Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Dec 29 2004
Armenia increases military expenses by 35%
After the discussions on the 2005 state budget the Armenian
parliament passed a decision last week to increase military expenses.
Although the military expenses earlier made up 13% of the state
budget ($98m), the figure was increased up to 18% by the parliament
to total the military expenses 35% of the next year’s state budget.
Thus, the funds scheduled to be allocated for education will be spent
on defense.
In 2004, Armenia’s military expenses constituted $82 million.
The military expenditures of Georgia will total $65 million in 2005.
In Azerbaijan, the government has decided to raise military expenses
up to $250 million next year. The figure stood at $180 million in
2004.
Commenting on Armenia’s unexpected move to increase military
expenses, political analyst Rovshan Novruzoghlu explained the fact
with the new aggressive position of Armenia in the South Caucasus
region and the country’s unsuccessful foreign policy pursued in the
international arena over the recent years.
Novruzoghlu said that the Armenian lobbyists in the United States
have appealed to the Congress with regard to allocation of $75
million to Armenia and $15 million to Upper Garabagh in military
assistance. Armenia intends to use financial assistance provided by
Diaspora and other foreign sources for military purposes, the
political analyst underlined.*

San Diego Union Tribune, CA
Dec 29 2004
Vazquez KOs Simonyan in first defense
By Jerry Magee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
December 29, 2004
Israel Vazquez was wearing black gloves when his fight began last
night and red gloves when it ended. With the gloves of both colors,
he was equally destructive.
With the black gloves, the stylist from Mexico City knocked down Art
Simonyan in the third round, inflicted a cut below the Armenian’s
left eye and had him bleeding profusely from the mouth.
In the fourth round, Vazquez had to change to red gloves after a
slash developed in one of his black gloves. Vazquez kept the red
gloves on for only 99 seconds – the 40 seconds remaining in the
fourth round when he put them on, and the 59 seconds of the fifth
that he required to stop Simonyan.
Vazquez (37-3, with 28 knockouts) thus made a successful first
defense of his IBF junior featherweight championship before what a
Sycuan spokesman said was a sellout gathering of 460 at the Sycuan
Resort and Casino.
For Simonyan (14-1-1, seven KOs), this was a first defeat. The
Armenian was in the scheduled 12-round fight through the first two
rounds, but in the third Vazquez reached him with a thunderous right.
A following left hook deposited Simonyan, clearly dazed, in his
corner.
Simonyan received a three-minute break in the fourth round while
Vasquez was changing gloves, but his reprieve was brief. In the
fifth, the champion got across another right that caused his rival to
sag.
Although Simonyan did not go down, Dr. James Jen Kin, the referee,
gave him an eight count. In concluding, Vazquez went on the attack
again and Jen Kin moved in to spare Simonyan additional punishment.
Frank Espinoza, Vazquez’s manager, said this was one of his man’s
best fights. The winner’s trainer, Freddie Roach, said he had
anticipated that Vazquez would be able to take Simonyan out, but not
this quickly.
“Art just couldn’t handle Israel’s power,” said Roach.
>From sparring with Simonyan, Vazquez said he had gained the
impression that his opponent did not possess a strong chin.
“I didn’t feel my strength,” said Simonyan. “My punches were not
there. I had no energy. I felt stiff.”
The undercard was made up of six scheduled four-rounders. For
punching power in these bouts, there was the sweeping right with
which Shawn Ross, a 254-pound heavyweight from Murrietta, knocked out
Bernard Gray of Oakland at 32 seconds of the third round.
For brevity, there was Crystal Hoy of Las Vegas stopping Sara Huntman
of Los Angeles at 31 seconds of the first round in the evening’s only
women’s match.
For class, there was Eddie Mapula, a junior welterweight from Tijuana
who would seem to have a future. He had too much in every area for
Hector Rivera of Michoacan, Mexico, and referee Raul Caiz Jr. wisely
called off matters following the third round.
