Category: News

Washington Post, DC
July 2, 2004
‘Amazing Race’: Location Is Everything
By Tracy L. Scott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 4, 2004; Page Y04
The Emmy Award-winning “Amazing Race” is an elaborate TV production —
contestants and crews traverse the globe in a trek that requires four
to five months in preparation alone.
Since its debut in 2001, the show’s contestants have traveled to 62
different countries in hopes of winning the $1 million prize.
“We’ve gone to just about every continent,” said co-creator Bertram van
Munster.
The show’s fifth season, which begins Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. on CBS,
follows 11 two-person teams — including cousins from Maryland (see
sidebar, page 28) — as they travel approximately 73,000 miles in 29
days and tape 13 episodes, van Munster said.
The show works like this: The first team to arrive at any designated
destination is the first team to leave — thereby getting a head start
— on the next day’s journey. The last team to arrive at each location
is cut. Contestants also are allowed to use only a specific amount of
money during their journey.
It sounds easy enough, but along the way, teams may have to bungee jump
or enter a rat-infested temple to obtain further instructions and make
it to the next location.
Gaining access to those locations is an daunting task, and van Munster
said the show must receive permits for every place visited.
“It’s a very ambitious project on a huge international scale,” he said.
“It is very complex, but generally people are welcoming. [The show] is
very well-known worldwide.”
No country van Munster’s approached has refused to participate, he
said. This season the teams travel to Uruguay, Russia, Egypt and the
Philippines, among other spots.
Although the program focuses on the race, the show is as much about
relationships — with people in other countries, as well as with family
and friends — as it is about completing the challenge.
Host Phil Keoghan, who said no major international incidents occurred
as a result of the show, noted that some teams are more accepting of
different cultures than others.
“A lot of what happens — if there’s any incidences with local people
— it’s a result of how the teams themselves respond to the local
people.
“Americans have a lot of preconceived ideas of what the world’s about
and how it operates,” said Keoghan. The show “dispels a lot of people’s
misconceptions about what the world is like,” he said.
Everyone selected for the show has a preexisting relationship, whether
father and daughter, two cousins or best friends.
“I always thought preexisting relationships were more interesting,”
said van Munster, who described the show as a “reality soap opera.”
Members of the teams talk openly with each other, van Munster said.
“Strangers feel each other out for the first three or four episodes.
They don’t get the real thing.”
Although the competition is physically challenging, van Munster said he
looks for applicants with interesting personal relationships as opposed
to brawn or athleticism.
“We tell them up front the show will change your life,” said van
Munster, noting that the change isn’t always for the better. The show
even contributed to a breakup. Chip Arndt and Reichen Lehmkuhl, last
season’s winners, severed ties after they collected their $1 million.
Keoghan said the experience also has reunited couples.
“It does strange things to relationships. It is incredibly stressful
for these teams. They are pushed emotionally to places they haven’t
gone before,” he said.
Maryland Cousins Compete on ‘Race’
Two Maryland residents will compete for the $1 million prize in CBS’s
new season of “Amazing Race.”
Charla Faddoul and Mirna Hindoyan are first cousins. Both were born in
Syria but now live in Phoenix, Md., and Towson, respectively.
The 27-year-olds describe themselves as “extremely comical and
aggressive,” according to CBS press releases. To their advantage, the
pair speak several languages, including Armenian and Turkish.
Faddoul, a manager of a sports store, has a form of dwarfism and hopes
her appearance on the program will show the world that the condition is
not a physical handicap.
“We did not have to change anything for her,” said co-creator Bertram
van Munster.
Hindoyan is a graduate of the University of Maryland at Baltimore
School of Law.
Host Phil Keoghan said the cousins “were a crucial part of making this
season really pop.”

