Today, Azerbaijan
March 10 2006

Reno Harnish: “Nagorno Karabakh conflict should be settled through
talks”

10 March 2006 [17:03] – Today.Az

“The US takes an active part in resolution process of Nagorno
Karabakh conflict in the recent two years,” the US Ambassador to
Azerbaijan Reno Harnish told the journalists.

Saying people are killed in the frontline everyday, the Ambassador
underscored that it is the indicator the Nagorno Karabakh conflict’s
not being “Frozen conflict”.

The diplomat stated that the conflict should be settled through
negotiations. Mr.Harnish expressed his regret that sided failed to
come to agreement in Rambouillet talks and said that the both state
leaderships as well as nations should be met often and continue
regular talks in order to reach agreement.

“The both foreign ministers and co-chairs should intensify attempts
at settlement of the conflict.”

Mr.Harnish added that OSCE Minsk Group American co-chair Steven Mann
will visit Azerbaijan on March 13 and discussion will be held on
continuation of the talks for settlement process, APA bureau in
Sheki-Zagatala reports.

URL:

MORE THAN 10 THOUSAND REFUGEES LIVING IN GEGHARKUNIK REGION NOT
PROVIDED WITH APARTMENTS YET

GAVAR, MARCH 10, NOYAN TAPAN. 10400 refugees live in the Gegharkunik
region at present. Most of them aren’t provided with apartments. But,
according to the RA government’s decision adopted in 2004, it’s
envisaged to implement the program of providing with a permanent
dwelling the persons who have been deported from Azerbaijan in
1988-1992 and urgently need a flat. Certificates for an apartment have
been already given to 39 refugee families living in temporary
dwellings. 19 of them have already found flats and 4 will have them in
March.

More than 30% of 7400 Chambarak residents, including refugees and
internally displaced people, still lives at apartments built 200 years
ago and formerly populated by molokans. The Chambarak Mayor expects RA
government’s support for the purpose of solving this problem.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ABOUT 63 MLB DRAMS DAMAGE DONE TO STATE AS A RESULT OF ILLEGAL
FELLINGS IN FORESTS OF TAVUSH IN 2005

NOYEMBERIAN, MARCH 10, NOYAN TAPAN. Facts of illegal fellings of about
3000 trees were fixed as a result of partial control in the
forestholdings of Ijevan, Artsvaberd, Sevkar and Noyemberian of the
Tavush marz in 2005. As a result of those fellings, damage of 62 mln
590 thousand drams (about 140 thousand U.S. dollars) was done to the
state. Vardan Ayvazian, the RA Minister of Nature Protection informed
the Noyan Tapan correspondent about this.

The biggest breakings were fixed in the “Forestholding of Ijevan”
company where 1188 illegal fellings were found out. The size of the
damage done to the state forest fund made 43 mln 951 thousand drams.

The RA State Department of Nature Protection found out in the marz the
last year 10 breakings of the rules on keeping the water resources as
a result of what 5 men were subjected to the administrative fine of in
total 750 thousand drams, and the activity of 2 industrial enterprises
was stopped.

NUMBER OF “HAYRUSGASARD” SUBSCRIBERS ENVISAGED TO ADD BY ANOTHER 60
THOUSANDS THIS YEAR

YEREVAN, MARCH 10, NOYAN TAPAN. As of January 1 of this year, the
number of the “HayRusgasard” subscribers made 360 thousand, and of the
potential subscribers made 180 thousand. As Karen Karapetian, the
Chief Director of the company stated at the March 10 sitting of the RA
Commission on Regulating Public Services, it’s envisaged to raise the
number of subscribers to 420 thousand this year.

K.Karapetian also informed that 12 bln drams (about 26 mln U.S.
dollars) will be invested in works of gasification this year. It was
mentioned that gathering of payments from the inhabitation makes 105%.

YEREVAN UNDERGROUND CELEBRATES THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY

YEREVAN, MARCH 10. ARMINFO. On March 11 the Yerevan
Underground(Subway) aft.

K. Demirchyan CJSC will celebrate its 25th anniversary by an official
opening and a concert at Arno Babajanyan Concert Hall.

In an interview to ARMINFO, Director of the Underground ( Subway)
Vahagn Hakobyan mentioned that nearly 800 million people has been
using underground ways starting from the day of its
foundation. According to his data, the daily number of passengers is
50 000 people, with 6,000 of them being exempts.

