Zaman, Turkey
Jan 17 2005
Peace Summit for Karabag
By Anadolu News Agency (aa)
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart
Robert Kocharyan will reportedly meet this summer to negotiate the
region of Upper Karabag, which has been under Armenian occupation.
According to Azeri APA news agency, Russia has promised to help the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk
Group with mediation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Euractiv, Belgium
Jan 17 2005
Turkey-Russia relations
In Short:
Given their dynamically growing economic co-operation, the leaders of
Turkey and Russia are now working for closer political dialogue to
match.
Background:
For centuries, Turkey and Russia have been rivals for regional
supremacy. Recently, the two countries have realised that friendly
relations are in the interest of them both. Accordingly, co-operation
rather than rivalry appears to dominate their ties. This development
has been welcome by the EU, which sees these countries as the two
largest imponderables on the European horizon.
The general understanding is that Russia is a European country while
Turkey belongs to Asia, despite the fact that the two vast countries
both span the continents of Europe and Asia (although they no longer
share a border). The reason for the above distinction is that in both
countries the majority of the population as well as the capital city
are located on the continent where they are respectively assigned.
Issues:
In December 2004, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a
visit to Moscow before Russian President Vladimir Putin reciprocated
with a trip to Ankara in January 2005. This sequence of top-level
visits has brought several important bilateral issues to the
forefront.
Trade
In 2004, trade between Turkey and Russia was worth some $10 billion.
This figure is now expected by both Moscow and Ankara to reach $25
billion by 2007. Russia is Turkey’s second-largest trading partner
after Germany, while Turkey is Russia’s 14th trade partner. Russia
exports to Turkey fuel and energy products (72% of total), as well as
metals (16%) and chemical goods (4%). Turkey, in turn, sells textiles
(30%), machinery and vehicles (23%), chemical goods (15%) and food
products (15%) to Russia.
Turkish companies are present in significant numbers in Russia’s
construction, retail and brewing industries. Russia’s investment in
Turkey is worth $350 million while Turkey’s investment in Russia
totals $1.5 billion.
The two countries consider it their strategic goal to achieve
“multidimensional co-operation”, especially in the fields of energy,
transport and the military. Specifically, Russia aims to invest in
Turkey’s fuel and energy industries, and it also expects to
participate in tenders for the modernisation of Turkey’s military.
In the strategic energy sector, the two countries are in agreement to
implement large-scale projects, some of which compare with the Blue
Stream gas pipeline. Among other developments, Russia will increase
gas supplies to Turkey and will allow Russian companies to engage in
gas distribution in Turkish territory. Talks are also underway on
ways to increase Russian electricity deliveries to Turkey.
European Union
Moscow’s initial reaction to Turkey drawing closer to the EU was
lukewarm. “If you enter the EU we cannot meet frequently,” Putin was
reported as telling his host, Prime Minister Erdogan, during the
former’s visit to Ankara in late 2004. However, at the two leaders’
next meeting in Moscow in January 2005, Putin already said that
Russia was in favour of Turkey’s EU membership, primarily since it
promised to open up new trading channels for Russia. ”We welcome
Turkey’s success at the EU Brussels summit,” Putin said in Moscow.
”I hope that Turkey’s integration in the European Union will open up
a new horizon for Russian-Turkish business cooperation.”
Cyprus
Regarding the outstanding issue of Cyprus (which is tied closely to
Turkey’s EU membership bid), Russia has declared support for the plan
put forward by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. ”We will support any
resolution that comes out of the implementation of UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan’s plan,” said Putin. He added that the economic
embargo on northern Cyprus was “unjust”. In April 2004, Russia used
its veto to block a resolution that sought to outline new UN security
arrangements in Cyprus.
World Trade Organisation
In return, Turkey’s Erdogan has pledged to “fully support” Russia’s
quest for membership of the World Trade Organisation. “Many barriers
in the way of trade and economic co-operation between our countries
may undoubtedly be removed after completion of Russian-Turkish
negotiations on Russia’s WTO entry on acceptable terms,” reacted
Putin. The EU concluded a deal with Russia on the latter’s accession
to the WTO in May 2004. Russia may become a full member of the WTO in
2005.
Chechnya / the Kurd issue
The conflict in Chechnya remains high on the two countries’ bilateral
agendas. Several Turks trace their ancestry to the Caucasus,
including Chechnya, and they have always been sympathetic towards the
Muslim militants in the war-torn Russian region. Earlier, Russia
issued calls for Turkey to crack down on Turkish `philanthropic
organisations’ that allegedly channelled money and arms to rebel
groups in Chechnya. In turn, Turkey accused Russia of backing Kurdish
rebel groups who have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s
southeastern regions since the early 1980s. The recent rapprochement
promises to bring both countries closer to negotiated solutions.
Caucasus
The Caucasus remains a moot point between the two countries. Turkey’s
main ally in the Caucasus region is Azerbaijan, whereas Russia’s ally
is its rival, Armenia, which continues to insist that Turkey
committed ‘genocide’ against its people during World War One. ”We
are all aware about the historical problems between Azerbaijan and
Armenia. Russia will contribute to the peace process,” Putin said.
“We do not want negative relations with any of our neighbours,
including Armenia,” Erdogan responded.

FUNERAL LITURGY SERVED IN MOTHER SEE OF HOLY ETCHMIADZIN ON THOSE WHO
DIED OF TSUNAMI
ETCHMIADZIN, January 17 (Noyan Tapan). A funeral liturgy was served
on those who died of the December 26 tsunami in South Asia under the
leadership of Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II in the Mother See
of Holy Etchmiadzin on January 16. According to the Information System
of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, RA Deputy Minister of Foreign
Affairs Armen Barkhudarian, the foreign ambassadors and diplomats
acrredited to Armenia, art workers and numerous believers participated
in the liturgy.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Toronto Star, Canada
Jan 17 2005
Leapfrogging the technology gap
Wireless, computers and other innovations are quietly eliminating
huge barriers to development in poor parts of the world.