For Mapula, 20, this was his fifth knockout in as many appearances.
For excitement, there was the cruiserweight go between Moses Matovu
of Las Vegas and Shane Johnston of El Cajon. Johnston, dropped in the
opening round of his first pro bout, rallied and had his rival
reeling in the second, but Matovu was able to gather himself and win
a unanimous decision.
In the other bouts, welterweight Francisco Maldonado of Guadalajara,
Mexico, outpointed Mauricio Borques of Caliacan, Mexico; and
heavyweight James Horton of Pomona knocked out James Harling of Las
Vegas with a counter right in the opening round’s final second.

The Messenger, Georgia
Dec 29 2004
President visits Javakheti
President Mikheil Saakashvili visited the southern region of
Javakheti Tuesday, where he spoke with residents of the regional
center Akhalkalaki and attended a concert arranged for his arrival.
The president stepped on the stage and joined in on an Armenian folk
dance. The vast majority of the population of Javakheti is Armenian
and the region has witnessed certain ethnic tensions over the years.
Rustavi 2 reports that Saakashvili addressed the people in Georgian,
Russian and Armenian, telling them the Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki highway
would be repaired in 2005 and that they would no longer be isolated
from the capital. The president also dropped by the house of a local
pensioner to wish his family a happy New Year.

Advertiser, Australia
Brisbane Courier Mail, Australia
Townsville Bulletin, Australia
Fox Sports, Australia
Dec 29 2004
Vazquez stops Armenian challenger
>From correspondents in El Cajon, California
MEXICO’s Israel Vazquez has stopped Artyom Simonyan of Armenia in the
fifth round to retain his International Boxing Federation junior
featherweight title.

Referee James Jen-Kin called a halt when Vazquez rocked Simonyan
2min:01sec into the fifth round.
He had already sent Simonyan to the canvas twice in the third round
and once in the fifth.
Vazquez, making his first defence of the title he claimed in March
with a victory over Venezuelan Jose Valbuena, improved to 37-3 with
27 wins inside the distance.
Simonyan, who now lives in the United States, suffered the first
defeat of his career as he fell to 14-1-1.

Glendale News Press
LATimes.com
Dec 29 2004
Interest low for board seats
Candidates include Armond Agakhani, Hoover alum Larry Miller and
parent Naira Khachatrian.
By Darleene Barrientos, News-Press and Leader
GLENDALE – The public school board race is not generating nearly the
same type of interest as the City Council and city clerk elections.
As of Tuesday, only incumbents Greg Krikorian and Chuck Sambar have
announced their intention to run for the three open seats on the
Glendale Unified School District board. That’s in contrast to the
crowded city races, where 10 are in line for the four open City
Council seats and six want to be city clerk.
“It is curious. It’s very curious,” said Patty Scripter, president of
the Parent Teacher Assn. of Glendale. “I’m hoping somebody will step
up, but it’s a big commitment, and there are a lot of issues facing
the school board that will make it a challenge.”
There are a few potential candidates, but they won’t confirm whether
they will run.
One of those possible candidates is Armond Agakhani, former field
representative for Assemblyman Dario Frommer and chairman of the
city’s parks, recreation and community services commission.
“I’m giving it serious consideration,” Agakhani said. “You will hear
something by the beginning of January.”
Another potential candidate was Naira Khachatrian, president of the
Armenian Parents Committee and frequent critic of the district’s
English Language Development program and Medi-Cal billing practices.
“I can’t answer that right now,” Khachatrian said. “We will wait to
see what’s going on.”
Sambar said he has been talking to people, encouraging them to run
for the spot board clerk Lina Harper will leave vacant when she steps
down in April. Hoover alumnus Larry Miller is also considering a run,
Sambar said. Efforts to reach Miller for comment were unsuccessful.
Scripter said she hopes a candidate with a similar background to
Harper’s will come forward.
“We’re hoping for someone with Lina Harper’s expertise,” she said.

The Globe and Mail, Canada
Dec 29 2004
Orange Revolution eyes Belarus

Activist recruiting Yushchenko backers to help in campaign against
President
By MARK MacKINNON

KIEV — Ukraine’s Orange Revolution is not over yet, but Denis
Buinitsky already is recruiting for what he hopes will be Eastern
Europe’s next popular uprising.
“Who’s coming to the revolution in Belarus?” the activist shouted,
waving his arms to draw a crowd to a list he had mounted last night
in the tent city that still blocks traffic on Kiev’s Khreshchatyk
Street.
Within minutes, a short line of orange-clad students forms to write
their names, addresses and cellphone numbers in red ink on the long,
white piece of paper. They are the young foot soldiers of the
movement that brought Ukraine’s pro-Western opposition leader, Viktor
Yushchenko, to the brink of the presidency.
And like modern-day Che Guevaras, they say they are ready to march on
to the next revolution as soon as their cellphones ring to tell them
where it is.
Four years ago, it happened in Serbia, where student-led street
protests brought down Slobodan Milosevic. Last year, it was the Rose
Revolution in Georgia, when Eduard Shevardnadze was forced from power
after a rigged election.
Then came the recent weeks of protests in Kiev, triggered by a
falsified presidential vote on Nov. 21, that forced the regime of
President Leonid Kuchma and his clique to the brink.
Ukraine’s Central Election Commission said yesterday that with all
votes from Sunday’s election rerun counted, Mr. Yushchenko has 52 per
cent of the vote to 44 per cent for Mr. Kuchma’s hand-picked
successor, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
The results are not official until all complaints of fraud are
studied, a process expected to last into the new year.
Mr. Yanukovich, citing alleged irregularities, has said he will
challenge the vote count in court. However, the Council of Europe,
pointing to reports from international observers who say the election
was relatively free and fair, called yesterday for him to concede
defeat.
Although critics, notably in the Kremlin, argue that all three
uprisings were designed and paid for by Washington, there is no
question they had massive support among people who longed for
something better.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the young reformer who led
the demonstrations in Tbilisi last year and succeeded Mr.
Shevardnadze as President, said that what happened in Serbia, Georgia
and Ukraine is the leading edge of a third wave of European
liberation — the first being after the defeat of Nazi Germany in the
Second World War, the second after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Mr. Buinitsky hopes the wave will next hit his native Belarus, a
country of 10 million in the centre of Europe that has been ruled for
a decade by the dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko.
During those 10 years, the country lapsed into economic backwardness
and become an international pariah for its poor human-rights record.
“People in Kiev have freedom now; this isn’t the case in Minsk.
Lukashenko has made it impossible to hold such a demonstration there
because people know if they go into the streets they will go to
prison. But maybe it will be possible some day soon,” Mr. Buinitsky
said, standing outside a tent erected in the centre of Kiev for
Belarussian activists. “This has given us hope.”
It’s not just Belarussians who suddenly talk of peaceful revolution.
Activists from pro-democracy movements across the former Soviet Union
joined the protests in Kiev, anxious to show their support and,
perhaps, learn a few tricks.
The flags of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia were flown
above the orange-clad crowd on Independence Square. Boris Nemtsov, a
co-leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party in Russia, said
from the stage in the early days after the Nov. 21 vote: “We need to
have freedom and democracy in Ukraine so that we can have freedom and
democracy in Russia.”
Moscow-based political analysts said the regimes in Russia and other
former Soviet states can be expected to tighten, rather than loosen,
the controls, in an effort to prevent the Georgian and Ukrainian
examples from being repeated in their backyards.
The authorities in faraway Kyrgyzstan, part of which was Soviet
Central Asia, are nervous and warn that their country is facing an
“orange danger” ahead of a parliamentary election in February.
Belarus’s opposition is calling on its supporters to gather on March
25 in Minsk’s central October Square to demand that Mr. Lukashenko
step down.
If he rejects this ultimatum, organizers said, they will prepare for
their own Orange Revolution around the presidential vote scheduled
for the same date in 2006.
“If there will be too few of us, the regime won’t hesitate,” reads a
leaflet delivered to 500,000 homes in Minsk this month.
“If tens of thousands go onto the streets, as in Kiev, it will not
dare to shoot at people.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

USA Today
Dec 29 2004
With Iraq vote in a month, every day crucial to success
By Steven Komarow, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD – The white bed sheet, punctured and strung between a tree
and a utility pole, carries just a few words of hand-painted Arabic
script. “Every vote is more precious than gold,” it says – common
words in a normal election campaign.

But White House political guru Karl Rove would abandon his TV ad
budget for the power in this banner and thousands more like it.
It’s not just words but a fatwa, a decree, from Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, spiritual leader of Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslims. Vote,
it says, or you have shirked your religious duty.
Forget blue states and red states. Allegiances in Iraq are in a
completely different league. In a country where Shiite Arabs are 60%
of the population – three times that of the next largest religious or
ethnic group – a slate of Shiite Muslim candidates associated with
Sistani is virtually certain to win control of Iraq’s new national
assembly in elections scheduled for Jan. 30.
A month before Iraqis take the biggest step yet in President Bush’s
plan to plant democracy in the former dictatorship, the eventual
tally is overshadowed by larger questions:
– Can free, fair elections be held in the midst of a violent
insurgency?
– Will a broad swath of Iraqi factions, including the Sunnis who
formed the backbone of Saddam Hussein’s regime but now threaten to
boycott, actually vote on Jan. 30 and thus make the results
legitimate?
– Will Iraqis abide by the popular vote and unite behind a Shiite-led
government? Or will Iraq succumb to what interim Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi warns is the insurgents’ plan to “create ethnic and religious
tensions” and possibly civil war?
The Bush administration predicts success. “People will be able to
look back and know that they’ve been involved … in something truly
historic,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week during a
visit with some of the 148,000 U.S. troops stationed here.
A successful election also could let those troops start a withdrawal
from Iraq.
But even moderate Iraqis, such as Sunni elder statesman Adnan
Pachachi, say violence or a boycott jeopardizes the process. “A
non-inclusive election that leaves large parts of the country
unrepresented and millions of Iraqis disenfranchised, an election
like this, is worse than no election at all,” he says.
Ready or not
Iraq is not accustomed to elections. Since a monarchy was overthrown
in a 1958 coup, it’s seen little except tallies like the 100% vote
won by Saddam in 2002.
The Jan. 30 ballot, by contrast, could leave Iraqi voters dazzled by
choice: 230 slates representing more than 7,000 candidates for a
275-seat national assembly. It would name a new interim government to
replace the U.S.-backed one now in power. By mid-2005 the assembly
would draft a constitution. Election of a permanent government would
be held by year’s end.
>From an office inside the U.S.-military-protected Green Zone, Abdul
Hussein al-Hindawi, head of the Iraqi election commission, and a team
of United Nations advisers are overseeing the production of ballots,
the training of 150,000 poll workers and the management of a host of
details that must be in place by election day.
Asked how things look a month away, he interrupts: “Not a month – 35
days! Every day is needed.”
But, he insists, the election will happen. On his table, he assembles
four sheets of paper into a larger square to show how big the ballot
will be. Each slate will get a single line, with its name, the party
symbol and a commission-assigned number that also identifies it. Next
to each will be an empty box for the voter to mark his or her choice.
No machines and no hanging chads here. Counting the votes will be
done by hand and take two or three days, he predicts.
To deter people from voting twice, poll workers will stamp hands with
indelible ink.
Hindawi acknowledges that’s a risk to voters if anti-election
insurgents want to punish them. But for now that’s the plan.
To prevent counterfeit ballots, Hindawi says the 14 million sheets
are being printed with currency-style security paper. Hindawi says
he’s recruiting students, teachers, lawyers and other educated Iraqis
to work at the thousands of polling places.
Up to 1 million Iraqi exiles will be eligible to cast ballots in 15
countries including the USA.
Working as an election official is one of the highest-risk jobs in
the annals of bureaucracy.
In Baghdad last week, in one of the most brazen attacks of the
insurgency, election workers were dragged from their car and three
executed on a downtown street. Unable to find enough security for
election day, U.N. monitoring will largely be conducted from
neighboring Jordan.
The danger to poll workers and voters on election day could force the
government to set up precincts outside of neighborhoods where people
could safely vote.
The commission has brushed aside a suggestion by Allawi to spread the
election over days or weeks to allow for more concentrated use of
Iraq’s inadequate security forces.
Iraqis will vote, Hindawi predicts, and perhaps astonish the
doubters.
Already, he says, the election is changing Iraq: “All the people
speak of elections. Open any newspaper and you read pages about the
elections, even newspapers which are against the elections. The
people see it happening.”
“This is not something really strange” for the cradle of
civilization, he adds. Iraqi archaeologists “consider us the first
democracy in the world, even before the Greeks.” he says.
Legitimacy in the balance
Violent attacks by insurgents are one threat to a revival of Iraq’s
long-dormant democratic heritage. Another, potentially more
devastating, is a boycott by Sunnis, Iraq’s second-largest faction.
Sunnis are only about 20% of the country’s 25 million people, but
they controlled Iraq for more than 40 years, mostly through Saddam’s
now banned Baath Party. The United States and interim Iraqi
government managed to lure several other Sunni groups to enter
candidate slates.
But on Monday, the largest Sunni political party pulled out, arguing
that poor security in Sunni cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi make a
legitimate outcome impossible. “Delaying would make a better and more
comprehensive process,” said Muhsin Abdul Hamid, secretary of the
Iraqi Islamic Party. He joined other Sunni leaders in demanding a
six-month delay.
Bush has ruled that out, concerned that a delay would encourage the
insurgents.
Just hours before Hamid’s news conference, a car bomb exploded
outside the Baghdad residence of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the
most prominent Shiite slate and a close associate of Sistani. Hakim
was not hurt, but 15 people were killed, including some of his
guards.
On Tuesday, insurgents killed at least 25 people, mostly Iraqi
police, in attacks across the Sunni Triangle, as a militant group
claimed to have executed eight Iraqi employees of a U.S. security
company.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has stressed the importance of having
Sunnis represented in a new Iraqi government.
Even Shiites, hungry for power after decades of oppression under
Saddam, say Iraq will fail without Sunnis in a power-sharing
government.
The Sunnis “must participate no matter what the results of the
election,” says Saad Jawad Qindeel, acting head of the political
bureau of Hakim’s party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution
in Iraq, or SCIRI. “Even if we get 70% of the seats of the national
assembly, we still believe that the transition government cannot be
made from one component” of Iraq.
Those words seem especially moderate given SCIRI’s history of
fighting Saddam. Still hanging in the entrance to the SCIRI office in
Baghdad is a small sign: “Every Baathist is a criminal until proven
otherwise.”
Optimism vs. history
Such views raise the chilling prospect of unrelenting conflict
erupting into civil war, something the CIA warned of in an analysis
that became public this year. It was based partly on the stated goals
of terrorists such as Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
Iraq’s most prominent al-Qaeda associate, and partly on history.
Monday, a man claiming to be bin Laden called for a boycott of the
elections in an audiotape broadcast. He also called Zarqawi, who has
claimed responsibility for kidnappings, beheadings and suicide
attacks, a true “soldier of God” and anointed him al-Qaeda’s leader
in Iraq.
For centuries, Iraq’s history of violence and oppression has pitted
one ethnic group against another. Saddam’s ruthless regime was only
the latest.
Sunnis and Shiites “have massacred and oppressed each other in Iraq
since the seventh century, taking time off to do the same for the
country’s Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Jews, Kurds and other
minorities,” writes Edwin Black, author of a history on Iraq. The
election “guarantees that the Shiite majority will once again control
the nation, settling old scores and disenfranchising everyone else,
and laying the groundwork for another civil war.”
The Bush administration has begun trying to tamp down hopes that the
election will end Iraq’s insurgency. “Elections are an event, and
democracy is a process,” says Bob Callahan, spokesman for the U.S.
Embassy here. A stable and democratic society will come, but “nobody
thinks it’s going to happen in a year or two.”
But Iraq’s new politics are not only a power play between Sunni
extremists and American idealists. The prospect of free elections has
energized niches in Iraqi society, represented by scores of virtually
unknown political groups that registered slates. They seek a voice,
if not power.
“This is our country, and we have to contribute in building and
establishing freedom and democracy,” says Yon’adam Kan’na, head of a
Christian coalition slate. “People are scared because of terrorists
and Saddam Hussein’s regime remains, but I will say that we have to
be confident that peace and stability will succeed.”
“The idea of an election is quite modern, and I love to see our
country’s politics the same as in civilized nations and no
dictatorship,” says Said Sara Ahmed, a university student who favors
U.S. ally Allawi as someone strong enough for the job.
When the official campaign season kicked off Dec. 15, Iraq’s
Communists, powerful before Saddam took over, held a rally at a
soccer stadium. In Iraq’s south, Hindawi says, there’s even some
Western-style campaigning with candidates meeting voters. In addition
to the national assembly, each Iraqi province has municipal elections
Jan. 30. Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous province in the north, also
elects its regional assembly.
In Baghdad, open campaigning is dangerous, but thousands of posters
are scattered across city walls. Most are simple, with maps of Iraq
and lists of candidates. There are pictures of peace doves, scales of
justice and other symbols of a better Iraq.
Perhaps because the concept of representative democracy is so new, or
because the situation is so dire, even major parties like SCIRI shy
away from U.S.-style pork-barrel promises. Instead they discuss
ideals such as justice, peace and religious rights.
Holding elected officials accountable to the people’s material needs
will come later, Qindeel says.
“Having elections, having a constitution, getting the people to
exercise their rights, all … are important steps toward providing
solutions to the daily problems they suffer,” from gas lines to power
outages to unemployment. “There are no magic solutions to these
problems, but it starts with having a representative government that
comes from the election boxes.”
Contributing: Sabah al-Anbaki and Charles Crain in Baghdad; wire
reports

New York Times
Dec 29 2004
New Hope of Syrian Minorities: Ripple Effect of Iraqi Politics
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
QAMISHLI, Syria, Dec. 28 – The Iraqi election next month may be
evoking skepticism in much of the world, but here in northeastern
Syria, home to concentrations of several ethnic minorities, it is
evoking a kind of earnest hope.
“I believe democracy in Iraq must succeed,” Vahan Kirakos, a Syrian
of Armenian ethnicity, said recently. “Iraq is like the stone thrown
into the pool.”
Though Syria’s Constitution grants equal opportunity to all ethnic
and religious groups in this very diverse country, minority activists
say their rights are far from equal. They may not form legal
political parties or publish newspapers in minority languages. More
than 150,000 members of Syria’s largest minority, the Kurds, are
denied citizenship.
Minority issues remain one of the infamous “red lines,” the litany of
forbidden topics that Syrians have long avoided mentioning in public.
But in the year and a half since Saddam Hussein was removed from
power in Iraq, that has begun to change, with minority activists
beginning to speak openly of their hopes that a ripple effect from
next door may bring changes at home.
And here in Syria’s far northeastern province of Hasakah, which
borders Turkey and Iraq, there are signs of a new restlessness.
In March, more than 3,000 Kurds in Qamishli, a city in Hasakah
Province on the Turkish border, took part in antigovernment protests,
which led to clashes with Syrian security forces and more than 25
deaths.
In late October, more than 2,000 Assyrian Christians in the
provincial capital, Hasakah City, held a demonstration calling for
equal treatment by the local police. The demonstration, which Hasakah
residents say was the first time Assyrians in Syria held a public
protest, followed an episode in which two Christians were killed by
Muslims who called them “Bush supporters,” and “Christian dogs.”
Nimrod Sulayman, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party’s
central committee, said Hasakah’s proximity to Iraq and demographic
diversity meant that residents of the province were watching events
in Iraq and taking inspiration from the freedoms being introduced
there.
“This Assyrian protest in Hasakah was caused by a personal dispute,
but the way the people wanted their problem solved was a result of
the Iraqi impact,” Mr. Sulayman said. “They see that demonstrating is
a civilized way to express a position.”
“Since the war in Iraq, this complex of fear has been broken, and we
feel greater freedom to express ourselves,” he added.
Mr. Sulayman noted that members of minorities in Hasakah had also
been energized by a sense of brotherhood with their counterparts in
Iraq.
“For example, when Massoud Barzani announced that Kurdish would be
officially recognized as one of the main languages in Iraq, the Kurds
in Hasakah were out in the streets celebrating, expressing their
joy,” Mr. Sulayman said, referring to the leader of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party in Iraq.
Taher Sfog, the secretary general of Syria’s illegal Kurdish
Democratic National Party, suggested that in some sense, Iraq and
Syria were mirror images of each other, as they shared a roughly
similar ethnic composition and a political heritage of Baathism, the
secular Arab nationalist policy of Mr. Hussein and Bashar Assad, the
Syrian president.
“Kurds in Syria feel relieved when we see Kurds in Iraq getting their
rights and holding news conferences,” Mr. Sfog said in his home in
Qamishli. “Democracy there will lead to a push in Syria, too.”
In fact, the Hussein government had long been estranged from Syria’s.
Before the American invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi politicians who
opposed Mr. Hussein made their homes in Damascus. Basil Dahdouh, a
member of the illegal Syrian Nationalist Social Party who represents
Damascus in Syria’s Parliament as an independent, said renewed
contact with Iraq, as well as the chance to observe the changes
taking place there, was leading many Syrians to actively question
their own political ideals. “The Iraq question has raised the idea of
what kind of state we want,” he said.
Emmanuel Khosaba, a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a
political party representing Iraq’s Assyrian Christian minority, said
Syrian political life could not help but be influenced by Iraq.
“In Syria, gradually it’s becoming safer to talk about minority
rights and human rights,” he said. But he cautioned against seeing a
single “Iraq effect” on the very different aspirations of Syria’s
minorities .
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“The interaction between minorities in Iraq and its neighboring
countries really depends on how particular minorities view their own
situation,” Mr. Khosaba said. “For example the Assyrians in Syria are
seeking a national solution within a democratic framework, while some
of the Kurds seek separation.”
Despite their sometimes startling optimism about an Iraqi democracy’s
longer-term prospects, the Syrian minority leaders became more sober
when discussing the violence in Iraq. Not only is it painful to see
Iraq convulsed with strife, they said, but instability in Iraq is
causing problems closer to home.
Bachir Isaac Saadi, the chairman of the political bureau of the
Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that throughout Syria, anger
over the American presence in Iraq had set off a sharp rise in
Islamist sentiment, which was creating difficulties for Syria’s
Christian minority.
“Christians in Syria aren’t afraid of the government any longer,” Mr.
Saadi said. “They’re afraid of their neighbors.”
Though the increase in Islamist feeling is troubling, minority
activists say, fear of the government and of publicly discussing
minority rights has eased to a degree which would have been
unthinkable only a few years ago.
Mr. Kirakos, the Armenian activist, has even begun a bid for Syria’s
presidency, an astoundingly brazen gesture in a country where the
Assad family has ruled unchallenged for more than 30 years.
The Christian Mr. Kirakos’s presidential run – which he announced in
September on , a pro-democracy Web site – is illegal, as
Syria’s Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Muslim.
But though he lost his engineering job as a result of his activism
and his family has received uncomfortable phone calls from the secret
police, Mr. Kirakos is unfazed.
“I carry a Syrian citizenship which is not equal to Ahmed’s
citizenship,” he said, using the common Muslim name as shorthand for
Syria’s Sunni majority. “It is the Syrian Constitution that must
change. We should be writing a constitution that guarantees equal
rights for everyone.”

Baku Today
Dec 29 2004
Azeri Refugees to Get IDB Assistance
Sponsored Links

by Habib Shaikh, Arab News 29/12/2004 06:34
The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is to assist Azerbaijan government
in meeting some of the social needs of the country’s refugees,
particularly in education, health, water supply and sanitation, in
the territory occupied by Armenia.
Bank President Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali, who visited Azerbaijan, has
promised that the IDB would `very soon’ send a mission to identify
priority areas to help the refugees.
Previously, the bank had allocated $1.5 million as grant to provide
emergency assistance to these displaced people. It had also provided
a loan of $10 million to finance schools, water supply, irrigation
infrastructure and agriculture equipment for the benefit of the
refugees.
Dr. Ali, who visited one of the refugee camps, also promised that the
IDB would do its best to sensitize the international community on the
tragedy of these displaced people.
Earlier, during a meeting with President Ilham Aliev in the capital
Baku, the two focused on ways to enhance the `already excellent’
cooperation between Azerbaijan and the IDB.
Azerbaijan authorities and the IDB president agreed to redouble
efforts to promote intra-trade and intra-investment among member
countries and also enhance their capacity to export to other
countries. IDB expressed its readiness to assist in organizing
exhibitions in the UAE and Germany to present their products and
project their potentialities to investors in various sectors of
Azerbaijan economy.
Since Azerbaijan joined the bank in 1992, IDB has provided it
financing amounting to $130 million. The bank has also participated
in the financing of several roads connecting Azerbaijan to the
European markets. Currently, it is considering the possibility of
participating in the construction of another section of the road
linking the country to Europe (Yavlakh-Ganja), as well as the
North-South corridor linking Azerbaijan to Iran.
The bank is giving special attention to the energy sector in the
country, and is considering the possibility of participating in the
connection of the energy grid of Azerbaijan and the grid of Russia
and Iran, facilitating the export and import of energy from
Azerbaijan to the two countries.

St Petersburg Times, Russia
Dec 29 2004
China Wins 1st Internet Chess International
THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
The world’s first international chess tournament played over the
Internet ended Thursday with China clinching an unexpected victory
ahead of France, Russia and Armenia.
The Tigran Petrosian Internet Memorial tournament was held in
commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the birth of the late world
chess champion Tigran Petrosian, an Armenian. Each four-player team
played six rounds.
China was the lowest-ranked team, but finished with 14 points to
Russia’s and France’s 13, but France beat Russia on tiebreaks to take
second place. Armenia finished with 8 points.
The St. Petersburg Chess Federation with the support of the city
government and the Armenian community in St. Petersburg were among
the organizers of the competition, which took place Dec. 18 to 23.
The teams of the four competing countries fought it out for $55,000
in prize money without leaving their home countries.
The Russian team of Pyotr Shvidler, Alexander Khalifman, Alexei
Dreyev and Vadim Zvyagintsev played in St. Petersburg under
supervision of French referee Jean-Claude Templeur.
“Apart from the handshake, the playing conditions resembled the
conditions of any high-level tournament,” Templeur said. “Whether you
are playing on the Internet under official supervision or meeting
your opponent face-to-face seems not to matter much.”
“This tournament has shown that from now on it will be possible to
play chess under realistic sporting conditions from any part of the
planet, where you live,” he said. “Why don’t we dream of huge opens
played at 50 or 100 sites around the world. After my experience here
in St. Petersburg, I know that this is already possible.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress