Karabakh electoral commission re-elects its chief
Arminfo, Yerevan
3 Aug 05
Stepanakert, 3 August: A session of the Central Electoral Commission
of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic was held today. The commission
discussed its dissolution and election of new heads.
As Aminfo correspondent reports from Stepanakert, the chairman of
the commission, Sergey Nasibyan, expressed due appreciation of its
work, having noted that the June election of the National Assembly
was organized and carried out at a high level and in accordance with
the electoral code.
Today, the commission held its first session in the new composition,
at which it re-elected by the open vote Sergey Nasibyan as chairman
of the Central Electoral Commission. It also elected Seyran Ayrapetyan
as his deputy and Raya Nazaryan – secretary.

European bank buys 35 per cent of Armenian company shares
Arminfo
3 Aug 05
Yerevan, 3 August: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
[EBRD] has purchased 35 per cent of the shares in Cascade Insurance &
Reinsurance Company. A relevant contract was signed today in Yerevan by
the executive director of the insurance company (IC), Levon Mamikonyan;
the deputy executive director of Cascade Capital Holdings, Jonathan
Stark; and the director for financial institutions of the EBRD,
Kurt Geiger.
According to Mamikonyan, with the conclusion of the contract, the
EBRD receives additional issue of shares for 88.4m drams (200,000
dollars). Thus, the authorized capital of the IC reaches 252.5m
drams (500,000 dollars) as against the previous 164.1m drams. As
to the authorized capital, Cascade Insurance & Reinsurance Company
leads 20 operating insurance companies in Armenia. In response to
the questions of Arminfo about the possibility of introducing new
insurance products, Mamikonyan said the development of life insurance
market was for special importance to the company.
Mamikonyan says at present insurance companies offer 67 types of
insurance, but medical insurance and life insurance are not developed
enough. In his words, the development of insurance market in Armenia
requires two conditions: the further development of the legal field
of the insurance sphere and the introduction of several compulsory
types of insurance. In this connection, he pointed out the active
work of the insurance department of the Armenian Ministry of Finance
and Economy, which carried out as much work during the last year as
in the previous seven to eight years. In turn, Kurt Geiger said the
contract would contribute to the development of insurance market and
financial stability of insurance company.
[Passage omitted: background info]

The White House Bulletin:
Vanity Fair Says FBI Wiretaps Mentioned Claims Of Bribes To Hastert
August 4, 2005 Thursday
— Bulletin exclusive from U.S. News
An article on Sibel Edmonds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
translator turned whistleblower who is suing the Department of Justice,
reveals some new details of the wiretaps she translated that allegedly
involved conversations by members of Turkish associations and the
Turkish Consulate in Chicago mentioning bribes to House Speaker Dennis
Hastert (R-IL). The article is in the September issue of Vanity Fair
that is just now hitting newsstands. The article says the wiretaps
recorded members of Turkish groups claiming they had arranged for
tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign fund in
small checks under $200, so they wouldn’t have to be itemized in public
campaign filings. Hastert’s voice was never heard in the recordings,
however, and his office denies knowing anything about this.
The article says that the wiretap recordings contained repeated
reference to Hastert’s flip-flop in 2000 on the decision to designate
the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.
At first he supported the idea, but later he withdrew the proposal.
Hastert explained that he changed his mind because President Bill
Clinton was concerned about the resolution harming U.S. interests
abroad. But in the Chicago wiretaps, according to Vanity Fair, “a
senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in
one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution
would have been at least $500,000.” The article cautions, however,
that “the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have
been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was
ever made to Hastert or his campaign.”
Edmonds told U.S. News and the Bulletin that she and other
whistleblowers from the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National
Security Agency, and Department of Homeland Security, are so fed up
with lack of congressional oversight on intelligence and national
security that they plan to launch an advertising campaign targeting
government officials who have allegedly endangered national security.
The newspaper ads, which could be launched as early two months from
now, would name officials, their titles, their salaries, where they
work and their alleged or documented wrongdoing, says Edmonds. The
campaign would be funded by private donations, like the recently
formed advocacy group she heads, the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.

Alcatel Draws Four Aces: MAN, DSL, IPTV & GSM
TELECOMWEB NEWS DIGEST
August 3, 2005
Alcatel, in the space of barely 24 hours, has disclosed a string of
broadband and wireless contract wins at carriers in Belgium, China,
Armenia and Egypt plus a deal with Israel’s Amdocs to craft a joint
end-to-end IPTV solution. The first of the deals cover DSL, where
Alcatel claims 37.8 percent of the global DSL market, with more than
68 million DSL lines shipped at the end of the second quarter of 2005.
In Belgium, it signed a key broadband deal with fixed and mobile
operator Mobistar to help it roll out DSL infrastructure. Mobistar
currently derives the majority of its revenues from mobile – about $772
million of the company’s $834.3 million in total revenues for the first
half of this year. Its decision to team with Alcatel indicates that it
wants to become more of a force away from its core mobile market, where
it has a 33-percent share with nearly 2.9 million customers. Mobistar,
which hopes to put pressure on Belgacom in all areas of the Belgian
telecom market, recently launched a pilot TV-on-mobile project,
which will run from July to September.
Mobistar is buying Alcatel’s 7301 Advanced Services Access Manager,
managed by the Alcatel 5523 ADSL Work Station, and the Alcatel
5530 Network Analyzer, Michel Rahier, head of Alcatel’s fixed
communications activities, said of the deal, “Mobistar’s entry into
the fixed broadband business moves them toward a one-stop- shop model,
which we see as a clear trend in many advanced markets. Being already
the supplier of Mobistar’s mobile core network, we are extremely happy
to now contribute to the development of its fixed broadband business.”
In a second DSL deal, Alcatel inked a frame contract to supply Nile
Online, an Egyptian ISP said to have one of the largest Internet
backbones in the country, with the hardware and installation services
for 30,000 DSL lines during the next year. The deal reinforces
Alcatel’s already commanding position in the Egyptian broadband market,
where it claims a 60-percent market share.
Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel will supply Nile Online
with its Alcatel 7302 Integrated Services Access Manager (ISAM),
which hit the market nearly a year ago. Alcatel says the order is
its first for the 7302 from a Middle Eastern country, and that Nile
Online is its 11th customer worldwide for the widgetry.
Meanwhile, in China, Hubei Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom,
ordered Alcatel’s IP service routing solution to expand and optimize
its metropolitan area network (MAN) in Hubei Province, China. The
contract, won by Alcatel Shanghai Bell, calls for deployment of the
Alcatel 7750 Service Router (SR) in the province’s three major cities:
Wuhan, Yichang and Huanggang.
The order continues Alcatel’s relationship with China Telecom, which
has already installed the 7750 in 11 other Chinese provinces. China
Telecom says its upgraded network in Hubei is going to be used to
deliver services including a bundled triple- play offering, high-speed
Internet access for residential users, and Layer 2 and Layer 3 virtual
private network (VPN) services for enterprises.
Meanwhile, on the wireless side, Alcatel disclosed landing what was
described as a “multimillion Euro” contract to deploy a GSM/GPRS mobile
network for VivaCell, the second mobile operator in Armenia. Alcatel,
which partnered in the project with Greek telecommunications integrator
Intracom, actually won the contract some time ago, but waited until
the gear was deployed to disclose it.
Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel deployed a complete GSM
network based on its multi-standard Evolium solution. Alcatel’s
solution, which will cover the whole territory of Armenia, will
include Mobile Switching Centers for 400,000 subscribers, more than 200
base-station subsystems with natively embedded GPRS capabilities, and
a backbone based on Alcatel’s next-generation SDH Optical Multi-Service
Node systems and access network.
In a final deal, Alcatel and Amdocs crafted a pact to integrate
Amdocs’ IP Convergence Solution software for IPTV with Alcatel’s IPTV
infrastructure offerings. The two say they have immediately begun
development of an interoperability lab that will simulate real-world
production environments, including the infrastructure, full broadband
access network, switching, routing, transport and applications. The
two companies also will create a joint architectural map-and-service
offering, and they are planning joint sales and marketing efforts.

ARMENIA – ALCATEL DEPLOYS GSM/GPRS NETWORK FOR VIVACEL
Telecompaper Europe (Was RDSL Europe)
August 4, 2005
Alcatel has signed a multimillion euro contract to deploy a GSM/GPRS
mobile network for Armenian mobile operator VivaCel. Alcatel partnered
in this project with Intracom company, a Greek telecommunications
integrator. Under the terms of this contract, Alcatel will deploy a
complete GSM network based on its Evolium solution. Alcatel’s solution
will cover the whole territory of Armenia and will include Mobile
Switching Centers (NSS) for 400,000 subscribers, more than 200 Base
Stations Sub-Systems (BSS) with natively embedded GPRS capabilities,
as well as a backbone solution based on Alcatel’s next-generation
SDH Optical Multi-Service Node (OMSN) systems and access network.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Draft documents on CSTO peacekeeping activity are ready-view
ITAR-TASS News Agency
August 4, 2005 Thursday
MOSCOW, August 4 — Draft documents on the CSTO peacekeeping activity
are ready, said Valery Semerikov, deputy secretary-general of the
Collective Security Treaty Organisation.
The CSTO secretary-general told Itar-Tass on Thursday, “The CSTO
strengthens and it is necessary to create its own peacekeeping
potential in order to ensure stability and security in the CSTO
responsibility zone and involve the CSTO in U.N. peacekeeping
operations.”
He recalled, “In June 2004 the CSTO supreme body – the CSTO Council
– approved a concept on the creation and functioning of the CSTO
peacekeeping activity and instructed to prepare necessary documents.”
“Draft documents are being worked out. They will lay a necessary
foundation for the CSTO peacekeeping activity. Draft documents are
being coordinated by members states of the CSTO – Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan,” Semerikov said.
On Wednesday, CSTO member-states are working on an agreement on
interstate programmes for basic and applied research. Semerikov
told Itar-Tassdraft agreement is finalised and submitted to CSTO
member-states for consideration.
The agreement “will become a legal foundation for solving foreign
political, military and military-technical problems. It will help
counteract trans-national challenges and threats to security posed
to CSTO member-states within interstate programmes,” the CSTO deputy
director general said.
The draft agreement is being coordinated by Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

France’s Alcatel to build network for Armenia’s K-Telecom
Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
August 3, 2005
MOSCOW, Aug 3 (Prime-Tass) — France’s Alcatel has concluded a contract
on building a GSM network for Armenia’s mobile operator K-Telecom,
Alcatel said Wednesday.
The exact amount of the contract was not disclosed, but Alcatel said
that it is worth several millions of euros.
Alcatel plans to build the network together with Greece’s Intracom.
Alcatel is to install over 200 base stations with the operational
capacity of 400,000 numbers.
Operation of the first stage of K-Telecom’s network began on July 1.
K-Telecom, an affiliate of Karabakh Telecom, is controlled by Lebanese
businessman Pierre Fattouch and is to provide its services under the
VivaCell trademark in Armenia.
K-Telecom has already invested more than U.S. USD 75 million in its
network in Armenia and projects its subscriber base at 300,000 users
in 2005.
Earlier national telecom company ArmenTel has held a monopoly
to provide GSM services in Armenia. However, in November 2004 the
Armenian government decided to make amendments to ArmenTel’s license,
depriving the company of its exclusive right to provide GSM, mobile
satellite and mobile radio communication services in the country.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Chess champ manoeuvres to take a piece of Putin
by Jeremy Page
The Australian
August 4, 2005 Thursday All-round Country Edition
Despite a rough opening, Garry Kasparov is determined to topple the
political king, writes Jeremy Page in Moscow
IF chess is mental torture, as Garry Kasparov once said, then Russian
politics has not been much kinder to him since his dramatic debut
this year.
In the past five months he has been hit over the head with a
chessboard, roughed up by police, pelted with eggs and tomato sauce
and bombarded with verbal abuse.
All this after he announced in March that he was retiring from
competitive chess to dedicate himself to the political fight against
President Vladimir Putin.
Kasparov, 42, is not used to being the underdog, having dominated
chess since 1985 when he became its youngest world champion.
Yet far from being intimidated, he is throwing himself into the
toughest — and riskiest — contest of his life, with all the flair
and aggression that made him the greatest chess player to date.
“There’s only one chance for this country — if the regime collapses,”
Kasparov said.
“If the Government doesn’t change, then we must change the Government.”
Unlike most of Putin’s opponents, he is not talking about running in
the next parliamentary elections in 2007 or standing for president
in 2008.
He is travelling around Russia calling openly for a peaceful
revolution, like those that rocked Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine
last year.
The trigger, he predicts, will be an attempt by the Kremlin to change
the constitution to allow Putin to serve a third term instead of
stepping down in 2008.
“Next year the country will go through a political crisis which will
decide the future of the country,” Kasparov said. “We’re talking
about mass protests.”
Such talk is highly provocative — if not seditious — when the Kremlin
has spent much of the past five years silencing political opponents.
In May, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed for nine years in
what was widely seen as punishment for meddling in politics. Then
Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, became the target of a
corruption probe last month after hinting at running for president
in 2008.
So far, the worst Kasparov has suffered is being hit on the head with
a chessboard by a young activist in April and roughed up by police
outside Khodorkovsky’s court hearing in May.
In public, Russian officials have responded to his challenge with
disdain — dismissing him as a political non-entity who appeals only
to the West.
Many political analysts agree, saying most Russians have not heard
about his campaign and would not support him because of his Caucasian
and Jewish roots. He was born in Azerbaijan to an Armenian mother
and a Jewish father.
But at the same time, officials are going to extraordinary lengths
to prevent such a respected celebrity from entering the political fray.
That much became clear when Kasparov went to southern Russia in June
to drum up grassroots support in Dagestan, North Ossetia, Stavropol
and Rostov.
“Unlike my critics, I go to the Russian regions,” he said.
“It’s the only way to learn the situation in my country because the
media is under the Kremlin’s strict control.”
In Dagestan, authorities blocked him from meeting refugees from
neighbouring Chechnya and even tried to stop him giving prizes at a
children’s chess tournament.
In North Ossetia, a meeting with Beslan residents in a cultural centre
was cancelled after officials hastily arranged a showing of the movie
Madagascar there.
Then he was hit with eggs covered in tomato sauce in Vladikavkaz,
the regional capital.
At his next stops, in Stavropol and Rostov, the airports refused to
let his charter plane land.
Hotels in Stavropol would not accept him and meetings in both places
had to be held outside after the venues developed “technical” problems.
Kasparov says he believes local authorities were under orders from
Putin’s personal representative in the region, Dmitry Kozak.
“If they act in this way, they are scared — scared of anyone talking
with the people,” Kasparov said. “If people don’t like my ideas,
then fine, but at least let them speak with me.”
Kasparov dabbled in politics in the 1990s and, early last year,
was voted chairman of Committee 2008: Free Choice, a liberal group
dedicated to ensuring the next presidential election is free and
fair. But his real political awakening came after the Beslan school
siege, when the Kremlin announced plans to abolish direct elections
for regional governors.
This year he formed his own, more militant, group called the United
Civil Front.
“It’s extreme because the situation is extreme,” he said.
“The Government is violating the Russian constitution and limiting
our rights to influence the electoral process.”

GOP Criminal Flip-Flop: Was Denny Hastert Bribed By Turkish Agents?
Blogcritics.org
Aug 4 2005
Posted by Balletshooz on August 04, 2005 08:03 PM (See all posts by
Balletshooz)
Filed under: Politics – Scroll down to read comments on this story
and/or add one of your own.
Speaker: Lessons from Forty Years in Coaching and Politics
Dennis Hastert
Book from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Release date: August, 2004
Why exactly did Denny Hastert flip-flop at the last moment, derailing
a Congressional resolution designating as genocide the killings of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923? He initially attributed it to a
letter from Bill Clinton, but new FBI wiretaps show Turkish foreign
agents mentioning Hastert’s name in the context of a bribe, right
before the resolution was scheduled to pass.
Is Denny Hastert taking bribes from foreign officials and why is
the Justice Department trying to squelch an investigation into the
matter? What are they trying to hide? These new allegations, if allowed
to surface, will make Tom Delay and Karl Rove look like Mother Teresa
and Gandhi. Call it Genocide-Gate, Traitor-Gate, or Hastert-Gate,
the American public and American law enforcement deserve to know and
must take a close look at this unfolding scandal.
For many years, attempts had been made to get the House to pass the
genocide resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000,
when Hastert, as Speaker of the House, announced that he would give
it his backing and see that it received a full House vote. Thanks to
Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the Turks, passed.
Then on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert
suddenly and without explanation withdrew it.
Vanity Fair’s September edition, which has yet to hit national
newsstands, has an article about Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who
has been gagged by the Bush administration from revealing information
about conversations she translated surrounding a seemingly major
corruption scandal involving Turkish nationals and U.S. lawmakers.
The following are some brief excerpts from RAW STORY surrounding the
allegations Edmonds has made-some of which the FBI has confirmed-about
the specifics surrounding her case:
· According to those briefed on the case, Edmonds says she has heard
classified wiretaps, which indicate Turkish nationals tried to bribe
lawmakers in Chicago and Washington.
· Edmonds was fired from the FBI after trying to persuade her bosses
to investigate a Turkish family, the Dickersons, she said was trying
to trade on her status as an FBI operative. She suspected that the
American Turkish Council, which the family tried to persuade her to
join, was a front group for criminal activity.
· On top of the usual prohibition against disclosing classified
information, the Bush administration has smothered her case beneath the
all-encompassing blanket of the “state-secrets privilege”-a Draconian
and rarely used legal weapon that allows the government, merely by
asserting a risk to national security, to prevent the lawsuits
Edmonds has filed contesting her treatment from being heard in court
at all. According to the Department of Justice, to allow Edmonds her
day in court, even at a closed hearing attended only by personnel
with full security clearance, “could reasonably be expected to cause
serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the
United States.”
Edmonds’ attorney, who works for the ACLU, says: “It also begs a
question: Just what in the world is the government trying to hide?”
One counterintelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case
has told Vanity Fair that the FBI opened an investigation into
covert activity by Turkish nations and found evidence, mainly via
wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians. One
name apparently stood out-a man the Turkish callers often referred
to by the nickname “Denny boy.” According to some of the wiretaps it
was Denny Hastert. The FBI’s targets had arranged for thousands of
dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under
Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are
not required to be itemized in public filings.
An examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level
of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was
very high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal
donations to the Hastert for Congress fund amounted to $483,000. In
contrast, un-itemized contributions to the same period to the
committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay,
Republican of Texas, were only $99,000. An analysis of the filings
of four other senior Republicans shows that only one, Clay Shaw,
of Florida declared a higher total of un-itemized donations than
Hastert during the same period: $552,00.
Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings contained repeated
references to Hastert’s flip-flop in the fall of 2000, “over an
issue which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government-the
continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of
Armenians between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.” Hastert’s spokesman
denied the allegations that he was bribed by a foreign agent, and
said he knew nothing of the Turkish group.
Hastert’s defense is sounding a lot like some parallel Republican
defenses to ongoing criminal investigations, namely Karl Rove, Tom
DeLay, and Randy “Duke” Cunningham. They claim to have no involvement
in the crime until it becomes obvious they are involved, and then
they try to smear anyone willing to talk about it. This has become
an ongoing pattern in the Republican administration and a danger to
democracy. Only the justice system running its proper course can shed
light on what crimes, if any, have been committed by Denny Hastert, and
obstruction of the investigation should be roundly condemned by all.
–Boundary_(ID_mMHb8ShwhD8YfuuS9QrJ1w)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CBS2 Chicago, IL
Aug 4 2005
Magazine Article Claims Hastert Took Bribes
Story Alleges Hastert Took Money To Block Armenian Resolution
Mike Flannery
Reporting
(CBS) A spokesman for speaker of the House Speaker Denny Hastert
tonight is ridiculing a magazine story that claims Hastert may have
taken bribes.
There is little hard evidence to support the explosive allegations.
The claim is that Hastert may have accepted tens of thousands
of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for blocking a
Congressional resolution about a bloody Armenian-Turkish Conflict.
As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, that conflict 80
years ago claimed more than one million Armenian lives.
It was only after a personal appeal from then-President Clinton
that Speaker Hastert agreed to block a Congressional vote on the
resolution. Armenian-Americans have long wanted the U.S. government
to declare that Turkey was guilty of genocide in 1915, when more than
one million Armenians died.
“My own family were driven into the Syrian desert, where almost
everybody perished. My father and his brother were among the few
survivors,” said Ann Lucine.
Enter Vanity Fair magazine’s David Rose. In next month’s edition,
he claims that sources told him of secret recordings in which
diplomats from Turkey were heard referring to Hastert as “Denny-Boy”
and allegedly discussed making campaign contributions of $500,000 to
get Hastert to block the genocide resolution.
Hastert was in Japan today, one stop on an official trip to AsIa.
In a statement, a spokesman said: “This story is nonsense. It makes
for great summertime reading. Next thing you know, they’ll blame the
speaker for the Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt breakup.”
“I took a quick look at the Vanity Fair article,” Lucine said. “I
would be shocked if the allegations of bribery or criminal actions
were true.”
Like Ann Lucine, Armenian-American activists disagreed strongly
with Speaker Hastert when he withdrew the genocide resolution from
a House floor vote he had promised. But they knew President Clinton
and then-Sec. of State Madeline Albright were pressuring Hastert,
telling him of Turkish threats to close American military bases
vitally needed for the fight against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.