Category: News

Plea for funds to help boy injured by landmine
by Fiona Tyrrell
The Irish Times
September 13, 2004
A Co Clare man is fronting an appeal to help finance plastic surgery
for a child survivor of a landmine accident in Abkhazia, on the
borders of Russia and Georgia.
Anri Nachkebia (10), lost part of his face, an eye, a hand and a foot
two years ago when he picked up an anti-personnel mine and started
playing with it.
He is having problems breathing through his nose and he needs surgery
to relieve this as well as a prosthetic eye.
Clare-born Mr David McMahon, a programme manager based in Georgia
with the Halo Trust, a non-profit organisation which specialises in
the removal of mines, yesterday appealed for help for Anri.
A native of Newmarket-on-Fergus, Mr McMahon has been working with
Halo since 1999 and has worked on de-mining projects in Cambodia,
Kosovo, Afghanistan and Nagorno Karabak.
It is estimated that some 20,000 mines were planted in Abkhazia during
the 1992-93 war with Georgia.
Mr McMahon came across Anri during a rehabilitation camp for the
child survivors of landmine accidents this summer.
Anri has received a prosthetic leg from the Red Cross but his bones
are growing and he will need another operation on his leg soon,
Mr McMahon said.
“We were all touched by this boy, who had such severe injuries. We
need about $5,000 to send him to Armenia where he can be operated on.”
Staff of Halo Abkhazia plan to contribute $1,000 towards the cost of
the operation. Over 360 people have been killed or injured in mine
accidents since the war ended.
Aside from this, the mines were planted in the most fertile areas
and deny people the fundamental right to use their land, he explained.
“This is the war that the world has forgotten about,” Mr McMahon added.
“Ireland is doing really well at the moment, but there are a lot less
fortunate people living on the periphery of the EU.
“You don’t have to go to Africa to see extreme poverty,” said Mr
McMahon.
Donations can be made to The Anri Fund, Halo Trust, PO Box 7905,
Thornhill, DG3 5WA, United Kingdom.
A donation to the fund can also be made on-line at
“”>

Armenia aims at serious cooperation with NATO – president
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 14, 2004
YEREVAN, September 14 — Armenia aims at serious cooperation with
NATO, and “the scale of partnership may be broadened,” President
Robert Kocharyan told a delegation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
on Tuesday.
The delegation is visiting Armenia to attend a roundtable meeting at
the national parliament.
The president said he was satisfied with the current level of
cooperation with NATO, a source in the presidential press service told
Itar-Tass. He said Armenia is taking part in a number of NATO programs.
Kocharyan dwelt on regional cooperation, the Armenian Armed Forces
reform and Armenian peacekeepers in Kosovo by request of the
delegation.
Armenia is ready to develop relations with Turkey without any
preliminary conditions, Kocharyan said. Yerevan thinks that these
relations cannot be conditioned on Armenian relations with a third
country, he said implying the Turkish unwillingness to normalize
relations with Armenia as long as the latter supports Nagorno-Karabakh
in its conflict with Azerbaijan.
Regional cooperation can create favorable conditions for the settlement
of conflicts, Kocharyan said. He noted that Armenia had proposed the
formula of conflicts settlement through cooperation many times but
Azerbaijan rejected the proposal.

Putin to bring together Azerbaijani, Armenian leaders in Astana
By Viktoria Sokolova
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 14, 2004
MOSCOW, September 15 — President Vladimir Putin will hold a tripartite
meeting in Astana on Wednesday evening with Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev.
“The format of such a meeting has proven to be correct,” presidential
aide Sergei Prikhodko told Itar-Tass.
The Kremlin assumes that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
“should reach an accord between themselves,” while Russia “can make
its contribution to the development and deepening of dialogue,”
Prikhodko said.
The new tripartite meeting will be held on Moscow’s proposal, a source
in the presidential administration told Itar-Tass. The Kremlin does
not rule out that Kocharyan and Aliyev will have a one-on-one meeting
in Astana.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Putin’s bid to alter election syst doesn’t contradict Constitution
Itar-Tass, Russia
Sept 14 2004
MOSCOW, September 15 — President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to change
the system of electing governors does not contradict the Fundamental
Law, chairman of the committee on constitutional legislation and state
development under the State Duma lower house of parliament Vladimir
Pligin said.
“The introduction of the proportionate election system of Duma
lawmakers does not contradict the Fundamental Law,” Pligin said.
After the abrogation of direct gubernatorial election, the institute
of presidential envoys and chief federal inspectors in regions will
be dissolved, Saratov region governor Dmitry Ayatskov said.
“If the president recommends the governor, why need presidential
envoys who dub their functions? The transfer of part of regional
powers to the federal center in the person of presidential envoys
was a forced measure,” Ayatskov said.
Ethnic groups of the Kemerovo region backed the presidential
initiatives aimed at strengthening state power, regional administration
officials told Itar-Tass.
Head of the community “Belarus” Mikhail Brilev told a meeting of the
ethnic groups’ leaders that “the election of regional leaders at the
suggestion by the head of state will strengthen executive power, while
people, through the Public Chamber, will be able to actively influence
the preparation and adoption of laws by lawmakers at all levels.”
The people will get a real opportunity to participate in the formation
of strategy of socio-economic development of certain regions and the
country as a whole, Brilev said.
Nar Oganesyan, a representative of the Armenian organization “Urartu”
called the president’s decision to set up the ministry of regional and
national policies “an effective methods of uniting peoples of Russia.”
The election of governors at the suggestion by the head of state
may imply alternatives, Penza region governor Vasily Bochkaryov
said Tuesday.
“The optimization of the system of governing the country, proposed by
Putin, will not only help strengthen regional authorities, but also
combine federalism with an effective power vertical,” Bochkaryov said.
“At present, I associate the system of federalism with three parallel
runways, along which three planes simultaneously take off, interfering
with each other,” he said.
Federal, regional and municipal authorities should be not competitors,
but links of one governance system, he underlined.

UPON CANCELLATION OF NATO EXERCISE IN AZERBAIJAN, LITHUANIAN VOLUNTEERS RETURNING HOME
Baltic News Service
September 14, 2004
VILNIUS, Sep 14 — After NATO called off an international exercise in
Azerbaijan, troops of Lithuania’s National Defense Volunteer Forces
who were due to attend the training are returning home.
Acting National Defense Volunteer Forces commander Colonel Leonas
Stonkus told BNS on Monday morning that 9 volunteers and 3 employees
of the forces left for the exercise on Monday.
The volunteers left for Azerbaijan by an aircraft of the Lithuanian
Air Force, which will fly them back home on Tuesday.
The NATO-arranged exercise Cooperative Best Effort 2004 was scheduled
to take place on Sep. 14-26.
In Stonkus’ words, no reasons behind the decision to call off the
exercise were indicated in a letter sent to Lithuania.
Meantime, the AFP news agency, citing a NATO official, has reported
that Supreme Allied Commander Europe General James Jones made such a
decision after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Saturday spoke
against Armenian troops’ participation in the exercise. NATO expressed
regret over such a statement.
The NATO exercise Cooperative Best Effort 2004, arranged in the spirit
of the Partnership for Peace program, was scheduled to be attended
by 20 NATO member-states and partners.
The exercise is annually held in the South Caucasus region. Last year,
the training took place in Armenia.

Leaders of post-Soviet bloc to discuss heightened terror threat
by Nick Coleman
Agence France Presse — English
September 14, 2004 Tuesday 2:02 AM GMT
ALMATY Sept 14 — Leaders of several former Soviet countries meet
in the Kazakh capital Astana on Wednesday to discuss redoubling
anti-terror cooperation in the wake of recent terror attacks in Russia
that sent shock-waves through the region.
The attacks that culminated in the deaths of some 339 people at a
school near Russia’s breakaway Chechnya region brought home the need
for more coordination among the 12-member Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS), Vladimir Rushailo, the group’s secretary, said.
“Terrorism knows no borders, no limits and no point at which to stop,”
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Rushailo as saying.
Russia has long sought to bring its Soviet-era satellite states into
line with regard to issues such as Soviet-made weaponry that has
fallen into the hands of separatists in Chechnya and neighbouring
Georgia’s historic tolerance of Chechen rebels in its Pankisi Gorge.
On Monday Russia’s President Vladimir Putin reiterated Moscow’s
readiness to strike terrorist targets abroad — a vow taken as most
likely aimed at Georgia, with whom Moscow’s relations are at an
all-time low.
“The terrorists must be eliminated directly in their lair and, if
the situation requires it, that includes abroad,” Putin said.
Whether the fall-out from Beslan will inject new urgency into
Wednesday’s meeting remains to be seen however. Some analysts believe
that Moscow has already accepted the rag-tag nature of CIS meetings,
which have often been poorly attended and produced few formal results.
Nonetheless a number of smaller-scale meetings on the sidelines could
bear fruit, Dosym Satpayev, an analyst at Kazakhstan’s Assessment
Risks Group, said.
Particularly productive for Russia has been the so-called Collective
Security Treaty Organisation that has given Moscow military bases in
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — countries that Moscow considers a buffer
against unrest in Afghanistan.
“The CIS doesn’t work effectively and isn’t needed — the only use
it has is as a label under which the presidents can get together and
exchange views,” Satpayev said.
Among the most pressing discussions will be two-way talks billed as
“make-or-break” between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,
Robert Kocharian and Ilham Aliyev, whose countries fought a five-year
war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s.
Though a fragile ceasefire is in force, the two sides are still
officially in a state of war and Azerbaijan has threatened to renew
hostilities.
“A lot depends on the meeting in Astana,” Aliyev told journalists in
north-western Azerbaijan recently.
Also likely to be discussed is a document circulated among
the CIS countries earlier calling for reform of the West’s main
democracy-promoting body in the region, the Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Moscow recently told France and Germany that it believes the body
that helped end the Cold War concentrates too much on human rights
and too little on security.
The OSCE has in the past been at loggerheads with Russia over Moscow’s
policy in Chechnya.
However Azerbaijan’s Aliyev — himself the object of sharp OSCE
criticism in the past — has already ruled out signing any call for
OSCE reform at Wednesday’s meeting.
Turkmenistan’s reclusive President Saparmurat Niyazov has already
said he will not attend due to a prior medical appointment.

Kerkorian to wager it all on Las Vegas after MGM sale
by Veronique Dupont
Agence France Presse — English
September 14, 2004 Tuesday 9:31 PM GMT
NEW YORK Sept 14 — Kirk Kerkorian, the 87-year-old multi-billionaire,
has turned his back on Hollywood so he can concentrate on Las Vegas,
which he helped turn into the world’s gaming capital.
By agreeing to sell the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studios for nearly
five billion dollars to a group led by Sony Corp, Kerkorian is ending
a tumultuous link with the legendary film studio that he first bought
in 1969.
Kerkorian, who had an 89 percent stake, has bought and sold the
studios three times since.
MGM has won about 200 Oscars during its 80 years but is now several
decades past its prime in the eyes of most Hollywood observers.
Kerkorian is partly to blame for this, they say, by selling off many
of its prized catalogue assets. But there are still about 4,100 films
in the MGM vault, including the James Bond and Pink Panther series.
Kerkorian, the son of Armenian immigrants who was born in the
Californian town of Fresno on June 6, 1917, could almost be the
subject of a film in his own right.
He started earning money selling newspapers at the age of nine,
left school at 13 to become a boxer and then a professional pilot.
Kerkorian flew for the Royal Air Force in World War II.
After the war, he built a private airline while making his main
fortune from property speculation.
In 1962, Kerkorian bought about 80 acres (32 hectares) of land in
Las Vegas, in the Nevada desert, for less than one million dollars.
He built three hotel-casinos, which were then the biggest in the
world and helped to make Las Vegas a worldwide name that attracted
not just hardcore gamblers, but also businessmen and families.
Disaster struck in November 1980, when the MGM Grand Hotel burned
down killing more than 85 people and injuring hundreds.
The site was sold and a new MGM Grand was built on another part of
the Las Vegas Strip, which has become one of the main venues for top
boxing bouts. The MGM-Mirage group now owns 10 establishments in the
city including the prestigious Bellagio.
Kerkorian, who is known as the “Quiet Lion” because of his low key
image, now has one of the top 50 fortunes in the United States,
estimated at more than 3.4 billion dollars.
Married three times, his most recent divorce made international
headlines.
His marriage to Lisa Bonder lasted one month. She sued him seeking
a monthly 320,000 dollar payment for a daughter that he says —
DNA samples in support — is not his.
Kerkorian said he had been “set up” by his ex-wife.
The couple had been together for 10 years. Kerkorian said Lisa put
pressure on him to marry her and that he agreed to a brief marriage
on condition she agree to divorce after one month. He said she then
changed her mind and resisted the divorce. The US media feasted on
the court case.
Kerkorian has publicly backed Democratic challenger John Kerry for
the November 2 presidential election. And despite his age shows no
sign of seeking to retire.
Kerkorian wants to profit the maximum from the gambling craze that
has swept the United States over the past two years and lifted Las
Vegas profits to new heights.
Three months ago he bought the Mandalay Resort hotels and casinos
group, another cornerstone of the Strip, for 7.9 billion dollars.
If the purchase is approved by US authorities, Kerkorian will head
the world’s second biggest gaming group, controlling much of the land
around Las Vegas that can still be built on.