RIA Novosti
July 2, 2004
MOSCOW EXPECTING FOREIGN ARMENIAN MINISTER
MOSCOW, July 2 (RIA Novosti) – Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan will pay an official visit to Russia on July 5 through 7, the
Information and Press department of the Russian Foreign Minister
reported Friday.
“The visit will take place in the context of Russia-Armenia political
dialogue, which is developing dynamically after high- and top-level
contacts of 2003-2004,” the Information and Press department said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry believes the visit will add momentum to
Russo-Armenian relations which have a solid legal base (the Agreement
on friendship, cooperation and mutual security dated December 29, 1991;
the Declaration on allied interaction with prospects for the 21st
century of September 26, 2000 as well as other 160 or more interstate,
intergovernmental and interdepartmental agreements).
A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said both Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Armenian counterpart Vardan Oskanyan
“will focus on coordination of joint efforts aimed at improvement of
the situation in the Caucasus, settlement of ongoing conflicts as well
as at an atmosphere of confidence necessary for the future
all-Caucasian cooperation.”
“A special emphasis will be made on the issue of Nagorny Karabakh. We
believe the parties to the conflict are to find an acceptable
compromise,” the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.
“Russia is ready to contribute to the settlement of the issue of
Nagorny Karabakh and guarantee an agreement mutually acceptable for
both parties.”
“The Russian and the Armenian parties will consider the CIS
member-states’ interaction in the framework of the Collective Security
Treaty as well (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan are parties to the treaty) and in the context of EurAsEC
(the parties are the same except Armenia, which has the status of an
observer),” the Information and Press department pointed out.
“Boosting Russian-Armenian trade and economic, cultural and
humanitarian cooperation will be one of the priority issues at the
talks,” the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.
The Information and Press department said the parties would discuss
fighting all manifestations of terrorism.

RIA Novosti
July 2, 2004
RUSSIAN, ARMENIAN LAW ENFORCERS STEP UP COOPERATION
YEREVAN, July 2 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Interior Ministry and
Armenia’s Police Department will hold a meeting in Yerevan on Friday.
Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and Armenian police
executive Aik Arutyunyan and other senior officials of the above
agencies are expected to take part in the meeting.
The conferees will discuss issues of cooperation against organised
crime and efforts to decriminalise their economies.
The law enforcement agencies’ joint activities fall within the
jurisdiction of a series of bilateral and multilateral inter-government
agreements, 16 inter-department agreements dealing with various areas
of police activity, which were signed at the meetings of the Council of
Interior Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Besides, the conferees will discuss efforts against the organised
international criminal groups and the search for their leaders. Drug
and human trafficking will also be central at the meeting.
Mr Nurgaliyev and Mr Arutyunyan have noted the importance of more
intensive information exchanges between their agencies.
The two countries’ law enforcement agencies regularly conduct search
and preventive operations. Moscow police, for example, have uncovered a
criminal group that comprised Russian and Armenian nationals who
produced counterfeit cognac Ararat, reports the Russian Interior
Ministry. Besides, Russian police exposed a group of Armenians who
counterfeited Russian roubles.
254 members and 45 leaders of organised criminal groups largely
composed of Armenian nationals have been brought to trial and 165
relevant criminal cases have been opened, according to the ministry.
Moscow police have also detained Martirosyan, an Armenian national
wanted in his republic for large-scale embezzlement and fraud.
Martirosyan has already been extradited to Armenia.

Armen Press
July 2, 2004
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT RECEIVES RUSSIAN INTERIOR MINISTER
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS: Armenian president Robert Kocharian
received today Russian interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, who has
arrived in Armenia for a meeting of the governing boards of the Russian
Interior Ministry and the Armenian police force that discussed today
prospects for cooperation in fighting organized crime and cleansing the
Russian and Armenian economies of criminality.
Kocharian was quoted by his press office as saying that interaction
in the struggle against organized criminal groups will be more
effective. The Russian minister was said to brief the president on the
meeting results that dwelt also on fighting drug trafficking and
suppressing trade in people.

Armen Press
July 2, 2004
OFFICIAL BAKU DISCONTENTED WITH US CONGRESS
BAKU, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS: Azeri foreign ministry issued a statement
yesterday condemning a US decision to provide 5 mln dollar in
assistance to Nagorno Karabagh as part of its assistance to foreign
countries.
The statement says Azerbaijan is concerned that the money provided
by US Congress to Nagorno Karabagh could be used “to encourage
separatism, extremism and other illegal activity on the territory of
Azerbaijan.” It also says that the decision could affect the conflict
resolution.
A key subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives approved
last week equal U.S. military assistance to Armenia and Azerbaijan,
calling for $5 million in military aid to each of the two countries.
The earlier version of the bill drafted by the administration of
President George W. Bush asked for $8 million to Azerbaijan and only $2
million to Armenia.

‘Last Day’ is a captivating tale
By Tamira Surprenant
The Capital Times
July 2,2004
Madison’ s Judith Claire Mitchell spent over six years fine-tuning her
literary debut, “The Last Day of the War,” and the finished product is
definitely worth the labor.
The book is a sweeping saga that revolves around the lives of Yale White and
Dub Hagopian following World War I. White is an 18-year-old Jewish girl from
St. Louis who invents a series of lies about her name, age and religious
background in order to follow Hagopian to Paris in 1918.
Hagopian is a young Armenian-American soldier and a member of a subversive
group, Erinyes, which is seeking vengeance on people who initiated the 1915
Armenian massacres.
After a chance meeting with Hagopian in St. Louis, White, intent on
following her heart, crosses the Atlantic to become a YMCA canteen worker.
She is reunited with Hagopian, and instead of becoming wrapped up in the
throes of a relationship, White becomes immersed in adventures and the
Erinyes’ cause of avenging the Armenian massacre.
The story unfolds amid the proceedings of the Paris Peace Conference, where
Hagopian serves as a translator.
Mitchell, an assistant professor of English in the creative writing program
at the University of Wisconsin, succeeds in weaving a captivating
coming-of-age tale.
No matter how major or minor the roles of her characters, one of Mitchell’s
strengths in “The Last Day of the War” is character development. The
attributes, idiosyncrasies and feelings of major characters, in addition to
unsavory minor characters, are never overlooked.
White, for example, often has a bright-eyed view of her surroundings, but
when circumstances dictate, she switches gears to become serious and can
assist her friends at the drop of a hat.
Mitchell said in a telephone interview that she developed the story after
reading a series of letters written by a friend’s great aunt Wera.
Wera was a volunteer worker at the canteens in France in 1919 and wrote,
according to Mitchell, “frivolous, flirty and silly” letters interspersed
with pieces of bad news. Wera told of meeting an Armenian man whose whole
family was deported during the Armenian massacre – and the inspiration for
“The Last Day of the War” was born.
Mitchell became engrossed in relaying what her characters were going
through, but didn’t want to lose sight of the Armenian massacre. Mitchell
said she sought not to teach a lesson, but to let history unfold through the
eyes of her characters.
“I think you have to approach it through the characters or it becomes about
an event and an issue. I think specificity is important in writing if you
want to talk to people generally,” Mitchell said.
“I didn’t want to write just about the Armenian genocide, although clearly
that is important and it concerns me, but I wanted all people to think about
times in their lives when they’ve been excluded.”
In her role as a writing instructor, Mitchell tells her students that an
author and reader have different tasks. She heeded her own advice when
writing “The Last Day of the War.”
“The author needs to shut down the intellectual part of the brain and let
the characters speak,” said Mitchell. “I always tell my students, ‘Don’t
think about symbolism, metaphors or subtext, just write your story and it
will all arise.’
“One hopes that some wisdom will find its way into the story.”
Mitchell is already at work on her second novel, a project which required
her to take a junior faculty leave from her position at the UW. Mitchell
hopes to have a first draft completed when she returns to classes for the
2005 fall semester, but isn’t concerned with how long the project will take.
“My hope is that I can do it quicker than I did this one, but I don’t want
to breeze through it either,” she said. “I think that time is necessary.”
Mitchell’s initial plan is to write another historical novel set between
World Wars I and II.
“I have an idea, and one thing I’m going to do during my leave is probably
go to the place where I think the novel is going to take place – which is
something I wasn’t able to do with the first book,” Mitchell said.
“The university support will help me do that with the second one and I think
that will make a huge difference in terms of time spent, to actually be in
the place.”
Tamira Surprenant is a sports reporter for The Capital Times. Her e-mail is
[email protected].
Published: 5:30 AM 7/02/04

Armen Press
July 2, 2004
REPERCUSSIONS OF TURKISH QUAKE REACH ARMENIAN CAPITAL
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS: Repercussions of a moderate earthquake
in eastern Turkey that destroyed houses, killing 18 people and injuring
21 more on Friday, reached Armenia on July 2 overnight.
The earthquake, which struck around 3 a.m. Friday, Armenia time,
caused heavy damage in several villages in Turkish Dogubeyazit
province, near the Iranian border. Turkish officials said that rescue
efforts had been completed and the death toll was not expected to
increase.
The quake measured 5.1 in Turkish province on the Richter scale and
3 in Yerevan. Two massive earthquakes hit northwestern Turkey in 1999,
killing about 18,000 people.

