crisis should be expected either in the world or Turkey,
but stagnancy will create problems.

Meanwhile, Sedat Ergin, the Ankara bureau chief of Milliyet daily,
was talking to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Behram Salih. I joined in
their conversation and heard that they met each other when Ergin was
a correspondent in Washington. Salih told me that Iraq’s Kurds are
becoming more Iraqi and terrorism is on the wane. I told him that this
was a good development and that Turkey should support this process,
and he agreed. He believes relations between Ankara and Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani will develop. Babacan and the businessmen also showed
great interest in Israeli President Shimon Peres. I also joined them
and told Peres his presence shows the Turkish-Israeli friendship. He
told me he shared those feelings.

There was a French Night in the hall upstairs at the same time.

Everybody was going there as well and wondering which event was
better. There was French wine and music at the French Night. At the
Turkish Night, besides drinks, there was Turkish food, a whirling
dervish performance, a tabor concert by Burhan Ocal and songs by
Demet Tuncer and Kenan Dogulu. The guests flocked to scarves and ties
given out by Vakko as party favors. As the issue of religion was also
discussed in Davos this year, Protestant and Catholic clergymen from
France, whose secularism is mature, got a lot of attention. What
would happen if the head of our Religious Affairs Directorate or
high-ranking imams had come? I don’t know if our young secularists
would be angry. Maybe I’m speaking too emotionally, I don’t know, but
I think the more colorful and lively Turkish night was better than the
French night, and our businessmen paid $3 million to make it happen!

JAN B. POULSEN NAMED COACH OF ARMENIAN NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM

PanARMENIAN.Net
24.01.2008 14:54 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Veteran Danish coach Jan B. Poulsen has been named
as the man to lead Armenia through 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying,
coming in as a permanent replacement to Ian Porterfield following
the Scotsman’s death in September.

The 61-year-old Poulsen will couple the role with that of the Football
Federation of Armenia technical director, taking the reins from
Vardan Minasyan who took temporary charge after Porterfield passed
away following a long illness. "I’ve only seen two Armenia matches so
I’ll get to know the players and the team during training sessions,"
said the former Denmark Under-21 coach. "Our goal is to achieve good
results and play attractive football." Poulsen will get a taste of
what is to come at the beginning of February when Armenia compete in
an international tournament in Malta, alongside the hosts, Belarus
and Iceland, uefa.com reports.

IRANIAN NEW AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA AGAIN BY AN "ARMENIAN" SURNAME

AZG Armenian Daily
25/01/2008

Armenia-Iran

On January 23, newly appointed Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Sayyid Ali
Saghaian handed his credentials’ copies to Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanian, RA MFA press office reported.

Touching upon the present level of Armenian-Iranian relations, Minister
Oskanian mentioned that Armenia assesses highly the development of
Armenian-Iranian relations and intends to deepen relations with Iran.

The sides mentioned that Iranian President’s visit to Armenia in
October, 2007 was an important contribution to the development of
Armenian-Iranian relations.

To recall, the previous Iranian Ambassador’s surname is Haghighian.

KURDS PLAN EXODUS FROM SOUTH KAZAKSTAN
By Elena Eliseeva

Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Jan 24 2008
UK

A uneasy calm may now prevail between Kurds and Kazaks after last
autumn’s violence, but most Kurds feel they have no option but
to leave.

Fearing for their physical safety, many ethnic Kurds say they plan
to leave southern Kazakstan, as reports of low-level violence against
them continue.

Zara, an inhabitant of the southern city of Shymkent, says her family
and many other local Kurds plan to sell up and leave following a
spate of attacks on the community last November.

"Of course we are afraid to leave – we have lived here all our lives –
but we are also afraid to stay," Zara told IWPR.

"We don’t know what is coming next. The newspapers are writing
bad things about us Kurds. If the community elders say so, we will
certainly leave."

The trouble dates from the end of October, when a Kurdish teenager
from the village of Mayatas, in the Tolebi district of South Kazakstan
region, was accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old Kazak
boy. (See previous IWPR story, Kazakstan: Ethnic Clash a Worrying
Sign.) After the latter’s father went to the police, locals took the
law into their own hands and started burning and looting houses and
beating up Kurds.

The violence then spilled over into other towns and villages where
to Kurds live.

Although attacks on people and property soon died down, work to
reconcile the communities and foster greater tolerance have not
yielded results.

Kurds in the South Kazakstan region interviewed by IWPR say although
the mass looting has not recurred, small-scale incidents have
continued.

"We have a bad feeling," said one local from the Tolebi district.

"Things are not the same as before."

Official statistics suggest that there about 46,000 Kurds now living
in Kazakstan, of whom 7,000 live in the South Kazakstan administrative
region.

The Kurds belong to a community deported wholesale from Armenia
and Azerbaijan in 1937, and from Georgia in 1944. Like hundreds of
thousands of Chechens, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars and other ethnic
groups, they were deemed suspect by Stalin, who ordered them to be
shifted far into the interior of the Soviet Union.

Kazim Nadirov, who heads the Kurdish National Centre in Shymkent,
said the conflict was now frozen rather than resolved.

Nadirov said that when cross-community meetings were arranged recently,
Kurds found themselves being told to leave the area.

"At all the meetings I took part in, there was only one subject –
leave, full stop," he claimed. "Even when the public prosecutor was
sitting next to me in those meetings… we were subjected to insults.

I pointed out that as we are full citizens, they cannot say this
and that we are as entitled to protection as they were. But that
changed nothing."

According to Nadirov, the majority of Kurds now have no confidence
in their future.

Local media reported that a complete reconciliation between the
communities had taken place following a meeting of elders in Lenger,
the administrative centre of Tolebi district.

But members of the Kurdish community disagreed, some describing the
meeting as humiliating.

"They said from the platform, ‘The Kurds are begging forgiveness,
so we will forgive them," said one local Kurdish businessman. "But
why should I ask to be forgiven? I have never seen this teenager. How
can one blame a whole people for the crime of one person?"

Nadirov said he believed most of the Kurds in South Kazakstan region
would be gone by spring, once they looked at their options for
resettling elsewhere.

Moreover, attacks on Kurdish families have not stopped entirely, he
said, adding that his cultural centre has recorded about 30 cases of
arson attacks since the mass lootings of last year.

"Most involve arsonists setting fire to the winter fodder set aside
for the cattle," Nadirov said. "They burned more than 17 tons of hay
belonging to one family. That family owned 400 head of cattle, but they
had to sell them because without fodder, the cattle would have died."

Other Kurds report acts of intimidation designed to make their lives
impossible. One man aged 60 from the village of Kok-Tobe in the Ordabas
district said he was the regular target of intimidation at the market.

"When you take your sheep to the bazaar, the young men come up to
you with a buyer and say, ‘You will sell your sheep to this buyer for
3,000 tenge each – when each one should cost no less than 15,000 tenge
[around $120]," he said. "You can’t do anything about it – you have
to sell your livestock at that price."

Local authorities have made no official pronouncements about the
problem. When asked, they have tended to blame the situation on
"outside interference".

Sadu Bekenov, a member of the regional council for South Kazakstan
region, claimed certain groups – which he did not identify – were
exploiting the situation to stir up ethnic tensions.

"You could say destructive forces have used this recent criminal
offence, in order to give it a political tinge," he said."Someone
is trying to inflame ethnic conflict with the help of young people
who lack worldly experience and knowledge of history." According to
Nadirov, the Kurds feel abandoned and defenceless.

"It is difficult to be a nation without a homeland," he lamented. "If
we had a country of our own with a consulate in Kazakstan, would this
happen? I’m sure it wouldn’t. But there’s absolutely no one to stand
up for us."

NERSES YERITSYAN: LOUD PROMISES OF THE OPPOSITION DANGEROUS FOR MACRO-ECONOMIC STABILITY

armradio.am
23.01.2008 14:52

RA Minister of Trade and Economic Development Nerses Yeritsyan said
in Yerevan today that "the loud promises of opposition candidates
are dangerous for the macro-economic stability of the country."

Speaking to a press conference in Yerevan, Mr. Yeritsyan noted
that ""in case of realizing the pledges of doubling the budget and
increasing the salaries four times we shall have high indices of
deficit."

"The task of the Government is to create an atmosphere of trust in
the authorities among the society, while the loud promises of the
opposition can only result in new disappointments," the Minister said.

ARMENIAN FOOTBALL NATIONAL TEAM TO TAKE PART IN MALTA INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT

Noyan Tapan
Jan 23, 2008

YEREVAN, JANUARY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. International Football Tournament
with participation of national teams of Malta, Belarus, Iceland, and
Armenia will be held on February 2-6 in Malta. The national team of
Armenia will start its teaching and training gathering from January
27. Then 20 football players will take part in Malta tournament. The
national team’s coach headquarters has already published the enlarged
list of football players invited to the team.

MASS CLASH BETWEEN AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN STUDENTS

ANS
22.01.2008 14:14

The clash was caused by a dispute between an Azerbaijani and an
Armenian regarding Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict around Daqliq Qarabaq.

Azerbaijani and Armenian students clashed in a fight at the Ryazan
Avenue in Moscow yesterday. The clash involved about 300 people. The
fight was prevented owing to the timely interference of Moscow
militiamen. The clash was caused by a dispute between an Azerbaijani
and an Armenian regarding Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict around Daqliq
Qarabaq.

The militia men detained several students. All Azerbaijani students
were released by the help of the Azerbaijani Embassy to Russia. It
is also reported that a gun, knives and other types of cold weapon
were confiscated during the search of the Armenian students.

BRITISH AMBASSADOR COMPLETING HIS MISSION IN ARMENIA

armradio.am
22.01.2008 17:13

On January 22 RA Minister of Defense Michael Harutyunyan received the
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Armenia, Mr. Anthony Cantor,
who is completing his diplomatic mission in Armenia.

Turning to the gradually deepening bilateral Armenian-British military
cooperation, the Minister highly assessed the Ambassador’s contribution
and wished him success in his future missions.

For his part, Ambassador Cantor thanked for the warm words, saying
he is leaving Armenia with great impressions.

During the meeting the parties dwelt on the issue of peaceful
resolution of the Karabakh conflict, questions of regional security and
underscored the opportunities for deepening cooperation, particularly
in language teaching, peacekeeping mission and reforms in the armed
forces.

ZHARANGUTIUN CALLS OPPOSITION CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENCY FOR UNITING

Noyan Tapan
Jan 21, 2008

YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, NOYAN TAPAN. No opposition candidate for
presidency is able to win the February 19 presidential elections on
his won, with his own forces. This was mentioned in the statement
of the Zharangutiun (Heritage) party. Therefore, Zharangutiun calls
the candidates for presidency, Vazgen Manukian, Vahan Hovhannisian,
Artur Baghdasarian, and Levon Ter-Petrosian "for implementing an
extraordinary and plenipotentiary reconsideration in the tactics of
the forthcoming election struggle for the purpose of the victorious
unification." The statement also read that if at least two candidates
for presidency do not fulfil the demand on unification, Zharangutiun
will make its final preelection decision later.

National Post (Canada)
January 15, 2008 Tuesday
National Edition

Captured By The Moment; These photographs helped make their subjects
legends, but a new biography suggests Yousuf Karsh was too iconic for
his own good

by Mark Medley, National Post
ARTS & LIFE; Pg. AL6

When we think of Winston Churchill, we often picture him standing
with his right hand resting on the back of a chair, his left hand on
his waist, a handkerchief flowering from a breast pocket, a bowtie
around his neck, a bulldog’s scowl on his face. When we imagine
Albert Einstein, we see an older man with brushed-back, grey hair, a
fuzzy moustache hiding his upper lip, his hands clasped together as
if in prayer. When we pick up one of Ernest Hemingway’s books, we
envision a bearded man, his neck engulfed by his sweater, staring
intently at something just off camera. When we think of these people
we think–perhaps unconsciously –of the portraits of Yousuf Karsh.

The Armenian-born Canadian photographer is the subject of a new
biography by Governor General’s Award-winning historian Maria Tippett
entitled Portrait in Light and Shadow: The Life of Yousuf Karsh.
Karsh is one of Canada’s most important artists; indeed, when the
International Who’s Who picked the most influential people of the
20th century, not only was he the lone photographer and the sole
Canadian representative, but he had photographed more than half the
people on the list.

Says Tippett: "He was able to capture that moment; as Cartier-Bresson
called it, that decisive moment."

Strange, then, that when you look up the most expensive photographs
ever sold, Karsh’s name is absent from the likes of Mapplethorpe,
Arbus and Adams.

He has, Tippett admits, "fallen out of fashion." On the other hand,
his images are still regularly published, to the point that we often
don’t recognize them as his work.

"That’s the brilliance of Karsh," says Tippett of this dichotomy.
"We’ve come to accept the Hemingway, the Einstein, the Churchill, the
George Bernard Shaw. These are visual images that are in our memory …
but you may not know Yousuf Karsh did that."

Tippett contacted Karsh in 1998, seeking to write his biography.
Karsh — who penned his own autobiography, In Search of Greatness —
declined. After his death in 2002, Tippett sought permission from his
estate. This time she was given the green light.

Tippett had a wealth of documentary evidence at her disposal; before
his death, Karsh had donated about 400 boxes to the National
Archives. "This [was] a biographer’s dream."

She spent two years researching, travelling to places Karsh visited
and interviewing his friends, colleagues and family. She also brushed
up on the craft in order to gain a better understanding of his work,
spending time in the photography lab at Cambridge, where she used to
teach.

This year is Karsh’s centenary, and numerous exhibitions are planned
in the U.S. Yet, Tippett points out, only one will be mounted in
Canada. This reinforces the perception that perhaps he’s more
celebrated abroad than here at home. Tippett compares it with the
ongoing problems in establishing a National Portrait Gallery. "That
says something, doesn’t it? We can’t even establish a National
Portrait Gallery. How in the heck is your generation going to know
about Karsh?

"My God," she asks. "Why aren’t we celebrating this man?" – Portrait
in Light and Shadow: The Life of Yousuf Karsh by Maria Tippett is
published by Anansi ($39.95).