ALEXANDRA SAMUEL
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
In Robib, Cambodia, villagers are getting medical advice from the
world’s best doctors. Schoolchildren are seeing their country’s most
famous landmarks for the first time. And the village economy is
taking off, fueled by the sale of its handmade silk scarves on the
global market.
All these benefits are coming via motorcycle – Internet-enabled
motorcycles.
A wireless network links computers in the village to computer chips
on each of five motorcycles a fleet. Each vehicle has a transmitter
that allows it to upload and download e-mail and data via Wi-Fi, as
it passes by village computers. At the end of the day the bikes
return to a hub where they upload the information received. The next
morning they download e-mail and data from the hub and take it out to
the villages for transmission.
Villages like Robib have been described as “leapfroggers:”
communities or even whole countries in the developing world, that are
using information and communication technologies to leapfrog directly
from being an agricultural to an information economy. It’s a
phenomenon that combines technology high and low in innovative ways,
and is generating not only economic benefits but a new world of
educational, social and political opportunities.
In highly developed countries like Canada, the information economy
has emerged from long evolution – farm economies made room for
craftsmen and artisans, who gave way to industrial production, and
manufacturing has yielded to the rise of an information and
service-based economy.
Economists and development experts wonder whether the developing
world can – or should – follow the same path. Widespread industrial
development would still leave much of Africa, Asia or Latin America a
generation behind Europe and North America.
Of greater concern is the potential environmental impact of
widespread industrialization: large-scale factory production in the
developing world could greatly increase global energy consumption and
pollution levels, particularly if factories use cheaper and dirtier
production methods.
Information and communications technologies provide an alternative to
this environmental and economic nightmare. The hardware, software and
networks that have propelled developed economies out of the
industrial era and into the information age are now promising to take
the developing world directly from agrarian to post-industrial
development.
The same satellite networks that link remote villages to urban
markets can bring classroom education to communities too small or
poor to support secondary schools. The cellphone systems that power
community businesses can connect patients or doctors, or disparate
family members. The Internet kiosks that access a global marketplace
can also be used to access political information or organize
grassroots campaigns in emerging democracies.
These opportunities have been opened by a growing understanding of
the role of infrastructure in driving economic growth. “Until quite
recently, it wasn’t clear whether infrastructure generally was a
result of economic growth or the other way around,” notes Edgardo
Sepulveda, a telecommunications economist with McCarthy Tetrault, a
Toronto law firm. “There was a correlation but there wasn’t agreement
on causation. But now there’s been sufficient evidence that most
people would support the hypothesis that you can go from information
and communications technology sector growth to general economic
growth.”
That realization has led development workers, governments, and
businesses to embrace technology-enabled leapfrogging as a tremendous
opportunity for the developing world. But successful leapfrogging
depends on a carefully calibrated set of choices about which
technologies to use, which projects to pursue, and which communities
to engage.
According to Richard Fuchs, director of the information and
communication technologies for development program at Canada’s
International Research and Development Centre, leapfrogging success
depends on a combination of “ingenuity, perseverance, hard work and
luck.” By luck, he’s talking about a constellation of historical
circumstances that position a country for information and
communications technology-led growth.
———————————————————————
`IT is not about rich countries getting richer. It’s about countries
at every stage of development using technology in a way that is
appropriate to their needs”
Richard Simpson, the Director of E-Commerce for Industry Canada
———————————————————————
Societies that place a high value on education, like Vietnam, are at
an advantage, because a highly educated population is ready for work
in a knowledge-based economy. A history of emigration, as in Ireland,
can help – because an expatriate “boomerang” can bring a wealth of
knowledge, skills and capital back into a developing economy. Even a
language barrier can work in a country’s favour. Uruguay exports
millions in software to other Latin American countries, because the
online dominance of English created a market opportunity for creating
Spanish-language tools.
Bangalore, India, is the best-case scenario. Recognized as the
Silicon Valley of the developing world, Bangalore has parlayed
India’s wealth of well-educated, tech-savvy, English-speaking
programmers into a massive hive of interlocking programming shops,
call centres, and tech companies.
Dell opened a Bangalore-based call centre in 2001, though with mixed
results. Microsoft has just announced that it will open a
Bangalore-based research centre this January. These international
companies recognize that Indian programmers can be had for a fraction
of the cost of their American colleagues – while still paying
programmers many times the average Indian income. And India’s economy
derives a further benefit thanks to the many locally-owned companies
that have emerged to partner or compete with the influx of
international technology companies.
While Bangalore’s technological, educational and linguistic
advantages have given it a head start on leapfrogging, regions that
lack those advantages stand to gain even more from the creative use
of technology. Indeed, the countries that stand to benefit most from
a leapfrogging strategy are those with limited IT infrastructure,
limited education access, and limited literacy rates.
As a result, international agencies have had to get creative in the
kinds of information and communications technology they use in
developing countries. Where Canadian entrepreneurs often focus on the
opportunities offered by the very latest technological innovations,
the savviest leaders in Africa or Asia recognize that bells and
whistles don’t necessarily translate into economic results. The
technologies that have the greatest impact are often relatively
simple – and thus widely accessible.
Radio has been rediscovered as a tool that can be effectively paired
with the Internet – or used on its own in new and creative ways. In
Zambia, a radio-based training system is now delivering primary
education to out-of-school children, about a third of whom are
orphans; radio programs cover not only traditional skills like
reading and math but also life skills like hygiene and nutrition. In
Bolivia, a rural radio station uses the Internet to answer questions
from listeners – like the farmer who wanted help dealing with a worm
that was devouring his crops. Working online, the station found a
Swedish expert who identified the worm, and broadcast the information
on pest control to the entire community.
Cellphones have emerged as a leading leapfrog technology. Many
developing countries have very limited landline penetration, in part
due to the economic incentives for digging up copper wire and selling
it. These same countries are now experiencing a cellphone explosion,
due in part to the way that cellphones become what Fuchs describes as
a “common property resource:” a resource that can be shared among an
entire community or village.
The best-known example is Bangladesh’s GrameenPhone, which has
established a network of pay-per-use cellphones throughout the
country. A similar network in South Africa has created a network of
over 1,800 entrepreneurs, operating “phone shops” in over 4,400
locations across the country. Information gathered by cellphone lets
farmers in Senegal double the price they get for their crops, and
herders in Angola track their cattle via GPS.
Video compact disks, a technology not in wide use in North America
but a popular entertainment medium in southeast Asia, have become
crucial educational tools. A project in the Mekong region of Thailand
and Laos has used VCDs to educate young women and girls on
immigration issues, employment alternatives, and health services.
It’s a way of helping a group that is often only semi-literate, and
particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, drug abuse and sexual
exploitation.
And yes, the Internet has a role, too. In the post-Soviet country of
Armenia, development teams are using the Internet for everything from
teacher training to employment counseling.
Says Nancy White, an information and communications technology
consultant who has worked on a number of Armenia’s online development
projects, “These projects are demonstrating, to people that live on a
mountain top that is inaccessible in the winter, `I can connect with
other people who share my interests and needs.'”
Despite this technological eclecticism, access to hardware and
software remains a core challenge. The United Nations’ World Summit
on the Information Society, which will culminate in a meeting later
this year, has devoted a great deal of attention to the challenge of
bridging the digital divide between the rich and poor nations.
While the U. N. summit has become a magnet for information and
communications technology (ICT) champions from governments,
businesses and civil society organizations around the world, its U.N.
sponsors explicitly describe ICT access as a means rather than an
end.
This focus is embodied by the U.N.’s Millennium Declaration, a 2000
agreement that contains commitments to halve, by the year 2015, “the
proportion of the world’s population living on less than one U.S.
dollar per day, suffering from hunger or having no access to drinking
water,” the summit’s Web site declares. “ICTs can help in achieving
all of these goals.”
That orientation is mirrored by the approach that Canada has taken in
supporting information and communications technology projects in the
developing world.
“The development community has placed a great emphasis on being able
to meet basic development objectives,” says Richard Simpson, the
Director of E-Commerce for Industry Canada. “IT is not about rich
countries getting richer. It’s not even about emerging economies.
It’s about countries at every stage of development using technology
in a way that is appropriate to their needs.”
Needs like those of Nallavadu village in Pondicherry, India. A region
in which many people live on incomes of less than $1 a day,
Pondicherry’s information and communications technology development
strategy traces back to a 1998 project that brought Internet-linked
telecentres to the region’s villages. Today, villagers routinely use
the Internet to access information that helps them sell their crops
at the latest commodity prices, obtain medical advice, and track
regional weather and transport.
How does that kind of technology affect daily life?
Just look at what happened in the village of Nallavadu. Vijayakumar
Gunasekaran, the son of a Nallavadu fisherman, learned of December’s
earthquake and tsunami from his current home in Singapore. When
Gunasekaran called home to warn his family, they passed along the
warning to fellow villagers – who used the village’s telecentre to
broadcast a community alarm.
Thanks to that alarm, the village was evacuated, ensuring that all
3,600 villagers survived.
If information and communications-technology-enabled leapfrogging
could hold the key to economic opportunity for the developing world,
are the citizens of advanced industrial nations – like Canada – ready
for what that means?
“The information economy is heading to Asia,” notes Fuchs. “India and
China are the next information technopols. If wealth, income,
profitability and productivity rest in part on ICTs, then India’s
economy is increasingly more competitive than ours.”
Alexandra Samuel is a Vancouver-based technology writer and
strategist with Angus Reid Consultants

KurdishMedia, UK
Jan 17 2005
Master of Kurdish dengbêjs Karapetê Xaço passes away

17/01/2005 KurdishMedia.com – By Brusk Chiwir Reshvan
Ottawa – Canada (KurdishMedia.com) 17 January 2004: Kurdish people
lost their influential living Dengbêj Karapetê Xaço on January 15,
2005 in his village Yerevan, Armenia.
Karapetê Xaço was born in Bileyder (Beshiri) in the city of Batman
in northern Kurdistan [now part of Turkey], in 1902. He lost his
entire family in the Armenian Genocide in 1915 but was luckily
rescued and raised by a Kurdish family.
In 1929, after the Sheikh Said uprising, together with many Kurds who
were massacred by the Turks, Xaço fled to the city of Qamishlo in
Syrian Kurdistan which was then controlled by the French and
afterwards joined the French army and served there for 15 years and 3
months. After long years of service in the French army he retired and
was offered to be flown to France; however, he refused this offer.
In 1946 Xaço and his family moved to Armenia and settled in
Vozkihader village of Yerevan and lived there until his death. After
the opening of the Kurdish Service of Yerevan Radio, Xaço began to
sing on the radio programs in 1955.
In an interview, Xaço retells his experiences: `In Soviet era it was
forbidden to sing about aghas, feudal lords and God. Whenever I was
singing a `kilam’ they were interfering by saying this one is about
an agha, this is about a feudal and god is mentioned in this song!