Armen Press
July 2, 2004
RAPID POVERTY MONITORING METHODOLOGY DEVELOPED BY UNDP ARMENIA
PRESENTED TO PARTNERS AND THE PUBLIC
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS: On July 1 in the UN House, the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) convened a discussion on the
National Human Development Survey (NHDS) and the Poverty Monitoring
Methodology (RPMM) used during the NHDS. Government officials, donors
and civil society experts focused on survey indicators, regional human
poverty indices and the National Social Monitoring System.
The NHDS was conducted in spring 2003 within the framework of a
joint UNDP and Government of Armenia project on the “Creation of a
Social Monitoring and Analysis System.” The survey covered 6,000
households in 170 rural and 41 urban communities, representatively
selected from all eleven regions of the country, including Yerevan. For
the first time, the survey was based on a Rapid Poverty Monitoring
Methodology developed by UNDP. The information collected during the
survey was disaggregated by region and population group and
incorporated into databases used to track human development, human
poverty and progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The
main findings of the NHDS are summarized in the fifth issue of Armenia
Social Trends, a bi-annual bilingual informational-analytical bulletin.
The results of the National Human Development Survey indicate that
human poverty is more widespread in rural areas, where people have
limited access to education, particularly pre-school and professional
education. People living in rural areas are also negatively affected by
reduced access to healthcare, particularly primary care, and to modern
information technologies.
According to Ms. Grande: “UNDP is confident that a better
understanding of human poverty in the regions will help the Government
and civil society to sharpen the country’s pro-poor policies, ensuring
that they are aimed at reaching the eight Millennium Development Goals
and supporting the Poverty Reduction Strategy.”
In the framework of the “Creation of a Social Monitoring and
Analysis System” project, a special training program in the Economics
Department of Yerevan State University on the theoretical and practical
aspects of databases was organized for the regional M&A units
established by the Government. In addition, seminars and workshops on
methodological and computerized analysis of data have been organized
for the 18 non-governmental organizations participating in the survey.

Ottawa Citizen
July 2, 2004 Friday Final Edition
For argument’s sake, draw your own analogies
by John Robson
When the Athenian statesman Phocion gave a speech that the public
applauded, Plutarch claims, he turned to some friends and asked, “Have
I inadvertently said something foolish?” How many politicians would
ever have such a reaction today? Yet how many should? I sure missed
Plutarch during this election.
For one thing, I treasure his anecdote of Cato the Elder who, told it
was odd that there was no monument to him in Rome, said he would far
rather have people ask why he didn’t have a statue than why he did.
What a useful standard by which to judge the personal qualities of
politicians. When Bill Clinton claims in his memoirs that “in politics,
if you don’t toot your own horn, it usually stays untooted” you might
reasonably conclude that, in Cato’s situation, he would have put one up
himself.
Some readers may be puzzled by my periodic tendency to enthuse about
some author who wrote long before Jennifer Lopez’s first marriage; if
so I reply that it is not a boast to find nothing interesting in books.
(Or quote American commentator Florence King that in high school “the
girls who recited Mickey Rooney’s wives in the cafeteria made fun of me
for reciting Henry VIII’s wives in history class …”)
All argument is in some sense argument by analogy: This thing is like
that thing, it is not like that other thing, it is more like this thing
than like that, and so on. But if we do not carry around with us a
supply of material suitable for the drawing of analogies, what sort of
reasoning is likely to result? That’s why Plutarch wrote The Lives of
the Noble Grecians and Romans.
A person without knowledge of the past is liable to react to a promise
of free money the same way Homer Simpson reacts to the word “doughnut.”
Would it not be better instead to flinch as George Washington would
have at any political program reminiscent of Rome’s “bread and
circuses” for the urban mob? Or recall another Plutarch story about
Cato the Elder: “Being once desirous to dissuade the common people of
Rome from their unseasonable and impetuous clamour for largesses and
distributions of corn, he began thus to harangue them: ‘It is a
difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no
ears.'”
Paul Martin would have been well-advised a year ago to ponder
Plutarch’s report that Pompey the Great once had the chance “to lead
Tigranes, King of Armenia, in triumph,” but “chose rather to make him a
confederate of the Romans, saying that a single day was worth less than
all future time.”
My admiration for Plutarch is not uncritical. He likes the Spartans too
much, and unfairly casts Marc Antony as too besotted with Cleopatra to
attend to affairs of the state. But it’s interesting to see him praise
Cleopatra’s personality and intellect over her raw physical beauty, and
slam Julius Caesar, who “looking upon all changes and commotions in the
state as materials useful for his own purposes, desired rather to
increase than extinguish them …”
Perhaps his correspondingly high opinion of Caesar’s assassin Brutus is
overdone. But it would be nice to have some sort of opinion on Brutus
that doesn’t also involve Popeye the sailor man. Lest you smell dust
here, I promise that Plutarch is also full of intrigue, illicit sex and
gruesome violence. For instance, the orator Cicero, who backed Brutus,
was assassinated and, on the orders of Marc Antony, his head and hands
were severed, brought to Rome, and “fastened up over the rostra, where
the orators spoke; a sight which the Roman people shuddered to behold,
and they believed they saw there, not the face of Cicero, but the image
of Antony’s own soul.” A useful anecdote to have whenever someone
triumphantly waves an enemy’s head in public.
Plutarch also records that Phocion once “answered King Antipater, who
sought his approbation of some unworthy action, ‘I cannot be your
flatterer, and your friend.'” And he advises the politically ambitious
likewise to “answer the people, ‘I cannot govern and obey you.'” Of
course anyone who did so might not win, but hey, most candidates lose
anyway. (Besides, Cato the Younger once lost an election for consul,
declined to run again because the people obviously didn’t want him, and
happily went on with his life.) And it would surely raise the level of
debate to go about dismissing people as “another Lepidus” or hailing
them as “a second Brutus” instead of wracking our brains trying to
remember who was in Joe Clark’s cabinet. Speaking of people who should
certainly have spent more time asking friends if they’d inadvertently
said something foolish.
John Robson’s column appears Wednesday and Friday. Listen to him
weeknights from 8 to 10 on CFRA 580 AM.

Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
July 2, 2004, Friday
CIS SUMMIT IN ISTANBUL
SOURCE: Vremya Novostei, July 2, 2004, p. 5
by Arkady Dubnov
Seven CIS presidents attending a NATO summit is something truly
unprecedented. This was truly the first time that such an impressive
delegation of leaders from the post-Soviet zone attended a summit of
NATO. But the presidents of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan were absent.
As for Vladimir Putin, much has been said already about his motives for
turning down the invitation to Istanbul. Given the situation, his
presence at the summit would have signified the Kremlin’s silent
approval of NATO eastward expansion.
German political scientist Alexander Rahr commented: “In alphabetical
order, the president of Russia would have found himself sitting at the
summit between the representatives of Romania and Slovakia… As far as
Moscow is concerned, equality in the Russia-NATO Council with novices
of the Alliance is difficult to swallow. Half a century ago, Russia
made decisions for all these countries, and even now it considers
itself a world power.”
There is no need to explain why president of Belarus was absent. As for
president of Armenia, he could not go to Istanbul, the capital of the
country that sides up Baku in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. With
regard to NATO as such, however, Armenia doesn’t sense any
idiosyncrasy. And the Turkmenbashi is the Turkmenbashi. No one in
Istanbul was particularly sorry about his absence.
It is much more interesting to try and gauge the motives of Uzbekistan,
the only GUUAM country whose president was absent from the NATO summit.
Invented as a counterweight to the pro-Moscow CIS Collective Security
Treaty Organization, GUUAM was established by presidents of Georgia,
Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova in 1997. Tashkent joined GUAM (and
transformed it into GUUAM) in 1999, when Islam Karimov attended
celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Alliance in Washington. All
Karimov’s colleagues in the bloc dutifully flew to Istanbul but he
opted to stay home. It should be regarded as official Tashkent’s
gesture of loyalty to Moscow – quite in line with the policy of
strategic partnership with Russia Uzbekistan is demonstrating these
days. The authorities of Uzbekistan certainly made their point because
even presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan (Moscow’s
strategic allies and members of the Organization of the CIS Collective
Security Treaty) attended the NATO summit.
Some observers do not rule out the possibility that there is another
ulterior motive at play here. Tashkent may regard itself as a key
center of another geopolitical axis – the one with Moscow and Beijing.
Unlike the aid that was promised by the West but never materialized,
China’s promises of economic assistance look like something that may
really be counted on. Moreover, Beijing doesn’t demand economic and
political reforms in return for the aid. Karimov said on two occasions
in the last twelve months (both times in Putin’s presence) that the
period of euphoria in connection with economic cooperation with the
West was over.
But let’s get back to the CIS leaders who attended the NATO summit. Has
the Alliance lived up to their expectations? Apart from Leonid Kuchma
of Ukraine, they would probably say yes. Kuchma was given to understand
once again that Ukraine’s eagerness to join the European Union would be
met halfway only if the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine is
recognized as democratic. Baku and Tbilisi in their turn were reassured
that they would be permitted to approach NATO’s threshold even closer.
Mikhail Saakashvili said that Georgia might become a NATO member in
four years. Well, the trend is undeniable. The decision was made in
Istanbul to appoint NATO special envoys to the Caucasus and Central
Asia. Needless to say, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov could
only announce that “we should view this decision as a reality.” What
else was there to say?
Observers were amused yesterday to hear of the statement made by Andrei
Kokoshin, chairman of the Duma’s CIS affairs committee. Kokoshin warned
CIS countries aspiring to NATO membership that they would “certainly
lose part of their sovereignty” and advised them to stick to Russia
instead, as a “guarantor of this sovereignty.”