Voice of America News
September 13, 2004
RADIO SCRIPTS – BACKGROUND REPORT 5-55828
IMMIGRANT STORIES
by MIKE O’SULLIVAN
TEXT: LOS ANGELES
Immigrant Autobiographies Recount Turbulent Lives
INMTR: The United States is a nation of immigrants and each one has a
story. Many of their stories are compelling. Mike O’Sullivan spoke to
two immigrants who have published their autobiographies to share
their personal tales of hardship and triumph.
Susanne Reyto (RAY-toh) was born in Nazi-occupied Hungary near the
end of the Second World War. Her Jewish family survived the Holocaust
with the help of two diplomats, Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden and Carl
Lutz of Switzerland, who issued diplomatic papers to save tens of
thousands of Jews from the Nazi death camps. But no sooner were the
Nazis gone when a Soviet-backed regime was installed to replace it.
Her father was a successful businessman who suffered persecution
again under the communists, losing his home and business. The family
would spend 29 months in a prison camp, then witness the failed 1956
Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union. In 1957, the family
escaped Hungary and made its way to Australia, and later came to the
United States, settling in Los Angeles.
Ms. Reyto says her grandson, who was studying the Second World War,
asked her to talk about her experiences with his school class. She
did, and later repeated the talk.
[REYTO ACT]
“I spoke to all of the eighth-grade classes at that time, and I
realized how much of a transformation the children experienced,
especially a few days later when I received their “thank you” notes.
And one of the little girls said, Mrs. Reyto, I think you should
write a book so everybody else can listen to your stories, not only
us.”
[END ACT]
That suggestion and a later visit to Hungary cemented her decision to
put her story in writing.
[OPT] On a trip to Budapest, she visited a museum called the House of
Terror. Located in a former prison and secret police headquarters, it
documented the events of Ms. Reyto’s childhood: the persecution under
the Nazis, the confiscation of her home by the communist government,
and the prison camps.
With the help of those documents, and recollections of her mother,
[END OPT] she published her story this year in a book called “Pursuit
of Freedom.”
Eighty-four year-old Yervand Markarian has a very different story,
with a similar happy ending. Mr. Markarian was born to an Armenian
family in the Chinese city of Harbin. Located near the border of the
newly formed Soviet Union, in 1920 the Chinese city was home to
expatriate White Russians who were fleeing the Bolsheviks, and
Armenians who had fled persecution in Turkey.
As a young man, he would join the French army to fight against the
Nazis. To his surprise, he ended up in French Indochina, modern-day
Vietnam, fighting communist insurgents for the French Foreign Legion.
After the war, he worked as a policeman in the French concession of
Shanghai, then joined his father-in-law running two Russian
restaurants.
[OPT]
After the war, the restaurants thrived, but survived only briefly
after the communists took power in 1949. Mr. Markarian recounts, it
was soon apparent the new regime would not be good for business.
Officials visited to ensure that none of the married customers was
having romantic liaisons.
[MARKARIAN ACT]
“Or they would come up to a couple that would say, yes, we are
married. (The officials would ask) do you come often to such a
restaurant? Well, two or three times a week. How much do you spend?
So much. How much do you make a week? So much. Well, we think you can
afford another 10 percent of your salary to the state.”
[END ACT]
[OPT]
Branded as capitalists, some of Mr. Markarian’s business
acquaintances committed suicide. Others like him eked out a living
until they were able to leave. In 1951, he settled with five family
members in Brazil.
Unable to speak Portuguese, he faced new hardships, but he finally
found work in the Ford Motor Company’s Brazilian operation.
Eventually he took his family to the United States, were he also
worked for Ford.
Mr. Markarian would build a successful business on Hollywood’s Sunset
Boulevard, where he recreated his Shanghai restaurant called Kavkaz.
It soon became popular with film stars and directors.
[MARKARIAN ACT]
“Roman Polanski, Dan Duryea, Simone Signore, Peter Ustinov.”
[END ACT]
[OPT] Celebrity patrons also included the actor Omar Sharif, oil
magnate Armand Hammer, and singer Barbra Streissand. [END OPT]
Mr. Markarian recounts his tale in a self-published book called
“Kavkaz,” named after his popular restaurants.
The two immigrants say that despite their early hardships, they have
kept their optimism. They are both effusive about the opportunities
and freedom they have found in their new country. Mrs. Reyto adds
that she is sharing a message.
[REYTO ACT]
“My message or theme is inspiration, the power of positive thinking,
and hope and dream for a better tomorrow. And without that, we just
can’t survive. And in the worst of times, there are always decent
people in the world.”
[END ACT]
There is always, she says, light at the end of the tunnel.
The author says she has learned to take control of difficult
situations because it is always possible to change them. (Signed)

Stop genocide as it develops in Sudan
Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
September 13, 2004 Monday FIFTH EDITION
Adolph Hitler was the epitome of human evil and the epitome of
indifference to human life. And yet, he may have understood human
nature far better than any of us would want to admit. In reference to
the West tolerating the destruction of European Jewry, Hitler is
reported to have said before World War II: “Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Who, indeed? At least hundreds of thousands, probably over a million,
Armenians died at the hands of the Turks. Hitler and the Nazis
murdered 6 million Jews. The world then reflected on genocide and
affirmed “never again.”
And yet, since that time, there have been many attempts at genocide.
Scholars currently investigating mass graves in Cambodia now estimate
Pol Pot’s more than 3-year reign led to the deaths of approximately
two million people.
According to Amnesty International: “In 1994, close to 1 million
people were killed in a planned and systematic genocide in the
central African country of Rwanda.” Most of us will remember the
attempt at “ethnic cleansing” that occurred in the former Yugoslavia
only a few years ago. In all these atrocities, torture, mutilation
and rape of the victim populations were standard procedure.
According to The Save Darfur Coalition, at this very moment, a
government supported militia “is deliberately killing, raping and
terrorizing civilians in Darfur As many as 100,000 civilians have
been killed and 1.2 million people have been driven from their
homes.”
These events in western Sudan are a genocide in the making. Let us
not allow, by our silence, indifference or ignorance, the people of
Darfur to be added to a list already far too long. Let us press both
our government and our media to prevent a larger catastrophe than
already has occurred.
Rabbi Allen Juda
Bethlehem

OTAN cancela ejercicios militares en Azerbaiyán
Xinhua News Agency – Spanish
September 13, 2004 Monday 5:02 PM EST
BRUSELAS — La Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN)
anunció hoy que canceló los ejercios militares en Azerbaiyán horas
antes de que se iniciaran luego de que las autoridades en Baku dijeron
que no querían tropas armenias en su territorio.
Azerbaiyán se rehusó a que soldados armenios participaran en los
ejercicios porque muchos azerbaiyanos tienen malos recuerdos de la
guerra entre los dos países en el último siglo.
La OTAN decidió cancelar los ejercicios que se bebían iniciar martes,
dijo un vocero de la alianza en un comunicado.
“Lamentamos que el principio de inclusión no aplicara en este caso,
pues llevó a la cancelación de los ejercicios”, dijo el vocero.
“Los ejercicios son una serie importante de ejercicios en vivo en el
calendario de Asociación por la Paz. Están diseñados para proporcionar
conocimiento básico sobre Operaciones de Apoyo de Paz (PSO por siglas
en inglés) a nivel de unidades pequeñas”. agregó.
A inicios de los 1990’s, Baku y Yerevan sostuvieron una guerra de cinco
años por el enclave remoto de Nagorno-Karabakh, parte administrativa
de Azerbaiyán, pero habitada principalmente por armenios. Alrededor de
35,000 personas murieron en el combate y cerca de un millón de civiles
fueron desplazados. El territorio está ahora controlado por Armenia.