July 30, 2005

Happy if the latest Atom bombs
By Tom Charity

Atom Egoyan, Canada’s second most famous film-maker (David
Cronenberg gets the top spot), was born in Cairo to Armenian immigrants.
They named him after Egypt’s first nuclear reactor – “it could have been
worse”, he has noted, drily – then moved to Victoria, British Columbia.
He completed a BA in international relations and has been pursuing the
thought ever since. At least, themes of national identity, alienation
and desire haunt his work, which is often cerebral and darkly comic, but
also more emotional than he is generally given credit for.
A deep strain of grief runs through his films. The
Oscar-nominated The Sweet Hereafter (1997) dissects a community
struggling to come to terms with a tragic school bus accident, while
Ararat (2002) confronts the genocide of the Armenian people by the
Ottomans. In the earlier films The Adjuster (1991) and Exotica (1994),
both coming out on DVD for the first time this week, the melancholia is
laced with mystery, black comedy and eroticism.

Exotica is a series of interwoven tales set around a
stripclub. In The Adjuster Noah Render (Elias Koteas) is an insurance
claims investigator who is equal parts priest, therapist and Santa Claus
to his clients, but a complete enigma to his estranged wife. He promises
restitution and administers sexual salve to the victims of fire and
natural disaster – drawing strength from his own compassion.

“His tragedy is that his power lasts only as long as it
takes for people to get their things back,” notes Egoyan, on the phone
from Toronto. “I was very interested in this notion the French have,
déformation professionnelle: that your job defines you and deforms
you.”

The seed for the movie was a huge fire at Egoyan’s parents’
home in British Columbia in 1990. “In our case the adjuster was just a
regular guy in a ski jacket, but we were so devastated, we couldn’t help
projecting so much more on to him,” he recalls. “He was the person who
had to decide whether or not we were telling the truth; if there really
had been a Bang and Olufsen under that heap of ashes in the corner. He
was like this strange angel of the material world.”

There had been talk of an American cable TV spin-off after
the film came out, and 15 years on there is renewed interest – Egoyan
has recently written a pilot for it. Perhaps America has some psychic
need to believe that, come what may, there’s an adjuster waiting in the
wings to come in and redeem their material effects.

“I realised I hadn’t written anything completely original
since Exotica in a way,” Egoyan says. “Even with Ararat I was drawing on
historical material, and there was so much political pressure on that
project that I didn’t feel I was completely in my own world. So I’ve
been enjoying going back to it, and I find that elements of Exotica are
creeping in, too. The notion of a babysitter-confessor, for example.
There was a whole draft of Exotica written around her.”

Like most independents, Egoyan is still trying to square the
equation between making the films that interest him and the films that
financiers think might interest an audience. “The Adjuster and Exotica
were made with total freedom,” he says. “I had an extraordinary
relationship with Alliance Atlantis at the time. All I had to give them
was the title and the final copy. I didn’t have to worry about what
anyone thought.”

As it turned out, Exotica became his most commercially
successful film, after Miramax marketed it as an erotic thriller. “All
these clubs called Exotica started to spring up everywhere,” he recalls,
sounding rather bemused.

Things are different now. His latest feature was first shown
at Cannes, to mixed reviews. He describes Where the Truth Lies, which
stars Alison Lohman, Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth, as an “entirely
commercially driven project” – his first. At the same time, he and his
wife, Arsinée Khanjian, have returned from Lebanon with a film they
shot on mini-DV. The Citadel has “no commercial expectation at all,” he
says. “I love it.”

“You make a film because you think there’s an audience for
it, and in my case it wasn’t until mercifully late that I realised how
deluded I was. Most people are not drawn to the notion of mystery or
obfuscation, most people are not drawn to feeling self conscious in the
cinema. They just want to lose themselves.”

It sounds as though he is worried about a little
déformation professionnelle himself. And he isn’t encouraged by a
recent visit to graduate philosophy students in Switzerland. “I showed
them Where the Truth Lies and my second feature, Speaking Parts, which I
got really excited about watching again. This college was the last place
Jacques Derrida ever spoke, and they were all schooled in this language.
Overwhelmingly they preferred Where the Truth Lies.”

Not many film-makers would be dejected about a thumbs-up to
their latest movie. But then not many would choose a Leonard Cohen dirge
as the soundtrack to a stripper’s dance routine either. Atom Egoyan has
always been at his best when he’s unhappy about something – mourning
seems to become him. So maybe there’s something to be cheerful about
after all.

a..
The Adjuster and Exotica are released on DVD on Monday

The Toronto Star, Ontario
July 30, 2005 Saturday

Broken dreams in Armenia

by Michael Mainville, Special to the Star

YEREVAN, Armenia

Naira Yeremyan knows her home doesn’t look like much, but it’s all
she has.

A ramshackle collection of wooden boards, concrete slabs and
mismatched bricks, it sits amid the winding streets of Kond, a
desperately poor neighbourhood perched on a hilltop overlooking the
Armenian capital, Yerevan.

What the neighbourhood does have is a view. Below Kond, the city
stretches for kilometres onto the Armenian plains. In the distance
sits the ice-capped peak of Mt. Ararat in Turkey.

The view has property developers salivating over the prospect of
erecting luxury apartments in Kond. And that’s the bane of Yeremyan’s
existence.

“This house is 60 years old. My grandfather and grandmother came here
to escape the genocide in Turkey,” says Yeremyan, 37. “My mother was
born here. I was born here. This home is part of our family. And now
they are saying we cannot live here, that we have to leave and get
almost nothing in return.”

Three months ago, local authorities told the 14,000 residents of Kond
they would have to vacate their homes by the end of the year to make
way for modern housing. In exchange, they will be given payments of
between $2,400 and $6,000.

“You cannot buy a house anywhere in Yerevan for that much. We are
going to be homeless. They are throwing us out on the streets,” says
Yeremyan, who shares both the house and a monthly pension of about
$30 with her 63-year-old mother.

Yeremyan has organized sit-ins, petitions and court challenges, but
her protests have fallen on deaf ears. Those behind the project are
among the wealthy businessmen who control much of Armenia’s economy.
Government connections let them operate as they please.

“The authorities will not listen to us,” Yeremyan says. “There are
corrupt and influential people behind this and they can do whatever
they want.”

Kond is hardly unique. Armenians across the country face similar
obstacles – crippling poverty, endemic corruption and powerlessness
in the face of what critics say is an increasingly authoritarian
government.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When independence came after the
break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia seemed a dream come
true for a people with a tragic history. Less than a century after
the Armenian genocide – when the Turks killed between 500,000 and 1.5
million – the world’s 4 million-member Armenian diaspora finally had
a national homeland. But instead of thriving, Armenia languished. Its
politics are moribund, dominated by President Robert Kocharian, a man
critics accuse of falsifying elections and cracking down on
opponents. The economy, though improving, is in shambles. Almost half
the population lives on less than $2 a day.

The result has been a mass exodus – the reverse of early hopes for
Armenia. Instead of hundreds of thousands of dispersed Armenians
flocking to the country, more than 1 million have left for Russia and
the West. According to some estimates, the country has lost more than
30 per cent of its working-age population.

“People are leaving because they don’t see any hope for the future,”
says Avetik Ishkanyan, chair of the Helsinki Committee, a human
rights group. “And the worst part is that the ones who are leaving
are from the most active part of society – these are the people we
need to bring about changes in this country.”

Critics lay much of the blame at Kocharian’s feet. They say the
president – elected for a second time in 2003 – is running a corrupt
and despotic regime, giving free rein to businessmen close to him and
stifling any dissent.

“There is a huge gap between those in power and the majority of
Armenian society,” says Stepan Demirchian, the leader of the
opposition Justice coalition and son of a Kocharian rival killed in
1999 when gunmen attacked parliament. “And when we try to resist,
when we try to bring democratic change, they respond with violence.”

In April 2004, inspired by the peaceful Rose Revolution in Georgia,
tens of thousands of Armenians took to the streets to denounce
Kocharian and voting fraud in 2003 elections. Kocharian called in
police to break up the protest with stun grenades and water cannon.

“More than 600 citizens were arrested, political party offices were
ransacked, journalists were beaten,” Demirchian says. “And, after all
these acts of violence, the authorities tell us we have to be
patient, that it is a long road to democracy.”

Government officials insist the crackdown was needed to maintain
order, and say opposition parties are simply trying to seize power
for themselves.

Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan says the opposition uses the
pretence of supporting democracy to gain support abroad as they
attempt to overthrow the government. He says he knows Armenia’s
democracy is not perfect, but believes it is improving.

“The government is stable and the country is on the path to becoming
fully democratic,” he says. “A lot has been done, but a lot remains
to be done.”

Under pressure from the West, Armenia will hold a national referendum
this year on a package of constitutional amendments designed to limit
the power of the presidency and protect judicial independence.
Oskanyan says the reforms will be key to ensuring democratic growth.

“Once we complete our constitutional reforms, Armenia will move
forward in leaps and bounds,” he says.

Opposition leaders say the reforms are only symbolic and see the
referendum as a potential trigger for the kind of mass protests that
drove out authoritarian governments in Georgia and Ukraine.

Aram Sarkisian, leader of the radical Republic Party, says opposition
parties are gearing up to organize mass demonstrations after the
referendum, which he says is sure to be fraudulent.

“The situation in our country is terrible. People are leaving because
they have no hope,” he says. “Armenian society is ready for
revolutionary change, peaceful and civilized change.”

Sarkisian says he met with White House and State Department officials
during a June trip to Washington and emerged confident of American
support for a revolution.

“The United States supported the Georgians and the Ukrainians and
they will help the Armenian people,” he says.

Still, experts say it’s unlikely the opposition can organize a
successful revolution or win Western support. Fractured by
in-fighting and with no clear leader, the opposition is more likely
to fall apart before posing any threat to Kocharian.

“The opposition is too weak and the government is just democratic
enough to keep the West from supporting drastic changes,” says a
Western official in Yerevan, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Chatting over rich coffees in Yerevan’s trendy ArtBridge Cafe, a
group of students and recent graduates agree that a revolution is
next to impossible.

Unlike so many young Armenians, they’ve decided to stay and try to
build their country.

“I will not leave Armenia, I want to do things for my country, make
it a better place to live,” says Artak Ayunts, a 26-year-old
university lecturer.

But the group is skeptical about radical changes. They don’t believe
Armenians are ready for a revolution and say it could take decades of
slow progress before the country is free and relatively prosperous.

“People don’t believe in themselves, they think someone else should
always make changes for them,” Ayunts says.

Jokes philosophy student Gevorg Abrahamyan:

“The biggest problem with Armenia is the Armenians.” Michael
Mainville is a Canadian journalist based in Moscow.

GRAPHIC: Michael mainville for the toronto star Residents of Kond, a
ramshackle neighbourhood in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, fill
water bottles on a hot summer day. Some 14,000 residents of the
neighbourhood, which has stunning views of Mt. Ararat in Turkey, are
being forced out to make way for luxury housing.

National Post (Canada)
July 30, 2005 Saturday
Toronto Edition

Beautiful dreamer: Date With Arline Malakian

Susanne Hiller, Weekend Post

Arline Malakian thinks about beauty all the time. Over the past two
decades, the elfin fashion photographer has taken thousands of photos
for glossy magazines and high-end retail clients such as Alfred Sung,
Nygard and Holt Renfrew.

“I live and create beauty but I fight it, too,” said Malakian, 45,
over lunch this week at the Pure Spirits Oyster House and Grill in
Toronto’s funky Distillery District. “For me, there is always that
battle to fight what beauty can become, that idea that beauty has to
be perfect.”

Despite a power outage downtown, the restaurant is one of the few in
the area that has remained open. They have produced a hastily
improvised barbeque menu. For Malakian, who is pretty much a health
freak, it is just good karma.

“That means the calamari will be grilled, right?” Malakian asks the
waitress. “Oh good, that is exactly the way I like it. You have to
respect your body.”

Malakian chose this spot to meet not only because she loves seafood
but also because she frequents the nearby photo lab. And even though
she works at the other end of town, she likes hanging out here,
poking around the art studios and galleries. She knows the district
well: She had lots of suggestions for the National Post photographer
about pleasing corners with decent lighting.

She is slightly nervous because after our lunch she is attending the
first screening of Beauty Quest, a documentary in which she is the
subject. The film focuses on her attempts to shoot “the defining
picture of beauty” over the course of two months on the streets of
Toronto, an interesting assignment for a woman who is used to working
with models, beauty teams, elaborate sets and big budgets.

“And also I was not used to being filmed,” says Malakian, who looks
like a model herself in her skinny jeans and huge wedge heels. “I had
to learn to forget and allow the moment to be. I was surrounded by
film crew and I had to learn to let myself become one body with
everyone around me.”

This is how Malakian talks. She is all about “true essences” and
“windows to the soul” and watching educational TV. But she is so
sweet and friendly that her earnestness doesn’t come across as
contrived or annoying.

Born in Beirut of Armenian descent, she moved to Toronto with her
family and went to the Ontario College of Art and Design. She took
two photography courses and opened her own studio when she was 25.
She moved to Paris soon after to find her “own language and free
herself of constraints.” It was only then that she could return to
the commercial world with some peace of mind.

“The responsibility,” she sighs, sipping on her sparkling water and
picking at her organic greens, “it weighs on my shoulders. I do not
want women to be inspired by a beauty that is unachievable.
Hopefully, I am not imposing. In that glossy world, my pictures are
fantasies, not norms.”

For this doc, however, she photographed ordinary women of all ages
and backgrounds, everyone from veteran journalist June Callwood to
card-playing seniors. Malakian eventually decided she needed to do a
self-portrait.

“I felt in order to undress others I had to undress myself. I had to
think ‘what glasses do I wear when looking at myself.’ At the end, I
had to ask the question: ‘Can I be completely detached from my own
reflection?’ I found that even if we do believe that beauty is an
inner thing, it is difficult not to judge yourself. So, for me,
personally, the beauty quest continues.”

And what photo did she choose as defining beauty?

After much deliberation, she selected an image of a 22-year-old woman
wearing a hooded sweatshirt on a streetcar. The photo will be
featured in the Dove Real Beauty Photography Exhibit, which is
touring Canada in August. It features the work of other well-known
female photographers such as Annie Leibovitz.

“I don’t know much about that girl I met on the streetcar. She was
unemployed and she was worried she hadn’t washed her hair. But we
made a real connection. She allowed me to see her beauty and I
allowed her to feel beautiful. She skipped her stop so I could
photograph her and we had this magical moment.”

Malakian asked the women she photographed to share their thoughts on
self-image and beauty. A design assistant who sews for the Comrags
clothing line, for example, defined beauty as the ability to “juggle
real life and not look like a hobo.” An 84-year-old woman told
Malakian she didn’t consider herself beautiful, but felt she was “not
hard to look at.”

“One person said ‘God made me the way I am and I have to honour it,’
” she says. “That was beautiful. It was refreshing. I thought there
would be more stereotypes.”

GRAPHIC: Black & White
Photo: Yvonne Berg for National Post; Accustomed to being behind the
camera lens, Arline Malakian found herself the subject of a
documentary about finding beauty.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 30, 2005 Saturday 1:27 AM Eastern Time

Earthquake recorded in Armenia, no victims (adds)

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

An earthquake measuring 4.0-5.0 on the 12-point scale struck Armenia
overnight. There were no victims or destruction, the national
seismologic service told Itar-Tass.

The tremours were recorded at 01:10 Moscow time.

The epicenter was only seven kilometres west of the capital Yerevan
of more than a million people.

Seismologists usually use two systems – the Richter scale and the
12-point Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik MSK-64 scale of assessment of
quake consequences on the surface.

A one-point tremour is not felt by people and only recorded by
special devices. The nine-point quake destroys walls and roofs and
makes cracks on the earth surface. A twelve-point quake completely
destroys buildings and can even divert rivers.

Seven-point tremours destroyed almost all the northern part of
Armenia on December 7, 1988. The disaster killed 25,000 people,
injured the same number and left more than half a million without
homes. The quake destroyed the city of Spitak, 58 villages and
settlements and seriously damaged Leninakan, Stepanavan, Kirovakan
and many other residential areas. The disaster hit a total of 21
cities and towns and 350 villages.

Jamaica Observer, Jamaica
July 30 2005

‘Marching as to war.’

Keeble McFarlane
Saturday, July 30, 2005

Keeble McFarlane
Over the course of history, there has been one constant factor in
relations between one set of people and another – strife. Clan has
fought against clan, tribe against tribe, faction has conducted feud
against faction, ethnic group has gone to battle with ethnic group,
nation has bombarded nation. In his collection of stories about the
fictional travels of a man he created, the 18th-century Anglo-Irish
satirist, Jonathan Swift, reduces such conflicts to their most
ridiculous. Lemuel Gulliver, who had been washed ashore after a
shipwreck, finds himself on an island populated by people about the
size of his hand. A neighbouring island was also populated by similar
diminutive people, but the two groups were bitter enemies. The
reason? One set broke their eggs at the little end, the other at the
big end. And never the twain shall meet, except to clash with arms.

The people who fight each other offer their own reasons and
rationalisations. Scholars pick over the bones of each conflict, and
pronounce on the causes and effects.
Library shelves overflow with volumes explaining the fine points
about disputes which resulted in conflicts. Often there are two, or
more, explanations of what happened. A case in point: what Armenians
and their descendants scattered in many countries describe as the
massacre of 1915. Armenia was a small country with a long history of
domination by others. Turkey was in charge a century ago, and when
World War I broke out, the Turkish rulers feared that the Armenians
within its boundary would take the side of Russia and the Allies. So
they forcibly moved more than one and three-quarter million of them
to Syria and Mesopotamia. Some 600,000 died in the process. To this
day the Turks and Armenians disagree over what happened.

Puffed-up pride, inflated ideas about sovereignty and what you can
describe only as plain old testosterone-fuelled machismo is often at
the root of many armed clashes.
Twenty- three years ago, some Argentine ‘salvage workers’ tied up
their ship at an old whaling station called Grytviken on South
Georgia, a frozen, wind-swept island at the southern end of the
Atlantic Ocean. The island is part of the British crown colony of The
Falkland Islands, which the Argentines call the Malvinas. Leopoldo
Galtieri, an army general who headed the military junta running
Argentina, needed something to distract the attention of his
compatriots from the poor state of the economy and the inhumane
actions of his armed forces, which had been “disappearing” thousands
of people who opposed military rule.

Galtieri sent the scrap dealers to kick off a war with Britain. The
British sent a task force to the islands and in 10 weeks decisively
defeated the Argentines, at a cost of nearly 1,000 Argentine and
British servicemen and civilians. As wars go, it was a relatively
straightforward affair. In the end, it led to the downfall of the
military junta and the return to democratic, civilian rule in
Argentina, which declared a cessation of hostilities in 1989, and
most likely, put the entire question to rest for all time.

Not all conflicts are so tidy, as they entail not disputes over
territory nor arguments about aggression by one party or the other.
These arise out of what people believe and how they think other
people should behave. And even the most casual reading of history
reveals that organised religion has to shoulder much of the
responsibility for the billions of souls who have perished for one
cause or other over the ages.
Between the 11th and 14th centuries, Europeans conducted half a dozen
crusades to Palestine. They were unleashed by several popes with the
intention of securing Christian rule of the various Muslim-controlled
holy places in that troubled region. Thus began the enduring friction
between Christianity and Islam. Now we see Islam striking back, not
only in the form of the diabolical suicide bombers, but in the
strident cries of mullahs and imams against the secular west and the
burgeoning of madrassas – Islamic schools – which indoctrinate young
people with a simplified and tunnel-visioned view of their religion
and its place in the world.

It’s not much different in the United States, where a similar,
simple-minded view of the world is taking over. The message goes out
using radio, television and other modern techniques, and reaches far
beyond the boundaries of the US. The Christian fundamentalists also
have their version of the madrassas, but they are not satisfied with
just doing the job themselves. In the past few years, the
neo-conservatives have increased their control of statehouses, the
court system and the federal political structure. Not only is the
Republican Party in power all over the place, the people who run the
party today are not the old-line conservatives who believed in free
enterprise and allowing people to live their lives as they please.

This new lot want the country to be run their way. They want to root
out any mention of Darwin or any discoveries or conclusions he and
other scientists have made about how the natural world works; they
want schools to teach only what they call creationism. They don’t
believe a woman has the right to control her own reproductive system
and don’t even believe children should be educated about sex. They
want the country to return to the dark days of patrician, Puritan
rule. And George Bush is their ayatollah, and Britain has its own
ayatollah, too, in Tony Blair. But so far, that country’s hard-won
liberal tradition endures.

We have seen what the ayatollah in the White House has done to
prevent American money from going to any organisation fighting AIDS
which does not rely only on the narrow-minded message of sexual
abstinence but offers such things as condoms. In this, he is at one
with another narrow-minded but extremely influential and unrealistic
institution, the Vatican. He won re-election last year because his
troops got out the faithful, and it’s now payback time. All the
structures and traditions of the separation of church and state,
liberal democracy and the freedom to think for oneself, built up
slowly and painfully over two and a half centuries, are under attack.

Stay tuned. We are in for some interesting times.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Doghouse Boxing, Canada
July 30 2005

DoghouseBoxing Speaks with Vic Darchinyan
Darchinyan’s title defence against Jimenez rescheduled for August

Interview by Anthony Cocks, Site Editor (July 30, 2005)

IBF flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan has had his title defence
against Jair Jimenez postponed after the rugged 26-year-old Columbian
encountered visa problems that would have prevented him from arriving
in Australia until three days before the bout.

Originally scheduled to take place on July 27th, the d-Rush promoted
card will now go ahead on August 24th at the Sydney Entertainment
Centre in Darchinyan’s adopted hometown of Sydney, Australia.

Speaking exclusively to Doghouse Boxing shortly before the
postponement was announced, Darchinyan said he was looking forward to
the fight and revealed his plans to unify the division if he succeeds
in defeating Jimenez.

`What I can say about him is he’s a very good strong fighter,’ said
Darchinyan, 23-0 (18), of Jimenez. `I saw his tapes, a very good
power puncher, a busy fighter and he can punch and punch for twelve
rounds. He’s a good hard fighter.’

IBF #9 Jimenez, who lost back to back fights to Gerson Guerrero in
his last two outings while fighting at super flyweight, returns to
his natural weight class to face the power punching Armenian-born
Australian. Billy Hussein, who co-trains Darchinyan with former three
division champion Jeff Fenech, believes that Jimenez’s two recent
losses are deceptive.

`He’s a well balanced, good walk up fighter, but he’s going to be
shorter than Vic,’ explained Hussein. `In his two fights against
Gerson Guerrero he was beaten both times, but he fought at super
flyweight. It’s going to be a hard fight for Vic. This guy is a good
puncher, he’s a good style of fighter and he comes to fight.

`They would’ve watched Vic fight Pacheco as they’re both from
Columbia. They wouldn’t have taken this fight if they unless they
believed they could beat Vic. This guy is a good up and coming
fighter and Vic’s got to be on his game to win.’

Despite his two recent losses, Jimenez, 22-4-1 (16), is a world class
fighter who will be determined to wrest the title from Darchinyan. In
2002 Jimenez lost a razor thin majority decision for the WBO interim
flyweight championship to Adonis Rivas, who subsequently lost his
title to reigning champion Omar Narvaez.

`In the ring we will show who is the stronger, better puncher, who is
better,’ said Darchinyan. `But what I can say about him it will be an
exciting fight because he loves to fight and there will be support
for this fight and support for me.’

The postponement of the fight is an obvious setback for Darchinyan,
who added the IBO title to his IBF strap with an 8th round TKO of
South African Mzukisi Sikali in his last fight. According to Hussein,
this had been Darchinyan’s best preparation since his first attempt
at a world title challenge to then-champion Irene Pacheco, a fight
that ironically was also postponed due to Hurricane Frances.

`He’s had a real good preparation,’ said Hussein, who also co-trains
his world ranked brothers Nedal `Skinny’ Hussein and Hussein Hussein.
`He has boxed guys like Lovemore Ndou, Hussy, Ahmed Elomar and Billy
`The Kid’ Dib. He’s done a lot of sparring for this fight and he’s in
great shape. It’s different to the last defence when he fought
against Sakali. This is probably the best preparation he’s had since
the first Pacheco fight, which was postponed. He’s got his head
screwed on and he wants to defend his title on home soil.’

While Hussein has been working hard on developing Darchinyan into a
more well rounded boxer, the 2000 Olympian’s strong suit will always
be his bone crunching power.

`Vic hits so hard for a flyweight,’ admitted Hussein. `His power
punching intimidates a lot of fighters. They actually fight
differently when they fight Vic. Jair Jimenez is good at cutting off
the ring, but he’s not so great when he gets hit to the body and
that’s one thing we’re going to attack, his body.

`Vic’s a good power puncher. Let’s see how he responds when Vic does
hit him with a good shot or two. And with Vic being a southpaw it is
going to make things even harder for Jimenez.’

Darchinyan agrees with Hussein’s assessment and says that once he
starts landing with his heavy hands on the challenger the course of
the fight is bound to change.

`I know I’m very strong for anyone in my weight and when I start
punching I think he is going to really understand my power and he
can’t do things that he could do with all these other guys,’ said
Darchinyan.

Since winning the IBF title with an impressive 11th round stoppage of
formerly unbeaten Columbian Irene Pacheco last year, Hussein says
that the 29-year-old southpaw has improved in leaps and bounds.

`Without doubt,’ agreed Hussein. `The biggest difference is his
confidence. He knows that he can blow any flyweight, super flyweight
or bantamweight out. He believes in his power so much that we’ve been
trying to ease him back on that and keep teaching him the technique
and skills and reminding him that these are the little things you’ve
got to do right. As a person he’s a great person and as a fighter I
think he’s going to be a great fighter. I think he can unify the
flyweight division, not a problem.’

As far as Darchinyan’s future plans go, it looks like a mandatory
defence against Ireland’s Damaen Kelly is next in line before a
potentially explosive bout with WBA flyweight champion Lorenzo Parra,
25-0 (17), in 2006.

`I think we’ve got to make a mandatory defence against Damaen Kelly
of Ireland next,’ said Hussein. `Hopefully once we get through this
we will fight Damaen Kelly towards the end of the year. Lorenzo Parra
is going to fight Brahim Asloum from France and I think the winners
will eventually meet each other by March next year. Our aim is to
fight Parra or whoever wins that next fight.’

The 26-year-old Venezuelan is regarded by some pundits as the best in
the division, but Darchinyan is convinced that he has the tools to
defeat the unbeaten power puncher and stake his claim as the best in
the world in the 112 pound weight class.

`I would like to fight for the WBA title against Lorenzo Parra
because he’s recognized as a big power puncher in America,’ said
Darchinyan of his future plans.

`That’s why I want to fight him. I want to show that I am the best
mover, the best fighter and that I can beat him. I want to prove I’m
the best in any division. The best mover, the best puncher and the
best fighter.’

The d-Rush promoted card will be shown live in Australia on Sky
Channel and Main Event pay-per-view on August 24th from 7:30pm and
will also feature rising star Billy Dib defending his IBO Asia
Pacific super featherweight title against American southpaw Shamir
Reyes, unbeaten Ahmed Elomar squaring off against Matt Powell for the
vacant IBO Asia Pacific featherweight title, cruiserweight Adam
Lovelock doing battle with Jarrad Treloar and heavyweight Mark de
Mori against an opponent to be named.

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Czech Republic
July 30 2005

Iran: Tehran Struggles To Push Ahead With India Pipeline
By Bill Samii

Officials in Iran are eager to get under way with a proposed gas
pipeline to Pakistan and India that has been the subject of talks for
more than a decade. Initial discussions among the participating
countries concerning a 2,600-kilometer, overland natural-gas pipeline
from Iran through Pakistan to India began in the early 1990s.

Iran sits on the world’s second-largest natural-gas reserves — an
estimated 26.6 trillion cubic meters, according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.

Work on the project has yet to commence, however, and mid-July
statements from Indian officials cast doubt on the deal, particularly
in light of Washington’s recent agreement to cooperate with the
Indian nuclear program.

New Delhi Expresses Doubts

India is a huge and growing natural-gas market, with consumption
nearly 25 billion cubic meters in 2002 and projected to reach 34
billion cubic meters in 2010 and 45.3 billion cubic meters in 2015.
With its increasing energy requirements, India has entered
discussions about pipeline construction with Bangladesh, Iran,
Myanmar (Burma), and Qatar. Recent meetings among officials from
India, Iran, and Pakistan suggested that the pipeline project
connecting the three countries would get under way in the near future
despite pricing disagreements (see “RFE/RL Iran Report,” 7 March and
23 March 2005).

Indian officials recently stressed their eagerness to go ahead with
the Iranian pipeline project. Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar
Aiyar said in Lahore on 4 June that India would not give in to U.S.
pressure to abandon the project because of concerns that Iran might
use the revenues to develop nuclear or other banned weapons, Press
Trust of India (PTI) reported. The next day, Aiyar was in Pakistan
for talks with his counterpart, Amanullah Khan Jadoon.

The two sides created a Joint Working Group to accelerate work on the
pipeline. Diplomats in the Indian capital noted that Iran is absent
from the Joint Working Group, the Hindi “Navbharat Times” reported on
8 June, and they suggested that this was a conscious decision in
order to allay U.S. concerns.

In mid-June, India agreed to purchase $22 billion worth of natural
gas from Iran. Starting in 2009-10, an Indian consortium will
purchase 5 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually over
a 25-year period. This was less than the initial agreement, reached
in January, for the purchase of 7.5 million tons.The pipeline project
directly involves Iran, Pakistan, and India, and it has the potential
to improve troubled Islamabad-New Delhi relations. Washington would
welcome such a development, but it is reluctant to see the project go
ahead.

The next month, Pakistani officials were in New Delhi to discuss the
pipeline. Indian Petroleum Minister Aiyar told reporters that the
discussions would address commercial, financial, legal, and technical
issues. According to AFP on 12 July, when asked about Washington’s
opposition to the project, Pakistani Oil Secretary Ahmad Waqar said,
“Our president and prime minister have stated on a number of
occasions that we will proceed with this project based on our
national interests.”

Given these developments, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
announcement on 21 July in Washington that he was unsure whether the
pipeline would get funding might have come as an unpleasant surprise
to observers in Tehran and Islamabad.

“I am realistic enough to realize that there are many risks, because
considering all the uncertainties of the situation there in Iran, I
don’t know if any international consortium of bankers would
underwrite this,” Singh said, according to the PTI news agency.

Islamabad Is Eager

Talks between Pakistan and Iran in early July also suggested that all
was well.

Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh visited Islamabad
and met with Pakistani Petroleum Minister Jadoon in the first week of
July. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding that called
for continued discussions, and Namdar-Zanganeh said he hoped a final
agreement would be signed by April. He noted that after 10 years of
talks, this was the first “written document.” Namdar-Zanganeh also
met with Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz, according to media reports.

Jadoon emphasized that his country would need natural gas for
consumer and industrial consumption by 2010. The country’s demand for
natural gas is expected to rise approximately 50 percent by 2006,
according to the EIA. Moreover, gas is expected to become the “fuel
of choice” for electricity-generation projects in the future.

In light of such requirements, and possibly because of the
approximately $600 million in transit fees Pakistan stands to earn,
Islamabad tried to allay concerns prompted by Singh’s late-July
comments. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Naim Khan
announced on 25 July that even if India gave in to U.S. pressure,
Islamabad would build a natural-gas pipeline from Iran, AFP reported.
“We would welcome Indian association with this project but if it is
not feasible with India, we are going to go ahead with the project in
any case,” Khan said in the Pakistani capital. He said Pakistan
needed the gas.

Pakistani Petroleum Minister Jadoon said in Islamabad on 23 July that
his country could handle all the pipeline security requirements, IRNA
reported. “We, like India, are in need of gas and we know how to take
care of the interstate projects and we are committed to its
security,” he said.

“Business Recorder,” a Pakistani financial daily, reported on 28 July
that Islamabad had begun a search for investment banks that could
serve as “financial adviser/consultant” for the pipeline. Pakistan
wants to hasten completion of the paperwork for the project, and it
is aiming for a December 2005 deadline. Despite recent cautionary
statements from Indian officials, the Pakistanis believe India’s
energy requirements will force the issue. Pakistan is also willing to
pursue the issue bilaterally.

The Nuclear Alternative

The pipeline project directly involves Iran, Pakistan, and India, and
it has the potential to improve troubled Islamabad-New Delhi
relations. Washington would welcome such a development, but it is
reluctant to see the project go ahead. U.S. State Department official
Stephen Rademaker warned that Iran could fund terrorism and weapons
of mass destruction with the money it made from natural-gas sales,
the international edition of “The Wall Street Journal” reported on 24
June. U.S. officials have warned the Indians and Pakistanis that
their companies could be sanctioned if they go ahead with the
project.

If India forsakes natural gas from Iran, then it might have to turn
to nuclear power as an alternative. U.S. President George W. Bush
announced on 18 July that India is “a responsible state” that “should
acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states,”
ft.com reported. Bush went on to say that he would encourage Congress
to make the legal adjustments necessary for such cooperation with the
Indian nuclear program to take place. In exchange for such
cooperation, India agreed to allow international agencies to oversee
its nuclear program.

Potential Blow To Iran

The collapse of the Indian natural-gas deal would be a sharp blow to
Iran. Such a development could have an impact in three areas. One
possibility is that Iran could try to salvage the deal by offering
India a lower price for its gas. Pricing disagreements were one of
the main sticking points in March.

Another possibility is that Iran’s efforts to diversify beyond oil
might collapse. That being said, Armenia and Turkey are already
customers for Iranian gas; Tehran has signed agreements with Oman and
Kuwait; and it has signed gas-related memorandums — or at least
discussed the topic — with Austria, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Italy,
South Korea, and Taiwan.

The third possibility, probably much more remote, is that Iran would
renounce activities that concern the international community,
including support for terrorism, interference in neighboring states’
affairs, and the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Failing that, Iran would find it very difficult to compete with the
United States in terms of bargaining power. If the Indian model —
even without nuclear concessions — were applied successfully in more
cases where Iran was trying to do business with other countries, then
Iran would find itself increasingly isolated.

PARTY UNION SELF-DETERMINATION LODGES AGAINST ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT

YEREVAN, JULY 29. ARMINFO. The party Union Self-Determination will try
to make the Armenian Parliament to withdraw the provision on
prolongation of the powers of the Parliament and the local
self-government bodies from 4 to 5 years and from 3 to 5 years
respectively from the package of constitutional reforms.

USD Chairman Paruyr Hairikyan made a relevant claim today to the First
Instance Court of Kentron and Nork Marash communities. The above
provision contradicts to the present Constitution, Hairikyan said at a
press-conference today. Democracy is implemented through elections, it
means that such provisions affect democracy. He intends to insist on
his position in the European Human Rights Court. Such amendments in
the constitution are not reforms, but displays of criminal way of
thinking, he says adding that “coming to power criminals want to buy
slaves for 5 and not 4 years.”

Nevertheless, Hairikyan and his party members do not intend to join
revolution calls of the opposition party Republic as they are
traditional supports of the Constitutional way.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russia starts withdrawal of military bases from Georgia

TBLISI, July 30 (RIA Novosti) – The first convoy of vehicles carrying
Russian military equipment has left a base in Batumi (Adzharia), and
is moving towards the Russian-Georgian border. Nine trucks and two
accompanying cars left the base early Saturday morning.

The convoy should arrive at Mtskhet (80 km from Tblisi) by evening. On
Saturday night, the convoy will pass through the Tskhinvaly Region and
the Rok tunnel, which links North (Russian) and South Ossetia,
crossing the Georgian-Russian border.

Security for the Russian military convoy is being provided by the
Georgian Defense Ministry and Georgian Internal Affairs Ministry
patrol police.

The Russian military equipment is being taken out of the country as
part of an agreement signed on May 30 of this year between the heads
of the Russian and Georgian foreign ministries on removing two Russian
bases (the second one is in Akhalkalaki near the Armenian border) from
Georgia by 2008.

EVENTS DEVOTED TO 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE HELD IN CANADA

YEREVAN, JULY 29. ARMINFO. July 16-26 in the framework of Past Lives
TV series Prime TV channel (Canada) broadcast Rognan Fernand’s
30-minute program on the Armenian Genocide.

Another Canadian TV company CBC Newsworld presented a film about
Nagorno Karabakh Republic as part of its TV series Holidays in the
Danger Zone: Places than Don’t Exist.

State commission for organization of events devoted to 90th
anniversary of e Armenian Genocide says that Past LIves TV series
shows the everyday life of multi-national Canada and its ancestors
while the film about NKR is the documentary of the Karabakh
war. Journalist Simon Reeve presents the facts and analyses the events
laying special emphasis on the strategic importance of Shushi
liberation. The source says that Reeve has to date visited and shot
films in Somalia, South Ossetia, Taiwan.