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In This Issue:
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Fact of the Week:
Azerbaijan’s diplomatic missions around the world, including in Washington, D.C., will set up polling stations on October 15 for Azerbaijanis living abroad to vote in the Presidential election. Polls will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
For more information,
please call (202) 337-5912
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Azerbaijan’s Presidential Election Campaign Kicks Off
The following is excerpted from an article by Vladimir Socor posted on the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor on Sept. 23, 2008:
 “Azerbaijan’s presidential election campaign opened officially on September 17 and will run until October 14, the day before the balloting. President Ilham Aliyev, in office since 2003, is set to win a second term of five years, on the strength of economic growth at world-record rates in Azerbaijan (exceeding 30 percent) and his indisputably high popularity rating.
Veteran opposition leaders and their respective parties, fixtures of all post-1991 elections…are staying out of this presidential election. Their unprecedented decision to bow out amounts to a tacit admission of being overtaken by the country’s political and economic changes.
The election is a pluralist one despite the veteran opposition’s abstentions. Six candidates are running against the incumbent president as well as against each other for second place.
In a joint statement, PACE and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office of Democratic Institution and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) have welcomed Azerbaijan’s decision to invite a large number of international observers to the election.
The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) registered the last two presidential candidates on September 13, ahead of the electoral campaign’s September 17 official start. A minimum of 40,000 signatures from registered voters were required for registration of a presidential candidate by the CEC.
President [Ilham] Aliyev warned local officialdom, repeatedly and publicly, against tampering with the vote count during the 2003 presidential election and 2005 parliamentary elections and again this year.
Public confidence in Aliyev’s policies and his likely re-election rest on three main factors: First, the president’s consistently pro-Western orientation, particularly with regard to oil and gas development and exports; second, the opposition leaders’ lackluster political records and lack of convincing alternative program; and, third, the steady improvement in the conduct of electoral campaigns in Azerbaijan in recent years.”
Azerbaijani Photographer Showcases Work
at National Geographic
 The National Geographic Society will exhibit a collection of photographs from Azerbaijan taken by photographer Rena Effendi.
Part of the “All Roads Film Project,” the exhibit was selected as one of four photography projects to be on display in different parts of the United States. Effendi’s subject is “Khinaliq Village: A Staircase to the Sky 2003–2006.”
Effendi describes an encounter with a shepherd in the remote village of Khinaliq in the northern area of Azerbaijan:
“He said, pointing down the hill: ‘If you dig a hole right through, you will see seven layers of burial ground. Here, this land breathes with history.’ This village of nearly a thousand shepherd families was built into the side of a mountain, each house made of river stone, one upon the other, forming a staircase to the sky. Because of its remoteness, Khinaliq has still managed to preserve its ancient way of life,” Effendi says.
Born in 1977 in Baku, Effendi has been involved in photography since 2001. She has won several photography awards, including the Fifty Crows International Fund for Documentary Photography, a Getty Images editorial photography grant, and the Giacomelli Memorial Fund award. In 2007, she was selected as a finalist for the Magnum Photos Inge Morath award and chosen by Photo District News magazine as one of 30 emerging photographers. Her work has been published in Le Monde, Le Figaro, Newsweek magazine, the International Herald Tribune, and other outlets.
The exhibit will first appear in Los Angeles from Sept. 25-28 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Egyptian Theatre Courtyard at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard. It then moves to Washington, D.C., where it can be seen Oct. 2-5 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the National Geographic Society at 1600 M Street N.W. Admission is free at both venues.
All Roads is a National Geographic initiative created to provide an international platform for artists to share their cultures, stories, and perspectives through the power of film and photography.
Azerbaijan to Mark World Tourism Day
 Guides will conduct sightseeing tours of Baku and museums will open their doors free of charge to mark World Tourism Day in Azerbaijan.
Spearheaded by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, guides will conduct two-hour tours on Sept. 26 for foreign tourists and students. On Sept. 27, a conference that brings together representatives from local and foreign tourism agencies and the World Tourism Organization will be held in Baku. Also on Sept. 27, all museums in Baku will hold an “Open Door” day offering free admission.
Azerbaijan has focused efforts to bolster its tourism industry. Hundreds of new restaurants, as well as hotels ranging from small inns to gleaming five-star resorts have opened in recent years across the country. Improved infrastructure such as roads makes it easy for people to travel throughout the Caspian Sea country, roughly the size of the state of Maine. And the service industry has been vastly improved with English and many other languages spoken widely across the country by a talented emerging workforce of hotel and restaurant personnel that imparts Azerbaijan’s legendary commitment to hospitality.
Since 1980, September 27 has been celebrated as World Tourism Day. It was established at the Third Session of the United Nations World Tourism Organization General Assembly in Torremolinos, Spain, in September of 1979. The purpose of the day is to display the importance of tourism to the international community.
Azerbaijan Eyes Expanding Reserve Capacity
 The government of Azerbaijan ordered banking officials to start a feasibility study for the construction of a new petrochemical facility for Caspian reserves, UPI Energy reported this week.
President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree mandating the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic conduct studies to build a new gas refinery to handle Caspian reserves by 2012, the article said.
The complex will replace facilities in Baku constructed under the former Soviet Union. Included in the project are plans for oil and gas refineries with the capacity to produce around 670 million barrels of oil and about 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year.
The gas refinery is expected to come online by 2012, with the oil refinery following in 2018.
In related developments, SOCAR said Friday it launched a refurbishment project at its underground gas storage facilities to increase their holding capacity.
The two-year reconstruction project will boost the holding capacity for natural gas by 81 million cubic meters beyond its current capacity of about 1.7 billion cubic meters.
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