Despite the one way ticket payment is 50 drams, the cost value is 92
drams, he underlined. V. Hakobyan stated that the remaining 42 drams
are subsidized by the RA State Budget. Thus, in 2005 the subsidies
made up 697 million drams, in the current year this figure will be
increased by 177 million drams. V.

Hakobyan mentioned also that the wages fund of underground personnel
was increased by 11 million drams in January 2006 due to the
assistance of Yerevan Municipality, which became the 100% shareholder
of the Underground in accordance with a relevant Governmental
decision. Since January 2006 the wages of the employees increased by
20%, and the average wages are now 54 000 drams.

According to V. Hakobyan, introduction of an electronic card system
instead of the present token system is currently settled, as well as
acquisition of new equipment, and water draining problem and
automation of all systems are being considered. 400 mill drams are
necessary for settlement of all the above problems, V. Hakobyan
says. For this purpose the Yerevan Underground is negotiating with
World Bank, RA State Government and Yerevan Municipality. The director
mentioned that during 2005 Underground CJSC received 145 million of
the 400 million with help of the Municipality. In fact, two escalators
were repaired. V. Hakobyan said under the Master Plan of Yerevan in
2010 a new underground station “Ajapnyak” will be put into
exploitation, with some $5 million have already been spent on the
construction. Three more stations will be put into operation by 2020.

At present 10 underground stations are operating in Yerevan with the
railway runs 12.1 km. The number of employees of “Yerevan Underground
CJSC aft K.

Demirchyan is 1,200 people, including 55 having 20 year of length of
service and 100 have been working in the infrastructure since the very
day of its operation on March 7, 1981.

Agence France Presse
9 mars 2006 jeudi 7:58 AM GMT

Génocides: journée de débats sur la responsabilité des Etats à Marseille

MARSEILLE 9 mars 2006

Une journée de débats-rencontres portant sur la responsabilité des
Etats dans les génocides du XXe siècle se tiendra à Marseille samedi
dans le cadre d’une initiative intitulée “Amnésie internationale”, a
indiqué l’association Jeunesse arménienne de France (JAF).

Pour cette troisième édition, parrainée par les acteurs Ariane
Ascaride et Jean-Pierre Darroussin, “l’accent sera mis sur la
responsabilité des Etats, qu’elle soit active lorsque le gouvernement
participe ou organise le génocide, passive lorsque la reconnaissance
de cette responsabilité se fait attendre ou est niée ou encore
complice par le jeux des coalitions, des ententes et des alliances”,
explique la JAF dans un communiqué.

Ces thèmes seront abordés lors de débats réunissant intellectuels,
journalistes et personnalités du monde culturel, mais aussi à travers
des expositions et des concerts, qui se tiendront aux Docks des Sud.
L’endroit, incontournable scène de la culture marseillaise, avait
déjà accueilli les 4.000 participants des éditions de 2001 et 2004.

En générant le projet Amnésie internationale, la JAF “a choisi de
placer son combat sous le signe de la fraternité en s’associant aux
communautés juive, tzigane, cambodgienne ou encore rwandaise”, toutes
frappés par les génocides qui ont ponctué le XXe siècle, explique
l’association.

Selon les organisateurs, une partie des bénéfices de cette journée
sera versée à l’Association internationale de recherche sur les
crimes contre l’humanité et le génocides (AIRCRIGE), partenaire de la
première heure.

CLE_ID=49203

Friiday, March 10, 2006 Evening Edition

MUCH ABOUT HISTORY
New photo resparks ‘Noah’s Ark mania’
Digital image of ‘Ararat Anomaly’ has researchers taking closer look

Posted: March 10, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A new, high-resolution digital image of what has become known as the
“Ararat Anomaly” is reigniting interest in the hunt for Noah’s Ark.

Satellite image of ‘Ararat Anomaly,’ taken by DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird
Satellite in 2003 and now made public for the first time (courtesy:
DigitalGlobe)

The location of the anomaly on the northwest corner of Mt. Ararat in
eastern Turkey has been under investigation from afar by ark hunters
for years, but it has remained unexplored, with the government of
Turkey not granting any scientific expedition permission to explore on
site.

But the detail revealed by the new photo from DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird
satellite has a man at the helm of the probe excited once again.

“I’ve got new found optimism … as far as my continuing push to have
the intelligence community declassify some of the more definitive-type
imagery,” Porcher Taylor, an associate professor in paralegal studies
at the University of Richmond, told Space.com.

For more than three decades, Taylor has been a national security
analyst, and has also served as a senior associate for five years at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

“I’m calling this my satellite archaeology project,” Taylor said.

Space.com reports the project has been combining the photographic
resources of QuickBird with GeoEye’s Ikonos spacecraft, Canada’s
Radarsat 1, as well as declassified aerial and satellite images
snapped by U.S. intelligence agencies.

While it’s quite possible the item of interest could simply be a
natural ridge of rock, snow and ice, Taylor says there’s also a chance
it could be something manmade.

“I had no preconceived notions or agendas when I began this in 1993 as
to what I was looking for,” he said. “I maintain that if it is the
remains of something manmade and potentially nautical, then it’s
potentially something of biblical proportions.”

The anomaly remains ensconced in glacial ice at an altitude of 15,300
feet, and Taylor says the photos suggest its length-to-width ratio is
close to 6:1, as indicated in the Book of Genesis.

The U.S. Air Force took the first photographs of the Mt. Ararat site
in 1949. The images allegedly revealed what seemed to be a structure
covered by ice, but were held for years in a confidential file labeled
“Ararat Anomaly.”

The new image was actually taken in 2003, but has never been revealed
to the public until now.

Arking up the wrong tree?

Meanwhile, there are others who believe Noah’s Ark has already been
found, and tourists can actually visit it on a mountain next to
Ararat.

Some believe this is Noah’s Ark, already found on a mountain
next to Mt. Ararat (courtesy: wyattmuseum.com)

The late Ron Wyatt, whose Tennessee-based foundation, Wyatt
Archaeological Research, purported the ark is located at Dogubayazit,
Turkey, some 12-15 miles from Ararat, noting Genesis states the ark
rested “upon the mountains of Ararat,” not mountain.

Is this a hair from a large cat aboard Noah’s Ark? (photo:
Richard Rives, wyattmuseum.com)

Wyatt’s website is filled with on-location photographs and charts
promoting its case with physical evidence including radar scans of
bulkheads on the alleged vessel, deck timber and iron rivets, large
“drogue” stones which are thought to have acted as types of anchors,
and even some animal hair inside, possibly from a large cat like a
lion or tiger.

A flood of doubt

However, there’s been no shortage of critics from both scientific and
Christian circles who think the Dogubayazit site is erroneous.

Lorence Collins, a retired geology professor from California State
University, Northridge, joined the late David Fasold, a one-time
proponent of the Wyatt site, in writing a scientific summary claiming
the location is “bogus.”

“Evidence from microscopic studies and photo analyses demonstrates
that the supposed Ark near Dogubayazit is a completely natural rock
formation,” said the 1996 paper published in the Journal of Geoscience
Education. “It cannot have been Noah’s Ark nor even a man-made
model. It is understandable why early investigators falsely identified
it.”

The Answers in Genesis website provides an in-depth report attempting
to debunk any validity the Dogubayazit site has, and concludes by
stating:

“[A]s Christians we need to always exercise due care when claims are
made, no matter who makes them, and any claims must always be
subjected to the most rigorous scientific scrutiny. If that had
happened here, and particularly if the scientific surveys conducted by
highly qualified professionals using sophisticated instruments had
been more widely publicized and their results taken note of, then
these claims would never have received the widespread credence that
they have.”

Officials with Wyatt Archaeological Research remain unfazed in the
face of such criticism.

“The site … is actually something that you can look at. Not some
made up story that no one is quite able to reach but something that is
really there,” said president Richard Rives. “It is a ‘boat-shaped
object’ composed of material containing organic carbon, which is what
is found in petrified wood. …

“While there is more research that needs to be done at the site, there
is a substantial amount of evidence that would indicate that the Wyatt
site is not a natural object. …

“Today, everyone wants to tell us how to think. We, at Wyatt
Archaeological Research, do not do that. We just present the evidence
that we have and let each individual make his own decision.”

In both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible speaks of Noah and the
ark, and Jesus Christ and the apostles Paul and Peter all make
reference to Noah’s flood as an actual historical event.

‘Noah’s Ark’ by Pennsylvania artist Edward Hicks, 1846

According to Genesis, Noah was a righteous man who was instructed by
God to construct a large vessel to hold his family and many species of
animals, as a massive deluge was coming to purify the world which had
become corrupt.

Genesis 6:5 states: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually.”

Noah was told by God to take aboard seven pairs of each of the “clean”
animals – that is to say, those permissible to eat – and two each of
the “unclean” variety. (Gen. 7:2)

Though the Bible says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, it also
mentions “the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty
days.”

The ark then “rested” upon the mountains of Ararat, but it was still
months before Noah and his family – his wife, his three sons and the
sons’ wives – were able to leave the ark and begin replenishing the
world.

Copyright 1997-2006
All Rights Reserved. WorldNetDaily.com Inc.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

March 8, 2006 Edition

Knowledge Without A Larger Understanding

Books
BY ADAM KIRSCH
March 8, 2006
URL:

To trace the boundaries of the vanished Ottoman Empire, take a map of
Europe and the Middle East and start shading in every country that,
for the last 15 years, has been in the news thanks to civil war,
ethnic cleansing, and terrorism. From Bosnia in the northwest to
Baghdad in the southeast, the world’s most dangerous zone is made up
of Ottoman successor states, carved out of the corpse of the empire by
rebellious ethnic groups (Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania) or high-handed
European imperialists (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq). Just as the collapse of
the U.S.S.R. made it possible to feel nostalgic for the Cold War as a
time of relative stability, so the aftermath of the fall of the
Ottoman Empire – a consummation devoutly wished by Europe for most of
the 19th century, and finally achieved after World War I – can make
even that corrupt, despotic regime look good.

We may have forgotten about the Ottoman Empire, in other words, but it
hasn’t forgotten about us. That is why “Osman’s Dream” (Basic Books,
660 pages, $35), a comprehensive new history by British scholar
Caroline Finkel, is so timely, and why its limitations are finally so
disappointing. For what Ms. Finkel has written is less a history of
the Ottoman Empire than a chronicle, a numbingly comprehensive catalog
of every sultan and grand vezier, every military campaign and treaty,
every conquest and rebellion. Long before reaching Ms. Finkel’s 75
pages of notes and bibliography, her mastery of the historical
literature is obvious: The sheer amount of information packed between
these two covers makes it a landmark achievement.

The problem for a general reader (and Ms. Finkel claims to be writing
for “general readers who know little of the Ottomans”) is that most of
the information in “Osman’s Dream” is of no real use. Of course, it is
always valuable to ascertain the events of history, to set down what
happened when. But the common reader, who has no professional stake in
the subject, does not read history to memorize a succession of dates
and names. He reads pragmatically, looking for knowledge about the
past that will help him understand the present and anticipate the
future.

Good popular history, without reducing the past to a mere fable, uses
it to answer questions: How did people live, think, and act in
conditions different from our own? What potentialities of human nature
did they achieve, and which did they allow to atrophy? How did their
doing and suffering create the world that we have inherited?
Especially when it comes to a subject like the Ottoman Empire, which
to most Western readers is a blank only partially filled in by myth
and literature, facts become usable only as parts of a larger story.

It is this larger story that Ms. Finkel fails to supply. “Osman’s
Dream” charts the history of the Ottomans primarily in military and
diplomatic terms; culture, economics, politics, daily life, the
personalities of great men and women, appear seldom if at all. We
learn that one sultan succeeds another, but not what a sultan actually
did on an average day. We see that, for an Ottoman courtier, it was
practically guaranteed that a splendid career would end in death – one
grand vezier after another falls from grace and gets strangled or
beheaded – but never understand why, despite this fatality, ambitious
men clamored for the job. We are told that the empire conquers one
city after another – Constantinople, Cairo, Baghdad, Belgrade, very
nearly Vienna – but not how its armies were organized, or how those
cities looked. For all the information packed into this long book, it
is surprising how many questions “Osman’s Dream” leaves unanswered.

Start with the most fundamental: Why did the Ottoman Empire rise so
spectacularly, then stagnate so long, and finally fall to pieces at a
touch, like an old tapestry? The empire that would eventually spread
over three continents started out, in the 14th century, as just one of
many small Turkish emirates, fighting for pre-eminence in
Anatolia. The Ottoman or Osmanli Turks, named for the dynasty’s
founder, Osman, had only one obvious advantage: Their lands bordered
the crumbling hulk of the Byzantine Empire, a vacuum into which the
energetic Turks quickly expanded.

By 1389, with the famous battle of Kosovo Polje (whose memory still
inflames Serb-Muslim tensions in the Balkans today), the Ottomans had
established their dominion over the Balkans. In 1453, they finally
took Constantinople, the old capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and
the sultans started to style themselves as world monarchs, the heirs
of the caesars. In 1517, they conquered the Mamluk Empire, gaining
control of Egypt, Syria, and – most important for this orthodox Sunni
state – the holy places of Mecca and Medina, allowing the sultans to
claim supreme authority in the Muslim world. In 1526, at the Battle of
Mohacs, they conquered most of Hungary, and a few years later
approached the gates of Vienna. No wonder that Sultan Suleyman I, who
reigned from 1520 to 1566, was known in the West as “the Magnificent”:
Under his reign, the Ottoman golden age, the empire seemed
unstoppable.

What never really becomes clear in “Osman’s Dream” is why the Turks
were able to expand so rapidly. Was it the weakness of surrounding
states, the divisions among Christian Europe, Ottoman military tactics
and technology? The question is all the more acute since, on
Ms. Finkel’s showing, the governance of the empire was always unstable
at best. Rebellions were almost the Ottoman version of elections: A
discontented general or provincial governor would take up arms, not to
overthrow the dynasty, but to get some attention for his grievances,
or just to win promotion. Large areas of the empire seem to have been
only nominally under Istanbul’s control.

Throughout its centuries of power, the empire never established a
reasonable system of succession: The death of each sultan opened a
freefor-all among his sons, often resulting in civil war. The
notorious practice whereby each sultan murdered his brothers, which
did so much to create the Western image of Turkish barbarism, was the
closest the empire came to a rule of succession. Remarkably, despite
this thinning of the ranks, the Ottoman dynasty reigned without a
break from Osman to Mehmed VI, the last emperor, who abdicated in 1922
with the creation of modern Turkey.

Likewise, “Osman’s Dream” leaves the reader wondering about the rapid
decline in Ottoman fortunes. Why was it that, starting in the late
17th century, the empire fell rapidly behind its rivals, especially
the rising power of Russia? By the 19th century, European powers were
breaking off pieces of the empire more or less at will; this was the
period when Turkey became known as “the sick man of Europe.” But
efforts at modernizing and reform were constantly thwarted by
entrenched interests, in a vicious circle that seems reminiscent of
the late Roman Empire. Here, again, one longs for more insight into
the Ottomans’ cultural, political, and economic problems than
Ms. Finkel provides – especially since the Ottoman failure has done so
much to shape the world we live in today. When the Ottoman Empire was
founded, America hadn’t yet been discovered; today, it is the United
States that mainly has to deal with the consequences of its
collapse. Given the vital importance of the Ottoman story

[email protected]
March 8, 2006 Edition

New EU-Russia treaty to deepen security and energy ties
10.03.2006 – 17:40 CET | By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A new EU-Russia treaty in 2007 is set to
bestrong on joint crisis management, with EU reliance on Russian
energy to grow.

“We might be actually acting side by side in far away places, like
Sudan, under UN auspices,” Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir
Chizhov, said in an interview with EUobserver on Thursday (9 March).

“Whether one likes it or not, in the mid-term perspective, that is in
the next 15 to 30 years, the percentage of EU demand covered by
supplies from Russia will grow,” he indicated.

Mr Chizhov dubbed the new legal pact a “Strategic Partnership Treaty
(SPT)” envisaging a slim framework document backed up by
action-oriented instruments.

“The issue at stake is not a new energy treaty…but a new treaty that
would summarise Russia-EU relations and this can replace the existing
Partnership and Cooperation Agreement [PCA].”

The PCA was drafted in the 1980s between the then European Community
and Soviet Union; it came into force in 1997 and will expire in
December 2007.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will fly to Moscow
on 17 March to kick-start the treaty talks with negotiations beginning
“in earnest” in autumn.

“The commission doesn’t have a mandate to negotiate a new
agreement. We understand that the intention is to draft such a mandate
and present it to [member states] before the summer break,” Mr Chizhov
said.

Ukraine gas crisis boosts pipeline plans

The Ukraine gas crisis in January reinforced Russia’s plans to build a
Baltic Sea gas pipeline to Germany as well as Austria’s push to build
the Nabucco gas pipeline to the Caspian basin, the ambassador
indicated.

“The silver lining behind this Ukrainian hiccup is that today nobody
questions the need for additional pipelines, including the North
European gas pipeline.”

Poland still hates the Baltic pipeline, he explained “but today they
are the only ones. There are countries that initially hated the idea
but now they hate the idea of being left out of it.”

Western diplomats believe Nabucco will give the EU leverage in gas
talks with Russia, yielding a new supply route out of Gazprom’s hands.

But “at least some” of the gas flowing through Nabucco will be
Russian, Mr Chizhov predicted, adding “If one wants to play one
country against another in terms of gas supplies that does not
increase stability, that does not increase energy security.”

“It [the EU] is free to choose cheap energy from Russia or more
expensive energy from elsewhere,” he said.

Joint missions in Nagorno-Karabakh

EU and Russian soldiers could also do peacekeeping work in the
breakaway Azerbaijan region of Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the new
crisis management agenda, Mr Chizhov indicated.

“It could only be a solution providing post-solution peacekeeping, not
classic peacekeeping. Because neither the EU nor Russia want to get
involved until there is an agreement on the ground.”

Russia has already sent a few policemen to join the EU police mission
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and offered helicopters to help put out
French forest fires in 2005.

But it would be difficult for Russia to work with the EU on the
Bosnian model, with Russia as a “junior partner,” in post-Soviet
countries, Mr Chizhov said.

EU-Russian crisis work has also been frustrated by Brussels red tape
in the past.

The Bosnian police agreement took one year to write and the last two
months were spent in “endless discussions” on whether it should be in
English only or English and Russian.

“Our partners on the EU side of the table said, since Russian is not
an official language of the EU, you can’t have it. This is stupid.”

Russian helicopters were ready to take off in 24 hours to help France
but it took seven days to get overflight clearance from EU transit
states.

“In the meantime all the forests burned down,” the ambassador
indicated. “Today the EU lacks a coordinated system of civilian
emergency response.”

EU brightness versus Russian darkness

Some aspects of EU diplomacy are unhelpful in managing relations
between the two powers in the post-Soviet region, Mr Chizhov remarked.

“There are people unfortunately here [in Brussels] who want to pose
artificial dilemmas facing these countries,” he said. “The dilemma
being – it’s either forward to the bright future with the EU or
backwards into the darkness with Russia.”

“We are being pragmatic, we understand that whatever any of these
countries wishes is not going to happen today or tomorrow or in the
foreseeable future,” the diplomat stated.

“But they are free to express their wishes, to dream about their
future EU membership.”

© EUobserver.com 2006
Printed from EUobserver.com 11.03.2006

You can keep Saab, Kerkorian tells GM

James Mackintosh, Geneva
02mar06

REBEL shareholder Kirk Kerkorian has dropped his demand that General
Motors close or sell Saab, its troubled Swedish car-making division.

GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz said he had briefed Jerry York, Mr
Kerkorian’s representative on the GM board of directors, and Mr York
had agreed that Saab – and Hummer, the profitable sports utility
vehicle brand – be retained. A spokeswoman for Mr York declined to
confirm his position.

Mr Kerkorian became GM’s third-biggest shareholder last year and has
offered to buy more shares if his plan, drawn up by Mr York, is
followed through.

Mr Lutz, speaking at the Geneva motor show on Tuesday, said: “He (Mr
York) thought Saab was still what it was a few years ago when it was
this nice company sitting in Trollhattan (its Swedish base) with
basically all the structural cost of an entire automotive company but
selling only 120,000 units a year.

“That model was frankly hopeless. I took Jerry through it the other
day at great length and he now understands there is no more Saab you
can sell.”

He said that Saab was now integrated into GM’s global product
development and manufacturing system, which involved a new small
Cadillac being built in Trollhattan. The next generation 9-3, Saab’s
biggest seller, will be built at one of GM’s German factories.

“Trying to sell Saab and Hummer out of GM is like saying there are too
many eggs in that omelette – please take them out and sell them off.”

Mr York last month demanded GM dump Hummer and Saab to refocus on its
core American brands, which are in deep trouble.

GM lost $US5.6 billion last year in its US automotive business as
market share crumbled and sales of its most profitable vehicles
collapsed.

Mr York said that, if his plan were adopted, Mr Kerkorian might buy an
extra 12 million shares, worth $US244 million ($330 million) at the
$US20.36 they were trading at early on Tuesday afternoon, when they
were up US25c.

Elements of the plan, including personal wage sacrifices by top
executives and a halving of the dividend, have been carried out. Saab
is expanding its model line-up, with a small car being considered and
a car-SUV crossover already approved.

© The Australian