The Hill: First European Games

  13 June 2015    Read: 1882
The Hill: First European Games
In 2015, oil means energy, natural gas means energy; oil and natural gas mean money, power and entry into the 21st century, Raoul Lowery Contreras wrote in his article published in The Hill.

Contreras formerly wrote for Creators Syndicate and the New America News Service of The New York Times Syndicate.

Contreras arrived in Azerbaijan at the invitation of Trend news agency.

“We find that to be true in Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus Mountains,” the author wrote.

“Baku had been a world leader in oil production since the 1880s; without that oil, in World War II the Soviets could not have resisted the Germans in for months,” the article said. “In fact, Azerbaijan produced 80 percent of all the oil and gas used by the Soviet army throughout the entire war.”

In 1990-91, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev plunged a dying Soviet Union into a black hole by sending Soviet soldiers to kill and wound hundreds of civilian men and women in Baku on one night in 1990; from that night emerged an independent Azerbaijan, the author wrote.

To compound the chaos, Armenian invaders attacked Azerbaijan, by occupying its territory.
Armenians still occupy almost one-fifth of Azerbaijan in 2015. The U.N. Security Council has issued several resolutions condemning Armenia for its invasion of Azerbaijan, which Armenia ignores, the article said.

“Nonetheless, Azerbaijan has become a modern country bursting with vision, construction and energy unrivaled in the part of the world so few know about. Modernization started under the country`s first effective post-independent presidency, Heydar Aliyev,” he wrote.

“Gleaming high-rise buildings are everywhere,” the article said. “More important than buildings are the people. Azerbaijan is a 90-percent Muslim country. Yet it is the most diverse country this writer has ever experienced outside the U.S.”

Besides the ubiquitous new construction, the most instant example of an energetic country is in being the site of the first-ever European Games which started on June 12 — in which 6,000 athletes will compete in new facilities, including a stadium holding 68,000. Three-thousand officials will man the Games, as will 10,000 volunteers.

“Azerbaijan is a vital energetic, proudly multicultural country built on ancient history, religious tolerance and secularism, hydrocarbons and an educated people bursting with energy, vision and optimism,” the article said. “They deeply desire to be part of a modern secular Western world; they very work hard at it.”

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