And I always responded, well, what shall I sing about then?’
Karapetê Xaço worked for Yerevan radio for many years. During these
years his voice reached the hearts of each and every Kurd all over
Kurdistan. It is hard to imagine a single Kurd who hasn’t been
captivated by his `kilams’.
Very well-known Kurdish ballads Eyshana Elî, Evdalê Zeynikê,
Diyarbekir Peytext e, Edulê, Çume Cizîrê, Filîtê Quto, Zembîlfirosh,
Dewreshê Evdî, Meyrê and many other kilams were first sung by him.
`Lawikê Metinî’, a beautiful kilam about the love of an Ezidi Kurdish
man and a Moslem Kurdish girl, has been sung by many dengbêj and
singers but none of them as affective and soulful as Karapetê Xaço.
Each time one listens to this kilam, Ape Karapet’s voice, together
with the heart-rending mey (traditional flute) of Egidê Cimo, takes
you far away to Kurdistan…
`I began singing when I was 8 years old in Kurdistan and I sang all
my kilams in Kurdish. You can not find even one kilam in other
languages including Armenian. I am Kurdish and I sing all my kilams
in Kurdish. I never sang for money, in dengbêj tradition it is a
shame to sing for money. I can sing for a whole month, day and night
without a break’.
Karapetê Xaço befriended the prominent Kurdish writer and poet
Cegerxwîn and famous dengbêj Mihemed Arifê Cizirî and Seyîdê Cizirî
when he was in Qamishlo. Xaço not only served the Kurdish dengbêj
tradition and oral literature by singing hundreds of kilams and
passing on them to new generations but also educated many dengbêjs in
Armenia among the Ezidi Kurds and inspired countless new dengbêjs and
singers to sing and serve the Kurdish music.
Karapetê Xaço was 103 years old when he passed away. He has 1 son
and 4 daughters as well as 15 grand children. He was buried on
Saturday with the participation of thousands of people including
Keremê Seyyad of Kurdish Service of Yerevan Radio, Emerîkê Serdar and
Karlenê Çaçan of Kurdish Newspaper Rîya Teze, Çerkezê Resh of
Kurdistan Committee of Armenia, Egîdê Cimo, Feyzoyê Rizo, prominent
Kurdish musicians and many others. In his funeral, his son Seyrosh
Karapet said `although my father was of Armenian origin, he felt
closer to the Kurds, and for this reason he served Kurdish music as a
dengbêj. He always felt deeply the grief and sorrow of the Kurdish
people who have long suffered at least as much as the Armenian people
and wanted to express this pain with Kurdish kilams’.
Çerkezê Resh of the Kurdistan Committee of Armenia, in his speech
said, `Karapetê Xaço has made priceless contributions to Kurdish
dengbêj tradition and music and he was buried in to the heart of
Kurdistan. When I was in Amed, for the Kurdish Language and
Literature Conference, everyone was asking about Karapetê Xaço’s
situation with great interest and I myself forwarded those special
wishes from the hearth of Kurdistan, Amed to him. He was very happy
to hear that Kurds had never forgotten him. Karapetê Xaço was not
only a great dengbêj but also a bridge of brotherhood between the
Kurdish and Armenia peoples. We will never forget him’.
Ape Karapet has always had a very speacial place for me. Each time I
listen to his voice, I get lost in thoughts and begin to a trip from
Mount Ararat to Cizira Botan, from Lawikê Metînî to Dewreshê Evdî,
from to Filitê Quto to Eyshana Elî, from Xezal to Edule, from Evdalê
Zeynike to Zembilfrosh. When I first heard he passed away, I
immediately called Keremê Seyyad of Radio Yerevan, Kurdish Service
with the hope of hearing that the news was untrue. Unfortunately it
was true and Keremê Seyyad was very sad but he was trying to give me
consolation. Each time I was calling Yerevan, I was asking Apê
Karapet’s situation and each time Keremê Seyyad was assuring me that
he was fine. What a pity that the last time I called him it was
different because Karapetê Xaço had decided to go and leave behind
the kilams as orphans…
Thank you very much for all your service to Kurdish music and oral
literature. Thank you very much for your friendship. Thank you very
much the master of Dengbêjs. May God Bless You, Apê Karapet.
Lawike Metini
Lê lê dayîkê heyranê de tu rabe
Xwe ke bi Xwedê ke roja shemîyê
Serê min bisho û xemla min li min ke
Bisk û temerîka min li ber enîka min de çêke
Hey lê lê………… hey delalê
Heval û hogirê me çune Mexrub û Shêxa
Tev alîka di gelîkî kur da
Keçik digot, lê lê dayik heyranê
Bishîne pey Lawikê Metînê delalê malê
Bira beyê nava sing û berê min keçikê
Herke tê min dixwaze bila gelo bê, min bixwaze
Herke tê min direvîne bila bê, min birevîne
Herke min narevîne sibê dê min birê kin
Hey lê lê…………. hey delalê
Ax feleka me xayîn e welle me dixapîne
Min re nayê hey domê
Dengbêj: Kurdish musicians who have very special talents to sing
kilams which are special kinds of ballads mixture of a song and story
which is generally telling a historical story or event as well as the
life of a Kurdish hero or heroine, which were passed out from mouth
to mouth for hundreds of years.
Apê Karapet: Means Uncle Karapet. Kurds were calling Karapetê Xaço as
Apê Karapet which symbolizes love and respect.
Uxir be Apê Karapet,
Riya te vekiri be Xorte Kurmancan,
Mirê Dengbêjan…

To listen to voice of Karapet, see bottom of webpage

GEORGIA’S DEPUTY MINISTER OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMEMT SCEPTICALLY TREATS
OPPORTUNITY OF CONSTRUCTION OF TURKEY-GEORGIA RAILWAY
AKHALKALAK, January 17 (Noyan Tapan). Henrik Muradian, Deputy Minister
of Economic Development of Georgia, scpetically treats the opportunity
of realization of the agreement on construction of the
Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi railway. The document was signed in late
December 2004 in Tbilisi by Alexi Alexishvili, Georgia’s Minister of
Economic Development, Binali Yildirim, Turkey’s Minister of Transport,
Musa Panahov, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Transport. According to
preliminary calculations, about $350m will be spent on the
construction of the railway, 200m out of which will be spent on the
construction of the Kars-Akhalkalak line, 150m on the reconstruction
of the Akhalkalak-Tbilisi line. According to Muradian, the agreement
is only on paper and there are no resources necessary for
implementation of the project yet. There is no investor who will
assume the construction of the railway. It’s not excluded that the
project won’t be implemented during the coming 20-30 years. At the
same time Henrik Muradian attached importance to the construction of
the Akhalkalak-Kartsakh-Kars motor highway. The construction of the
Turkish sector of the road has been already finished long ago and the
construction of the Georgian sector will begin this year. The Kartsakh
customs house will open, which, according to H.Muradian, will be
economically more profitable for Armenia, too. According to the A-Info
agency, the first agreement on construction of the
Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi railway was signed between Georgia and Turkey
in 1997 January 28. According to the Anatolu Turkish news agency, on
the occasion of signing of the new agreement in 2004 December in
Tbilisi Turkish Minister Yildirim declared that Turkey, Georgia and
Azerbaijan will make a final decision on the program in 2005 April and
the program will be financed by the 3 countries.

New York Post
Jan 17 2005
STUN SHARES HYPE
By CHRISTOPHER BYRON

January 17, 2005 — Two weeks ago, stock in a stun gun company was
widely viewed on Wall Street as the hottest ticket in town, with just
a handful of previously unknown penny stock outfits soaring on the
shirttails of Nasdaq-listed Taser International Inc., to a combined
market value of more than $1 billion.
Yet by the end of last week the gig seemed to be up, with pink sheets
high-flyer Stinger Systems Inc. leading the way down with a one-day
drop of more than 40%. Through it all, one could hear again that
familiar tell-tale sound of hype, hope and hot air wheezing from yet
another penny stock soufflé gone flat.
It’s a sound that investors are hearing more and more these days as
the growing workload of legislation like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and
the Patriot Act has caused the Securities and Exchange Commission to
increasingly ignore regulation of the penny stock market. Result: a
spreading plague of financial world squeegeemen in the gutters and
alleyways of Wall Street.
Last week in this space we looked at a bungled SEC effort to take on
a gang of penny stock pump-and-dumpers behind a North Carolina outfit
named Absolute Health and Fitness Inc., which claimed to own a
regional network of fitness clubs.
Now, at least one of the players in that affair has surfaced in the
stun gun bubble. He is a Casselberry, Fla. ex-con and registered sex
offender named Orville Baldridge, who served as the promotional
muscle behind Absolute Health and Fitness Inc. at the turn of the
decade. Baldridge has now reappeared as the oomph behind the shell
for a penny stock outfit called Law Enforcement Associates Corp.
(LENF), whose stock price had soared 1,693% since last autumn on stun
gun hype from a group of paid stock promoters in Vancouver.
LENF’s SEC filings are a hodgepodge of incomplete and conflicting
information. In one bizarre case, the filings indicate that nearly 22
million shares of stock in the LENF shell – known as Academy
Resources – were issued by a boat moving company that had no apparent
power to issue them in the first place.
According to the filings, LENF began life in May of 1998 as a Ne vada
penny stock shell called Academy Resources, Inc., with 5.45 million
shares outstanding. Management consisted of a one-person board of
directors, with the seat being occupied by a man named Nolan Moss.

The filings don’t provide any additional details about Moss, but if
the SEC had wanted to check him out, they would have found Moss to be
a Vancouver-based penny stock crook who had already been fined
$30,000 by Canadian regulators in a separate stock-rigging scheme.
Want more? Well, an exhibit to one of the SEC filings shows that in
June of 2000, a mysterious Nevada outfit called “Academy Yacht
Deliveries Corporation” popped up out of nowhere and purported to
issue 21.8 million shares of “Academy” stock to acquire a
Delaware-incorporated “development stage company” called Myofis
Internet Inc.
Nor does this mishmash of alleged facts explain why a company
identified only as “Carcinotek Internet, Inc.” would surface as well
in the deal as a joint signator alongside Myofis.
In fact, the appearance of Carcinotek simply underscores the
duplicitous and ragged way LENF seems to have been run from the
moment of its birth – as a toy for penny-stock promoters whose
handshakes are often worthless and whose contracts get signed in
disappearing ink.
In reality, Pasadena-based Carcinotek was not an Internet company at
all, but an Armenian-controlled cancer research outfit that got
shoehorned into the June 2000 merger of Myofis and the Academy shell
in the apparent belief that the Armenian bunch would agree to become
what amounted to financial tinsel in the deal.
Not surprisingly, the Armenians failed to play ball, leaving what had
plainly been set up as the first step in a penny stock promotional
hustle to go forward with not even a hint of a reason why the owners
of the Academy shell would give away 80% of the shell’s stock acquire
an “Internet” business having no value at all.
In any event, once the merger was consummated in June of 2000, Nolan
Moss surrendered his seat on Academy’s one-person board to a fellow
named Guy Cohen as Myofis’s designated hitter.
Documents filed with the SEC in July of 2002 try to gloss over this
entire period, stating only vaguely that by the end of 2000 the
Myofis Internet project hadn’t gotten off the ground so the
investment was “written off.”
Really? Archived Web pages obtained from a data collection research
project involving the Library of Congress and the National Science
Foundation show that a Web site called Myofis.com in fact went live
literally days after the company claims it was shut down. What’s
more, by May 2001 the site had morphed into a promotional vehicle for
penny stocks, called Streamingnews.net, with the Web site being
registered to one Guy Cohen, who promptly began using it to pump
LENF’s share price.
In January 2002, Academy Resources merged with Law Enforcement
Associates Corp., a privately-held North Carolina maker of various
sorts of policing equipment and espionage gear.
To acquire the family-owned business, which had been run by a North
Carolina State Senator named John Carrington, the shell’s owners
issued 10 million more shares of stock in the shell, complete with a
befuddling and selectively applied one-for-three reverse stock-split
designed to whittle down the holdings of the Myofis bunch while
leaving Carrington himself untouched.
So, who is John Carrington? Over the years, North Carolina newspapers
have reported on sales of paramilitary equipment by his company to
oppressive foreign regimes such as those of prewar Iraq and
Apartheid-era South Africa.
And just this last April, LENF was raided by federal agents seeking
evidence to explain how equipment manufactured by the firm had wound
up illegally in China. Yet the company has so far not issued a Form
8K to report this matter to the general public and no one at the SEC
seems to have asked that it be done either.
LENF’s newest cheerleader is a Vancouver-based stock promoter named
Dawn Van Zant, who waves her pom-poms tirelessly on behalf of LENF
and her other clients via more than three dozen different penny-stock
pumping Web sites she owns and operates.
And looming in the distance behind all of these characters are the
shadowy outlines of the penny stock world’s Mister Bigs, who are a
story for another day. But if the SEC lacks the manpower – or the
moxie – to rid Wall Street of its squeegeemen and penny stock
graffiti, why bother pointing out even bigger battles after that?
The penny stock market is a Wall Street alleyway that simply must be
hosed down, and so far no one’s doing nuttin’. Your tax dollars? Go
figure.

EurasiaNet Organization
Jan 16 2005
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANNUAL REPORT PAINTS BLEAK PICTURE IN MANY FORMER
SOVIET STATES
Andrew Tully 1/16/05
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
The Iron Curtain fell nearly 15 years ago, but Human Rights Watch
says it is mostly business as usual in much of the former Soviet
Union. That’s according to “World Report 2005,” the annual survey
conducted by Human Rights Watch.
According to the rights advocacy group, all of Russia is effectively
controlled from Moscow, elections in Belarus are laughable, abuse of
prisoners is the norm in Uzbekistan, while Armenia and Azerbaijan are
run by authoritarian regimes as the two countries continue their
standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Only Ukraine shows tentative signs of becoming an open society, but
democratic developments there are too recent to show a trend.
In Russia, the report says, police torture and the violent hazing of
military recruits continues. And it blames the government of
President Vladimir Putin for the disappearances and extrajudicial
executions of opponents in Chechnya. At the same time, it criticizes
Chechen rebels for similar abuses, as well as for the deadly school
siege in Beslan in September.
The Human Rights Watch survey also points out that Putin has drawn
virtually all power to himself. It points not only to the Kremlin’s
control of all electronic media, but also to Putin’s move to have
regional governors not elected locally but appointed by the
president.
Rachel Denber, Human Rights Watch’s acting executive director for
Europe and Central Asia who oversaw the study of the countries of the
former Soviet Union, said no one should be surprised at Putin’s moves
to centralize power in the Russian presidency, given that he has
always favored a rigidly strong central government.
Denber told RFE/RL that Putin probably believes that centralizing
power will help keep politicians honest. But she added that it might
be just as difficult for members of the presidential administration
to stay honest as it is for local governors.
“I’m sure that from the Kremlin’s perspective, having governors
appointed is a path toward decreasing corruption. But from another
perspective, you could just look at that as moving corruption to a
different place,” Denber said.
Belarus, too, continues to be run as if it were a Soviet state,
according to Human Rights Watch.
It points to the elections for the 110-member Chamber of
Representatives in October, in which the opposition did not win a
single seat. The report says this was accomplished, at least in part,
because the state controls all national television stations and most
radio outlets.
And it accuses the government of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of
harassing the country’s media through the closing of independent
newspapers and arresting journalists on libel charges.
Denber said such behavior is nothing new in Belarus. But she said the
fact that Belarusians are seeing more of the same year after year
makes matters worse there.
“When you see a lack of change, when you see a repetition of
elections that are empty exercises and that shut out the opposition,
that is tantamount to things getting worse,” Denber said. “When you
see the state continuing to crack down on civil society groups and on
the press, it’s more of the same, but it actually constitutes a
worsening of the situation.”
The human rights records of neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan are
also not improving, according to the report. It says the political
life of Armenia, for example, continued to focus throughout 2004 on
the fraud-tainted presidential elections of the previous year.
The survey says there were calls for the resignation of President
Robert Kocharian, and notes that the government violently broke up
protests, raided opposition offices, arrested opposition leaders and
supporters, and even attacked journalists.
The political life of Azerbaijan, meanwhile, was similarly affected
in 2004 by the presidential election of 2003, which also was
fraudulent. Last year, the report says, Azerbaijani opposition
leaders were subjected to unfair trials in which they were charged
with responsibility for some of the violence that followed the
election.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of the on-again,
off-again conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the predominantly Armenian
exclave in Azerbaijan. Denber said the leaders of both nations have
subtly used the dispute as a way to keep people’s minds off each
country’s political shortcomings.
Another trouble spot is Ukraine. Human Rights Watch details what it
calls the mostly successful efforts of the government of President
Leonid Kuchma to limit political freedoms since the country achieved
independence in 1991.
The document says these political abuses led to the presidential
election in November, in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was
declared the winner, even though most outside observers found it
riddled with fraud.
Supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko rallied in vast
numbers in downtown Kyiv, and the country’s Supreme Court eventually
called for a new election a month later — which Yushchenko won.
Denber said that, given 13 years of political corruption in Ukraine,
Yushchenko’s election offers real hope to the Ukrainian people
because they have demonstrated their own power as engaged and
educated voters. And she said their insistence on fair elections won
them powerful allies in Europe.
But Denber added one caveat: “There’s a huge onus now on Yushchenko
precisely because there are these expectations. And it would be
really sad if, instead of delivering on promises, the new government
ends up not delivering and in the process perverting the rule of law.
And that would make a lot of people very disillusioned.”
She said a disillusioned Ukrainian electorate could lose faith in the
system and eventually turn to a leader like Putin — one who promises
greater strength, but delivers less democracy.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Deccan Herald, India
Jan 17 2005
Will this baby be left in the cold?
Animal rights activists organised a signature campaign at the Mahatma
Gandhi statue on M G Road on Sunday opposing shifting of Veda to
Armenia.
BY DIPTI NAIR
DH NEWS SERVICE, BANGALORE:
Never look a gift horse in the mouth, it is said. The authorities at
Yerevan zoo in Armenia in West Asia are probably doing the same after
the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) announced six months ago that it
was gifting them an elephant as a `goodwill gesture’.
As Veda, a six-year-old female elephant at Bannerghatta Biological
Park, awaits her fate, animal lovers, especially children,
participated in a `Let’s walk for Veda’ campaign. Veda was supposed
to be airlifted from Bannerghatta to Armenia in December, but her
departure was postponed till February because of the extreme cold
conditions there.
According to Sharath Babu of People for Animals, `The move is in
total disregard of animal welfare, legal provisions and government
policies ensuring protection to captive animals.’ Adds Suparna
Ganguly of Cupa, `We contacted the former director of Yerevan zoo,
and she maintained that conditions there are not suitable for
elephants.’
The animal activists also maintained that they are in touch with
several NGOs in Armenia who have provided information regarding the
unsuitable conditions awaiting Veda. `The enclosure meant for Veda is
less than 10,000 sq ft and the winter shed is less than 2,500 sq ft
which is totally inadequate to house an elephant,’ says Sharath.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had instructed that the elephant be
directly airlifted from Bannerghatta. Says Ram Mohan Ray, Karnataka
chief wildlife warden, `We got the orders from the Centre and there’s
nothing much we can do. Of course, we requested them to make
necessary arrangements for her comfort.’
Besides the prospect of facing the harsh winter, with temperature
dropping from 4 to 14 degrees for four to six months, Veda also faces
separation from her herd. At present, Veda is part of a herd living
with her mother and grandmother. The separation, when it happens,
will be extremely painful considering female elephants rarely ever
leave their herd.
And, though the powers that be claim that she will be joining a male
elephant in Armenia (which was earlier gifted to erstwhile Soviet
Union), activists are sceptical about a union.

Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia)
January 16, 2005 Sunday
Final Edition
Overdue for frivolity
by Michael D. Reid, Times Colonist
After playing so many roles on the dark side of the spectrum — a
conflicted American president (Thirteen Days), a grieving father (The
Sweet Hereafter), a treacherous husband (Double Jeopardy) and a
sinister CEO (I, Robot) — Bruce Greenwood says he couldn’t have been
happier when he got the chance to switch to the bright side for
Racing Stripes.
“This is a little more frivolous, a little more fun and long overdue
for me,” says the boyishly handsome Canadian actor of his role as a
rugged Kentucky farmer in the kiddie comedy about a plucky zebra who
thinks he’s a racehorse.
Greenwood, 48, plays Nolan Walsh, an overprotective widowed single
dad and former horse trainer who with the best of intentions tries to
dissuade his teenage daughter (Hayden Panettiere) from riding her pet
zebra in the Kentucky Open.
“The sentiment is so genuine and it just really appealed to me on a
really visceral level,” says the Quebec-born actor during a
homecoming visit to Vancouver. This is the city where his father, a
geology professor, moved the family when Greenwood was 11 after
living in Princeton, N.J. and Bethesda, Md. He still considers B.C.
his home even though he lives in Los Angeles.
“It’s a nice uplifting film to do and it has humour and a couple of
tears — and that’s entertainment, dammit,” adds Greenwood. For an
actor best known for his serious roles, he’s such a wisecracker you
wonder why he doesn’t do comedy.
When asked if he’d like to play funny on screen, he jokingly lashes
out in his deep, gravelly voice.
“Michael! Michael!” Greenwood answers in a sing-song voice, playfully
stretching out the words.
“D’uh, yeah. Why don’t you make the call? If you could make that
happen for me, I’d be thrilled. They just don’t know.”
Greenwood says while his phone may not be ringing 24/7 from studio
executives looking for the next Bill Murray, he figures his
“off-the-wall” humour is part of the reason he gets along so well
with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Atom Egoyan.
The actor has appeared in three of the Victoria-raised auteur’s films
— in The Sweet Hereafter; as a melancholic tax inspector obsessed
with a stripper in Exotica; and as the star of a film that dramatizes
the Armenian genocide in Ararat.
“Atom’s sense of humour is very black and bizarre and dry and ironic,
and quite broad, also,” says Greenwood. “We make each other laugh and
I think that helps.”
He also agrees with the observation Egoyan has another comic side to
him that many of his devotees don’t see.
“Atom has a very juvenile sense of humour and I think more people
should know that,” he deadpans. “He’s not nearly as clever as he
seems.”
Greenwood, who trained at the University of British Columbia and the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts, has made substantial strides since
doing theatre in Vancouver and landing his 1986 breakthrough role as
Dr. Seth Griffin on St. Elsewhere.
Shifting smoothly from television to film, the former student of
Kerrisdale’s Magee Secondary went from playing characters on TV
projects such as Knot’s Landing and Peyton Place: The Next Generation
to a slew of Hollywood features — including Wild Orchid, Passenger
57, Disturbing Behaviour and as a nasty, spit-polished military
bigwig in Rules of Engagement.
Ironically, Greenwood found himself returning time and again to shoot
“runaway productions” in the city he left in the early 1980s after
landing minor roles in Bear Island (1979) and First Blood (1982)
during the B.C. industry’s infancy.
While he would become best known for roles such as the title
character living a Kafka-esque nightmare in the TV series Nowhere Man
and the humourless internal affairs investigator in Hollywood
Homicide, Greenwood also got to strut his romantic side as a
lovestruck late-night talk show host in The Republic of Love, Deepa
Mehta’s film based on the novel by the late Carol Shields.
Last year, he put on an upper-crust British accent to play Lord
Charles, the dashing bachelor confidante of Annette Bening’s
high-strung London stage star of the 1930s in Being Julia, Istvan
Szabo’s film based on the Somerset Maugham novel.
He’s at a loss to explain why he has such a knack for accents, except
to credit the influence of a childhood friend.
“I’ve always had it,” he says with a shrug. “A good friend of mine
who does the most brilliant accents I’ve ever heard installs alarms
for a living. I grew up with him and kept hearing all these accents.”
Working steadily on films shot in exotic locales from Budapest (Being
Julia) to South Africa (Racing Stripes) means Greenwood has a nomadic
lifestyle.
The actor and his wife of 20 years, fellow Vancouverite Susan Devlin,
don’t get much of a chance to just hang out at their home in Los
Angeles, although the avid musician is setting aside a chunk of time
to “work around the house” and jam with friends, as the accomplished
singer-guitarist did at last year’s Courtnall Celebrity Classic here.
“I’m always on the road,” says Greenwood, who flew back and forth
between Budapest and Vancouver to shoot Being Julia and I, Robot, and
last year also jetted off to locations for various films in England,
Halifax, Toronto and South Africa.
Greenwood also just wrapped a Vancouver shoot opposite Madeleine
Stowe for Saving Milly, a CBS television movie about the
life-changing experiences of Chicago political journalist Morton
Kondracke and his wife Milly, an activist in the ’60s who was
diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
“Saving Milly was one of the heaviest experiences of my career,” he
says. “It would have been nice to start the year off with something
more frolicsome than that.”
Greenwood also went to Utah last year to reunite with Thirteen Days
director Roger Donaldson on The World’s Fastest Indian, starring Sir
Anthony Hopkins as Burt Munro, a New Zealander who made the world’s
fastest Indian motorcycle in the 1920s.
He says his most rewarding experience of 2004, however, was playing
Truman Capote’s longtime companion Jack Dunphy opposite Phillip
Seymour Hoffman in Capote, a drama that focuses on the eccentric
author’s years writing In Cold Blood.
“Hoffman’s the most succinct, dedicated actor I’ve worked with,” says
Greenwood. “He’s really devoted to making it work and making it real.
It was kind of an eye-opener for me. He really raised the bar.”
With a laugh, he says it made it easier to bear the inclement weather
on location in Winnipeg.
“It was brutally cold,” he recalled with a shiver. “My wife and I
found some great linens there.”
He says working with Hoffman was worlds apart from acting opposite
the animals in Racing Stripes, whose live-action footage was mated
with animatronics and computer-generated imagery to create the
illusion they were mouthing dialogue.
“The animals don’t really care about your acting,” deadpans
Greenwood. “You can be acting up a storm and they’ll rip the back
pocket off your pants or wet your shoes.”
He recalls taking one of the many zebras used to portray Stripes into
the barn for the scene in which he tenderly dries off the abandoned
baby circus zebra that his character rescues.
When it started getting “inky and twitchy,” he held it a little
tighter. The zebra was not amused.
“It got quite antsy, hurled me to the floor and started kicking me
repeatedly,” he said. “It hadn’t read the script, obviously.”
Although W.C. Fields famously advised actors never to work with
children or animals, Greenwood begs to differ.
He says he had a ball in the company of co-star Panettiere and
assorted roosters, pelicans, goats and ponies.
“It was full-on crazy, wacky barnyard all the time and when one adult
would do something right the other animal would wander off and nibble
the grip or something.”
Still, there were moments when fun turned to frustration.
“Almost never would you see two animals do something right at the
same time. So the rooster would get it in one take and the goat would
get 40 takes.”
Greenwood says the end result was worth it, though.
“Generally when I watch a movie I’m in, it’s over a curved elbow with
fingers spread in front of my eyes and I’m so nervous, but this one
was different.”
GRAPHIC: Color Photo: Bill Keay, CanWest News Service; Actor Bruce
Greenwood says he’s happy with the switch to a family film after
roles in some dark dramas. ;
Color Photo: Warner Bros.; Bruce Greenwood appears with Hayden
Panettiere and a competitive zebra in Racing Sripes, a new family
film that combines live action and computer-generated animation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress