Laetti.de - musiCOWscience: November 2005

Thanks to the old aunt BBC... (press review about Azerbaijjan part I)

Because the BBC is the backbone of the coverage in Western media about Azerbaijan. The transcript of the last weeks reads like an escalation:

Analysis of the situation:

BBC NEWS | Europe | Azeri poverty fuels rise of Islam

Finally New York Times is covering the topic as well:

Police Break Up Peaceful Demonstration in Azerbaijan - New York Times

Please note: This press review is primarily to keep track in my University studies and is NOT a whatsoever statement about the situation.

Veranstaltungstipp: Türkei und EU, Hamburg

Ein kleiner deutscher Aussetzer in meinem sonst so englischen Blog:
Morgen abend läd unter anderem die Türkische Gemeinde in Deutschland in die Werkstatt 3, Nernstweg in Altona, um über "Die Türkei auf dem Weg zur EU-Mitgliedschaft" zu diskutieren.

Tükei in die EU - aber nicht mehr nach dem Schweiz-Spiel!" hat die Front der Beitrittsgegner neues Futter bekommen. Aber um polemisch zu bleiben: Die Schweiz ist kein EU-Mitglied.

Ob ich tatsächlich hingehe, weiß ich trotzdem noch nicht, immerhin ist morgen abend auch Nick Hornby in der Stadt, gleich unter unserem Büro...

... und außerdem soll im KdW eine Diskussion über das Nazi-Konzert (Mopo und Indymedia berichteten) stattfinden...

Angela Merkel is chancellorette

So, this is my first blog entry after Angela Merkel is finally elected the first female chancellor of Germany. For all readers whose languages don't include "Umlauts" like ö this means: We Germans don't torture you anymore with an un-pronounciable name like Gerhard Schröder, whose name had two veritable stumbling blocks, if not three. Is it a coincidence that this happens exactly 15 years after Maggie Thatcher resigned (1990/11/22)? No. As one commentator stated yesterday: "Maggie Thatcher couldn't stand women surrounding her in the political business, Angela Merkel is actively drawing women to the inner circle around her. But of course there is parallels. Both women share a background in the applied sciences, Angela Merkel as a doctor in Physics, Thatcher in Chemistry. Enough for now.

Addendum: Maggie Thatcher "graduated from Somerville college, Oxford, with a 2:2 degree classification, and worked as a research chemist for British Xylonite and then J. Lyons and Co., where she helped develop methods for preserving ice cream. She was a member of the team that developed the first soft frozen ice cream." (en.wikipedia.org)

Nothing new in Azerbaycan?

My research is getting finer after I skipped through the news of the last two weeks. The best links about Azerbaijan, the elections and everything I seemed to detain by now, it's the AzerNEWS - which isn't the real no. 1 English newspaper as it's claiming to be, but which has for sure the best style and layout. And the New Eurasia Blog whose analysis and roundup of the situation is much more pointed. Shorter but better to the detail as well.

... and the Greens are talking about the weather...

It's snowing outside. From Indian Summer to "icecold winterland" in less than 2 weeks. Germany's had the longest Indian Summer I remember - if there ever has been sth. like this here, especially in Hamburg. Now it's my first winter with an off-peak storage heating - and I need a relieable weather page to adjust the heating at least 1 1/2 days beforehand. Here I finally found a page with all the current Hamburg weather - now I have to find a better forecast as well as I didn't think of snow before friday...

Four pages about post-poll Azerbaijan

Seems like there's a lot going on after the election in Azerbaijan. Even though the German media is quite silent about it. But those three pages seem to have done an in-depth report:

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting based in London is having a special about it. There you can get endless informations - from parties participating to the opposition demonstrating on wednesday. In other words - it could be more up-to-date, but it's purpose is not to be on the lead of the last newspiece but to give well-researched background information.
Reporters sans frontiers allege the media coverage of the election and the campaign was nothing but unfair. There's seven occurences documented from august till the aftermath of the vote, journalists have been intimidated and beaten, among others.
... while RadioFreeEurope acknoledges, that the Opposition "Candidates Benefited From More Media Access". Admittedly constraint by the way the state-controlled media gave account of the opposition parties.
But the best and really stunningly detailed overview about all aspects of the election is to be read at Eurasia.net with journalistic claim and a real staff (editors, reporters, information supply...). They are havign a
Questions & Answers feature (with Urdur Gunnarsdottir, spokesperson of the OSZE, and spokespersons of the President and the opposition leaders). Really, really stunning.

Press reviews on the elections from inside Azerbaijan

Press reactions from inside Azerbaijan:

Azerbaycan is the official organ of the parliament and the state, here you can find every detail of the official announcements and statements. The election is widely covered, newest entry: Vladimir Putin sent his congratulations on the phone.

The Zaman qezeti, Azerbaycan (translated: Time gazette, Azerbaijan) is having the OSZE accusations on the title, but is mirroring the official announcement almost unaffected "Neqativ halları şişirtməyə dəyməz". Roughly translated: "The negativ status is neither summing up not affecting us".
Zaman is a pretty pan-turkic daily newspaper.

Yeni Azərbaycan gazeti is named exactly as the leading party behind Ilham Aliyev, but I don't know whether it's the official or in-official gazete behind it. His party is called Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyasi - The New Azerbaijan Party - and was founded by his father Heydar Aliyev in 1992.

The official page of the national election commission of Azerbaijan: Markasi Secki Komissiyasi

Something about transparent elections I didn't translate by now.

And the Ekspress - finally a newspaper that isn't chewing the same cud as everybody else.

So far on the first glimpse...

No fair elections in Azerbaijan?

"It pains me to report that progress noted in the pre-election period was undermined by significant deficiencies in the count" said Alcee L. Hastings, coordinator of the election-observers and President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in his press release after the elections in Azerbaijan.

Azer-what? Azerbaijan is a former-soviet republic on the (geographically speaking) far eastern end of Europe in the Caucasus. It's rich with petrol and history, and that first topic might be the main reason why especially the British media has covered it widely over the last weeks. A holding of BP has rented half of the country, or, more precise, most of the sea as most of the natural resources of Azerbaijan is at the shores of the Caspian Sea. More details on Azerbaijan in general might follow later, and I'll post an English press review as soon as I find the time. The president is elected every two years. Since his father Heydar Aliyev died almost two years ago, the son Ilham Aliyev is in charge. We've travelled to Azerbaijan in 2002 when Heydar Aliyev was still president. He had the reputation of a cunning fox - whitty and tricky, with good connections to Moscow as well as London and Washington. The move in which he made his son his successor was close to scandal, but had only minor affects on the country's situation towards it's European allys and trading partners. This time the OSZE monitored the elections in a long-term "election observation mission". In the official result the leading Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyasi - The New Azerbaijan Party - is the clear winner. Let's see what the big report says in a couple of weeks...

Iyi Bayramlar

So much to blog about, so little time... as you catch me between work and private life, just heading to Rachel's birthday. The flickr album is recently updated, as it easily works as a moblog without much typing while I'm busy with my work at DY1. More sooner or later, greetings to all Turkish friends who celebrate the end of Ramadan with seker bayrami (sorry, no Turkish cases as I don't have an html editor at hand for then special characters).