You were right, Elizabeth!

In early June of 2004, I got a call from Elizabeth Brackett, our NewsHour correspondent in Chicago, and a longtime friend.  “Hey!  Let me do a story on Barack Obama.  He’s running for Senate, and you’ve never seen anything like this guy!  He’s phenomenal.  Axelrod is running his campaign, and he can get me the interviews.”

We knew David Axelrod from his days as a political columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and knew he had good political sense.  I was convinced, but my bosses wouldn’t buy a story on an unknown Illinois Senate candidate.  One month later, when Obama was asked to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Elizabeth called me again.  This time, I was able to give her the thumbs up!  She produced a good story with local voices, including that of wife, Michelle.  I’m sure it was the first television story about Barack Obama to air nationally, and we positioned it in the NewsHour’s convention coverage just before he delivered his speech.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Being there first also helped us secure the first interview with Obama immediately after he left the convention podium.  It kind of made us look like we knew what we were doing.  And so, Elizabeth, thanx and a hat tip!

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

One of the attractions of coming to Baku was the chance to add some new voices to the television airwaves given Azerbaijan’s reputation for restricting the media.  Now we’ve learned that, come January, there will be fewer voices on the radio. 

The BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, have lost their FM frequencies by order of Nushirvan Magerramli, Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council.  

Magerramli

“Azerbaijan is not interested in foreign radios on its national frequencies,” he said.  Locally-originating broadcasts will stop by the end of the year.  They could continue broadcasting by satellite or cable.  Magerramli pointed out that, over the past few years, Russian and Turkish-owned televisions stations, as well as French and Russian radio, also have lost their frequencies.

Terry Davidson, the spokesman for the US Embassy in Baku said he’s seeking clarification of the order.  He said foreign broadcasts contribute “greatly to enriching the space for public debate and understanding.”  The US Broadcasting Board of Governors, a quasi-independent agency which supports VOA and RFE/RL, said it “strongly objects” to the action.  One board member called it a “disturbing pattern” of action taken against private media ownership in Azerbaijan.  

However, Ilgar Mamedov, one of the Azerbaijan government’s most vocal critics, believes the decision could be reversed.”  I think this announcement is just a declaration of intentions and under the US pressure the Azerbaijani authorities will have to reject their decision.  But if they come to execute their threat, these radio stations will pass to short and medium waves like in the Soviet times and will continue broadcasting in Azerbaijan.”

Reporters Without Borders has sent a letter of appeal to President Ilham Aliyev, and asking him to intervene.

Stay tuned!

Exclusive video report: Shopping the gaunlet!

Roberta and I thought dinner with Fariz and his wife on Saturday night would be at a downtown Baku restaurant.  Instead, we were treated to a home cooked meal at the home of his parents and soon-to-be-married sister. Dinner with the family has become a tradition for visiting foreigners who Fariz brings to Baku to train diplomats at the ADA’s Advanced Foreign Service Program.  We ate well, drank homemade fruits juices, and looked at wedding photos.  Fariz’s parents held us riveted with stories of the Soviet Union collapse, and the extremely difficult economic times that followed in Azerbaijan.  As a ten-year old, Fariz would wake every morning at 5:00 to wait in line 3 hours to get bread.  At the end of the evening, Fariz’s father showed us his well-kept backyard garden, and pulled two pomegranates from a tree for us to take home.  It was a very warm and special evening.

Another glorious day in Baku and, after we were treated to lunch by Khazar and his wife at a popular Turkish restaurant, Roberta and I wandered over to the Old City, and into the rug shop that was the focus of VFB’s most popular video to date.  We were treated to the same presentation, and came close to making a purchase, but did not.  However, I think it’s inevitable before I leave.

And now, a VFB consumer investigation!  Well, more of a tour of a most unlikely shopping “mall.”  I wandered down into Besh Mertebe when I first arrived in Baku, and wondered if I ever was going to get out!  It was extremely claustrophobic with no air ventilation.  Today, I returned with Roberta and, having traversed the gauntlet once, it was a bit more fun!

Roberta was startled by the number of stores below, and above, ground that sell only black shoes and black boots.  No other colors!  Khazar said Besh Mertebe will close in a few weeks for renovations to meet health and safety standards.  Of course, that may rid the underpass of some of its charm and, probably, raise prices as well!

 

 

The Home Stretch!

I‘ll be home in three weeks but, just this week alone, I missed Vanessa’s last high school soccer game, Halloween, and the climax of the fall foliage season.  However, Roberta is here, and I can’t remember a more spectacular day in Baku since I arrived!  This morning, we went to the Old City, and climbed to the top of Maiden’s Tower, Baku’s most popular tourist site.  According to Baku legend, the 115-foot tower was built by the ruler of the Shirvan dynasty in the 6th or 7th century at the request of his daughter whom he wanted to marry. Once completed, the princess climbed to the top and jumped to her death in the Caspian Sea.  Today, however, Roberta and I simply enjoyed the view.

This afternoon, Roberta was the guest at a luncheon of the new Azerbaijan Women’s Diplomatic Club.  Several of the women will be heading to embassy posts in other countries. 

Program note:  The Doha Debates on BBC World News (all times Eastern.\

Saturday, November 1: 11:10am, 4:10pm, and 8:10pm

Sunday, November 2: 7:10am, 12:10pm, and 3:10pm.

The 87%-13% vote against John McCain at the debate we attended this week was the largest margin ever recorded during the program’s 5-year history.

Meanwhile, our first taping of ADA Majlis is tentatively scheduled for November 14 to air two days later. The focus will be the Baku Energy Summit involving representatives from 15 nations.  There is so much sill to do, including issuing invitations to the presidents of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Georgia, and Turkey, as well as other participants, coordinating a similar energy debate to be recorded in Washington and inserted in our program, researching questions about oil, gas, pipeline, and other geopolitical issues, purchasing couches and tables for our set, technical rehearsals with the crew from ITV, and studio rehearsals with Khazar who never has hosted a television program.  I’ll keep you posted.

Doha Flash!!! It’s not “McCain.”

8:00am, Wednesday morning, Istanbul airport (and just had a surprise Skype visit from Chelsea!)

Last evening in Doha, Tim Sebastian, moderator of The Doha Debates, introduced this motion:

This House believes the Middle East would be better off with JOHN McCAIN in the White House.

After nearly an hour of raucous debate and audience questions, the overflow crowd of 300 voted against the motion, 87% – 13%.  You can watch The Doha Debates at various times this weekend on BBC World, and later on the debate website.

Immediately after, Sebastian, the debate participants, and our small Azerbaijan delegation, gathered at The Four Seasons Hotel for a post-debate dinner.  At midnight, we were off to the airport for our long return to Baku.  

In case you didn’t see Tuesday morning’s edition of Gulf Times, the first English language newspaper in the Persian Gulf, there’s a story about our visit which, as you will see, includes a few comments from yours truly.  It’s the first time I’ve ever been referred to as an “Azeri official.”

Speaking of which…

Khazar, Fariz, and I paid a courtesy call to the Azerbaijan Embassy in Doha before the debate, and visited with Ambassador Eldar Nadir Oglu Salimov, Azerbaijan’s main guy in the Persian Gulf.  It was strange.  Entering the embassy after three days in Doha kind of felt like home.

A few thoughts about Doha.  There’s not much to see except water, camel races, and massive construction.  Qatar has the highest GDP in the world, thanks to vast natural gas deposits.  And the money is being spent quickly on unique high rises, roads, etc.  I was told another 37,000 laborers arrive in Doha each month, mostly from South Asia.  That’s noticeable in a country of only 1.3million, of which only 250,000, or so, are Qatar nationals.

All this time, I have been “burying the lead.”  As I blog, Roberta is flying to Baku by way of London.  She arrives at midnight, a few hours after I do!

Is the Middle East leaning “McCain?”

This House believes the Middle East would be better off with JOHN McCAIN in the White House.

That will be the motion posed to the 300-member audience that will gather tomorrow night for the next edition of The Doha Debates.  It’s the 5-year running “Oxford” style debate program that originates here in Qatar, an island of social moderation in the middle of the Persian Gulf.  A selected panel of partisans from the US and Middle East will debate the motion, and take questions from the audience which, at the conclusion, will vote.  The results will be revealed immediately.  For instance, last month, a motion was introduced which read:

This House believes that progress towards democracy has halted in the Arab world.

The motion carried 64% – 36%.

The Doha Debates will air this weekend on BBC World, a channel available in the US only on a small number of television systems.  Too bad.  Open debate is unusual in the Arab world, and exists here only because former BBC correspondent and Doha Debate moderator, Tim Sebastian, believed Qatar was ripe for the challenge.  After all, this is where Al Jazeera, the first Arab news channel was launched.  Qatar is by no means a “functioning democracy.”  It’s ruled, constitutionally, by the Al Thani family.  However, the family has spearheaded a nationwide education campaign, the crown jewel being Education City, a sprawling, and still developing campus offering students western education through branches of seven US universities including Georgetown, Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon.  It’s all part of the Qatar Foundation which funds The Doha Debates as well.   We sat in on production meetings and rehearsals all day.  I hope to blog the results before we hop on our midnight flight back to Baku, by way of Istanbul, of course.

By the way, The Four Seasons Hotel….

Saturday in Istanbul

 

To get from from Baku to Doha, a crow simply would fly across Iran.  But there are no direct commercial flights, so our travel day on Saturday extended to 21 hours with a connection through Turkey.  However, that did give Fariz, Khazar, and I, a chance to spend several of those hours touring magnificent Istanbul!  Truthfully, we didn’t see much.  We emerged from the metro into a driving rain, bought cheap umbrellas and, within 20 minutes, a new pair of shoes for Fariz.  Still, the streets were lined with open bazaars and spirited shoppers.  And at the far end, Sultanahmet Camii, the famous “Blue Mosque.”  Built in the early 1600s, it is one of Istanbul’s most popular tourist attractions, especially when being outdoors isn’t much of an option.  Once inside, we spent most of our time gazing up at several beautifully-tiled cascading domes. The weather cleared, eventually, allowing us to sit and drink tea while watching oil tankers and cargo ships pass through the Bosphorus Strait.

It was 3:30am “Baku” time when our flight touched down in Doha.  Drivers from both the Azerbaijan embassy and the Four Seasons Hotel met us at the airport.  I went with the hotel driver who told me the heat, finally, broke last week from a high of 120 degrees.  And that’s not a dry heat, either.

Inauguration Day

 

 

46-year old Ilham Aliyev was sworn in, today, to a second five-year term as President of Azerbaijan.  It was a  very low-key affair.  There were no parades, no inauguration balls.  In fact, this is the only photograph I could find online documenting the ceremony.  Aliyev won re-election last week with a reported 89% of the vote.  His election was confirmed by the national court this week and, as dictated by Azerbaijan’s constitution, was inaugurated within three days.  As president, Aliyev will earn a monthly salary of AZN 15,000 ($18,149US). 

International monitors, generally, credited the government for conducting a transparent Election Day process, considering its history of voting abuses.  Nevertheless, they said the presidential campaign, overall, fell short of meeting “democratic ideals,” citing the lack of viable opposition candidates, and a media that paid very little attention to the campaign.

In case you missed it, The New York Times printed a significant overview of Azerbaijan and its geopolitical perils in yesterday’s edition.  There’s even a mention of the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy!

 

 

Destination: Doha

It’s not quite the Russian winter, but it has gotten cold in Baku this week.  No better time to head off for a few days in Doha, Qatar with temperatures this time of year in the mid-80s!  As reported earlier by the VFB, I first contacted the BBC producers of Doha Debates in late summer, told them about the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy and plans for the new Majlis, and they, in turn, invited us to come down and watch their preparations, rehearsal, and next taping Tuesday evening.  The debate will air on BBC World television beginning November 1st.  Even more exciting is the flurry of diplomatic exchanges that has resulted.  

Ridiculously large map!!!

The Qatar Foundation, which created Doha Debates, actively is promoting the debate concept in the Arab world, something the ADA is anxious to do in Azerbaijan.  Qatar now wants to send representatives to Baku in December, and the ADA will take the lead in fielding a team to compete in the World Debating Championships in Qatar in 2010.  Khazar, our moderator, Fariz, the director of ADA’s Advanced Foreign Service Program, leave Saturday morning, and I look forward to blogging, poolside! 

We’re keeping our fingers crossed but we may have found the location to tape the first ADA Majlis.  As the VFB reported, the permanent site won’t be ready by our mid-November target date.  

But on Friday, we’ll meet with the owner of the Mugam Club in Baku’s Old City.  It looks like perfect!

I turned on the television before work this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see a live broadcast of the World Series, complete with Russian play-by-play announcers.  The only words I understood were “Strike Out!”

Rapidly-changing developments!

There was as much good news today as there was bad.  Our broadcast “partners” from ITV, the national public television network, met us at the future site of ADA Majlis, and have me convinced they’ve got the technical abilities to make this work.  However, three weeks away from the target date of our first taping, November 13, and the site doesn’t look much different than it did three weeks ago.  In fact, later in the day, our architect admitted the site probably will not be ready.  The furniture, alone, won’t arrive from Italy until November 15th.

From there, Khazar, our ADA Majlis host-in-waiting, Ambassador Pashayev and I met with Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov, who we had hoped would be our first Majlis guest.

Foreign Minister Mamadyarov

We had a lot of fun talking about the US presidential elections, the chosen topic of our first program, and the minister seemed receptive to our request.  However, he said he couldn’t possibly participate on November 13 because the Azerbaijan government will host a major “energy summit” in Baku that week involving the presidents of Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, ten countries in all, as well representatives from the United States, and dozens of foreign journalists and energy analysts.

And that was the point when the day all fell together!

We, instantly, decided that would be the focus of our first program – debate over Caspian Sea oil and gas, competing pipelines through Russia and Turkey, Europe’s increasing reliance on the region for energy.  What a showcase for Baku, and what an opportunity for Majlis.  Certainly, there will be plenty of participants to invite onto our program.  We’re aiming for a roundtable discussion with several presidents.  That would be impossible to do in the United States, but everyone tells me the rules are different here.  We’ll see.  All we need to do now is find a space near the site of the summit in downtown Baku, and turn it into a Majlis for an evening.