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1) New Armenian Film Foundation Documentary in the Making
2) Azeri FM Speaks about Planned Moscow Trip
3) Survey Shows 30 Percent Jobless Rate in Yerevan
4) Georgia Insists on Launching Talks over South Ossetia Status

1) New Armenian Film Foundation Documentary in the Making

THOUSAND OAKS–Caravans Along the Euphrates; Anatomy of the Secret Genocide is
expected to be the “crown jewel” of the Armenian Film Foundation’s “The
Witnesses” trilogy project. It will be the culmination of a massive
continuation of the 25th Anniversary of the foundation.
Lead creative production staff met with award-winning director/producer
Dr. J.
Michael Hagopian in Thousand Oaks this week to critique the film-in-process.
Those present included co-producer Glenn Farr–an Oscar-winning master feature
film editor and director; and Carla Garapedian, narrator and co-writer of the
first two Witnesses films, who is a former BBC anchor about to enter
production
on her own film later this fall. Associate producer and assistant editor
Barbara Gilmore, whose experience includes working as project director and
associate producer on five Armenian genocide documentaries, also was at hand.
After the initial screening, Garapedian said, “Caravans Along the Euphrates,
more than ever, has particularly powerful eyewitness testimony.” Farr stated,
“even the brightest, most rational mind cannot cast aside the history that is
portrayed in this last film of The Witnesses trilogy.”
Several other screenings will be held to solicit input from scholars,
survivors and people from other walks of life before the final production
phase.
Incorporated will be a penetrating storyline of survivor accounts selected
from a collection of over 400 interviews. The interviews were professionally
photographed by Dr. Hagopian over a span of 40 years in Europe, Australia and
North America.
Himself a survivor of the genocide, Dr. Hagopian has devoted much of his life
to documenting the legacy of other survivors and those whose lives were
brutally extinguished.
His works have to date amassed over 160 prestigious film awards and prizes
from around the world.
The Armenian Film Foundation now endeavors to raise funds in the Armenian
community to help finance the remaining work on Caravans Along the Euphrates:
Anatomy of the Secret genocide. Completion of the film is targeted for
2005–the 90th commemorative year of the genocide. Support for the first two
films of The Witnesses project, totaling $800,000, was garnered primarily from
the California State Legislature, as well as from foundations and some
individual sources through the efforts of ardent supporter and executive
producer Walter Karabian, Esq. Those who make generous donations to help
finance this project will receive recognition in the credits at the end of
Caravans Along the Euphrates.
For further information on this and other Armenian Film Foundation films and
projects, visit the foundation’s website at , or
call its Southern California office at (805) 495-0717.

2) Azeri FM Speaks about Planned Moscow Trip

BAKU (ZERKALO)–Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, who arrived in
Moscow
on August 17 for a two-day official visit, revealed details about his trip to
“Zerkalo” newspaper shortly before his departure.
Noting that the meeting will mark the first with his Russian counterpart,
Mammadyarov stated that Russia’s involvement in the Mountainous Karabagh
settlement and within the OSCE Minsk Group will be on the top of his meeting
agenda. Mammadyarov said that other issues he will raise during the visit deal
primarily with the economic relations between the two countries.
According to the Azeri minister, Russia, along with the other Minsk Group
chairmen, plays a crucial role in the settlement of the Karabagh conflict and
that regional stability depends on the conflict’s resolution.
“The emergence of political stability and economic development within the
Caucuses is beneficial to all parties interested in the region,” said
Mammadyarov, adding that Russia has “deep” relations with Armenia, although it
has economic interests in Azerbaijan.
“Moving onto Russia’s stance on the Karabagh issue, it must be noted that
there are many in Russia who believe that if their country displays greater
interest in the conflict’s resolution, stability within the Caucuses will be
achieved much sooner,” Mammadyarov stated.
Commenting on the belief held by some in military circles who identify
military action as the only viable solution to the problem, Mammadyarov said:
“I am this country’s Foreign Minister, not the Defense Minister, and I will
struggle to the end in order to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.”

3) Survey Shows 30 Percent Jobless Rate in Yerevan

YEREVAN (RFE-RL/CPOD)–A survey of the labor market funded by the European
Union suggests a staggering 30 percent rate of unemployment in Yerevan
which is
three times higher than the figure reported by the Armenian government.
The EU-sponsored Armenian-European Policy and Legal Advice Center (AEPLAC)
has
randomly interviewed one thousand people in all districts of the capital on
their employment status, professional background and incomes. According to its
researchers, almost one in three respondents said they can not find a job and
half of them have university degrees.
The findings of the poll, made available to RFE/RL on Tuesday, differ
markedly
from the official nationwide unemployment rate of roughly 10 percent
registered
by the National Statistical Service. But they are largely in tune with the
estimates of independent economists and analysts. They have long argued
most of
the Armenians out of work do not register with the government’s social
services
due to meager unemployment benefits and a lack of faith in their chances of
finding a job with state support.
The AEPLAC survey confirms this belief, with as many as 75 percent of those
polled saying that they have never applied to employment centers run by the
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Most of those who have done so do not
expect positive results, the poll shows.
The poll also found that unemployment is particularly high among engineers, a
telling indicator of Armenia’s post-Soviet industrial decline. “The lack of
industrial development means that many engineers can not find work,” said Hayk
Barseghian, a leading AEPLAC analyst.
The AEPLAC, which was set up in 1999 to help Armenia forge closer ties with
the EU, also sought to ascertain incomes of Yerevan-based workers. Based on
the
respondents’ answers, its survey estimates the average wage in the city at
55,000 drams ($106). The nationwide average measured by official statistics is
40,000 drams.
The poll also found substantial gender inequality in the amount of pay, with
men earning 70,000 drams and women 40,000 drams on average. Finance and
banking
sector employees were found to be the highest paid workforce with 130,000
drams
a month, followed by lawyers who make 91,000 drams. Public sector doctors and
school teachers are in the lowest pay category with salaries averaging 29,000
drams, according to the research.
In related news, a recent survey conducted by the Armenian Center for
National
and International Studies (ACNIS) showed that 23.8 percent of the 2,021
Armenian adults polled believed that unemployment is the main social danger in
the country, while 22.8 said emigration was the greatest threat.

4) Georgia Insists on Launching Talks over South Ossetia Status

TBILISI (Civil Georgia/AFP)–Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who met
with the members of the quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC), welcomed
the ceasefire agreement reached with the South Ossetian side on August 17. He
added, however, that no significant breakthrough is anticipated without
launching talks over the political status of the breakaway region.
“Establishment of a long-lasting stability and peace in the region will be
impossible without resolving the problem of South Ossetia’s status. We
reiterate our readiness to launch talks over the status,” Zurab Zhvania
said at
a news briefing after the talks with the JCC members.
The conflicting sides agreed during the talks in Tbilisi on a ceasefire,
withdrawal of extra troops from the conflict zone, and securing free movement
of people in the region.
Zhvania also said that the South Ossetian side expressed readiness to release
those three Georgian soldiers, who were detained by the South Ossetian
militias
in early July.
The Prime Minister added that the Georgian side offered the South Ossetian
and
Russian sides to carry out joint operations against those armed groups, which
according to the South Ossetia are out of Tskhinvali’s control.
“The South Ossetian side claims that there is a certain third force in the
region–armed groups which do not obey Tskhinvali’s orders. Hence, we proposed
to carry out a joint operation to wipe-out these groups, if there is any,”
Zhvania said.
Georgian Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili said on August 16 that Tbilisi
is ready to pull out part of its troops from the South Ossetian conflict zone
granting that the South Ossetian militias stop attacks on Georgian villages
and
troops stationed there.
“Granting that peace is preserved for three days, the Georgian side will pull
out 30% of its troops deployed at the by-pass roads,” Okruashvili told Rustavi
2 television on August 16. These roads link the Georgian controlled areas with
the Georgian villages North of the capital Tskhinvali.
The Interior Minister said that this proposal has already been approved by
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Meanwhile, Georgian government troops and forces from South Ossetia clashed
overnight, killing a Georgian soldier and wounding three, officials said–as
the most recent ceasefire failed to hold in the region. The crisis has
prompted
President Mikhail Saakashvili to call for international peacekeepers, to
provide security for civilians and ensure that conditions for talks on a
permanent settlement are met.
He is appealing for an international peacekeeping force to be sent to South
Ossetia, specifically calling on the US, the European Union, and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to take an active
role “in high level negotiations among the parties directly involved.”
“An international peacekeeping operation that is balanced and takes into
consideration Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic partners should be mandated in South
Ossetia to provide security for the population and ensure the conditions for
political negotiations towards a lasting settlement,” Saakashvili said in an
article in the Wall Street Journal Europe.
Saakashvili claims that as a result of recent actions of his government to
halt smuggling, “the de facto leadership in this lawless region saw their
income threatened and have resorted to violence.”
He said they seek to provoke a confrontation which they hoped will undermine
Georgia’s credibility and standing in the international community–a
confrontation in which Georgian soldiers have died.
The latest clashes have led to a telephone conversation between US Secretary
of State Colin Powell and Sergei Lavrov of Russia, as US diplomats met with
Russian and Georgian officials in an effort to cool tensions. The Moscow
foreign ministry statement did not specify who made the call, but said it
focused on South Ossetia. Repeated clashes have undermined the internationally
brokered ceasefire signed late last week between Georgia, Russia, and South
Ossetia and the OSCE, in an intense drive to defuse the crisis in the region.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ZORYAN INSTITUTE OF CANADA, INC.
255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, Canada M3B 3H9
Tel: 416-250-9807 Fax: 416-512-1736
E-mail: [email protected]

CONTACT: George Shirinian
August 16, 2003

Prof. Vahakn Dadrian’s Books Published Abroad

Milan, Italy – The renowned Italian academic publishing house, Edizioni
Guerini, has just come out with an Italian-language edition of Dr. Vahakn
Dadrian’s now classic History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict
from the Balkans to Anatolia and the Caucasus.

In translating this massive study into Italian, Dr. Alessandra Flores
d’Arcais not only had to deal with some 500-pages of scholarly text, but
also 1,085 footnotes, some of which extend to a full page in length.

In addition to the regular edition, Guerini also produced a limited edition
deluxe version, as the book has great sentimental, as well as intellectual
appeal.

The Italian edition is based on the latest revised English edition,
published by Berghahn Books, dated 2003. The English language edition has
gone through six printings, so far, and last year appeared in a soft cover
edition, making it more readily accessible to students. The book is a
prescribed text in the Genocide and Human Rights University Program held in
Minneapolis and Toronto, and is required reading for all who take that course.

A significant portion of the book is based on a study that appeared in the
Yale Journal of International Law. In commenting on the singular value of
this study, prominent international law expert, Prof. M. Cherif Bassiouni,
President of the International Human Rights Institute, and also President
of the International Association of Penal Laws, wrote,

Of all the conflicting and contradictory literature on the subject,
including many Turkish publications denying, justifying or explaining what
happened, Dadrian’s article is the most legally convincing and from other
accounts, the closest to historical accuracy with such debated facts.

The French edition of History of the Armenian Genocide is now in its second
printing, and a slightly abridged Arabic-language version of the book has
been published in Damascus, Syria. A Greek-language edition was published
in Athens two years ago by the Stokhasis Publishing House, under the title,
Historia Tis Armenikan Genoktonias. A Bulgarian-language translation of the
article, “The Armenian Genocide and the Evidence of German Involvement,”
which originally appeared in the West Los Angeles Law Review in 1998, was
made recently by Mr. Boghig Mesrob and distributed to the Bulgarian media
and major governmental agencies, where it received widespread interest.

According to recent reports from Turkey, the release of volume one of a
collection of articles on the Armenian Genocide by Dadrian in Turkish
earlier this year by Belge Yayinlari is enjoying brisk sales through three
academic bookstores there: Dost in Istanbul, Kabile in Izmir, and Imge in
Ankara. The unusual interest by Turkish academics and intellectuals in this
subject is reportedly sparked by a review of the book by Dr. Taner Akçam,
who is currently Visiting Associate Professor in the History Department at
the University of Minnesota. To the surprise of many specialists, the
prestigious Turkish newspaper Radikal, which is comparable to the New York
Times, published Akçam’s detailed review in its entirety, and without any
editorial change.

In the review, Akçam pays high compliments to the author and describes the
book as “a priceless contribution.” He emphasizes the fact that the book
affords Turkish audiences a rare chance to acquaint themselves with this
hitherto taboo subject and to be able to engage in an informed debate and
discussion on the issue of the Armenian Genocide. He also observes that the
official denial of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is unbecoming to a
country aspiring to genuine democracy and eventual accession to the
European Union. Even though Akçam has been conducting in-depth research on
the Armenian Genocide for more than a decade, he still expressed shock at
the scope and intensity of the atrocities surrounding the Genocide as
revealed in Dadrian’s various studies.

Dr. Vahakn Dadrian is Director of Genocide Research at the Zoryan Institute
and is currently working on several new publications.

GUERRILLAS OF THE RESISTANCE

The Spaniards who liberated Paris

Le Monde diplomatique
August 2004

The German governor of Paris surrendered to a Spanish soldier two
hours before he signed the capitulation of his forces in August
1944. Will this year’s celebrations remember the foreign Resistance
fighters?

By Denis Fernandez Recatala

France has not done much to acknowledge its debt to the many
foreigners who helped free the nation in 1944. No significant
monuments pay tribute to the thousands of Spaniards who fought the
German occupation forces. As France prepares to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of Paris, it should gratefully honour
the men and women who fought beside the French and died for freedom.

After the 1936-39 civil war many Spaniards fled to France and later
joined the Resistance or the Free French forces. In the Reina Sofia
Museum in Madrid, just next to Picasso’s Guernica, there is another
Picasso, Monument to the Spaniards who died for France, a reminder of
their sacrifice. Spanish Republicans contributed substantially to
liberating France. In the south they have had some recognition; in all
more than 10,000 fought all over France, in Brittany and the
Cévennes(1) and around towns such as Poitiers, Bordeaux, Angoulême,
Avignon, Montélimar, Valence or Anneçy(2). An all-Spanish force
liberated Foix, joined at the last moment by one Maurice Bigeard(3), a
token French contribution to the victory.

Near the end of summer 1940 Charles Tillon, founder of the French
Irregulars and Partisans (FTP-F) group, contacted local members of the
Spanish Communist party (PCE) in Bordeaux. Foreign nationals were a
ready source of volunteers, since unlike French citizens they had not
been mobilised and the Germano-Soviet pact had not discouraged
them(4). Spanish communists also remembered French support for the
International Brigades. Meanwhile the PCE’s underground leadership was
trying to meet its French opposite number and contacted Lise London in
December. She and her husband, Artur London, were plausible
go-betweens, having fought in Spain in the International Brigades(5).

>From then on, the resistance by communists and sympathisers started
to take shape. The Spanish community had arrived in two waves, first
because of poverty after 1918, then because of defeat by Franco’s army
in 1939, and settled all over France. The French Communist party (PCF)
started the Immigrant Workers (MOI) movement in the 1930s. The MOI
played an important part in the Resistance, integrating most Spanish
communists. The others formed armed detachments under PCE command,
coordinating their attacks with the Special Organisation (OS) and then
with the FTP-F.

In and around Paris Conrado Miret-Must, under the name of Lucien, took
charge of MOI combatants from 1942 on. The liberation of France was a
long way off, but preparations were already underway, despite a
massive raid that decimated the Spanish activists that year. The
trial of what the authorities claimed were terrorists from the Spanish
National Union was a foretaste of the trial of the members of the
Manouchian group(6). In the Little Spain neighbourhood of Plaine Saint
Denis(7) arrests became frequent, much as in Paris, Brittany and the
suburbs of other cities. In all, 135 Spaniards, including six women,
appeared in court. In their buttonholes they wore tiny espadrilles
with the colours of the French and Spanish republics. When their
sentences were read out they sang the Marseillaise and the Himno de
Riego(8). The sentences seemed relatively light, but meant torture,
deportation and, for many, death.

After the raids, which dislocated his unit and led to the
disappearance of his comrades, Celestino Alfonso, a former tank
commander, joined the Manouchian group and met Michel Rajman. With the
other members of the Manouchian group Celestino was executed on 16
February 1944, only months before the liberation of Paris. In his
farewell letter he wrote: “I lay down my life for France.” For many
Spaniards the Resistance was the continuation of the civil war by
other means. For the communists it was a way of repaying their debt to
the International Brigades, originally set up by the Komintern(9).

Spanish activists from Paris took refuge in neighbouring departéments
till the storm passed, returning to the capital under the command of
Rogelio Puerto. On 6 June 1944, when Allied forces landed on the
Normandy beaches, José Baron, known as Robert, mobilised all available
combatants and they formed the battalions that took part in the Paris
insurrection in August. They were determined and ready for anything,
convinced that once France regained its freedom the fascist regime in
Spain would soon collapse.

History does not always work out as planned, but there are fortunate
coincidences. The overall commander of the Paris insurrection was
Henri Rol-Tanguy, who had been a political commissar in the 14th
International Brigade in Spain. This eased contacts between insurgents
from the two countries. Military experience from 1936-39 combined well
with the invention of guerrilla tactics both in the maquis and in
cities.

With the prospect of Paris being liberated the Spanish anarchists came
to the fore. In 1939 the French authorities had interned the defeated
Republican army in camps in southeast France. Every morning gendarmes
visited the barracks encouraging internees to join the Foreign
Legion. Several thousand accepted the offer, seeing it as a way of
continuing the fight against fascism. They were sent to French
dependencies in North Africa or further south to Chad or Cameroon.
Those who went south joined the Free French in 1940, linking with the
force formed by General Leclerc(10). The others had to wait till the
Allied landings in Algeria in November 1942. But all – at least those
who survived – were among the first Allied troops to enter Paris on 24
August 1944.

Paris was fighting, but it needed help. A truce had been signed on 20
August by representatives of General de Gaulle and Choltitz (the
commander of the German garrison) providing for the peaceful
withdrawal of occupation forces. But the next day the Resistance
decided to break the truce, afraid that the Germans would use it to
their strategic advantage. Rol-Tanguy sent Commander Gallois to meet
the approaching Allied forces. Gallois convinced Leclerc to speed up
his 2nd armoured division’s advance on Paris. Leclerc sent the 9th
armoured company, led by Captain Raymond Dronne, ahead of the main
force: all its men were Spanish anarchists who spoke Castilian. In his
memoirs(11) Dronne writes of their courage; Leclerc thought highly of
them.

The first detachments of the 9th company entered the south of Paris at
8.41pm though the Porte d’Italie. A tank called Guadalajara after a
Republican victory in 1937(12) led the way. Forty minutes later, the
tanks and half-tracks halted on Place de l’Hôtel de Ville in the
centre. A crowd surrounded the 120 Spaniards and their 22 vehicles,
greeting them as liberators. “Were they American?” people asked,
surprised to hear them speaking Spanish. Their tanks were named after
civil war battles – Ebro, Teruel, Belchite, Madrid – and also called
Don Quijote, and Durruti, after the anarchist leader.

Their arrival ended the siege of the town hall, where Resistance
forces had been holding out against German attacks for five
days. Inside the building the Spanish troops set up a gun, El abuelo
(grandfather). As night fell everyone waited for reinforcements. Amado
Granelli, a lieutenant in the 9th company, met members of the National
Resistance Council, led by Georges Bidault. Meanwhile Leclerc, with
the rest of the 2nd armoured division, raced towards Paris, reaching
it the following morning.

In the days after, fighting increased in intensity. According to
Tillon, the Spaniards – the partisans who joined the French Forces of
the Interior (FFI) – were excellent street fighters. But he
exaggerated their contribution to the liberation of Paris. In the
preface to a book on the Manouchian group in 1946, he estimated their
number at 4,000 and used the same figure in Les FTP(13). Manuel Tunon
de Lara, a Spanish historian, is more cautious.

Once the fighting in Paris was over Rogelio Puerto led his Spanish
detachments – from the FTP, UNE and PCE – to the Reuilly
barracks. There Boris Holban, the MOI leader, merged a motley force of
combatants into a single battalion called Liberté. They included
Italians, Poles, Armenians and even escaped Russian prisoners of
war. The Spanish contingent, about 500, was the largest. They had
fought all over Paris, on Place de la Concorde, outside the National
Assembly, around the Arc de Triomphe, inside the Hotel Majestic that
housed the Gestapo headquarters, on Place Saint Michel and Place de la
République. Several dozen were killed, including José Baron, who had
supervised the regrouping of the guerrillas earlier that year.

The 9th company carried on with the 2nd armoured division towards
Germany. It took part in the liberation of Strasbourg, where
Lieutenant- Colonel Putz, a former International Brigade volunteer,
fell fighting alongside Spanish Republicans. The company ended the war
at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s residence in the Bavarian Alps. Sadly only
a few Spaniards survived to scale the dictator’s mountain retreat.

In 1941 thousands of Spanish volunteers had set out from Chad
determined to help overthrow the Nazi regime, which had supported the
fascist forces that had conquered Spain. They had a single objective:
to carry the fight against fascism back into Spain, but this time with
the support of the Allies. Their hopes were betrayed and Franco stayed
in power until 1975. France, for which they laid down their lives,
forgot them.

Denis Fernandez Recatala is a journalist and writer, author of Matière
(Le Temps des Cerises, Paris, 2002)

NOTES

(1) See Hervé Mauran, Un Maquis de républicains espagnols en Cévennes,
Lacour, Nimes, 1995.

(2) See Eduardo Pons Prades, Los Republicanos españoles en la segunda
guerra mundial, La Esfera de los libros, Madrid, 2003; and Memoria del
olvido. La Contribucion de los Republicanos españoles a la Resistencia
y a la Libération de Francia, 1939-1945, FACEEF, Paris, 1996.

(3) General Bigeard made his name in Vietnam and in Algeria, where he
was accused of torturing National Liberation Front militants.

(4) The non-aggression pact of 23 August 1939 between Germany and the
Soviet Union drove a wedge between the communists and the rest of the
left in Britain and France.

(5) London’s activism made him a target for Nazi repression (he was
deported to Buchenwald), then persecution under Stalin. He narrowly
escaped a death sentence during the 1952 show trials in Prague,
alongside Rudolf Slansky and other former members of the government.

(6) An FTP-MOI group led by the Armenian activist, Missak Manouchian,
was executed on 16 February 1944 with 21 comrades. Louis Aragon
dedicated a poem to them, L’Affiche rouge. The title refers to the
bill Nazi authorities posted all over occupied France denouncing
attacks by an army of criminals.

(7) A working-class district north of Paris. See also Natacha Lillo,
La petite Espagne de la Plaine-Saint-Denis, 1900-1980, Autrement,
Paris, 2004.

(8) The national anthem of the Spanish Republic, proclaimed on 14
April 1931.

(9) Russian name for the Communist International, founded in 1919,
disbanded in 1943.

(10) Philippe Leclerc (1902-1947) was military governor of
Cameroon. He assembled a column of Free French forces which set out
from Chad to join British forces under General Montgomery at Tripoli
in January 1943. He took part in the Normandy landings with the 2nd
armoured division and entered Paris on 24 August 1944.

(11) Carnets de Route, two volumes, Editions France-Empire, Paris,
1984 and 1985.

(12) The battle of Guadalajara was the only major Republican victory
during the civil war. Italian units fought on both sides, the
Garibaldi battalion on the Republican side and regular army units and
fascist militia on the other. A popular song, Guadalajara no es
Abisinia, celebrated the event, contrasting it to Italy’s invasion of
Abyssinia in 1935-36.

(13) Les FTP, Julliard, Paris, 1966.

Translated by Harry Forster

Telegraph.co.uk, UK
Aug 18 2004

Singapore’s dead make way for the living
By Sebastien Berger in Singapore
(Filed: 18/08/2004)

One of Singapore’s biggest graveyards, the final resting place of
much of the island’s Christian population for most of the 20th
century, is in the final stages of being emptied.

Every day about 60 graves in the Bidadari Christian Cemetery, a green
lung popular with joggers a couple of miles north of the island’s
thriving city centre, are emptied.

Out of more than 50,000 burials, from 1907 to 1972, the relatives of
fewer than 10,000 came forward to claim their remains. They were
dealt with first, and the rest were left to the care of the Singapore
authorities.

About 3,000 are left. One of them is Lt Col T L Fox OBE, whose simple
headstone records that he died in Singapore on Aug 2, 1954, aged 60,
without mentioning relatives or regiment. A glance at the grave told
the exhumation workers that it had yet to be emptied, which meant the
remains were unclaimed.

With the work due to finish by the end of the year, one morning in
the next four months they will break open the thin concrete cover of
the tomb, dig down to the coffin, and bring it out.

Col Fox’s headstone will be destroyed. As with all the unclaimed
remains, his will be cremated later the same day and his ashes put
into storage.

If no one comes forward to ask for them in three years from the end
of the work they, along with those of tens of thousands of other
people, will be scattered at sea.

The cemetery is being emptied of the dead to make room for the
living.

Land is in huge demand in Singapore. It has an area of 263 square
miles, less than half the size of Greater London but, because of
reclamation projects, is 40 square miles bigger than it was at
independence in 1965, making it, in physical percentage terms, one of
the fastest-growing countries in the world.

The Bidadari cemetery complex, which also includes an already-exhumed
Muslim site and Hindu and Sinhalese Buddhist graveyards where work is
due to start next year, will provide 140 acres of land for flats.

Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, which is in charge of the
project, was unable to say how many people would benefit. The work,
however, comes at a historical cost.

In addition to thousands of Chinese Christians, the cemetery was the
final resting place of many of the traders, administrators, priests,
doctors and others, of all denominations, who made up Singapore’s
colonial community.

Among them was Augustus Podmore Williams, (May 22, 1852-April 17,
1916), who is believed to be the model for the title character in
Conrad’s Lord Jim.

Born in Porthleven, Cornwall, in July 1880 he was first mate on a
pilgrim ship, the Jeddah, when the boilers began to leak and the
captain and officers abandoned the vessel, leaving the Muslim
travellers on board to their fate.

The group was picked up and taken to Aden, where they reported that
their ship had sunk, only for it to be towed into port the following
day. Williams was severely censured by a court of inquiry, but later
established himself in the shipping business in Singapore. His
remains have been claimed by his descendants.

Members of the Armenian Sarkies family, who founded the Raffles
Hotel, were buried at Bidadari, as were several of those who died at
the Changi internment camp during the Second World War Japanese
occupation of Singapore.

Sue Williams (no relation to Augustine), a Briton who has written a
chapter on Bidadari for a forthcoming book on the cemeteries of
Singapore, said: “It was such a beautiful place. But it was obvious
that it would have to go because it is a vast stretch of land.”

Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates
Aug 18 2004

Saleh forces GM Tahir to a draw
By A Correspondent

DUBAI – UAE’s Jasim A.R. Saleh hogged the limelight by drawing with
Grandmaster Vakhidov Tahir of Uzbekistan in 36 moves in a Dutch
defence. It was a pulsating match which ended after a razor sharp
battle in the endgame.

The queens were exchanged early in the opening and Jasim matched wits
with the Grandmaster with counter blows. In the end a draw was agreed
despite Vakhidov having passed a pawn on the 6th rank.

Seeded players tumbled on the third day of the 14th Abu Dhabi Chess
Festival. Grandmasters had a tough time in proving their superiority
over untitled players and conceded draws.

Gleizerov Evgeny and Anastasian Ashot shared the lead with 3 points
in masters at the end of the third round of the Abu Dhabi Chess
Festival held at Cultural Foundation.

Kobalia Mikhail, Dzhumaev Marat, Ghaem Maghami Ehsan, Harikrishna
Pentala, Minasian Artashes, Bocharov Dmitry are in the second place
with 2.5 points.

On the top board, Bocharov Dmitry drew with Kobalia Mikhail in 22
moves from a Slav defence classical variation. Bocharov played a
solid game. Kobalia with a series of good moves maintained the
balance and split the point in the 22nd move.

Gleizerov Evgeny played a brilliant game and defeated Kotsur Pavel in
34 moves from a Catalan opening.

Gleizerov breached the centre on the 13th move with e5 advance.
Kotsur was caught off guard and attempted to stir up things by giving
up his queen. Gleizerov’s immaculate technique led to an emphatic
victory.

Anastasian Ashot defeated Sundarajan Kidambi in 49 moves from a Slav
defence. The unusual approach on the 4th move unsettled Kidambi.
Kidambi hastened the end by exchanging rooks and allowing the
Armenian to clinch an easy victory.

Among UAE players, Mohamed Hossein and Suhail Tayeb won their
respective games against Illijin Neboisa and Khalil Ibrahim. Taleb
Moussa, Jasim A.R. Saleh, Nabil Saleh and Hassan Abdullah drew their
games.

In the children’s section, six players shared the lead with 3 points.
Bajarani Ulvi, Abdulaziz Karmostaji, Abdulaziz Ibrahim, Zayed Ali,
Azemati Amir and Abdullah Karmostaji are on top with 3 successive
wins.

Washington Times, DC
Aug 18 2004

Kurds build own identity

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

ERBIL, Iraq – Americans may be vilified in much of Iraq, but in the
15,000 square miles encompassing Iraqi
Kurdistan, wedding parties pose with U.S. soldiers, American
flags are posted proudly on dashboards and officials beg visiting
Americans to tell Washington to establish a permanent military base
here.

“That would send a message to everyone not to do anything to the
Kurds,” said a visiting professor at the 14,000-student Salahaddin
University in this sprawling north-central city.
Thirty years of political oppression, poison gas attacks and
outright genocide by the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad have led
northeastern Iraq’s 4.5 million Kurds to rethink all their alliances.

Some even suggest contacting the Israelis for advice. Although
most Kurdish Muslims instinctively distrust Jews, some say Israelis
would be eager to help bolster a Kurdish democracy in the Middle
East. Jews inhabited Kurdistan starting with the Babylonian exile in
597 B.C. and ending in the 1950s, when many returned to Israel.
Others say Kurds are flirting with Zoroastrianism or atheism, as
Islam is seen as the religion of their Turkish and Arab oppressors.
Evangelical Protestant missionaries who are quietly planting churches
in the major Kurdish cities report flickers of interest. Copies of
the New Testament, or at least portions of it, are available in both
Kurdish dialects, and Campus Crusade’s “Jesus Film” has been on
Kurdish television several times.
The evangelistic Dallas-based Daystar Television Network can be
seen in any Kurdish home with a satellite dish.
The Amman, Jordan-based Manara Ministries, a Christian agency
that conducts relief work in northern Iraq, estimates 200 Kurds have
converted to Christianity in 20 years and that Erbil has at least one
Christian bookstore. Other Christian agencies in the region agree
numbers remain in the low hundreds, but thousands have received
evangelistic literature and have had some contact with Christians.
Kurds have substituted their own red, yellow, green and white
flag in place of the national Iraqi flag on flagpoles everywhere. In
the few places the Iraqi flag is displayed, it is the de-Islamicized
pre-1991 version before Saddam Hussein added “God is Great” in Arabic
to the red, white, black and green banner.
“Some people are blaming Islam for what’s happening to us,” one
college professor mused. “But I think the fault is with the British
who divided our land after World War I. We have tolerated this bitter
reality, but we have never accepted it.”
The Kurdish penchant for independent thinking begins with its
“Welcome to Iraqi Kurdistan” sign at the Iraqi-Turkish border – a
calculated insult to Turkey, which has denied human rights to many of
its 15 million to 20 million Kurds and whose border guards lecture
travelers that “Kurdistan” does not exist.
Kurdistan is an unofficial nation-state encompassing at least 25
million people in the 74,000-square-mile mountainous region
encompassing chunks of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It is the
world’s largest ethnic group without a country of its own.
Kurds were promised a country in the Aug. 10, 1920, Treaty of
Sevres that divided the former Ottoman Empire among Britain, Turkey
and others, and gave independence to Armenia.
However, the treaty drafted in Sevres, France, was ignored by
Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, who did honor the
1923 Treaty of Lausanne that established Turkey’s present borders but
partitioned Kurdistan into four parts.
Kurds generally were oppressed in all their host countries,
resulting in the establishment of exile communities in Europe and the
United States. Iraqi Kurdistan blossomed after the 1991 Gulf war,
when overflights by British and American fighter jets generally kept
Saddam’s forces at bay.
Today, some Baghdad residents are moving their homes several
hundred miles north to tranquil Kurdish cities such as Dohuk, where
legions of peshmerga – Kurdish militia – patrol the city streets and
man checkpoints on rural routes. The more American – or Western – a
passenger appears to be, the more quickly one is waved on by the
peshmerga. Cars sporting Baghdad license plates or holding Arab
occupants are pulled over and searched.
One Assyrian Christian driver relates how, while conducting
business in Mosul 40 miles south of Dohuk, he was threatened at
gunpoint by insurgents. He managed to talk his way out of trouble.
Asked the reason for the AK-47 assault rifle in the front seat?
“To shoot Arabs with,” he said.
Although danger remains, others are enjoying their new lives.
“I’m 37 years old, but I feel like I am only 1 year old because I
feel freedom now,” said the Rev. Mofid Toma Marcus, an Assyrian
Christian monk who oversees the Monastery of the Virgin Mary in Al
Qosh, a Christian village near the burial spot of the Old Testament
prophet Nahum. “America has given new life to Iraqi people.”
In five years, he said, “Iraq will be better. Under Saddam, we
had no cell phones, no Internet, no interviews with American
journalists. America took 200 years to get to where it is today.”
Al Qosh is one of seven Christian villages stretching north from
Mosul.
“We don’t give permission for Muslim families to live in
Christian villages,” Mr. Marcus said, explaining that Muslims would
gradually turn it into an Muslim-majority village, then institute
Islamic law.
A half-mile down the road is Bozan, a village populated by Yezidi
Kurds who worship a pre-Islamic peacock god linked to Zoroastrianism
and Mithraism. The children play in the town square near a bombed-out
school that the monastery is trying to refurbish.
They run to fetch Elias Khalaf, the headmaster, a dignified man
in a Kurdish-style gray suit with baggy pants, who begs for Americans
to come stay in some of the monastery’s 200 rooms and help rebuild
his school. Missing are all the basics: paint, windows, water, doors,
blackboards, electricity, desks and toilets.
Thirty teachers toil with 1,100 students, sometimes as many as 60
per class.
“We need teachers,” he begs. “We need everything.”
The Yezidis were forced out of their villages 30 years ago by
Arab Iraqis, gaining them back only since the overthrow of Saddam. On
their way out, the Arabs cut the electric lines and poisoned the
wells.
Kurdish cities are filled with unemployed men of all ages idling
in cafes to escape the 111-degree heat. Despite the scorching
temperature, many of the Muslim women cloak themselves in heavy,
long-sleeved jackets, ankle-length skirts and head scarves.
Sulaymania, a city about 80 miles west of the Iranian border
surrounded by hot, rocky, barren hills, has a reputation for free
thinking and slightly more liberal dress codes. It has become a
center for experimental newspapers that operate on shoestring
budgets. The London-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting has an
office in Sulaymania, where it tries to instill journalistic
standards into eager but inexperienced reporters.
One student-run paper is in a tiny third-floor office with no air
conditioning. Cold sodas are brought for the guests, who are told
that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controls the
northwestern tier of Kurdistan, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), which controls the southeast, exercise Mafialike control over
Kurds. Any newspaper that criticizes the parties, they say, finds
itself banned from local newsstands.
A similar conversation the next day with an Islamic newspaper
reveals how dissatisfaction with the slow pace of change is
everywhere. At a quiet dinner with Kurdish businessmen in the
touristy suburb of Sarchinar, the topic of conversation is the
failure of Kurdish political leaders to encourage Western investment
and the reluctance of American companies to take a chance on the
Kurds.
“If you don’t move quickly here,” one computer technician said,
“the Chinese and the Germans will fill your place.”
The Iranians already have a consulate in Sulaymania, one is told,
while the Americans only have plans for a consulate in Kirkuk,
leaving most of northern Iraq with no official American presence.
Meanwhile, the Kurds already have a functioning airport in Erbil
and plans are to open another one soon in Sulaymania. Iraq has been
on hold for too many years, they say. Gas may be 3 cents a gallon
here but passports are impossible to come by, reducing many Kurds to
learning their English from BBC World telecasts. There is no postal
service.
Plus, any Kurdish public figure working with Westerners knows his
life could be snuffed out at any time. A drive to a lunch interview
with Salahaddin University President Mohammed Sadik in Erbil begins
when two armed bodyguards jump into the passenger seat of his car and
perch on the back bumper.
Their caution stems from the Feb. 1 suicide bombings at the Erbil
headquarters of the KDP and PUK during celebrations for an Islamic
holiday. More than 56 Kurds, adults and children were killed.
The Kurds at this lunch are distraught over U.N. Resolution 1546,
which they hoped would support Kurds’ semi-independent status. But
the resolution was vague, not even mentioning the regional government
for which Kurds have long campaigned. Furious Kurds now refer to L.
Paul Bremer, who served as the United States’ Iraq administrator
after the fall of Saddam, as “Lawrence of Arabia” for selling them
short to Arab rulers who have little experience or taste for
democracy.
“We feel Americans have bargained at the expense of the Kurds,”
Mr. Sadik said. “The worst person they brought here was Mr. Bremer,
who didn’t want to take any advice from the Kurds but who was willing
to bargain with everyone else.”
All the lunch guests scoffed at the notion of “a new Iraq” touted
by the Americans.
“We have nothing in common with the rest of Iraq,” said Kirmanj
Gundi, a Tennessee State professor visiting his homeland. “Why did
Bremer always compromise on Kurdish interests in favor of the
Shi’ites and Sunnis who shoot at them?
“If America supports us, we’d be the most loyal friend in the
region.”
Every Kurd in the room wanted independence. Why, they asked, was
America so quick to recognize Israel 56 years ago but today raises
objection after objection about Kurdish independence.
“When America decided to recognize Israel,” one said, “America
didn’t care about how the 22 Arab countries would react or how the 56
Islamic countries would react. So why should the Kurds care what the
Iraqi government thinks?”

Scotland on Sunday
August 15, 2004, Sunday

BOOK REVIEWS: THE TURKS TODAY: ATATURK’S LEGACY INSIDE OUT

by Tom Adair

The Turks Today
Andrew Mango
John Murray, GBP 20

ANDREW Mango has made the study of Turkey his business if not his
life’s work. A fluent Turkish speaker born in Istanbul, he paints a
broad and accessible picture, shrewdly gleaned from his
insider-outsider dual perspective.

The Turks of the title – today’s post-imperial 21st-century
generation led by prime minister, Recep Erdogan, are the inheritors
of Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey.

Mango traces that inheritance from the moment of Ataturk’s death 66
years ago, a progress which has been plagued by political shifts,
economic struggles, turbulent tensions between the Greek and Turkish
governments (not least in relation to Cyprus), and the unfolding
status of secularism pitched in the shifting sea of growing Islamist
identity and demands.

The Turks Today unfolds as a balanced, coherent primer for serious
travellers with an itch to read the hidden lie of the land, and for
inquisitive general readers intrigued by Turkey’s emergent role as a
growing economic force and strategic cockpit poised at the heart of
the Middle East, yet gazing westwards, towards Europe’s growing fold
of nations.

For those in a hurry, the book’s succinct prologue provides a deft
overview and analysis of the nature of Turkish society and its
peoples.

But Mango’s subsequent two-part treatment of his introductory themes
proves worth the reader’s perseverance. First comes scrutiny of the
key historic landmarks as the country evolved from Ataturk’s
authoritarian ethos into a volatile parliamentary democracy. The
second half of the book relates this governance to the vicissitudes
of its struggling but growing and stabilising economy, with chapters
devoted to culture and the arts and to the development of its
services in health and education.

There is an introductory essay explaining Erdogan’s stealthy rise
from Islamic militant to international pragmatist, and a mirroring
piece on Istanbul’s heartbeat-centrality from Byzantine times until
now.

Mango tackles human rights abuses, Kurdish nationalism, Armenian
discontent, the demise of enclaves of Greek and Jewish populations,
informing his pertinent observations with balanced argument and
recourse to historic context. The picture he paints, especially in
the book’s first half, is of a country trapped in an operatic,
melodramatic history, subjected to military juntas, interspersed with
the rise and demise of a cast of gesturing politicians producing more
heat than light.

The second half of the book is much more piecemeal, sometimes
repetitive, yet in places also lyrical, vouchsafing occasional
glimpses of everyday life, of peasant toil, relating anecdotes which
enliven the clear but didactic prose momentum.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 17, 2004 Tuesday 5:51 PM Eastern Time

Russia, Azeri FMs to hold talks focusing on counterterrorism

By Natalya Lenskaya and Irina Chumakova

Counterterrorism will be one of subjects of discussion at talks to be
held here on Wednesday between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov. The Azeri Foreign
Minister arrived here on Tuesday for his first official visit.

Boris Malakhov, deputy spokesman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, has
told Itar-Tass that the two Ministers intend to devote special
attention to practical steps in the fight against terrorism in all
its manifestations.

The consideration of problems concerning a settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue is also on the agenda of the upcoming talks.

The high-ranking diplomat emphasised, “Russia welcomes a continuation
of the Azerbaijani-Armenian dialogue at various levels. We believe
that the sides involved in the conflict themselves must find a
mutually acceptable solution”. Moscow “is prepared to render the most
active assistance in this cause both on a bilateral basis and as
Co-Chairman of the Minsk Group of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe,” Malakhov said.

Besides, Malakhov pointed out, the two Ministers are to exchange
views on the regional and international situation, and greater
interaction within the Commonwealth of Independent States, and review
the implementation of top-level accords aimed at giving greater scope
to economic cooperation, including the doubling of trade turnover
between the two countries.

Lavrov and Mamedyarov are to discuss work on determining the legal
status of the Caspian Sea, and prospects for a second Caspian summit,
Malakhov said.

The Irish Times
August 17, 2004

Keeping the past of a maritime republic alive

Letter from Venice/Patrick Comerford: The “Queen of the Adriatic” is
a city of over 100 islands and 400 or more bridges. But few visitors
give themselves a chance to get lost in its narrow alleyways or to
discover the unique and colourful minorities that have been part of
Venetian life for centuries.

Jews have lived and traded in Venice since 1381. In 1516 they were
forced to live in the New Foundry or Ghetto Nuovo, a tiny island
still linked by three small bridges to the rest of Venice. But by
then their numbers were being swollen by new arrivals from Spain and
Portugal, from central Europe, and from Greece and Turkey. Europe’s
first Ghetto was soon too small for the Jewish community, which
spilled out into the neighbouring Ghetto Vecchio and Ghetto
Nuovissimo, and Napoleon tore down the walls and gates of the Ghetto
in 1797.

About 200 Venetian Jews were deported to the death camps in
1943-1944, and only eight returned. But today there are about 400
Jews in Venice, including 80 or so in the Ghetto, their numbers
boosted in recent years with the arrival from Rome and New York of
enthusiastic, pious Hasidic Jews. Four synagogues remain open in the
Ghetto area: the Scola Tedesca and the Scola al Canton, built by
German and French Jews between 1528 and 1531, are virtual museums.
But the Scola Spagnola, built by Spanish Jews at the same time, still
alternates Saturday services with the Scola Levantina, built by Greek
Jews in 1538, complete with a hip-level screen inspired by the
iconostasis or icon-screen of Greek churches.

A significant Greek community has lived close to Ponte dei Greci (the
Bridge of the Greeks) since the 11th century, when the first Greek
artisans arrived to decorate Saint Mark’s Basilica and many of the
early churches of Venice. They expanded significantly with the influx
of refugees following the Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453.
The church of San Giorgio dei Greci, with its leaning belltower, was
built at a cost of 15,000 gold ducats between 1539 and 1573, and the
vivid iconostasis or icon screen was painted by Michael Damaskinos,
the greatest Cretan iconographer of the day and a contemporary of El
Greco.

As the Serene Republic lost its Greek colonies in the 17th and 18th
centuries, Greeks continued to flood into Venice, and their presence
helped to spread classical culture throughout Europe. A whole Greek
neighbourhood took shape around the church on the banks of the Rio
dei Greci, and at its peak the Greek community numbered 15,000
people. But Napoleon’s abolition of the Republic of Venice in 1797
marked the beginning of the decline of this prosperous community as
their assets and church treasures were confiscated. However, a
convent of Greek nuns and their girls’ school survived until 1834,
and until 1905 the Greek College provided Greek communities in the
Ottoman territories with educated priests and teachers.

Despite their decline in recent generations, the small Greek
community continues in Venice. The Collegio Flangini now houses the
Hellenic Institute for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies, a museum
in the former Scuola di San Nicolo dei Greci displays a unique
collection of icons, and San Giorgio dei Greci has became a
cathedral, with an archbishop living in the old palace.

Close to Saint Mark’s, the Calle degli Armeni is in the heart of the
old Armenian quarter. By the end of the 13th century, the Armenian
community had a secure presence in Venice, finding their niche as
tradesmen and moneylenders. The church of Santa Croce degli Armeni
was founded in 1496 and the procurators of Saint Mark paid annual
visits in recognition of the “well-deserving and most-favoured
Armenian nation.” The city’s best-hidden church is now locked except
for Sunday services, and the most conspicuous Armenian presence is
out on the lagoon on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, where a
monastery was founded on the former leper colony in 1717 by a group
of Armenian monks expelled from the Morea in Greece by the Ottoman
Turks.

The monks of San Lazzaro survived Napoleon’s confiscations because of
an indispensable Armenian in the imperial secretariat. Byron spent
six months here, learning classical Armenian and compiling a
dictionary. But, despite the proximity of the Lido, the monks are
virtually undisturbed by visitors. On the afternoon I arrived, only
half a dozen others got off the vaporetto. As he took me around the
library with its 200,000 precious manuscripts and books, the museum
with its Egyptian sarcophagus and mummy, and the gallery of Armenian
paintings, Father Vartanes explained that there are only eight
Armenian monks left on San Lazzaro and no more than 10 Armenian
families in Venice.

When evening falls and the tourists leave Venice, the dwindling
numbers of Jews in the Ghetto, the Armenian monks on San Lazzaro and
the remaining Greeks of San Giorgio are left alone once again.

The proportion of native Venetians who live here continues to decline
rapidly as wealthy Italians from Milan and Turin snap up properties
on the market. Even the Venetians are becoming a minority in their
own city.

Gulf News
August 17, 2004

SIX SHARE LEAD AFTER SECOND ROUND IN MASTERS

Yasir Abbasher, Staff Reporter

A total of six players shared the leadership in the Masters
Championship at the ongoing 14th Abu Dhabi International Chess
Festival with two points from as many rounds. They will face each
other in the third round to decide the shape of the top of the
standings.

Second seeded Russian GM Mikhail Kobalia beat Uzbekistan IM Tahir
Vakhidov in the second round and will face his countryman GM Dmitry
Bocharov who defeated Iranian IM Morteza Mahjoob.

Kazakhstan GM Pavel Kostur beat IM Faruk Bistric from Bosnia and will
face GM Geleizerov Evgeny from Russia who defeated IM Emad Hekki from
Syria.

Armenian GM Ashot Anastasian beat UAE’s GM Taleb Moussa and will face
IM S Kidambi from India who beat GM Saidali Iuldacev from Uzbekistan.

In second place with 1.5 points are 13 players including top seed GM
Kazakhstan’s Evgeny Vladimirov, GM Pentala Harikrishna, GM
Ramachandran Ramesh and IM Neelotpal Das, all from India, GM Shukhrat
Safin and GM Marat Dzhumaev, both from Uzbekistan, GM Mikhail Ulbin,
GM Ramil Hasangatin and GM Konstantin Chernyshov, all from Russia,
France’s IM Yannick Govvoli, Armenia’s IM Artashes Minasian and
Iranian IM Elshan Moradiabadi.

UAE’s young woman player Amennah Mohammad Saleh was among the 42
players who shared the lead in the Open Tournament with two points
with her countrymen Ali Mahmoud, Ali Abdul Khalig, Ebrahim Mohammad
Khory, Meshaal Moussa, Mansoor Abbass, Hamed Abdul Razzag, Fahad
Ahmad, Eisa Mohammad Khory, Ahmad Abbass and Khalid Khamis.

The leader’s list also featured Germany’s Markus Huster, Bosnian
Boric, Iran’s Shirin Navabi, Egypt’s Ehab Al Sayed, Azerbaijan’s
Bajarani, Avlan Arsitosa and Dizon Manny from the Philippines,
Nicholas D. from Britain.