The Washington Post
March 6, 2005 Sunday
Final Edition

Man’s Inhumanity

The mass murder of civilians in acts of genocide and other crimes
against humanity stand out amid a hundred years of bloody warfare.

Here are estimates of death tolls from some of the many episodes. The
exact numbers will never be known.

ARMENIANS IN TURKEY (1915-18)
1.5 million

STALIN’S FORCED FAMINE IN UKRAINE (1932-33)
7 million

JAPANESE MASSACRE OF CHINESE
(The Rape of Nanjing, 1937)
300,000

NAZI GERMANY AND THE HOLOCAUST (1938-45)
6 million

POL POT IN CAMBODIA (1975-79)
2 million

BOSNIA (1992-95)
200,000

RWANDA (1994)
800,000

SOURCE: COMMITTEE ON CONSCIENCE
AT THE U.S. HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

The Washington Post
March 6, 2005 Sunday
Final Edition

Crime of Crimes; Does It Have to Be Genocide for the World to Act?

by David Bosco

On Feb. 1, the United Nations issued a finding that sounded like
hopeful news about one of Africa’s worst conflicts.

“UN report clears Sudan government of genocide in Darfur,” reported
Agence France-Presse.

“UN Panel Sees No Genocide in Darfur,” a St. Petersburg Times
headline on a Reuters wire story said the next day.

“Report on Darfur Says Genocide Did Not Occur,” read another in the
New York Sun.

The headlines said more about the mindset of the people reading the
report than they did about the long-awaited investigation by the U.N.
commission of inquiry on the conflict in western Sudan. The 176-page
document provided a litany of misery and blamed the government in
Khartoum. But to many readers, it appeared to have let Sudan’s
leaders off the hook by not branding their actions as genocide, as
the Bush administration and U.S. Congress had already done.

It’s not as though the report gave Sudan a seal of approval. It
detailed extensive atrocities authorized by the Sudanese government
and carried out by Janjaweed militias. Its authors concluded that the
government and militias conducted “indiscriminate attacks, including
killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction
of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and
forced displacement throughout Darfur.” They added that the
government’s brutal campaign had displaced more than 1.5 million
people. But for many news editors and readers, one conclusion
overshadowed all the rest: There was no genocide in Darfur, after
all.

In considering whether and where to intervene, one question has
assumed talismanic significance: Is it genocide? In the words of
judges on the international tribunal for Rwanda, genocide is the
“crime of crimes.” Such a finding has become a signal for the world
to act.

But as the Darfur report shows, genocide is an unreliable trigger.
For all its moral power, genocide is both hard to document and linked
to questions of race, ethnicity and religion in a way that excludes
other — similarly heinous — crimes. Intended as a clarion call, the
term itself has become too much of a focal point, muddling the
necessity for action almost as often as clarifying it.

Few issues have been more important in the last decade than reacting
to the bloody civil conflicts that still haunt many parts of the
globe. The current film “Hotel Rwanda” hammers audiences with the
tale of the world’s shameful failure to stop the 1994 Rwandan
massacres. Looking to the genocide label to motivate international
intervention in places like Rwanda, however, overlooks two sad
truths: Widespread slaughter can demand intervention even if it falls
outside of the genocide standard. And the world is quite capable of
standing by and watching even when a genocide is acknowledged.

To a remarkable extent, the term genocide was the product of one
man’s work. As Samantha Power recounts in her recent book ” ‘A
Problem From Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide,” Raphael Lemkin
placed the term into public discourse and international law through
sheer willpower. A Polish Jew who narrowly escaped the Nazis, Lemkin
was instrumental in drafting and winning support for the 1948
Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. He wanted a law that
captured the unique horror of a concerted campaign to deny a specific
group’s right to exist, and that is what he got.

In international law, genocide is a crime of specific intent — it
requires that the guilty parties intended to destroy all or part of
an ethnic, racial, national or religious community. Identifying that
intent can be a difficult struggle.

In 1995, Bosnian Serb forces killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the
besieged town of Srebrenica. It was Europe’s worst massacre since
World War II. But when the U.N. tribunal finally got hold of one of
the Bosnian Serb generals who had been at Srebrenica, it found him
guilty only of aiding and abetting genocide — not actually
committing it. “Convictions for genocide,” that court said, “can be
entered only where intent has been unequivocally established.” Try as
they might, the prosecutors in that case could not document the Serb
officer’s intent.

If getting inside the mind of the killers is one complication,
identifying and classifying the victims is another. The commission
investigating Darfur, for example, immersed itself in the details of
local tribal structures as it tried to puzzle out whether the victims
of that conflict fit under the definition of genocide. “The various
tribes that have been the subject of attacks and killings,” the
report conceded, “do not appear to make up ethnic groups distinct
from the ethnic group to which persons or militias that attack them
belong.” Only after lengthy analysis did the authors conclude that
the victimized population in Darfur was a different tribe and
therefore a “protected group.” But they were still unable to identify
the intent needed to show genocide.

Documenting genocidal intent and determining whether the victims are
part of a protected group eats up time when time is of the essence; a
few weeks of concentrated violence killed more than 800,000 people in
Rwanda. Waiting for the lawyers to decide is perilous, as became
apparent once again when the Sudan commission released its report. To
many observers, it appeared that the U.N. experts were downgrading
the Darfur crisis when it was really struggling — in good lawyerly
fashion — to meet a high evidentiary burden.

Perversely, the intense focus on genocide has allowed a U.N. report
that documents widespread atrocities to serve as moral cover for
continued official lethargy. The United States has been the leading
player in diplomatic efforts in the Sudan, but has not pushed as
aggressively as it could for sanctions. Europe — and France, in
particular — has talked a good game but done little. Russia and
China, both U.N. Security Council members, have made only the weakest
gestures of concern. And so staunching the bloodshed in Darfur has
been left to a small, ill-equipped force from the African Union
(A.U.), a regional economic and security organization.

There is an alternative to this intense focus on genocide. The
category of “crimes against humanity” — first used to describe the
massacres of Armenians after World War I and then codified at the
Nuremberg trials — is simpler and broader but still morally
powerful. It encompasses large-scale efforts to kill, abuse or
displace populations. It avoids messy determinations of whether the
victims fit into the right legal box and whether the killers had a
sufficiently evil mindset. Do we really care, after all, whether the
victims of atrocities are members of a distinct tribe or simply
political opponents of the regime?

Moving beyond what has by now become a warped diplomatic parlor game
(who will say the G-word first?) would have the added benefit of
shifting the debate from the abstract to the practical. The word
genocide may be too powerful for its own good. It conjures up images
of a relentless and irrational evil that must be confronted
massively. It is almost paralyzing. We are used to fighting crime;
genocide seems to require a crusade.

There are small but concrete steps that the United States could take
to fight the mass killings and crimes in Darfur, without sending a
U.S. combat force. The most critical step would be to bolster the
African Union force there now. For almost a decade, the United States
has sought to strengthen Africa’s ability to tend to its own crises.
That effort — and tens of thousands of lives — are on the line in
Sudan.

The A.U. has promised a force of almost 3,500 troops, but only about
half of them have arrived. Getting those soldiers to Darfur fast may
require airlift capacity that is a U.S. specialty. And the fragile
A.U., which is struggling to bear the costs of the Sudan operation,
needs immediate cash infusions. Both the United States and Europe
have pledged funds, but they have been slow in coming.

The Darfur Accountability Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate last
week, calls for increased aid to the A.U. force, as well as a
military no-fly zone and a tight arms embargo. It’s a start. If the
government in Khartoum gets in the way, the Security Council should
impose tough and targeted sanctions. And if China and Russia get in
the way of the Council, the United States and Europe should act
without it. The United States and Britain (which has gone furthest in
discussing a deployment) should send their own small tripwire force
to accompany the African monitors.

Some of these measures may require a U.S. policy that borders on
unilateralism. But this administration has not shown undue patience
with or deference to the often dysfunctional and amoral U.N. Security
Council — and there’s no reason to start now. As Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld put it in another context, “the mission defines
the coalition.” And the mission of fighting crimes against humanity
must be a central one, as it was in Bosnia and Kosovo and should have
been in Rwanda and at an earlier stage in Sierra Leone.

Realities, not labels, should define our response. The word genocide,
rightly, has a unique moral impact. But the concept — and the
interminable debate about its boundaries — must not become the
issue. When the world chooses to immerse itself in terminology rather
than take action, it does today’s very real victims no good at all.

Author’s e-mail:

[email protected]

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian minister, Ukrainian envoy discuss regional security, relations

Arminfo
5 Mar 05

YEREVAN

Armenian Security Council Secretary and Defence Minister Serzh
Sarkisyan and the Ukrainian ambassador to Armenia, Volodymyr Tyahlo,
today discussed issues of regional security and the current state and
prospects of Armenian-Ukrainian relations.

The meeting was held in connection with the appointment of Lt-Col
Dmytro Nikitishyn to the post of Ukraine’s military and airforce
attache to Armenia, the press secretary of the Armenian Defence
Ministry, Col Seyran Shakhsuvaryan, reported.

During the meeting, Sarkisyan congratulated the young officer on his
appointment to the new post and wished him success in his service. The
Armenian minister expressed his readiness for the further development
of close cooperation between Armenia and Ukraine in the military
sphere.

In turn, Lt-Col Nikitishin thanked Sarkisyan for his warm reception
and assured him that he will do his best to assist the development of
bilateral cooperation.

ABS-CBS Interactive
Monday, March 7, 2005 1:45 AM

Garry slams Vallejo anew

By MANNY BENITEZ
TODAY Chess Columnist

Megastar Garry Kasparov of Russia thrashed Spanish hero Francisco `Paco’
Vallejo Pons with White to widen his lead in the 10th round of the Linares
Super Chess in Spain on Saturday (Sunday in Manila).

With 6.5 points after posting his fourth win – and his second against the
Spaniard – in nine games, the world’s No. 1 chess player left No. 2
Viswanathan Anand of India and No. 3 Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in his wake
at 4.5 each from eight games.

Kasparov, who was to have a free day in the 11th round, gave Vallejo, whom
he had also beaten in the third, a lesson in strategy and tactics with
powerful blows, doubling up the Spaniard’s pawns early on.

Here is how the former world champion (White) pummeled the Spaniard into
submission in 54 moves of a Slav game:

1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 e3 Bf5 5 Nc3 e6 6 Nh4! Bg6 7 Nxg6 hxg6 8 Bd2
Nbd7 9 Rc1 a6 10 Bd3 dxc4 11 Bxc4 b5 12 Be2 c5 13 Bf3 Rb8 14 Ne2 Bd6 15 g3
0-0 16 0-0 e5 17 dxc5 Nxc5 18 Bb4 Qb6 19 Nc3 Nb7 20 Bxd6 Nxd6 21 Nd5 Nxd5 22
Bxd5 Rbc8 23 Qg4 Nf5 24 Qe4 Qf6 25 Rfd1 Nd6 26 Qb4 Rfd8 27 a4! bxa4 28 Qxa4
Rxc1 29 Rxc1 Nb5 30 Rd1 Nc7 31 Bc4! Rd6 32 Rxd6 Qxd6 33 Qb3 Ne6 34 h4 e4 35
Bd5 g5 36 h5! g4 37 Bxe4 Ng5 38 Qd5!? Nxe4 39 Qxe4 Qd1+ 40 Kg2 Kf8

Now comes a series of well-timed queen-checks.

41 Qa8+! Ke7 42 Qb7+ Ke8 43 Qxa6 Qd5+ 44 Kg1 Qxh5 45 Qc6+ Kd8 46 e4 Ke7 47
Qc7+ Ke6 48 Qc8+ Ke7 49 Qb7+ Ke8 50 b4 Qg5 51 Qc6+ Ke7 52 b5 Qd2 53 Qc5+ Qd6
54 Qg5+! 1-0.

After 54 Qg5+!

Black’s g-pawn falls, e.g., 54…Qf6 55 Qxg4!

In Poitovsky, Russia, solo leader Viktor Bologan of Moldova also boosted his
score to 5.5 points with a 58-move win against Rafael Vaganian of Armenia in
the seventh round of the Karpov chess tournament.

A full point behind him were top seed Etienne Bacrot of France and Alexander
Grischuk of Russia.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

KurdistanObserver.com

The Most Distinguish Characteristic of Modern Turkish Nationalism:

Denial of Reality, Xenophobia, Racism, and Anti-Semitism

By: Amed Demirhan

Mar 7, 2005

The people in Turkey from elementary school and on are indoctrinated with
denial of historical realities and socio-ethnographical and cultural
diversity in their country. All form of mass media daily reinforces this
abnormality, and any one that questions this, will become subject of the
witch-hunt. When, one listens to mainstream Turkish politician and `educated
class’ one wonders if they are from the plant of Earth or somewhere else?
The recent debate in Turkey is a typical example of this abnormalities: the
government foreign policy; the mass medias which hunts against writer Orhan
Pamuk statement in regards to Armenian genocide and crime against Kurds, and
the Ministry of environment and forest changing name of wild animals just to
exclude words Kurdistan and Armenian, and the increase in Anti-Semitism are
typical characteristics of modern Turkish nationalism. This type of
nationalism as evidenced in many historical examples is harmful to every one
including the nation it advocate for, therefore, standing against current
Turkish nationalism is as important as standing against Nazism, Stalinism,
Saddams’ Regime and Bathism. It is in the best interest of Turkish people to
be liberated from this illness.

The government of Turkey still refuses to call Bath’sist (Sunni-Hanafi) and
Islamic Fascist in central Iraq terrorist. In the past many time Turkey had
strongly protested United States lead freedom forces victory in the city of
Falluga and Tell Afar, in Iraq, but until now it never protested terrorist
attacks against civilian in Iraq. At the same time it had characterized
Israel’s shelve defense acts against terrorist Islam-I Jihad organization as
state terrorism. Recently a Turkish news portal `Haber X (3/2/050) reported
that about 400 Turks are fighting against the USA lead freedom forces in
Iraq with terrorist leader Al-Zarkavi. It noted that these fighters are
veterans from Bosnian war against Serbia. This indicates that Turkish
government knows who are these `Turkish – Islamic’ fighters because almost
all of those fighters that went to Bosnia, Chechnya, and in the past to
Afghanistan went via Turkish intelligence services. In addition, in March
first of this year 200 Turkish `intellectuals’: journalists, professors,
writers, and some `civic’ organization representative visited Syria to show
their solidarity with Syrian dictatorship against Western pressure and the
United Nation request for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Most of these 200
people are closely related to the state (its hard to call them civilian).
March 1, is significant, it is the day Turkish Parliament under Turkish
military pressure refused to let the USA lead forces go through Turkey and
open a second front against Saddams regime. This indicate that Turkish
regime is the most anti-Westernization and democratization of the Middle
East because it sees freedom as a treat to its regime.

One may expect a Turkey that had received a negotiation date from European
Union (EU) may act little better internally but looking in a recent debate
it is doubtful and domestic policy like its foreign policy is
anti-democratic. Last week one of the most famous Turkish writers Orhan
Pamuk in an interview stated, that One million Armenian and 30,000 Kurds had
been victim of the state (Turkish state). About 90% of media commentators
started a lynching company against the author and political organization
like infamous `Gray Wolfe’ movement send death treat to the author. In fact
Mr. Pamuk’s statement could have been subject of a serious debate and his
statement is very questionable because more than one million Armenian and
Assurian/Keldan have been killed and the number of Kurds have been killed
since foundation of the Turkish republic is very high and millions were
deported from their homes. This shows how much free debate is possible in
Turkey that prepares to join to EU?

The republic of Turkey prohibited every thing that wasn’t Turkish in
historic multinational and cultural diverse geography and named them in
Turkish from beginning. Apparently they have forgotten few wild animals name
like: “Vulpes Vulpes Kürdistanicum’ (A fox in Kurdistan area) and `Ovis
Armeniana’ (wild sheep in old Armenia) in their scientific classification.
The ministry of environment and forest acted right away on this discovery
and changed their name to Turkish. ( 3/5/05). I wonder
if any one knows or heard this kind of xenophobia, racism and hatred
anywhere? Even Sheep and Foxes cannot be Armenian or Kurdistani? The modern
Turkish nationalism is founded of the denial of reality and has been
indoctrinating its population in this denial and hatred on any thing that is
not Turkish. This is fundamental problem for every one who has to deal with
Turkish regime. Despite every thing the official doctrine is totally
bankrupted and regime is very weak. Change of regime is unavoidable in
Turkey and its necessary.

Amed Demirhan

e-mail: [email protected]

Florida, USA

Azerbaijan reportedly agrees to release Georgia-bound carriages

Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
5 Mar 05

[Presenter] The Azerbaijani and Georgian governments have reached
agreement on the wagons detained on the border. The Azerbaijani
government ordered to stop unloading the wagons on suspicious routes
after Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli’s visit to Baku, the
State Railway Department has said.

[Correspondent] The State Railway Department has ordered to stop the
unloading of the wagons detained on the Azeri-Georgian border which
are bound for Armenia. Teymur Mammadov from the department told Son
Xabar that the order was issued today [5 March].

Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli, who completed his visit to
Azerbaijan today, said [in Georgia] that the sides reached an
agreement on the detained ferry trucks. Whereas in Baku, Mr Noghaideli
said that if Azerbaijan would allow the trucks to enter Georgia,
official Tbilisi would give an official guarantee that they would not
be redirected to Armenia.

The talk is about the import of those goods and there is no doubt that
they will be imported to Georgia, end of quote.

Elxan Polxov, the second secretary of the Azerbaijani embassy in
Georgia, said the Azerbaijani side had agreed to allow the wagons to
enter Georgia, but set a condition as well.

[Polxov over the phone] The only condition is that no goods
transported to Georgia via Azerbaijan should be redirected to
Armenia. And Mr Noghaideli has given us an official guarantee that his
government would keep this under its control and that such cases would
not be repeated in the future.

[Correspondent] However, it is not yet clear when the wagons would be
released. Elxan Polxov said some procedures should be worked out for
the process to start.

[Polxov] I think the wagons will be released after we resolve some
technical issues.

[Correspondent] It must be mentioned that 284 of the 400 detained
wagons contain wheat. Of the 284 wagons, 56 have temporarily been
unloaded in some mills of Baku. Another 100 wagons have been taken to
Azertaxil stores rented by the State Customs Committee. Of the
remaining wagons, 74 contain diesel, five reactive fuel and 32 liquid
fuel.

US to Control Central Asia with Mobile Bases in Caucasus
By Bahtiyar Kucuk

Published: Sunday 06, 2005
zaman.com

Research Director of Caspian Studies Program at Harvard University,
Dr. Brenda Shaffer has claimed that the US wants to control Central
Asia by establishing mobile bases in the Caucasus.

Defining the Caucasus as a crossroads, Shaffer indicated that a
dominant power in the region would not only control Caspian energy
sources but also Afghanistan and the Middle East at the same
time. Speaking to Zaman, Shaffer said the US saw the Caucasus and
Central Asia as a whole. Shaffer said of the region, “The Caucasus is
like the Istanbul Ataturk Airport, a central point. You can go any
direction you want from here. It is like a junction. It is like a gate
opening to Central Asia.”

Shaffer focused on two basic trends in recent US military policy: “The
first is the transition from permanent bases to more mobile and active
bases. The second is transition to small bases in the surrounding
regions just like the ones in Turkey and Southern Caucasus instead of
the big ones in Europe.” Referring as an example to US use of bases
in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkmenistan during the Afghan and Iraqi
wars, Shaffer said, “The air corridor that the US provided with these
small bases is more important than the US settling one or two thousand
military forces in the same region.”

Explaining that any conflict to arise among the big powers in Caucasus
would be due to the geo-strategic importance of the region rather than
its energy sources, Shaffer said: “The energy in the region is not a
target but a tool. Infrastructures such as the pipelines are just
tools in the relations.” Indicating that the US, Russia and even Iran
and Turkey do not have any intentions to obtain the oil in the
Caucasus, Shaffer claimed that formation of energy corridors through
these countries in the region would bring them political benefits.

Saying that Turkey was in a key position for the stability of the
Caucasus, Shaffer emphasizes that Ankara should look at the region
from a ‘broader’ perspective. To illustrate this, Shaffer gives the
following example: “In the Turkish-Armenian border issue, Ankara
evaluates the issue from the frame of its relations with Washington,
Brussels and Armenia. It does not think of how the opening of the
border will affect the conflict or negotiations in the region. Turkey
should evaluate its bilateral relations with the Southern Caucasus in
a more regional context, within the structure of the region.”

Stressing that the US also had wrong policies in Caucasus, Shaffer
mentioned that Washington did not show enough interest in the problems
of Karabagh, South Ossetia and Abhasia. Shaffer added that in the
context of bilateral relations with Russia, the US was more interested
in Georgia. Saying that the attitude of the US had changed when
compared to its attitude two years ago over whether the Caucasus
countries might be a member of NATO, Shaffer concluded that full
membership of these countries was now a part of US regional policy.

Istanbul

IRNA, Iran
March 6 2005

Iran, Ukraine discuss gas transfer project

Tehran, March 6, IRNA — Iran and Ukraine in Kiev on Sunday discussed
implementation of a pipeline project to transfer Iran’s gas to
Ukraine.

The Ukrainian deputy minister of oil and energy in a meeting with
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs Hadi Nejad
Hosseinian during the third meeting of the two countries’ energy
commission, called for annual purchase of 15 billion cubic meters of
gas from Iran via the pipeline.

The routes for laying the gas pipeline will either pass through ran,
Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine or through Iran, Armenia,
Georgia, Black Sea and Ukraine.

The two countries are set to dispatch representatives and experts to
a meeting, scheduled to be held in Tehran in May, 2005, to discuss
the financial resources and construction and implementation of the
project as well as the amount of gas to be exported. Tehran and Kiev
will then make the final decision.

The Ukrainian official voiced his country’s interest in contribution
to Iran’s oil exploitation and development projects and called for
further cooperation between the two sides in various oil and gas
sectors.

Las Vegas Sun
March 5 2005

Kerkorian’s vision shaped Las Vegas Strip

By Liz Benston
<[email protected]>
LAS VEGAS SUN
WEEKEND EDITION

March 5 – 6, 2005

Pittsburgh had Andrew Carnegie, Cleveland had John D. Rockefeller,
Seattle has Bill Gates.

And Las Vegas has Kirk Kerkorian.

As a developer, Kerkorian three times built the world’s largest hotel
in Las Vegas.

And as the majority shareholder of MGM Mirage, Kerkorian made the two
largest deals in the history of the casino industry.

After the second deal, MGM Mirage’s $7.9 billion buyout of Mandalay
Resort Group that is expected to close this month, Kerkorian will
have a majority stake in a lucrative real estate empire of historic
proportions.

He’ll control 11 major resorts and the largest share of Strip hotel
rooms, casino space and entertainment venues ever assembled by one
owner.

Kerkorian, a fixture on Forbes’ list of the richest Americans, had an
estimated net worth of $5.8 billion last year. His Tracinda Corp.
holding company, named for his daughters Tracy and Linda, holds about
59 percent of MGM Mirage’s stock, a stake worth $6.1 billion as of
Friday’s closing price.

Despite his record and wealth, Kerkorian’s nearly 40-year Las Vegas
career is little known by the public, and even by his peers in Las
Vegas, where strong personalities and new entertainment venues grab
headlines.

He avoids the spotlight, rarely giving speeches and leaving
management up to trusted executives. He is also modest and
unassuming, typically giving others credit for their role in his
success.

“It’s just amazing that he’s taken Las Vegas to the next level three
or four times and he can practically walk down the street without
being recognized,” said Steve DuCharme, a casino consultant and
former member of the state Gaming Control Board. “But that’s the way
he wants it.”

Kerkorian once drove himself to a Gaming Control Board meeting when
DuCharme was on the board.

“I think it was a Chevrolet station wagon,” DuCharme said.

Quiet leadership

His publicity-shy demeanor belies a sharp business sense and an
ability to time the market, observers say.

Henri Lewin, a retired casino consultant who ran Hilton Hotels’
gaming properties in the 1980s, said Kerkorian was always “one step
ahead” of the competition.

“The man had more brains than anybody,” said Lewin, whose former
employer bought the International hotel from Kerkorian. “Kerkorian
knows what the value of a company is and when to buy it. Then he
knows who to put in to manage it. He doesn’t buy anything unless he
knows he can do better with it.”

Boyd Gaming Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Boyd said
Kerkorian “has been a tremendous influence” in the transformation of
Las Vegas into a resort destination.

“I’ve always been impressed by his ability to see where the market
wants to go,” said Boyd, whose father created his own gaming empire
after arriving in Las Vegas in 1941. “On no less than three occasions
with the International, the MGM and MGM Grand, his company has
pointed the way toward Las Vegas’ future. And now he’s doing it again
with MGM’s planned CityCenter.”

In an industry that has had its share of risk and failure,
Kerkorian’s string of successes and big deals have been a big
positive for Las Vegas, experts say.

“He does it so effortlessly that people don’t stop and scratch their
heads in wonderment,” DuCharme said. “There’s never a concern about
whether things will get done right and get financed. It just gets
done.”

Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson —
No. 60 on last year’s Forbes list before a spectacular initial public
offering of stock raised his net worth by $15 billion — said he
respects Kerkorian’s ability to weather risk.

“He’s obviously a very shrewd investor and a fine gentleman,” said
Adelson, who has a majority stake in Las Vegas Sands. “We don’t play
tennis together and we don’t have dinner together, but we have mutual
respect for each other.”

The son of Armenian immigrants, Kerkorian dropped out of school to
box and later discovered flying.

In World War II, he transported planes from Canada to Great Britain
as a pilot in the Royal Air Force and later bought his own plane to
charter passengers to Las Vegas.

Kerkorian and Hughes

When Howard Hughes was buying up hotels, Kerkorian was using profit
from a land sale on the Strip and the sale of his charter service to
purchase land for the International, which would open in 1967 as the
world’s largest hotel. The Paradise Road property was later bought by
Hilton Hotels Corp. and renamed the Las Vegas Hilton.

“The dream of one man — it’s a remarkable story,” Nevada Gaming
Commission member Art Marshall said before the commission unanimously
approved the Mandalay purchase. The approval marked the last major
regulatory hurdle for the deal.

“We’ve had 40 years of behavior by this principal and their team. I’m
willing to trust them,” Marshall said before entering his vote.

It was the story of Hughes, the eccentric playboy, and not of
Kerkorian, that made its way to the silver screen last year. While
both men were pilots and emerged in Las Vegas around the same time,
Kerkorian’s contribution to Las Vegas is generally believed to be
much more significant than Hughes’.

Hughes arrived in Las Vegas in 1966 and, clouded by mental illness,
bought up six casinos on the Strip while doing little to transform
them. His purchases of the Desert Inn and other landmark properties
would be small by today’s resort standards.

“(Kerkorian) doesn’t have the mystique of a Howard Hughes or the
charisma of a Steve Wynn,” said David Schwartz, coordinator for the
Gaming Studies Research Center at UNLV. “Maybe he doesn’t get all the
credit he should have.”

Schwartz said Kerkorian has had a “huge role” in casino history for
foreseeing future demand for Las Vegas and by building some of the
world’s largest resorts.

When MGM Grand acquired Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts in 2000 for $6.4
billion, the deal set an industry record and established MGM Mirage
as the largest competitor on the Strip with a 27 percent share of
hotel rooms and casino space.

At the time, Mandalay Resort Group — which owns three of the largest
hotels — had about 27 percent of the hotel rooms and about 22
percent of the Strip’s casino space.

Kerkorian’s timing couldn’t have been better for the buyout of Mirage
Resorts. He offered $17 per share for Mirage in February 2000 — an
unsolicited offer that was well below Mirage’s 52-week high of $26.37
in May 1999.

A variety of factors, including less-than-spectacular earnings at
Mirage’s older resorts, had depressed the stock to levels that some
experts said weren’t warranted longer-term.

Wynn rejected the first offer, but was put in a difficult position of
refusing a bid that was 56 percent over Mirage Resorts’ then stock
price of less than $11 per share. Analysts warned investors to hold
out for a higher price. Wynn and shareholders eventually accepted an
offer of $21 per share.

MGM Grand sold 46.5 million shares of stock for about $1.3 billion to
help finance the $6.4 billion Mirage acquisition.

Tracinda purchased about half of those shares for $609.5 million,
with the remainder going to financial institutions. The sale reduced
his holdings in MGM Grand from 64 percent to 60 percent.

Only 62 percent of Mirage shareholders voted in favor of the deal,
with many naysayers believing that they could have gotten more out of
Kerkorian.

Bidding for Mandalay

Likewise, MGM Mirage’s landmark bid for Mandalay Resort Group was far
from a slam dunk. While the deal breezed through investigations by
the Federal Trade Commission and Nevada gaming regulators without the
companies being forced to sell any Las Vegas casinos, Mandalay
shareholders could have stopped the deal in its tracks.

Fewer than 60 percent of Mandalay shareholders approved the deal,
according to institutional shareholders — another sign that
Kerkorian bought at a favorable price.

Kerkorian’s involvement was less overt this time. Historically, low
interest rates and unprecedented hunger on Wall Street for Las Vegas
gaming deals are allowing MGM Mirage to finance nearly all of the
$7.9 billion acquisition with low-interest-rate bank debt.

Kerkorian is more than just a dealmaker, said Hal Rothman, chairman
of UNLV’s history department.

In creating MGM Grand, Kerkorian has developed a “visionary profile”
for the city, Rothman said.

“What they’re really buying is ideas and approaches,” he said.
“That’s why he bought Wynn’s properties. He has taken Wynn’s vision
and carried it out.”

Rather than micromanaging, Kerkorian has left the management of his
casino empire to MGM Mirage Chief Executive Terry Lanni and his team.

“The people under (Kerkorian) are as qualified as the guys on top,”
Lewin said. “There’s not a lot of companies like that. These are blue
bloods. You will never see them doing something stupid.”

Kerkorian still keeps abreast of his investments, Lewin said.

Lewin came into contact with Kerkorian when Hilton executives were
negotiating with Kerkorian’s executive Fred Benninger to buy the
International hotel.

“Kerkorian came into the meeting room and he made comments about the
property that we didn’t even see, and we went through all the books,”
Lewin said. “We went through the whole hotel and didn’t see it. He
said he didn’t have to go to the hotel to know what was going on. He
said, ‘I have my people and I have the books, and I look at the
books.’ I look dumb next to him.”

Instead of incorporating the Mirage Resorts properties into MGM
Grand, the company set up a separate Mirage operating division and
allowed those properties to be run much like they had been, Rothman
said. The tactic was aimed at encouraging competition and innovation.

“What size does is breed uniformity,” Rothman said. “Size can
discourage innovation.”

MGM Mirage executives said they expect to do the same with Mandalay
Resort Group. All company casinos “compete mightily against one
another,” with presidents at each property compensated based on
individual financial results, President and Chief Financial Officer
Jim Murren told state Gaming Control Board members at the hearings.

For all his visionary might, Kerkorian may not have all the answers.

In an interview prior to Control Board approval of the deal,
Kerkorian said he was “very much” surprised at the visitor growth in
Las Vegas and the nationwide popularity of its casino culture.

He gave a cryptic answer to a reporter’s question about whether this
deal marked the culmination of his deal-making career.

“Who knows?” the spry 87-year-old said.

The future of Kerkorian’s Las Vegas investment looks bright.

MGM Mirage’s proposed $4.7 billion CityCenter — an urban complex of
three hotels, a casino resort and high-rise residential towers — is
a sign that the company is trying to improve upon the typical casino
model in a way that benefits the entire city, Schwartz said.

“I think this (buyout) is more about real estate and (future
development) and that’s good because it shows there’s a master plan,”
he said. “This is not saying, ‘Let’s add 10 slot machines this
quarter and see how it goes’ and ‘We’re going to redo the buffet next
year.’ “

Sunday Mail (SA),
March 6, 2005 Sunday

Turks in fauna name games

ANKARA: Turkey is renaming three indigenous animals to eliminate
references to Kurdistan and Armenia, saying the old names were given
by foreigners.

A species of red fox known as “Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica” will now
be known as just “Vulpes Vulpes,” a species of wild sheep called
“Ovis Armeniana” was changed to “Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus,” and a
type of deer known as “Capreolus Capreolus Armenus” was renamed
“Capreolus Cuprelus Capreolus,” a ministry statement said.

“Unfortunately, foreign scientists, who for many years researched
Turkey’s flora and fauna, named plant and animal species that they
had never come across before with a prejudiced mind-set,” the
statement said.