PRESS RELEASE

The Adjutant General’s Department
Kansas Army National Guard
Kansas Air National Guard
Division of Emergency Management
CONTACT: Joy D. Moser
Director, Public Affairs Office
Work: (785) 274-1192
Home: (785) 232-4518

FOR RELEASE ON June 17, 2004

No. 04-071

June 18 Ceremony Marks Kansas-Armenia Partnership Day

A ceremony at the State Defense Building, 2800 SW Topeka Blvd., Topeka,
will mark “Kansas-Armenia Partnership Day” on Friday, June 18. The
ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m. in Room 11 and will feature remarks
by Maj. Gen. (KS) Tod Bunting, the adjutant general; Col. Joe Wheeler,
Plans, Operations and Training Officer, Kansas Army National Guard;
and Command Sgt. Maj. Dale Putnam. They will share information about
their recent visit to Armenia, the National Guard State Partnership
Program and plans for an upcoming visit by an Armenian delegation.

Since 2003, Kansas has been partnered with Armenia through the
State Partnership Program. This program pairs developing nations
in Europe, South America and Asia with the National Guard in states
and territories to foster mutual interests and establish long-term
relationships. In April, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed a proclamation
declaring June 18, 2004, as “Kansas-Armenia Partnership Day” in Kansas.

“Kansas troops are deployed around the globe helping to protect the
cause of freedom through force of arms and it is through programs like
the State Partnership Program that peace will be strengthened,” said
Bunting. “By modeling military-to-military, military-to-civilian and
civilian-to-civilian relationships, our Citizen-Soldiers are showing
the world how we, as Soldiers and Airmen, are servants of the people
instead of the other way around. Our Constitution starts ‘We, the
People of the United States…” Through this program, it is “We the
People” of Kansas who are reaching out in a spirit of cooperation to
the people of Armenia to show them who we are and how we live and to
learn from them who they are and how they live.”

In addition to Bunting, other dignitaries attending the ceremony
include Alex A. Kotoyantz, a retiree from the Kansas Department
of Transportation in Junction City and an active member of the
Armenian community in Kansas. Kotoyantz was a key advocate for the
“Kansas-Armenia Day” proclamation.

-30-

Selling Armenians on Armenia

Condos lure expatriates back home
By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
June 20 2004

GLENDALE — Forget Hawaii, Aspen or the Caribbean. How about buying
a time share in … Armenia?

It may sound like a tough sell — mainstream attractions are few
in this arid, agricultural country of 3 million. But builders of
Western-style town homes just outside the capital Yerevan believe
they have ready buyers among the more than 8 million Armenians living
outside the country.

“Come Home to Armenia” beckons the marketing campaign of East
Coast-based Hovnanian International Inc., which has just begun to
market the time shares in Glendale, home to the largest population
of Armenians outside Armenia.

“To local Armenians, I say, It’s your land, it’s your responsibility,
to go back and see how magnificent it is,” said Hovnanian
representative Hilda Grigorian, who staged the first time share meeting
this month in Glendale, drawing more than 100 prospective buyers.

Armenian-Americans have flocked to visit Armenia since its independence
13 years ago from the former Soviet Union. There they encounter a
land of great natural and historic beauty — and Third World living
conditions.

Running water in the capital city is sometimes limited to a few hours
in the morning and evening, phone service and electricity are erratic
— elevators break down in high-rise buildings. No building codes or
inspections exist despite the pattern of earthquakes — a reality in
a place where the average monthly income is about $24.

But for those willing to plunk down $4,500 to $6,000 for a 20-year
lease on one of Hovnanian’s fully furnished 1,500- to 1,800-square-foot
town homes, the one-week-a-year time shares provide an old-world
setting without its nitty-gritty inconvenience.

In fact, Hovnanian’s enclave, which at build-out will have 500
single-family homes, looks much like homes in planned communities in
Irvine or Santa Clarita — only with Mount Ararat as a backdrop.

“Our goal is to get the Armenian diaspora to return and to return
frequently — if not every year, but every other year,” said Arthur
Havighorst, vice president for Vahakni (Hovnanian) Homes and Timeshare
Resort.

The pull of family and culture is similar to the concept behind time
shares in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the United Arab Emirates
— not necessarily considered the top vacation destinations for the
average traveler.

La Crescenta resident Leonig Shekherdimian already visits Armenia
once a year to see family and take in scenes from her homeland. She
typically rents a Yerevan apartment, with its trials of broken plumbing
and sweltering accommodations with no air-conditioning.

A time share would mean that “I don’t have to worry about no water
or no heating or no air conditioning.”

La Crescenta resident Gagik Alagozian visited Armenia for the first
time two years ago, and that was enough for him to decide to invest
in the country.

“I opened up a small business there — I have cattle — and I want
to expand,” said the aerospace engineer who moved to America from
Iran 27 years ago.

He also plans to invest in a home.

“We go to Big Bear to see nature, but in Armenia, there are places
absolutely untouched that you can explore.”

There is also an effort to market the time shares to retirees and
tourists.

More than 41,000 visitors come to the country each year, and tourism
is now the second largest part of the country’s GDP.

“Armenia is a beautiful country. It has a strong, ancient history,
and it was the first Christian nation,” Shekherdimian said. “Just to
visit the churches there says a lot about our country and culture.”

Sudan’s Final Solution
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: June 19, 2004
The New York Times

LONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — In my last column, I wrote about
Magboula Muhammad Khattar, a 24-year-old woman whose world began to
collapse in March, when the Janjaweed Arab militia burned her village
and slaughtered her parents.

Similar atrocities were happening all over Darfur, in western Sudan,
leaving 1.2 million people homeless. Refugees tell consistent tales of
murder, pillage and rape against the Zaghawa, Fur and Masalit tribes
by the Arabs driving them away.

As this genocide unfolded, the West largely ignored it. That was not
an option for Ms. Khattar and her husband, Ali Daoud.

The night after the village massacre, survivors slipped out of the
forest to salvage any belongings and bury their dead. They found the
bodies of Ms. Khattar’s mother and father; her father’s corpse had
been thrown in a well to poison the water supply. Ms. Khattar was now
responsible for her 3-year-old sister as well as her own two children.

Then, as they prepared the bodies, one moved. Hussein Bashir Abakr, 19,
had been shot in the neck and mouth and left for dead, but he was still
alive. His parents had both been killed, along with all his siblings
except for one brother, who had been shot in the foot but escaped.

That brother, Nuradin, gave up his duty to bury their parents,
choosing instead to carry Hussein into the forest and to try to
nurse him with traditional medicines. Nuradin’s bullet wound made
every step agonizing, but he was determined to save the only member
of his family left. Over the next 46 nights, Nuradin dragged himself
and his brother toward Chad.

Finally, they staggered over the dry riverbed marking the border,
where I found them. Hussein has lost part of his tongue and many of
his teeth and cannot eat solid food. He is sick and inconsolable;
his wife and baby were carried off by the Janjaweed and haven’t been
seen since. As I interviewed him, he bent over to retch every couple
of minutes, Nuradin still cradling him tenderly.

Ms. Khattar and most of the other villagers decided they could not
make the long trek to Chad. So they inched forward at night to find
refuge on a nearby mountain.

Every other night, she crept down the mountain to fetch water, risking
kidnapping by the Janjaweed. “It was so hard in the mountains,”
Ms. Khattar recalled. “There were snakes and scorpions, and a
constant fear of the Janjaweed.” Six-foot cobras have killed some
of the refugees. To feed her children, Ms. Khattar boiled leaves and
plants normally eaten only by camels. Even so, her mother-in-law died.

Officially, Sudan had agreed to a cease-fire in Darfur. But at the
end of May, a Sudanese military plane spotted the villagers’ hideout,
and soon after, the Janjaweed attacked.

“Ali had told me: `If the Janjaweed attack, don’t try to save me. You
can’t help. Don’t get angry. Just keep the children and run away to
Bahai [in Chad]. Don’t shout or say anything,’ ” Ms. Khattar said. So
she hid in a hollow with the children, peeking out occasionally. She
saw the Janjaweed round up all the villagers, including her husband
and his three young brothers: Moussa, 8, Mochtar, 6, and Muhammad,
4. “Even the boys,” she remembers. “They tied their hands like this”
— she motioned with her arms in front of her — “and then forced
them to lie on the ground.” Then, she says, the males were all shot
to death, while women were taken away to be raped.

There were 45 corpses, all killed because of the color of their skin,
part of an officially sanctioned drive by Sudan’s Arab government to
purge the western Sudanese countryside of black-skinned non-Arabs.

The Sudanese authorities, much like the Turks in 1915 and the Nazis in
the 1930’s, apparently calculated that genocide offered considerable
domestic benefits — like the long-term stability to be achieved by
a “final solution” of conflicts between Arabs and non-Arabs — and
that the world would not really care very much. It looks as if the
Sudanese bet correctly.

Perhaps Americans truly don’t care about the hundreds of thousands of
lives at stake — we have other problems, and Darfur is far away. But
my hunch is that if we could just meet the victims, we would not be
willing to acquiesce in genocide.

After two Janjaweed attacks, Ms. Khattar was left a widow, responsible
for three small, starving children in a land where showing her face
would mean rape or death. I’ll continue her saga in Wednesday’s
column.  

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
June 18, 2004

CONCORSO BELLEZZA, LE MISS PALESTINESI SI RITIRANO/ANSA ;
MINACCIATE DA GRUPPI INTIFADA

BETLEMME (CISGIORDANIA)

(di Roberto Ferri)

(ANSA) – BETLEMME (CISGIORDANIA), 18 GIU – Il conflitto e le
profonde divisioni tra israeliani e palestinesi hanno fatto
naufragare un’iniziativa volta ad avvicinare i due popoli.

Un concorso di bellezza chiamato ‘Miss Linea Demarcazione’,
aperto a giovani israeliane e della Cisgiordania, e’ di fatto
fallito quando le otto concorrenti palestinesi, tutte di
religione cristiana e residenti del distretto di Betlemme, si
sono ritirate per le minacce ricevute da gruppi dell’Intifada.

Unica araba a partecipare e’ stata Arpy Krikorian, una armena
residente a Gerusalemme est. Il concorso e’ stato vinto infine
da una ragazza ebrea di 17 anni, Ortal Baltiti.

‘Miss Linea Demarcazione’ si e’ svolto a Gilo, un rione
ebraico di Gerusalemme costruito oltre le linee armistiziali in
vigore fino alla Guerra dei sei giorni (1967).

Per i palestinesi Gilo e’ un insediamento colonico, tanto
piu’ inviso in quanto sorto su terre confiscate al vicino
villaggio cristiano di Beit Jala (Betlemme).

Nei primi mesi dell’Intifada, la verdeggiante vallata che
separa Gilo e Beit Jala e’ stata teatro di aspri combattimenti,
che hanno provocato vittime da ambo le parti. Ora sono divisi
fisicamente dalla ‘barriera di separazione’ che Israele sta
edificando in Cisgiordania.

“Il concorso di bellezza era solo un pretesto per parlare di
pace e coesistenza – ha spiegato Adi Nagar, una organizzatrice
della manifestazione – L’obiettivo vero era quello di avvicinare
i palestinesi di Beit Jala e Betlemme agli israeliani di Gilo.
Le due comunita’ sono fisicamente vicine eppure si tengono a
distanza”.

Con il consenso delle famiglie, otto adolescenti palestinesi
si erano iscritte alla competizione. Nei giorni precedenti il
concorso, sette si sono fatte da parte. Alla ottava – Dina
Makhriz, tra le favorite e percio’ indecisa su come
comportarsi – e’ stata la stessa Nagar a consigliare il
forfait.

“Tutte erano state minacciate da sconosciuti. Cosi’ ho detto
a Dina di rimanere a casa. Ho preferito saperla felice assieme
ai genitori piuttosto che vederla sfilare impaurita al nostro
concorso”, ha raccontato Nagar.

A Beit Jala e Betlemme nessuno conferma pubblicamente le
minacce ma e’ convinzione diffusa che le giovani siano state
intimidite da militanti dell’Intifada. Peraltro molti criticano
le famiglie che hanno autorizzato le figlie ad iscriversi alla
gara. “Gilo e’ una colonia, e quelle ragazze hanno commesso un
errore accettando di partecipare a quel concorso di bellezza. I
loro genitori non devono dimenticare che i palestinesi soffrono
a causa dell’occupazione israeliana”, ha esclamato Muna Mahfuz,
una studentessa universitaria di Betlemme.

Per Ortal Baltiti, la miss eletta, la mancata partecipazione
delle ragazze palestinesi “e stata invece un’altra occasione
perduta di dialogo”. “I primi a pagare il prezzo del
conflitto – ha detto la giovane israeliana subito dopo essere
incoronata reginetta di bellezza – siamo proprio noi, i ragazzi
delle due parti, che vogliamo vivere felici, lontano dalla
guerra”.(ANSA).

THE HALO TRUST WARNS

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
18 June 2004

During the first week of June two mine accidents happened in the
territory of Nagorni Karabakh and four people suffered. The first was
on June 3 near the village Meghvadzor, Kashatagh region. Two young
men suffered, Armen Hakobian born in 1964 and Andranik Mossiyan born
in 1982, both from the village Tumi, Hadrout region. Gathering herbs
A. Hakobian stepped on an antipersonnel mine. Wanting to help his
friend A. Mossiyan reached him and also stepped on a PMN-2 mine. One of
them lost his right foot, and the other’s left leg was amputated above
the knee. The second accident happened near the village Myurishen,
Martouni region. Five villagers went for timber in a tractor. On
the way back the antitank mine exploded under the back wheel of
the carrier. Ararat Aroushanian born in 1964 was taken to hospital
with a leg fraction and Davit Avagian born in 1991 received light
injuries. Only in 6 months in 2004 24 people suffered from mines and
unexploded ordnance, of them eight people died. These statistical
data exceed the number of the entire year of 2003 when 21 people
suffered, of them 9 died. Recently often adults become victims of
mines connected with active agricultural works, as well as using
of the territories still not used after the war (hunting, abandoned
vineyards, collecting metals).

AA. 18-06-2004

SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
18 June 2004

For the aim of introducing the system of social security cards and
according to the corresponding articles of the NKR law “On Social
Security Cards” the NKR government made a decision on considering the
NKR Ministry of Social Security as the government-authorized body to
issue social security cards. The authorized bodies implementing works
are the department of health and social security of the Stepanakert
City Hall and the regional services of social security. We talked
to the head of the department of health and social security of the
Stepanakert City Hall Ofelia Grigorian about questions concerning the
system of social security cards. – Mrs. Grigorian, What is a social
card? What is the meaning of introducing the system of social cards? –
The system of social security is in the stage of reforms. For effective
use of resources, improvement of the social sphere certain mechanisms
are required. The system of social security cards is a mechanism. As
a result we expect to simplify the form of application for benefits,
pensions or aid, direct these to only poor families, without paperwork
verify the data in the applications for social benefits and aid,
register the years of service, salaries, social payments of workers,
maintain the size of the life pension according to the social payments,
control the payment of social payments of the employers, which will
enable regular increase of pensions, effective collection of taxes,
increase budget assets by revealing shade economy. The introduction
of cards starts from the interests of conscientious and law-abiding
citizens of our republic. Besides, the social card is a document for
foreign citizens having the right to live and living in NKR, persons
not having citizenship, and persons with the status of refugee. The
meaning of introduction of social card system is the use of the
number of the card, which is unique and unchangeable. In individual
database the number of the social card will be used as a means of
identification of the person due to which the procedure of processing
data and exchange of information by the order maintained by legislation
will be regulated and improved. – Why did the necessity of creating or
introducing the system of social cards occur? – The existing methods
of using the information of the databases of the state governmental
bodies in NKR today do not enable to pass necessary information
efficiently, and the exchange of information through references
causes abuse, on the one hand, and increases the circulation of
non-trustworthy information, on the other hand. The above mentioned
circumstances essentially reduce the effectiveness of work of state
governmental bodies, the addressed implementation of programs, hinder
the adequate implementation of the rights of citizens. The solution
of the above-mentioned problems and other problems related to them
supposes making certain steps by the government in a number of spheres
of life, and in this context a step to be made is introduction of
the modern information technologies, i.e. computerized information
system and the use of an unchangeable, unique and common means
of person identification. – In what cases will the social cards
or their numbers be used? – According to the corresponding law,
they will be used when processing the personal data of the citizens
including payment of salaries, pension provided by governmental and
non-governmental social security programs, benefits, compensation,
and payment of taxes, levies, obligatory social insurance, other
obligatory payments, as well as processing paper databases of the
organizations under the state and municipal governmental bodies.
After the enforcement of the law during the implementation of the
rights and duties of the citizens the number of the social card will
be used in corresponding documents, as well as databases. Those
persons who will not have a social card their documents will not
be considered valid if the number of the social card is not marked
there. – Can the social card be used as a personal identification
document? – The social card is not a personal identification document
and cannot be used as such. On the social card the number of the card,
the name, family name and fatherâ^À^Ùs name of the citizen, the
day, month and year of issuing the card as well as the serial number
of the personal identification document on the basis of which the
social card is issued are marked. – Are there countries where similar
systems are used? – In all the countries with more or less developed
social security systems, such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark,
Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Great Britain, Switzerland, France,
etc, similar systems operate. There are not few countries where the
system has recently been or is being introduced presently. This system
is mainly used in two spheres, social and tax. – How can we receive
the card? – The social card is issued in two ways, through individual
and collective applications. Collective applications are presented
by the offices, enterprises to the departments of social service,
and the individual applications are filled in at the departments.
In 60 days after the application the authorized persons of the office
or enterprise and the citizen personally receive the card presenting
the personal identification document to the department where the
application was presented. For receiving the social card the citizen
does not make any payments.

LAURA GRIGORIAN. 18-06-2004

OP-ED: Solving the Kashmir dispute —Ishtiaq Ahmed

Daily Times, Pakistan
June 20 2004

Controversial collective rights such as the so-called right of
self-determination should not be invoked to destabilise them. It is
not an ordinary principle of international law and was meant to apply
primarily to colonial empires

The contemporary international system is constituted by sovereign
states whose territorial claims are clearly defined, demarcated and
agreed upon in the form of international boundaries. However,
exceptions to the rule exist and the ensuing territorial ambiguity
can result in two or more states laying mutually exclusive claims to
the same territory.

The post-Second World War colonial withdrawals from Asia and Africa
and the collapse of the multinational Soviet and Yugoslavian
political systems have been typical occasions for such disputes to
emerge because the transfer of power, sharing of common resources and
the allocation of territories rarely correspond to the expectations
and ambitions of the contending political entities. The Kashmir
dispute, the Israel-Palestine imbroglio, Cyprus, East Timor, West
Sahara, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Armenia-Azerbaijan are some
cases in point, though each case has its own peculiarities and
dimensions.

Disputes over territories are exacerbated if the contending parties
do not trust each other. In such cases even the prospect of
significant economic ties and interests and help from regional and
international actors cannot resolutely compel them to negotiate a
peaceful and fair solution. This also applies to the India-Pakistan
impasse on Kashmir.

Apart from the legal fictions maintained by both sides, the problems
of identity and self-image complicate matters. India wants to hold on
to Kashmir as an essential feature of its secular-composite national
identity while Pakistan considers its Muslim identity incomplete as
long as Kashmir has not joined it.

Observers have put across several reasonable solutions. But unless
India and Pakistan abandon the combative nationalist mindset no
progress on the issue is likely. War is not an alternative. Three
full-scale and one confined war have been tried in 56 years but to no
avail. Neither side can win a war even when it has the advantage of
surprise. Both are likely to inflict irreparable damage on each
other. Consequently no zero-sum approach or ‘winner takes all’
solution is going to succeed.

The UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite have failed to work.
Since they are under Ch VI of the Charter, they require the
contending parties to agree to UN mediation. India has ruled out any
such possibility.

The third option of an independent Kashmir has no serious takers
among the Indian and Pakistani establishments. One can also wonder if
indeed the overall security concerns of India and Pakistan will
lessen if a weak state emerges in this volatile region bordering
Afghanistan, Iran and central Asia. Indeed, such a state could well
increase the sense of insecurity and set in motion another round of
confrontational politics between the two states. An independent state
will also be opposed tooth and nail by the Hindus and Buddhists on
the Indian side.

Similarly, the idea that Kashmir should be partitioned along
religious lines is a non-starter. The Muslims of Jammu and the Shia
minority of Ladakh would have their own reasons for opposing it. The
former would be left behind in India and become an even smaller
minority. They would thus be precariously placed and would very
likely face the anger of militant Hindus who would hold them
responsible for India losing much of its Kashmir to Pakistan.

Such a situation is already faced by Indian Muslims who stayed behind
in India after Partition. The Shias only have to look at the way
their sect is being targeted by terrorists in Pakistan. Neither the
Pakistani fundamentalists nor the Kashmiri militants present a
tolerant and peaceful image of Islam. It is futile to believe that
the spread of a terrorist political culture in the garb of freedom
struggle will impress the world or deter the Indian state.

There is also the proposal that the Kashmir Valley should be made
independent. The tiny but very vocal Kashmiri pandits who have been
driven away by the militants and now live in camps in Jammu and Delhi
would oppose any such idea. Also, India will never agree to grant
self-determination on the basis of religious differences.

Under the circumstances, the only workable solution is to convert the
Line of Control into a soft border with India and Pakistan retaining
sovereignty on their respective sides. The idea of a soft border
should be understood as a series of measures aiming to provide
substantial autonomy to the various sub-regions on both sides. Such
an approach would require both states to withdraw or at least
drastically reduce the number of troops stationed on both sides of
the Line of Control. Kashmiris on both sides should be permitted to
move freely across the border though without the automatic right to
settle on the other side.

But solving the Kashmir dispute is impossible without India and
Pakistan agreeing to a comprehensive peace and cooperation agreement.
The Kashmir issue is not the cause but a symptom of a deeper mistrust
between India and Pakistan. The two sides have to appreciate the fact
that they are two sovereign states and that is a settled fact of
history.

Under the circumstances, controversial collective rights such as the
so-called right of self-determination should not be invoked to
destabilise them. It is not an ordinary principle of international
law and was meant to apply primarily to colonial empires.

One may rhetorically argue that India is an imperialist Hindu state
or Pakistan heads a worldwide Islamic expansionist movement. But the
fact remains that the United States and other Western states remain
the real determiners of international economic and political
policies.

Therefore instead of wasting time on mutual recrimination and hostile
propaganda India and Pakistan should close ranks and along with the
other players in South Asia try to develop robust economic and social
ties. That is the only way this region can justly claim respect and
admiration from the rest of the world.

To recap the main arguments, the Kashmir dispute is a social
construction deriving from conflicting nationalist ambitions and
ideologies; it can be solved if we transcend the conflicting
nationalist agendas; both states need to confer maximum autonomy on
their Kashmiri citizens, including their right to interact with one
another legally and freely.

It is most important that extremists and militants are weeded out
from the whole of South Asia and especially from Kashmir. Similarly
India should withdraw its security forces and allow democracy to take
its own course as stipulated within Article 307 of the Indian
constitution.

The author is an associate professor of Political Science at
Stockholm University. He is the author of two books. His email
address is [email protected]

All hail Kerko, king of the billion dollar buyout
By Richard Siklos (Filed: 20/06/2004)

The Telegraph, UK
June 20 2004

Ace Greenberg, the legendary former head of investment bank Bear
Stearns, once admonished a colleague who questioned the wily ways
of Kirk Kerkorian: “Don’t ever tell Babe Ruth how to hold his bat.”
(Translation for UK relevance: “Don’t tell Becks how to lace his
boots”.)

In an age of wannabes and poseurs, when it comes to power-broking
mastery, Kerkorian is the real deal – the Warren Buffett of buyouts.
This week, in what ought to be the gloaming of his career (he’s 87),
he’s in the midst of wangling his biggest trade yet – getting out
of one fantastically glamorous but sometimes spivvy industry while
beefing up in, well, another fantastically glamorous but sometimes
spivvy industry.

Kerkorian is on the verge of selling the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie
studio to a venture between Sony and two private equity groups for
$5bn (£2.7bn), not counting a $1.4bn tax-free dividend cheque he
banked from the company last month.

Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corporation paid $1.3bn for MGM in 1996 and –
get this – this would mark the third time since 1969 he has bought
and sold the place (first to Ted Turner, then to Carlo Paretti),
making buckets of cash each time.

Meanwhile, last Wednesday, his MGM Mirage hotel and casino company
sealed a deal to pay $4.8bn for the Mandalay Resort Group, the Las
Vegas-based company. The confluence of these deals is a bit of a
coincidence, given that Kerkorian has been trying to unload MGM for
a while, and has been gobbling up properties on the Las Vegas strip
for years. But you’ve still got to admire the octogenarian’s sheer
audacity.

As a result of the Mandalay purchase, Kerkorian will be the biggest
casino boss in Vegas history – bigger than Bugsy Seagal, bigger than
Howard Hughes, bigger than Steve Wynn, whose renowned Bellagio resort
he swallowed up four years ago in a hostile takeover.

In total, Kerkorian will preside over 11 casino resorts on the famed
strip alone, including the Mirage, Excalibur and Luxor. Kerkorian’s
empire would also include 17 other gambling halls in Nevada, other
corners of the US, and Australia. His MGM Grand resort is already
the biggest venue in Vegas, but if the Mandalay deal passes muster
with regulators he’ll control more than half the hotel rooms and 40
per cent of the slot machines in town. As one wag put it in a local
Las Vegas paper: “It gives them the ability to cater to everyone,
from Joe Six Pack to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.”

As far as MGM the movie studio goes, did you catch its last cinematic
blockbuster? Me neither, but that’s because the studio has produced a
lot more forgettable duds than mega-hits. Its main success has been
the James Bond series and a string of low-budget, sequel-friendly
releases such as Jeepers Creepers and Barbershop. But the value of MGM
apparently lies in the vault of 4,000 old movies, including The Wizard
of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Rocky and Annie Hall, that are expected
to have new legs in this age of re-mastered DVDs and video-on-demand.

“Kirk is not a Hollywood person, he’s a money person,” fellow
billionaire David Geffen recently told Variety magazine. “He’s a
businessman, he’s not nostalgic and sentimental.”

Kerko (as he was known) was born in Fresno, California, to a family
of raisin farmers, and his life followed a fairly epic path from
there including dropping out of school at 13, a stint as a captain
in the Royal Air Force during World War II – he ferried planes back
and forth from Canada – and a successful career as a prizefighter
with the nickname “Rifle Right”.

Apparently he queues for movies and has never ordered up a private
screening of one of MGM’s movies. Although he never gives interviews,
Kerkorian’s friends and executives take pains to point out that rather
than being a Howard Hughes-esque recluse, he just couldn’t care less
about publicity. His top managers bash the tennis ball with him on
weekends at his Beverly Hills mansion. His company’s odd title is an
amalgam of his daughters’ names – Tracy and Linda. Worth around $6bn
he’s given some $150m to various causes in Armenia, but adamantly
refused invitations to have boulevards, airports and schools there
named after him.

In the business world, there are few destinations that have emptied
more pocketbooks and broken more dreams than Vegas and Hollywood. As if
conquering them wasn’t enough, who can forget Kerkorian’s bold play to
take over the automaker Chrysler in the 1990s? Even more entertaining
has been his ongoing $3bn lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler over the
1998 merger that created the auto giant.

The billionaire testified in a Detroit court in February that he
was deceived by DaimlerChrysler chairman Juergen Schrempp’s public
statement that it would be a “merger of equals”. (German executives
from the Daimler side ended up dominating the top jobs, but the
company has dismissed his claim as frivolous.) When DaimlerChrysler
lawyers tried to point out that Kerkorian, then Chrysler’s biggest
shareholder, hadn’t even read the deal’s final prospectus before
backing the merger, Kerkorian exploded in court: “I looked at the
merger as honest. We didn’t look in every nook and cranny for deceit,
but it was there.” A verdict in that case is expected this fall.

So what makes King Kirk run? No one can really say. Maybe he’s just
trying to save up a little for his retirement.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Real tragedy is refusal to call this genocide
By KATE SMITH

The Scotsman, UK
June 20 2004

AFTER the horrors of the Holocaust, Winston Churchill called it
“a crime without a name”. Now we know these acts of mass murder and
destruction as genocide.

What can it possibly matter to the families destroyed by the violence
and persecution in Sudan how the West categorises their suffering
and loss?

‘The problem is not in detection but in the world’s political will’

It matters for two reasons. Firstly, determining a genocide triggers
the 1948 UN International Convention of the Prevention and Punishment
of Genocide, which compels the member states to intervene. Secondly,
it starts the collection of evidence for any subsequent prosecution
of perpetrators.

Raphael Lemkin coined genocide in 1944, and the key phrase of the UN
convention is “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group”. This includes killing, bodily or
mental harm, preventing births, immiseration and forcibly transferring
children.

It seems beyond doubt that the actions of the Janjaweed Arab militias
against the Christian and Animist of Darfur constitute genocide,
but why does the West delay and resist naming Sudan as genocide?

The world has been here before. Bill Clinton has said that one of
the greatest mistakes of his presidency was in not declaring Rwanda
genocide. In 1998, Clinton tried to explain America’s failure to
respond to the tragedy by saying the speed and extent of the murders
were just not appreciated by Washington DC.

But here again, 10 years later and 1,000 miles north of Rwanda, a
different group of world leaders resists involvement by obfuscation
and deliberation over declaring a genocide.

George W Bush’s hesitation, it must be acknowledged, is influenced
by his military commitments elsewhere. Estimates are that 10,000
peacekeepers would be needed to end the genocide in southern Sudan.

The tragedy is made all the worse because genocide is both predictable
and preventable. Genocide takes organisation and preparation. The
business of preparing for genocide inevitably leaves a paper trail
of military correspondence, invoices and purchase orders.

General Romeo Dallaire, UN chief of staff in Rwanda, learned of plans
for the genocide three months before it began and requested extra
peacekeepers when he discovered training camps and massive shipments
of machetes arriving in Rwanda.

His reports to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations drew
the response that his request exceeded the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Rwanda’s mandate and the peacekeepers that were in the
country were subsequently withdrawn.

Dallaire has since said that even those 2,800 withdrawn troops could
have saved hundreds of thousand of lives.

This failure of the international community to declare and intervene
explains why there are still genocides. The problem is not in
detection but in the political will of the global public and the
world’s leaders. The world has not developed the international
institutions needed to prevent it.

Sudan underlines the need for reform of the international
institutions. The UN Security Council needs a strong independent
early-warning system to predict genocide and to advise the Security
Council on options for prevention.

The UN also needs a standing professional rapid-response force that
does not depend on member governments’ military contributions. There
could also be agreement from the permanent five members of the Security
Council that no member will exercise their right of veto when genocide
prevention is needed.

The massacres in Sudan show once again the failure to take decisive
action and demonstrate clearly that effective mechanisms to prevent
or halt massive acts of violence still do not exist.

As for the lack of political will, it is a phenomenon of genocide
that it is surrounded by silence. It is what the perpetrators hope
for and have come to expect.

By failing to define it as genocide, the denial and silence of the
international community gives the perpetrators the space they need
to commit their crimes with impunity.

Eight hundred thousand people were killed in Rwanda in the first six
weeks. Some sources now estimate a million are dead in Darfur. Unless
we act, protest and lobby our politicians, we are all complicit in
the silence.

After all, Adolf Hitler told his army commanders to plan the genocide
of the Polish nation with the justification of “Who still talks
nowadays about the Armenians?”

Kate Smith is a Fellow of the Yale University Genocide Studies
Program. Her book, End of Genocide, is published by Praeger early
next year

Investors shore up country
By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer

Los Angeles Daily News, CA
June 20 2004

GLENDALE — Foreign investors, many with roots in Armenia, are pumping
millions of dollars into their homeland to build housing, hotels,
roads and businesses.

American-Armenian billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, CEO of MGM Grand, has
committed $172 million to renovate 275 miles of highways, tunnels and
bridges in Armenia and streets in the capital of Yerevan, as well as
museums and theaters, through his Lincy Foundation.

Argentinian-Armenian Eduardo Eurnekian, who operates 33 airports
across South America, owns a company that took over the country’s only
airport in 2002. Construction of a new terminal began this month and
the airport will meet international standards by the completion of
the $42 million project.

New Jersey developer Vahak Hovnanian has bought 62 acres of land
20 minutes outside Yerevan to build an $80 million mini-city of 500
single-family homes, including time shares, a shopping mall, school,
sports complex and golf course — the only one in the Caucasus.

Foreign investment in Armenia grew 21.7 percent in the first quarter
of this year compared with the same period last year, according to
the National Statistics Service.

Part of the attraction is wanting to help the country, said Glendale
resident Savey Tufenkian, who along with husband Ralph and brother
Kosti Shirvanian is investing $12 million to purchase and renovate
the Ani Hotel.

“We had investments here, the stock market was high, we knew nothing
about hotels and we had no motive other than helping our country,”
she said. “They need us badly.”

Tufenkian’s Ani Hotel now employs 200 Armenians, and it is that type
of investment that the country needs more of, she said.

Owners of a successful local waste company, Shirvanian and her brother
were aware they would not make a profit for a while, and that if they
did, the money would be re-invested in building schools in Armenia.

“I believe in education, and I believe education is the most important
thing in Armenia — if we don’t educate our children, we are not
going to get ahead,” Tufenkian said.

Tufenkian is right, according to international trade specialist Ellen
House, who said Armenia is different from other former Soviet countries
because it has an educated population.

“Armenia does have things that some of the other developing countries
stuck in the cycle of debt don’t have: a literate, educated population
and some industries — the hallmarks of developed, industrialized
countries,” House said.

Tufenkian recounted how U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Harry Gilmore
once told her that Armenia, unlike other former Soviet countries,
is blessed with its diaspora — its scattered foreign population —
that continues to donate, invest and vacation in the country.

Armenians who have become successful in countries outside Armenia
not only invest in the new country but also have demonstrated strong
lobbying power — all essential to the country’s future.

“If they can get a start with investments from the diaspora community
and they have greater stability there and the economy gets better,
other companies will follow,” House said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress