The Voice of Mirza Xazar

Ivan Simic: What Should Be a Definition for a Millionaire?

Millionaires, millionaires, day after day we watch and read about millionaires, actor's millionaires, singer's millionaires, heiress millionaires and others. Every day number of millionaires in the world is rising with incredible speed. This "millionaire" phenomenon became very important in global society, in fact, sometimes millionaires and billionaires are front news before domestic or global issues. In relation, large number of companies, news papers and TV stations are conducting detailed researches on their treasured assets.

But, are they all really millionaires?

A Millionaire, according to encyclopaedia is an individual who resides in a household whose net worth or wealth exceeds one million units of any currency. However, it can also be a person who owns one million units of any currency in cash, bank account or savings account.

The world faced rapid development of global economy from 19th century to today. It came to the point when being a millionaire is not prestige like it was before. Now, there are plenty of millionaires and billionaires around the globe, and because of that they needed a new expression for themselves in order to make a distinction between each others.

As a result, today we have: multimillionaires (net worth of two or more millions), hectomillionaires (net worth of hundred and more millions) and billionaires (net worth of one or more billions). In the past ten years with enormous growth of hectomillionaires and billionaires, millionaires or multimillionaires who have few millions are considered middle-class millionaires; in the contemporary word; they are just not super-rich.

Looking at this report, the World Wealth Report 2007 (the report on individuals with a net worth of at least US$1 million in all assets except their primary residence) - Annual World Wealth Report from Merrill Lynch compiled by Capgemini, we can see that the World's High Net Worth (HNW) population grew to 9.5 million with their assets raised to US$37.2 trillion". Also, Merrill Lynch reports that there are 9.5 million (HNWI) millionaires worldwide, and 95.000 multimillionaires (UHNWI with over US$30 million). In 2007, Forbes Magazine reported that there are 946 billionaires in the world with total accumulated wealth of US$3.5 trillion.

Looking at the private banking, a High Net Worth Individual (HNWI) is a person with a high net worth of US$1 million and plus in investible assets (not including primary assets). An Ultra High Net Worth Individual or Individuals (UHNWI) refers to individuals or families who have at least US$30 million in investible assets.

Therefore, according to definition a millionaire is an individual who owns one million units of any currency. According to private banking a millionaire is a person who owns one million of the US Dollars. However, individuals who have EU€800,000.00 are not counted as millionaires in their country, nobody, including beneficiary bank does not recognize these individuals as millionaires, but if we exchange this amount for the US Dollars, these individuals are becoming millionaires.

So, can this report on the number of the world's millionaires be true?

There is no definition or internationally recognized model for the US Dollar being currency for indentifying (counting) the world's or individuals wealth. Yes, the United States Dollar (USD) has been "de facto" world currency since 20th century, and as of 2007 dollar still has the largest share at 63.3% of foreign reserve holdings; the Euro has some 26.5%.

However, since the year 2000, the Dollar share is falling and the Euro share is rising. As of December 2006, the Euro surpassed the Dollar in the combined value of cash in circulation. The value of the Euro notes in circulation has risen to more than EU€610 billion, equivalent to US$800 billion; therefore, the Euro became the currency with the highest combined value of cash in circulation in the world.

One million of the US Dollars exchanged in other currencies do not always make millionaires. For example: the US$1million on 23 May 2008 at the exchange rate is equivalent to: EU€634,698.99 (Euros), UK £505,114.98 (Pounds), KWD265,450.01 (Kuwait Dinar).

Looking at the above example we can see that a Kuwait Dinar (KWD) is the strongest currency unit, in fact the KWD is the world's highest valued currency unit, and from May 20, 2007 the KWD was re-pegged to a basket of currencies. Yet, a Kuwaiti dinar is not so called "hard currency", is not of very much use outside Kuwait, and is bound to the economy of that country.

On the other hand, the UK Pound and the EU Euro are hard currencies. They are reserve currencies, and currencies with a good buying power which are widely accepted as a reliable store of value. But, we don't see them as a model for counting world wealth.

The US Dollar (USD) is not strongest currency unit, especially not now; even the Cuban Convertible Paso (CUC) and the Azerbaijan Manat (AZN) are stronger than the USD. Therefore, using the USD as the currency unit or a model for identifying millionaires is giving the wrong picture of who is being a millionaire in the world.

It is very simple: companies, that conduct researches and others, should conduct their researches based upon highest valued currency, if not the KWD, then the EU Euro or the UK Pound , still the higher currencies are the higher ones.

Consequently, what should be a definition for a millionaire?

Perhaps: A millionaire is an individual whose net worth of wealth exceeds a sufficient amount of units of any currency when exchanged worth one million units of the world's highest valued currency unit, or the world's highest anchor currency unit. It can also be a person who owns enough units of any currency when exchanged worth one million units of the world's highest valued currency unit, or the world's highest anchor currency unit in cash, bank accounts and savings.

If one person has enough currencies to buy one million of the world's highest valued currency unit, or the world's highest anchor currency unit, than that person should be counted as a millionaire. This way we will only have around hundred billionaires and much less millionaires, and that will make some sense and bring back original meaning of being a millionaire and a billionaire.

Ivan Simic

Belgrade, Serbia

A series of arrests and prison sentences for charges that include terrorism have journalists in Azerbaijan wondering if there is any sort of future for a free press.

Commentary by Karl Rahder for ISN Security Watch (25/05/07)

Increasingly bad news for freedom of expression has recently come out of Azerbaijan, the US' oil-rich ally in the Caspian Sea region, where five journalists have been sentenced to harsh prison sentences in the last few weeks in what critics say is a government campaign to stifle free speech.

Rafiq Tagi, a journalist with the independent newspaper Senet was sentenced on 3 May in Baku, the capital, to a four-year term for “inciting religious hatred,” while his editor Samir Sadagatoglu received a three-year sentence.

The prison terms and prosecution came as a result of a commentary written last November by Tagi entitled “Europe and Us,” which according to press reports compared Muslim societies such as Azerbaijan with historically Christian Europe and concluded that Islam had, on the whole, hindered social and political development.

While this sort of reflective social commentary might be the norm in the West, the outcry from some quarters in secular, Shi’ite Azerbaijan was shrill, with ultra-conservative Muslims in the village of Nadaran calling for the two men’s deaths and the public prosecutor bringing criminal charges against them.

In neighboring Iran, Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani has issued a fatwa calling for the execution of Tagi and his editor, saying on his

website: http://www.lankarani.org/eng/mes/016.html

that “it is necessary for every individual who has an access to him to kill him. The person in charge of the […] newspaper, who published such thoughts and beliefs consciously and knowingly, should be dealt with in the same manner.” Another cleric who lives in the city of Tabriz has reportedly offered his house as a reward for anyone who kills the two men.
The sentence was handed down despite protests from Azerbaijan’s embattled journalistic community, a number of non-governmental organizations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

What emerges from the trials, convictions and physical attacks over the years is an apparent pattern of coordinated assaults against freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. On 27 April, independent journalist Eynulla Fatullayev was convicted of “criminal libel” and “insult” and sentenced to 30 months in prison for allegations he purportedly made having to do with events surrounding the massacre of civilians in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly during the 1992-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Fatullayev’s original article evidently attached some blame for the tragedy to the failure of Azerbaijani military forces to protect the town. But in the furor that followed the article, Fatullayev was charged with libeling the residents of Khojaly.

Fatullayev, perhaps Azerbaijan’s best-known opposition journalist, denies having made libelous comments, but his conviction - and the physical attack on the same day against his colleague Uzeir Jafarov - reminds critics of the government of the price they may be forced to pay when they stray too far from what is acceptable, to both the government and the conservative Shi’ite establishment.

Journalism in Azerbaijan was a high-risk endeavor even before the 2005 murder of Elmar Huseynov, editor of the independent Monitor newspaper, and a friend of Fatullayev’s. It clearly remains a high-risk endeavor.

In October last year, well-known poet and opposition journalist Sakit Zahidov was convicted on charges of illegal possession and use of drugs. The charges were widely believed to be politically oriented, with the arrest coming only three days after Ali Akhmedov, the executive secretary of Azerbaijan's ruling New Azerbaijan Party, called for Zahidov’s arrest for his alleged “slanders” against government officials.

Zahidov’s brother Ganimat happens to be the chief editor of the opposition newspaper Azadlig, which has been a thorn in the side of the government for years and was ejected from its office space in 2006 along with the Turan News Agency and the Popular Front Party.

Last week, Rovshan Karbili - the editor of opposition newspaper Mukhalifat - and reporter Yashar Agazade were sentenced to two and a half years in prison (identical to Fatulayev’s sentence) for libel in connection with an article that accused Jalal Aliyev, an uncle of President Ilham Aliyev, of corruption.

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti expressed “shock” over the sentence in a statement to the press.

"Azerbaijan's relentless persecution of journalists annihilates the security of journalism, a major OSCE commitment," said Haraszti.

The conviction and sentence came less than three weeks after a meeting between Haraszti and President Aliyev, during which the OSCE representative asked the president to halt the persecution of journalists, reminding Aliyev that "Azerbaijan today is the country in the OSCE region with the highest number of journalists in prison […]"

The US embassy in Baku issued a statement after the most recent convictions, saying that the imprisonment of seven journalists in toto in Azerbaijan "is part of a trend of pressure - including violence, threats and libel cases - that runs counter to Azerbaijan's stated commitment to media freedom. Journalists in democratic countries are not imprisoned for exercising freedom of expression. We urge the Azerbaijani government to remove libel from the criminal code and to take steps to create the necessary conditions for media freedom."
In 2005, Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that monitors democratic development, downgraded Azerbaijan from "partly free" to "not free."

Finally, on 21 May, authorities closed down the offices of Fatullayev’s newspaper Real Azerbaijan as well as another opposition paper, the Azerbaijan Daily, two of the most popular newspapers in the country. While the government says the closure was due to maintenance and fire safety issues, no other tenants in the building were evicted. And as of 23 May, Fatullayev faces additional charges of "making a terrorist threat," a development that could extend his prison term for many years.

The independent media are being all but shut down in Azerbaijan. The terrorism charges against Fatullayev and the stiff sentences handed out for a harmless editorial and criticism of a member of the president’s family send a message to the press that the confines for freedom of expression in Azerbaijan are becoming more circumscribed.

It is hard to imagine that the remaining opposition newspapers such as Azadlig will tone down their editorial coverage, although independent television network ANS is perceived by many to have done just that since it was allowed back on the air last year after a brief closure. The atmosphere in the country has certainly chilled in over the course of the past couple of weeks, and the government now will have to decide if it has communicated the new rules with sufficient clarity or whether more arrests are in the offing.

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Karl Rahder has taught US foreign policy and international history at colleges and universities in the US and Azerbaijan. In 2004, he was a Visiting Faculty Fellow in Azerbaijan with the Civic Education Project, an academic program funded by the Soros Foundations and the US Department of State. He is currently based in Chicago.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

URL: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=17659

Civil Society:
Joanna Lillis: 4/03/07

A fatal clash between ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Chechens in a village in south-eastern Kazakhstan has raised questions about whether the country’s much-touted ethnic harmony is under threat, and whether socio-economic tensions are endangering stability in this booming state.

The unrest began March 17 with a fight over a game of billiards and ended with an attack on the house of a Chechen family that left five dead. Eyewitnesses say violence broke out in the village of Malovodnoye, about 80 kilometers east of Almaty, when Takhir Makhmakhanov, an ethnic Chechen from the neighboring village of Kazatkom, refused to concede defeat to his rival, Baurzhan Salimbayev, an ethnic Kazakh. After the two came to blows, Salimbayev left the billiards hall, but was chased by Makhmakhanov, who ran into him in a jeep and broke his leg, then shot him in the other leg.

The following day, Salimbayev went to the Makhmakhanov family home in the neighboring village with a convoy of some 50 carloads of supporters that besieged the house. Eyewitnesses say shots were fired from inside. In the ensuing fracas, nine people were injured. Three died that day and two more subsequently died after being hospitalized. Three of the dead were brothers of Takhir Makhmakhanov, who is now on the run. The Makhmakhanov family disputes this version of events, saying the attack was long planned and their house was fired on from the crowd.

Some 50 people have been arrested and face charges ranging from premeditated murder to hooliganism and damage to property. The incident was followed by rallies in which participants demanded the family’s removal from the village.

In response to the clashes, riot police were brought in from across Almaty Region to restore order. Approaches to both villages remain heavily guarded. In late March, police were patrolling approaches to Malovodnoye, which lies on a key artery linking Kazakhstan’s commercial capital with China. In Kazatkom, some 10 kilometers across the open steppe, police were guarding the entrance to the village, where the charred remains of the Makhmakhanovs’ home stand: the house was set on fire by the angry crowd. The family has been moved to an undisclosed, secure location.

“It’s quiet on the streets -- you can see for yourself,” a senior police officer, who declined to identify himself, told EurasiaNet as he stood guard at the emergency headquarters set up in Malovodnoye. Local authorities declined to comment.

News of five deaths over a game of billiards caused consternation in Kazakhstan, which prides itself on social stability and ethnic harmony. Home to over 130 ethnic groups, Kazakhstan cannot afford ethnic discord. Almaty Region’s Enbek District, where the clash occurred, is home to large numbers of Turks, Chechens, Uighurs and Kurds, who, according to local MP Serik Abdrakhmanov, comprise more than half of the district’s population. The presence of tens of thousands of Chechens in Kazakhstan today is linked to a decision made by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to deport the ethnic group en masse during World War II.

Some see Kazakhstan’s diversity as a source of tension. “Relations [between ethnic communities] are bad,” a woman out shopping in Malovodnoye told EurasiaNet on condition of anonymity.

A fellow villager, who also declined to identify himself, disagreed. “[Ethnicity] could be just coincidence. [The fight] was just a settling of scores,” he said.

Both, however, pointed to discrepancies in living standards among villagers as a factor behind the incident. An income gap is readily evident: it is a common sight for large houses -- such as that belonging to the Makhmakhanov family in nearby Kazatkom -- to stand near the small, dilapidated houses of their less well-off neighbors.

The ethnicities of those involved in the clash have attracted media, yet the roots of the incident may lie elsewhere. As Kazakhstan’s oil-rich economy booms -- growing at a roughly double-digit rate for the last six years -- the rich-poor and rural-urban divides have widened, leading to social discontent.

While Kazakhstan’s elite and burgeoning middle class have been riding the oil boom, the poor have struggled to adapt to market conditions. Many have grown poorer, battling to reconcile rising prices with low wages. Sixteen percent of the population lives on less than 2 dollars per day, according to UNDP figures.

In a March 28 statement, Abdrakhmanov, the local MP, called for a sober evaluation of the underlying causes of the clash, which lie “beyond the boundaries of these villages.” With local authorities understaffed, under-resourced and lacking real power in Kazakhstan’s centralized system, people have little influence over “vital local issues: the sale of land plots, property, the use of water resources.”

“Discontent is growing in the villages,” Abdrakhmanov added. “Rural relations are becoming more and more acute, especially near cities. Despite a reduction in the number of cattle, there is a lack of pasture and of land to make hay, because land is not always allocated fairly,” the statement continued.

Land is a sensitive topic. As prices for land and housing rocket, the less well-off are coming under increasing economic stress. Land disputes on the outskirts of Almaty led to clashes between inhabitants and police last summer, as people accused of settling there illegally were evicted. Observers have pointed to a perception among ordinary people that the rich and powerful are protected by a system in which corruption is endemic. “Shadow business is flourishing in many areas under the ‘protection’ of law-enforcement structures,” Abdrakhmanov alleged. Talgat Ryskulbekov, the deputy head of the Spirit of December nationalist movement who visited the troubled villages to mediate, agrees that inhabitants have a perception that the rich can operate under impunity. “For the local authorities and the police, money talks,” Ryskulbekov told EurasiaNet.

Ryskulbekov ruled out an ethnic motive: “Some people want to say it was something ethnic. Nothing of the sort!”

Chechen community leader Akhmed Muradov has condemned police inaction over rumors that had been circulating of trouble between the communities, and accused forces which oppose stability of being behind events.

Dos Kushim, leader of the Fate of the Nation nationalist movement, points to historical inequities as the root of conflict. “I think… the whole problem lies in the social and -- no less important -- moral suppression of the Kazakhs that has emerged historically,” he said in remarks carried on the Zonakz.net website. “Under the Soviet Union, the Kazakhs’ language, culture and self-identification were given no expression, and after the fall of the USSR and with the gaining of independence a mass of problems remain unresolved.”

This latest bout of unrest is the third in six months. In October 2006, discontent at labor conditions in the western oilfields led to a mass brawl between Kazakh and Turkish workers at Tengiz, which saw over 200 injured. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In November, fighting erupted between up to 300 ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Uighurs in the village of Shelek, 20 kilometers from Malovodnoye. As such clashes become more frequent, the government needs to address the root causes to preserve the ethnic harmony it prides itself on.

Editor’s Note: Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specializes in Central Asian affairs.

(www.eurasianet.org)