Transeuro Enters into Integrated Project Management Contract with High
Arctic Energy Service L.L.C., Director Resigns
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, Aug 4, 2005 (CCNMatthews via COMTEX) — Mr.
Edward Farrauto, President and CEO of
Transeuro Energy Corp. (the “Company”, “Transeuro”)(TSX VENTURE:TSU) is
pleased to announce Transeuro has entered into a
Integrated Project Management Contract (“IPMC”) dated August 1, 2005
with High Arctic Energy Service LLC (“High Arctic”) of Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, a wholly owned subsidiary of High Arctic Energy
Services Trust (TSX:HWO.UN).
High Arctic will manage operations in all areas of interest worldwide
for Transeuro through an Integrated Project Management model. This
will include asset management, management of operations, development of
work programs, development of AFE’s (Authority for
expenditures), supplying services and equipment as they relate to the
work programs and general responsibilities that encapsulate all asset
development that relate to the Transeuro concessions worldwide. The term
of the contract will be for thirty-six months.
High Arctic has been allocated a $1.0 million budget for the initial
assessment of Transeuro’s projects. This contract is in addition to the
Beaver River Project (the “Project”) where High Arctic has been
allocated $1.5 million per well over four wells in the initial nine
months of
the Project with Mattson Holdings Ltd. (“Mattson”). Mattson has entered
into a formal agreement with Ampac Petroleum Inc. (“Ampac”)
to earn Ampac’s interest in the Beaver River Field further to the Beaver
River Farmout and Operating Agreement between Questerre Beaver
River Inc. and Ampac. Transeuro is currently in the process of acquiring
of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Mattson (see news
release dated June 8, 2005).
High Arctic is engaged in the global oilfield services business by
providing underbalanced drilling and production services, equipment,
design and development, and technical support and training to the
Canadian and International oil and gas industry.
High Arctic’s head office is located in Red Deer, Alberta with
additional offices located in Brooks, Grande Prairie and Calgary.
International
offices are located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Bridgetown,
Barbados.
High Arctic has been completing a preliminary review of the Company’s
projects during the past two months.
Armenia:
An initial study of Block 2 is being completed by High Arctic. The goal
is to collect information for a dataroom to prepare for drilling
exploration wells on two known plays, the Oktemberian gas and Shorakpour
oil. The information package is largely complete and work is
commencing on a new website that will host the electronic data. This
work will continue over the next two months.
Papua New Guinea:
A technical fact finding visit has been completed by High Arctic
resulting in a large amount of data being compiled. A preliminary work
program is being drawn up with the focus on achieving the obligations
requirements of the Company exploration licence.
Ukraine:
On behalf of Transeuro Energy Corp. High Arctic is currently performing
a project planning review of the Gas Treatment Plant (GTP) and
the connecting pipeline that ties in the Karlavske and Krasnopolyanske
gas condensate fields to the existing gas mainline.
The High Arctic led review focuses on how the previous construction
undertaking addressed quality, cost and time projections, and will
provide analysis and recommendations to Transeuro within 60 days.
Other news:
Mr. Carlos Munoz has resigned as a director of the Company.
For further information contact:
David Parry, Director, [email protected]
TRANSEURO ENERGY
(604) 676-7592 – Phone
(604) 608 4733-Fax

ARA ABRAHAMYAN ASSISTED RELEASE OF RUSSIAN SAILORS FROM NIGERIA PRISON
PanArmenian News Network
Aug 6 2005
06.08.2005 04:02 — /PanARMENIAN.Net/ The release of Russian sailors
from Nigerian prison is the outcome of “common efforts of diplomats
and public figures,” Chairman of the Union of Armenians of Russia
Ara Abrahamyan stated. In his words, the same tactics, as that of
liberation of 6 Armenian pilots from Equato-Guinean prison was used
when releasing Russian sailors from Nigerian prison. “It was pleasant
to hear that the Nigerian court agreed to release Russian sailors
owing to Russian Embassy guarantees. This is good luck and an outcome
of our common efforts,” A. Abrahamyan noted. It should be reminded
that a crew of Russian sailors, who served on a Greek company tanker,
was arrested by Nigerian authorities in autumn 2003 and were charged
of oil contraband, reported IA Regnum.

Massaker an Armeniern wieder auf dem Lehrplan in Brandenburg
von Johannes Frewel
Agence France Presse — German
Freitag, 5. August 2005
Potsdam, 5. August
Wenn in Brandenburg in der kommenden Woche das neue Schuljahr
beginnt, werden die Schüler der 9. und 10. Klassen sich auch mit
einem Thema beschäftigen, dem ansonsten in deutschen Klassenzimmern
wenig Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wird: den Massakern der Türken an den
Armeniern, denen 1915 und 1916 zwischen 800.000 und 1,5 Millionen
Menschen zum Opfer gefallen waren. Brandenburg ist das einzige
Bundesland, das die von einem Großteil der internationalen
Öffentlichkeit als Völkermord eingestuften Massaker in den Lehrplan
aufgenommen hat – gemeinsam mit weiteren Genoziden wie jenen an den
Herero im früheren Deutsch-Süd-West-Afrika und den Tutsi in Ruanda.
Zu dieser salomonischen Lösung rang sich die Potsdamer
Landesregierung nach einer heftigen diplomatischen Schlingerfahrt
schließlich durch.
Eigentlich haben die Massaker im damaligen Osmanischen Reich schon
seit 2002 ihren Platz im Lehrplan der Brandenburger Schulen. Zu
verdanken war dies dem damaligen Bildungsminister Steffen Reiche
(SPD), der sich mit dem Schicksal der Armenier beschäftigt hatte.
Doch ausgerechnet kurz vor dem 90. Jahrestag des Völkermord in diesem
Frühjahr wies Ministerpräsident Matthias Platzeck (SPD) nach einer
Intervention des türkischen Botschafters Reiches Nachfolger Holger
Rupprecht (SPD) an, die beanstandete Stelle aus dem Lehrplan zu
nehmen – und löste damit eine Welle der Empörung aus.
Offiziell hatte sich die Kritik der Regierung in Ankara daran
entzündet, dass die Schüler an Brandenburgs Schulen neben dem
Holocaust lediglich das Schicksal der Armenier und sonst keinen
weiteren Völkermord im Unterricht behandeln. Anstatt den Lehrplan nun
in diesem Punkt zu ergänzen, schlug Platzeck den vermeintlich
leichteren Weg einer vollständigen Streichung der politisch
schwierigen Passage ein. Aufgeflogen war der klammheimliche
politische Kniefall des SPD-Politikers schließlich dadurch, dass die
entsprechende Passage auch in der Internetausgabe der Handreichung
für Lehrer plötzlich fehlte.
Nach einem Treffen mit der armenischen Botschafterin Karine Kazinian
und Vertretern der armenischen Gemeinde in Deutschland kündigte
Platzeck schließlich an, die Massaker gemeinsam mit weiteren
Völkermorden wieder in den Lehrplan aufzunehmen. Dazu verfasste das
Landesinstitut für Schule und Medien eine dicke Broschüre
“Völkermorde und staatliche Gewaltverbrechen im 20. Jahrhundert”. Dem
Völkermord an den Armeniern wird darin 18 Seiten und damit der
breiteste Raum zugebilligt. Thematisiert werden aber auch etwa die
Verbrechen Stalins oder der Roten Khmer im Kambodscha. Jeder
Geschichtslehrer kann frei entscheiden, welchen der aufgeführten
Völkermorde er seinen Schülern ergänzend zum Holocaust vermitteln
möchte.
Was Platzeck damals motiviert hatte, dem Drängen des türkischen
Botschafters nachzugeben, ist bis heute unklar. Seit mehr als zehn
Jahren gehört der gebürtige Potsdamer zu den Unterstützern eines
Wiederaufbaus der verfallenen Lepsius-Villa. Der evangelische Pfarrer
Johannes Lepsius hatte zahlreiche Armenier vor dem Tod gerettet und
den Völkermord, in den durch die Unterstützung türkischer Militärs
indirekt auch Deutschland verwickelt war, für die Nachwelt
dokumentiert. Sein ehemaliges Haus in Potsdam soll nun Heimstatt für
ein Dokumentationszentrum für den Genozid werden.
–Boundary_(ID_lQdVmRVDuqT3q5jQzC1TRw)–

FBI WHISTLEBLOWER APPEALS TO SUPREME COURT
BY REBECCA CARR
Cox News Service
August 5, 2005 Friday
WASHINGTON — FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds is asking the
U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether a lower court erred in dismissing
her claims of wrongful termination based on the rarely used “state
secrets privilege.”
By invoking the “state secrets privilege,” the Justice Department
prevented Edmonds, a former language translator, from airing in
court her allegations that the bureau fired her for reporting serious
security breaches and possible espionage.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in May
that Edmonds could jeopardize national security if her case proceeded.
But the state secret privilege was created by the high court 52 years
ago to be used as “a shield for sensitive evidence, not a sword the
government can use at will to cut off argument in a case,” said Ann
Beeson, who represents Edmonds as the associate legal director of
the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU is asking the high court to “rein in the government’s misuse
of this privilege,” Beeson said.
The ACLU is also asking the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by
the court of appeals to ban the media and the public from hearing
Edmond’s appeal.
There are at least four other cases now pending where the federal
government has asserted the state secrets privilege, which effectively
ends the case when a judge approves the use.
On Thursday, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond
affirmed the CIA’s use of the privilege to end a discrimination
lawsuit filed by a Jeffrey Sterling, a former operations officer in
the agency’s Near East and South Asia division.
“The district court properly concluded that this case would require
disclosure of highly classified information concerning the identity,
location and assignments of CIA operatives,” the court’s ruling states.
When the government invokes the privilege, the person seeking justice
against discrimination or retaliation loses because the case is
dismissed, open government advocates say.
The executive branch is increasingly using the privilege to obtain
dismissals of civil cases that allege unlawful conduct by federal
agencies, said Mark S. Zaid, who represents Sterling.
The government sends a message of “keep your mouth shut” to all
whistleblowers when it invokes the state secrets privilege, Zaid said.
Congress needs to investigate whether the executive branch is
misusing the state secrets privilege, said Beth Daley, director of
communication for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog
organization based in Washington.
“The executive branch is abusing this authority,” Daley said. The
result is that national homeland security whistleblowers are afraid
to come forward when they see wrong doing because their cases end up
in a black hole, she said.
The Justice Department did not return calls seeking comment, but in
the past it has argued the privilege is a necessary tool to protect
government secrets.
Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a contract linguist soon after the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for her fluency in Turkish, Farsi
and Azerbaijani.
Between December 2001 and March 2002, she reported a number of serious
security breaches to her superiors, including an allegation that a
fellow translator had been associating with an FBI target.
New details of those allegations appeared in the September issue of
Vanity Fair.
The article stated that Edmonds listened to wiretapped conversations
of FBI targets at the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of
Turkish American Associations and the Turkish Consulate in Chicago.
The article claims that the Turkish groups arranged for tens of
thousands of dollars to be paid to House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s
campaign funds in small checks of less than $200 so they would not
have to be itemized in public campaign filings.
The article states that recordings mention Hastert’s decision in
2000 to withdraw his support for a congressional proposal that
would have designated as a genocide the killings of Armenians in
Turkey between 1915 and 1923. The article said that a senior Turkish
official claimed that the price for Hastert to withdraw his support
was at least $500,000.
Hastert’s voice was not heard on the recordings. And the article
notes that there was no evidence that any payment was ever made to
Hastert or his campaign.
Ron Bonjean, Hastert’s spokesperson, said the allegations are
“nonsense.” Hastert changed his vote because former President Bill
Clinton asked him to withdraw his support out of concern for U.S.
interests abroad.
” It makes for great summer time reading,” Bonjean said. “The
next thing you know they will blame the speaker for the Jennifer
Aniston-Brad Pitt break up.”
The Vanity Fair article also states that Edmonds listened to a
conversation between a Turkish official and a State Department
staffer. In the conversation, Vanity Fair reports, that government
officials agreed that the State Department staffer would send a
representative to pick up $7,000 in cash at the American-Turkish
Council’s Washington headquarters.
“I deny the allegations in the article in the strongest possible
terms,” said James Holmes, president of the American-Turkish Council.
“The article’s treatment of the ATC is packed with knowable lies. Any
rookie fact checker could have found out that the facts were wrong.”
Edmonds’ legal battle with the Justice Department began soon after
she was fired in March 2002. She filed a federal lawsuit alleging that
her termination was in retaliation for reporting security breaches.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton dismissed her case in July 2003
because then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the “state
secrets privilege,” allowing the government to block the release of
any material that would harm national security.
In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed
her dismissal of her case based on the state secrets privilege.
“This privilege was supposed to be invoked rarely, but you see here
that they are using this as a tool to gag whistleblowers,” Edmonds
said on Friday. “It is extremely dangerous the way they invoke it.
According to them, my place of birth, my languages, my resume, are
all state secrets. It’s ludicrous.”
On the Web:
The American Civil Liberties Union’s filing before the U.S. Supreme
Court:
Rebecca Carr’s e-mail is rcarr(at)coxnews.com

Le Temps
6 août 2005
L’UDC recupère l’affaire turque;
VISITE ANNULEE. Le parti s’en prend a la norme penale antiraciste.
Joseph Deiss n’ira pas en Turquie en septembre: l’ambassade de Suisse
a Ankara a recu le 2 août une note du Ministère turc des affaires
etrangères l’informant que la visite etait annulee (LT du 5.08.2005).
Le ministre turc de l’Economie invoque des “problèmes d’agenda”.
Reste que les relations entre les deux pays se sont degradees ces
dernières semaines en raison des enquetes suisses contre un
politicien et un historien turc pour negation de genocide armenien.
Le fait que Joseph Deiss soit persona non grata apparaît dès lors
comme lie a ces affaires.
Micheline Calmy-Rey avait deja dû faire les frais de la colère turque
avant de pouvoir entreprendre un voyage en Turquie en mars. Le voyage
de Joseph Deiss devait, lui, etre purement economique et la reaction
turque, si elle est vraiment liee aux enquetes pour negation de
genocide armenien, apparaît comme demesuree aux yeux de la majorite
des parlementaires sondes. Mais pas pour l’UDC.
Initiative populaire?
Le parti qualifie la reaction turque de “logique”. Alors que Berne
s’escrime a faire comprendre a Ankara qu’une stricte separation des
pouvoirs est observee en Suisse, l’UDC tire a boulets rouges sur la
norme penale antiraciste. Precisement celle qui est invoquee pour
mettre les deux personnalites turques qui ont nie ou minimise le
genocide armenien sous enquete. “L’article 261bis du Code penal va
beaucoup trop loin: il doit etre supprime ou revise”, souligne Roman
Jaggi, porte-parole de l’UDC. “Cette affaire demontre a quel point
cet article peut nuire a nos relations avec un partenaire economique
important pour la Suisse! La Suisse n’a pas a juger les Turcs sur la
question armenienne!”. L’UDC a depose deux motions au parlement
demandant d’abroger l’article 261bis. Le parti songe meme a lancer
une initiative populaire en ce sens. Et Ueli Maurer en a parle dans
son discours du 1er Août. “Revient-il vraiment a un petit Etat neutre
de faire la morale sur la scène mondiale et de prononcer des
peines?”, a-t-il vocifere.
Pour ce qui est des consequences du report du voyage de Joseph Deiss,
Gregor Kundig, membre de la direction d’economiesuisse, se veut
rassurant. “Nous ne pensons pas qu’il y aura des repercussions
negatives sur nos relations economiques”, souligne-t-il. La Turquie,
avec un potentiel de croissance du PNB de 5% par annee, represente un
marche important pour les entreprises suisses.
–Boundary_(ID_bpNQfEzWIY/Q2Dn1hSCCow)–

Ottawa’s Shoebox Part 8: Grande dame gets a facelift (1980-1989)
by Tony Atherton, The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Citizen
August 6, 2005 Saturday
Final Edition
With Ottawa turning 150 this year, we got to wondering: If the city
was a proud, old dowager instead of a burgeoning metropolis, what
might she keep in her shoebox? What souvenirs of a century and a half
of colourful living?
With the help of local museums, public and private archives and
enthusiastic collectors, we have assembled nine such “shoeboxes”,
one collection for each significant era in Ottawa’s history, all
overflowing with the reminders of the people and events that shaped
the city. Today we upend the eighth shoebox — covering the period
from 1980 to 1989 — for your perusal. Watch for a final glimpse
inside Ottawa’s Shoebox next month.
If you left Ottawa in 1979 and didn’t return for a decade, you’d find
Canada’s good, grey capital looking a lot more glamorous.
During the 1980s, construction of the Rideau Centre and the Westin
Hotel changed the faces of both Rideau Street and Colonel By Drive.
The National Galley of Canada rose like a crystal palace on Sussex,
and the Museum of Civilization undulated seductively just across the
Interprovincial Bridge. All this activity helped to revitalize the
Byward market, which became chic as well as colourful.
While not all the changes were well received (the unsightly Rideau
Street bus mall would have to be dismantled), overall they gave the
environs of Parliament Hill a dramatic new look and flavour that
charmed Ottawans and visitors alike.
And the city had its share of prominent visitors during the ’80s,
figures who would become part of history. A gutsy kid with big
ambitions and 2,600 kilometres behind him made his ungainly way into
Ottawa in the summer of 1980. A fairy-tale princess whose story would
not have a happy ending charmed Ottawans during a visit in 1983. And
a Polish cleric with a beatific smile came to Ottawa via Rome in 1984.
And when the city wasn’t welcoming heroes, celebrities and saints,
it was manufacturing them, including a soft-spoken doctor who would
perform a miracle here 1986, and a petite skater who would struggle
through adversity to honour her country and captivate her hometown
in 1989.
There would be regrets — a newspaper lost, the shadow of terrorism
— but they would be outweighed by the sense that Ottawa was holding
her head a little more proudly.
1. Bert Raccoon plush toy, 1980s. (Collection of Kevin Gillis)
In the ’80s, goofy gregarious Bert Raccoon became the biggest Ottawa
celebrity since Dan Aykroyd, and helped launch a thriving animation
industry here.
In 1979, Kevin Gillis, a young musician and former CBC-TV kiddy-show
host (Yes You Can), approached Ottawa entertainment lawyer Sheldon
Wiseman with a script. He was looking for a some advice. What he got
was an executive producer.
Wiseman loved the story of The Christmas Raccoons, in which the
denizens of the Evergreen Forest help two children solve the mystery
of the forest’s disappearing trees. So did CBC and its viewers when
the half-hour special aired the next year. The show’s success led to
more specials and a primetime Raccoons series that drew as many as
two million viewers a week.
The Raccoons became an industry; with merchandising, sales of its
hip soundtrack, and worldwide distribution, the company that Mr,
Gillis and Mr. Wiseman founded, Lacewood Productions, was earning up
to $30 million a year.
Ottawa has a history in cartoon production dating back to the days
when Norman McLaren ran the NFB’s animation studio here, and including
the work of the former Crawley Films (Wizard of Oz TV series) and its
affiliate Atkinson Film Arts (Little Brown Burro). But the success
of The Raccoons was unparalleled.
These days there are a number of independent animation studios
operating in the city, including Dynomight (Untalkative Bunny), Funbag
(For Better or For Worse) and Mr. Wiseman’s Amberwood Entertainment
(Hoze Hounds, Zeroman).
2. Ottawa Journal final edition, August 1980 (Collection of Ottawa
City Archives)
For 95 years, Ottawans had had their pick of two daily newspapers,
the Citizen, launched as a weekly in 1845, and the Ottawa Journal,
which had arrived on doorsteps 40 years later.
Then, without warning on Aug. 27, 1980 (“Black Wednesday” in the
parlance of journalists who remember it), the rivalry was over. The
Journal closed its doors with barely a backward glance, cutting its
employees adrift before they knew what had hit them.
Not that the paper’s financial problems were much of a secret.
Questionable management and an inability, or unwillingness, to invest
in modernization of the paper had left the Journal with fewer readers
and advertisers.
When the paper was sold in 1979 to the Thomson chain, for whom Ottawa
journalists had little respect, it seemed like the beginning of the
end. And it was.
By then, the Journal was $4 million in debt, a hole too deep even
for cost-cutting Roy Thomson to climb out of.
While the demise of the Journal was not unlooked for, its timing
was a complete surprise, as were the circumstances surrounding the
closure. The same day that the Journal ceased publication in Ottawa,
leaving the market entirely to the then Southam-owned Citizen,
Southam’s Winnipeg Tribune closed its doors, leaving the prairie city
exclusively to the Thomson-owned Free Press.
The parallel closures raised cries of collusion, which sparked a
royal commission on the concentration of newspaper ownership.
3. Spring from the knee-joint of artificial leg, 1980 (Collection of
Diane Barrett)
Before microprocessors and rechargeable prostheses, artificial limbs
were a clever mechanical collection of pins and brackets and springs
like this, all subject to the wear and tear of daily use.
Wear and tear affected the limbs on some bodies more than others, of
course, and none more than the succession of artificial legs worn by a
young man from Port Coquitlam, B.C., in the spring and summer of 1980.
Ottawa’s Diane Barrett had been on a cross-country road trip with
family that summer when she stopped just east of Sault Ste. Marie in
mid-August to catch a glimpse of Terry Fox, who had been hop-skipping
his way across Eastern Canada, raising money for cancer research.
Fox was not quite a legend yet, but already a larger-than-life
celebrity, so it was a thrill for Barrett to find him stopped along
the highway, awaiting the delivery of another replacement leg. The
travellers politely kept their distance until the young runner called
them over and offered to explain how his leg worked. He then extracted
the spring, and proffered it as a souvenir.
When Fox’s run was ended by the recurrence of cancer three weeks
later, the unprepossessing piece of hardware became a treasured
family heirloom.
Earlier, Ottawa’s red-carpet treatment of Terry Fox, including Gov.
Gen. Ed Schreyer’s invitation to Canada Day festivities at Rideau Hall,
had helped make his quest into a national cause celebre. And on June
30, more than 16,000 Rough Rider fans at Lansdowne Park had given Fox
a standing ovation after he performed the ceremonial opening kickoff.
4. Turkish flag
In 1985, 16 years before U.S. officials started calling Canada a
haven for terrorists, the government of Turkey said roughly the same
thing about Canada’s capital city. Ottawa, the Turks declared, was
one of the most dangerous cities in the world — at least for Turkish
diplomats. And the assessment did not seem the least bit hysterical.
It was prompted by three disturbing incidents in the first half of
the decade. Turkish diplomat Kani Gungor was left paralysed after
being shot in the chest and the leg outside his Ottawa home in April
1982. In August the same year, Turkish military attache Col. Atilla
Altikat was shot to death in his car while waiting for a light to
change on Island Park Drive.
Both shootings were the work of Armenian extremists seeking redress
for the 1915 killing of some 600,000 Armenians by the Turkish military.
The attacks became bolder in 1985 when a group calling itself the
Armenian Revolutionary Arm, armed with automatic weapons and grenades,
stormed the Turkish Embassy, killing a security guard and holding
the embassy for four hours. Ambassador Coskun Kirca flung himself
from a second-storey window to escape the attack, and lay bleeding
and broken in the bushes outside the building during the siege.
The terrorists would eventually surrender, but the political fallout
would give rise to Canada’s elite counter-terrorism unit, Joint Task
Force Two.
5. Commemorative pin, 1982 (Collection of Larry Ellis)
A royal visit always produces trinkets such as this, but this souvenir
also marks a signal moment of history played out with pomp and ceremony
on Parliament Hill.
April 17, 1982, was overcast, blustery and pouring rain when Queen
Elizabeth II sat down with then justice minister Jean Chretien to sign
the paper that surrendered Britain’s rights to make Canadian laws,
and brought Canada’s constitution home.
Critics of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, one part of the
Constitution Act of 1982, might suggest the stormy weather was
prophetic. The charter, and its interpretation by a succession of
Supreme Court judges, has been at the centre of many controversies
in the generation since.
But on the day of the signing in Ottawa, the mood was celebratory
among the 30,000 who braved the elements and cheered the speeches of
the Queen and prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
6. Medallion die, 1983 (Collection of Royal Canadian Mint)
Somewhere in the vaults of the British royal family is a golden
medallion reminiscent of an age before scandal and tragedy, when people
still believed in fairy tales. The medallion, its lines carefully
etched by the master craftsmen of the Royal Canadian Mint, shows a
smiling Prince Charles with a beautiful Princess Diana beaming over
his shoulder.
The heavy die from which the medallion was struck remains with the
Mint, a memento of a visit that enchanted Ottawans in the early summer
of 1983, when the couple were presented with the gift. It was just two
years after their luminescent nuptials, and a year exactly since the
birth of the first son, William (he would turn one while his mother
was in Ottawa). The bloom was still on England’s rose.
The medallion was presented halfway through a hectic three-day visit
that also saw the royal couple attend a black-tie affair at Rideau Hall
and a barbecue at Kingsmere, cruise down the canal, and officiate at
ceremonies on Parliament Hill, at the new Ottawa Police headquarters,
and in the Terry Fox Canadian Youth Centre.
But it was during a walkabout on Metcalfe and Elgin streets that most
Ottawans had their chance to meet the woman they presumed would one
day be queen.
7. Souvenir program, papal visit, 1984 (Collection of Kevin Clarke)
Pope John Paul II was just six years into his long tenure as the head
of the Roman Catholic Church when he first came to Canada in 1984. By
then he had electrified the Solidarity movement in his homeland,
Poland, and had become a beloved symbol of both strength and goodwill
around the world.
His two-day visit to Ottawa, marked by the biggest and most expensive
security operation the city had ever seen, gave Ottawans plenty of
opportunity to see the pontiff. There were popemobile processions
through downtown Ottawa and Hull, a papal flotilla along the canal,
and an open-air mass on Lebreton Flats that attracted hundreds of
thousands.
One of the singers in the massed choir at the mass was Ottawa
Carleton Catholic School Board teacher Kevin Clarke, who has several
souvenirs of the event, but none more pleasing that the memory of
the smiling pope waving his arms as if conducting the chorus during
the celebration.
8. Jarvik Heart, 1986 (Courtesy of Ottawa Heart Institute)
A device like this, two plastic chambers joined by Velcro, beat in
the chest of a 41-year-old Orleans woman for a week in May 1986,
extending her life long enough to allow her to receive the heart of
a Montreal man that keeps her alive today.
The operation was a Canadian first, and gave the Ottawa Heart Institute
and its chief surgeon, Wilbert Keon, a national profile.
Noella Leclair had been in perfect health before the heart attack
that nearly killed her in late April 1986. It was her good fortune to
come to the heart institute just a few months after a team from the
unit had been trained in the use of the artificial heart in Salt Lake
City under the watchful eye of its inventor, Robert Jarvik. Before
Leclair’s operation, the heart had been used successfully six times
in the U.S. as a bridge for patients awaiting a transplant.
Ms. Leclair, now 61 and the oldest living bridge-to-transplant
recipient in the world, continues to work on fundraising campaigns
for the institute that saved her life
9. Birth announcement, 1987 (Courtesy of Lauren Forgie)
The first quintuplets born in Canada since the Dionnes in 1934, the
Forgies weren’t exactly newborns when they posed for the picture on
this card that their Orleans parents, Kim and Lauren, sent out to
family and friends.
The quints’ first group picture had to wait until the babies were
released from intensive care at Ottawa General Hospital; when they
were born Sept. 22, 1986, none weighed much more than two pounds and
all needed constant care.
Unlike the birth of the Dionne Quints, in a rough farmhouse with few
facilities, the birth of the Forgies was attended by a well-equipped
team of doctors and nurses hand-picked for the task. And Lauren Forgie
made sure her babies did not become the central figures in a media
circus like the Dionnes; she guarded their privacy rigorously.
The Forgies now live in Texas, where Lauren, an engineer and artist,
recently illustrated a children’s book.
10. Woman’s figure skate, 1988 (Collection of Gloucester Skating Club)
In February of 1988, this skate was part of a near-flawless performance
in a Calgary arena that turned a diminutive, dimpled Gloucester kewpie
doll into a beloved Olympic heroine.
Elizabeth Manley didn’t win the gold medal that night; it went,
again, to statuesque German skater Katarina Witt. But she did win
the hearts of Canadians with a comeback performance that astonished
Olympic watchers around the world.
Ms. Manley was not one of the favourites going into the Olympics. The
women’s figure skating competition was supposed to be a duel between
Ms. Witt and American Debbi Thomas. And, indeed, after the compulsory
figures and the short program, the odds were no better than even that
Ms Manley could squeak out a bronze medal. The skater was recuperating
from the flu and ear infections, and suffering pangs of self-doubt.
But on Feb. 27, none of that seemed to matter. Ms. Manley gathered
herself up and skated flat out for four minutes in a performance she
knew was superb from the moment the last chord of her accompaniment
was drowned out by the cheers of a partisan crown in the Saddledome.
She easily outclassed both her rivals that night, and cinched the
silver medal against long odds.
Ms. Manley got another standing ovation, and the keys to the city of
Ottawa, in a ceremony in Ottawa council chambers a few days later.
11. Chunk of rock, 1986 (Courtesy of the Museum of Civilization)
Souvenirs are what you make of them. One person’s rubble is another
person’s cherished memory.
This rock is left over from construction of the Museum of Civilization,
architect Douglas Cardinal’s daring, evocative celebration of the
natural world. It has been preserved by a museum staffer.
Opened in the summer of 1989, the $257-million building was one of
two cultural landmarks to embellish the National Capital region in
the 1980s. The other was Moshe Safdie’s breathtaking design for the
National Gallery of Canada. The gallery opened in the spring of 1988
with a spectacular black-tie gala attended by 10,000.

Filmmakers on film: Robert Gudiguian on Jean Renoir’s Toni (1935)
by Sheila Johnston
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
August 06, 2005, Saturday
In high summer, one’s thoughts turn naturally to the lazy pleasures
of Provence. Tourist guides and newspaper travel sections teem with
paeans to the scent of lavender, the chirp of cicadas and the tang of
a good bouillabaisse washed down with chilled ros. Anyone who knows
his Peter Mayle or his Marcel Pagnol (and the highly successful films
of Pagnol’s work such as Jean de Florette, Manon des sources and La
Gloire de mon pre) will recognise the stereotype.
Robert Gudiguian has a completely different vision. The son of a
docker, he grew up in L’Estaque, an attractive but very down-to-earth
coastal town just outside Marseilles. And much of his work celebrates
the area’s vibrant working-class culture, in warm romantic comedies
such as Marius and Jeanette as well as in gritty portraits of the
run-down inner city such as The Town Is Quiet.
It’s this earthy, intimate quality that Gudiguian prizes in his film
of choice: Toni, a relatively little-known early work by Jean Renoir.
“I was 13 when I first saw it,” he says, “and had always thought that
the cinema was just about escapism and adventure – about Tarzan or
Hercules, pirates or cowboys. But here was a beautiful film that I
enjoyed a lot, and whose hero was a man just like my father. It was
shot very close to where I lived and the characters spoke with the same
accent as me. I was shocked, in the good sense of the word, and also
touched that people like my neighbours and family could be in a film.”
Toni is a gentle Italian working in a quarry near Marseilles who falls
for Josepha, a flirtatious, spirited Spanish girl. When a rival beats
him to her hand in marriage, he settles reluctantly for his landlady
instead, but neither couple is happy and it all ends badly. Yet this
stark, melodramatic story is also the backdrop for a marvellously
vivid and lively evocation of the immigrant community.
“Renoir was inspired freely by a real crime that happened in the
1920s, a murder motivated by a mix of racism and jealousy. He filmed
mainly on location and used a lot of real people as extras to play
the workers and peasants. Professional actors don’t come from the same
milieu and rarely have the same faces and bodies. In that sense, Toni
was a forerunner of Italian neo-realism, 10 years avant la lettre –
Luchino Visconti was Renoir’s assistant on it. It’s a real milestone.”
But surely Pagnol – who produced Toni – had already distilled the
essence of Provence in Marius, Fanny and Csar, his celebrated trilogy
of plays set around Marseilles’s famous Old Port, which were filmed
by himself, Alexander Korda and Marc Allgret in the early 1930s?
“It’s not the same,” ripostes Gudiguian instantly. “For a start, Pagnol
comes from the theatre and his approach is to set up the camera in
one position and have the actors recite the text – which, by the way,
isn’t always a bad way of making a film. Renoir is much freer. He’s
not a formalist or a stylist, but he uses all the resources of cinema.
‘Look at how Toni begins. It’s about a wave of immigration, and
he uses a tracking shot to follow the workers as they arrive in
France off the train and walk along towards the town, singing. The
shot itself looks a bit like the movement of a wave, and, of course,
also evokes the Mediterranean itself. At the end, the film comes full
circle with an identical shot: the wave of immigration will continue
despite the tragedy we have just witnessed.”
Gudiguian’s father was a first-generation immigrant from Armenia,
while his mother came from Germany, so it is no surprise that he
appreciates this aspect of Toni. “TheMarseilles region is a real
melting pot, and Renoir acknowledges it,” he says. “Pagnol never did.
His films show peasants or small business owners, whereas Toni is
about the working classes. I’ve often said as a kind of provocation
that the quintessential Marseilles film was made by a Parisian.”
Yet Toni is far from a slab of dry agit-prop, and Gudiguian finds in
it the same joie de vivre that illuminated the art of Auguste Renoir,
the director’s father. “His films are very much like his father’s
paintings: they have the same sensuality, gaiety and benevolence,
even when he makes tragedies. He loves people and, in that sense,
I believe he’s been an influence on me.
“In my favourite scene, Josepha gets stung by a wasp on the back of her
neck. It hurts, but Toni is there and he sucks out the sting; there’s
a little game around it. It’s an extraordinary, very erotic moment
which sums up the beginnings of a love affair and its combination of
pain and pleasure. It’s so natural and yet has an infinite grace and
lightness that filmmakers rarely achieve.”
Gudiguian recently left his provenal stamping ground for Paris’s
corridors of power. The Last Mitterrand (now on release) observes the
final weeks of the late French President. “It could hardly be more
different from my previous films,” says the director. “But it was
an exceptional offer – the combination of Mitterrand and the great
actor Michel Bouquet.”
He has travelled even further for his next project, which he is
currently shooting, about an Armenian-Frenchwoman who travels east in
search of her roots. “I haven’t changed direction,” he insists. “I’ve
strayed off the path but I’ll return to it. After this, I’m going
back home to my own people.”
Robert Gudiguian Writer-director Born Marseilles, 1953 Selected films
Marius and Jeannette (1997) Where the Heart Is (1998) Charge! (2000)
The Town Is Quiet (2000) The Last Mitterrand (2005) Filmmakers on
film archive:

AZERI YOUTH MOVEMENT LEADER ACCUSED IN COOPERATION WITH ARMENIAN SPECIAL SERVICES
PanArmenian News Network
Aug 6 2005
06.08.2005 04:21
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Azerbaijan’s Office of Prosecutor General has
released a statement, that says their officers have taken into
custody Ruslan Bashirli, the leader of Yeni Fikir youth movement.
Bashirli, who is close with People’s Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA),
is suspected in cooperation with Armenian special services and is
arrested on the basis of a statement of youth organization another
member – Osman Alimuradov. According to the latter, July 28-29 he
and Bashirli “visited Tbilisi, where they met with certain Georgi
Ispiryan and Vardan, who were actually Armenian special services
officers.” PFPA flatly denies these accusations and calls the happening
a provocation. “The provocative report says that allegedly Bashirli met
with Ispiryan in a private flat and the latter promised the Yeni Fikir
leader comprehensive assistance in organizing a “colored revolution”
in Azerbaijan and PFPA leader Ali Kerimli coming to power. Ispiryan
promised to provide opposition with discreditable information about
the Azeri authorities and gave $2 thousand to Bashirli on receipt. He
also told Bashirli that the assistance of that kind will be provided
periodically,” PFPA release says. The PFPA has urged international
community not to keep indifferent towards the lot of Yeni Fikir
activists and protect R. Bashirli, reported IA Regnum.

TURKEY CANCELED SWISS MINISTER VISIT TO ANKARA DUE TO ARMENIAN ISSUE
PanArmenian News Network
Aug 6 2005
06.08.2005 04:01
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ After the Prosecutor’s Office of Winterthur Swiss
city launched investigation on the leader of the Turkish Workers’
Party Dogu Perincek for denial of the Armenian Genocide, Turkish
authorities told the Swiss Ambassador in Ankara that the visit of
Swiss Minister of Economy Joseph Dais scheduled in September is
cancelled. As Milliyet Turkish newspaper writes, Swiss media notes
with regret that “Turkey does not understand that power division is the
major value of the Swiss democracy,” reported Armenpress. Meanwhile,
SDA agency reported that the meeting scheduled in September is just
postponed. Turkey says problems of specification of the visit date
has caused the “postponing” of the meeting.

MAMMADYAROV ON KARABAKH ISSUE: «LIGHT AT END OF TUNNEL»
PanArmenian News Network
Aug 6 2005
06.08.2005 03:47
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Within his visit to the US Azeri Foreign Minister
(FM) E. Mammadyarov delivered a speech in the Carnegie Foundation.
Speaking of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Mammadyarov noted that
the Armenian and Azeri leaders and the two FMs hold meet periodically.
“The talks are held in a very hard situation, however I am cautiously
optimistic over the coming meetings. I think there is light seen at
the end of the tunnel, but we have to pass a long way to achieve it,”
the Azeri FM said. “We will always be guided by the principle of
territorial integrity in the talks,” he stated. Having noted that
“different signals” from Yerevan reach Baku, E.
Mammadyarov added, “Sometimes it seems we are moving forward,
sometimes like we make no headway, as the development of the process
depends on Armenia. They should understand that it is good time now
for settlement of the conflict and they should seize the opportunity.”
–Boundary_(ID_6SxlGOG/iaWsNemahTucxw)–