Kanoon II 7, 6746 Volume II Issue 45 & 46 January 7, 1997
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A Weekly Online Publication of the ZENDA Assyrian Newsagency
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T H I S W E E K I N Z E N D A
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The Lighthouse............................. Bridging
the Gap
Good Morning Bet-Nahrain............ Turkish Troops Enter
Iraq
Saddam & Barzani's Secret Pact
Surfs Up............................ "Is the name NAHRAIN
an Assyrian name?"
Surfers Corner...................... Who is Leon Barkho?
News Digest......................... 600,000 Iraqi Refugees
in Iran
Maronite Journalist Arrested in Beirut
French Archeologists Discovery in Syria
Calendar of Events.................. Art & Empire:
The British Museum Coll.
Entracte............................ No New Entries
Intelligentsia...................... Classes, Lectures
& Meetings
Assyrian Surfing Posts.............. Archeology Magazines
Assyrian Artifacts
Pump up the Volume.................. A few Akkadian words
we use today
Back to the Future.................. BC: 100 Years
of Dark Ages
AD: St. Ephraim of Nisibin
Literatus........................... King Abgar's Letter
to Jesus
This Week in History................ Mar Yokhana arrives
in America
Bravo............................... Do We Hear 750?
The Directory....................... News Sources
Bshena.............................. Intel, Siemens,
& San Jose
Salute.............................. Firas, Christoph,
and Samiramis
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THE L I G H
T H O U S E
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BRIDGING THE GAP
The Assyrians of today are descendants of the ancient
Assyrian people who
built the mighty empires of Assyria and Babylon.
They rose to power and
prosperity in Mesopotamia, the main land of which consists
of modern day
Iraq. Assyrians played a major role in the advancement
of civilisation.
After the fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires
in the sixth and
seventh centuries B.C. respectively, Assyrians were reduced
to a small
nation scattered in the Middle Eastern region.
Assyrians are Christian and their church dates back to
the time of Christ.
In the first century they were among the first people
to embrace
Christianity. Over the following centuries because
of their religion and
nationality, Assyrians suffered enormously, and came
close to losing their
identity as a nation. It was not until the middle
of the 19th century when
Assyrians came in direct contact with the western world
and their existence
attracted the attention of the outside world.
Following World War I, wherein the Assyrians fought alongside
the British
as their "smallest ally", more that half of the estimated
3.5 million
Assyrians were displaced and reside outside the Middle
East. The ongoing
struggle of the Assyrian nation has always been to preserve
its national
identity and to live in peace and harmony within their
chosen country of
citizenship.
Bridging the Gap is an opportunity for a group of artists
widely
representative of the Australian Assyrian Community to
make the rest of the
communities aware of the Assyrian culture, by exhibiting
their work and
expressing the richness of a culture that is alive and
flourishing worldwide.
Prior to the realisation of Bridging the Gap I had a dream.
I remember
standing in a great hall with a group of Assyrian artists.
Together we
formed a large circle. Inside this vast circle
the ground was covered with
red earth. We were awaiting the arrival of the
ancient Assyrian artifacts.
Fro a corner of the hall a procession entered our
circle. As the
treasures were carried in, the space began to glow in
a golden light...
The affinity most Assyrians have with their ancestral
land is both physical
and spiritual. This link is well reflected in the
work seen here. The
artists featured in this exhibition carry a rich cultural
heritage in their
hearts. Some were born in their ancestral land,
modern day Iraq, and
others far from it. The diverse styles and techniques
shown here are
indicative of fluidity between traditional and contemporary
art suggestive
of their environmental differences.
Adaptation to change is familiar to contemporary Assyrian
artists. Almost
all these artists have migrated more that once in their
lifetime, embracing
multiculturalism as a way of life. Coming to Australia
with dreams and
visions for new expressions, these artists are able to
experience the
richness of many cultures while making their contributions.
Samiramis Ziyeh
Curator
Sydney, Australia
[Semiramis is the Arts Director for the Fairfield Community
Art Network and
directed Border Crossings, a multimedia installation/performance
with young
Assyrian and Kurdish refugees from Iraq which was presented
at the Belvoir
Street Theatre during Sydney Carnivale '96. She has spent
the main part of
her life in New York, holding solo exhibitions and participating
in
numerous group shows. Her work has won various awards
and her designs are
displayed in the American Crafts Museum and the Museum
of Modern Art in New
York. Samiramis' work is a manifestation of the
terrain that lies between
cultures, infused with insight and longing.
This week's feature article
appears in a brochure prepared for Bridging The Gap,
a contemporary
Assyrian art exhibition in Melbourne, Australia.
This exhibition is held
at the National Gallery of Victoria where currently Art
& Empire: Treasures
>From Assyria in the British Museum is on display until
March 10, 1997.
ZENDA invites all its readers from Australia and New
Zealand and those
traveling to Sydney and Melbourne to take advantage of
this
once-in-a-lifetime event and view this magnificent collection
of modern
Assyrian paintings by Hannibal Alkhas (Iran), Nahren
Al-Jeloo (Kuwait),
Natasha Brakhya (Lebanon), Lewis Batros (Iraq), Edward
Hydo (Iraq), John
Homeh (Syria), Edward Ivano (Syria), Maureen Miraziz
(Kuwait), Nabil Tomi
(Sweden), Shmoiel Yawanis (Iraq), Oras Yacoub (Iraq),
Rita Youil
(Australia), and Uonia Marous Zaya (Iraq). Australia
is presently
embroiled in a race debate after independent
politician Pauline Hanson charged in her maiden parliamentary
speech that
Asians were swamping Australia. Nearly 100,000 foreigners
annually migrate
to Australia. ]
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G O O D
M O R N I N G B
E T - N A H R A I N
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TURKISH WARPLANES BOMB KURDISH CAMPS IN THE NORTH
(ZNRU: Ankara) Last week, Turkish F-4 fighter-bombers
which took off from
Diyarbakir bombed and destroyed three Kurdistan Workers
Party or PKK camps
in the Sinath region of northern Iraq. 75 Kurds
and two Turkish soldiers
had been killed in the operation since it began last
Monday night. A
Turkish official news agency said Cobra helicopters launched
bomb attacks on
other PKK fighters trying to escape across the border
into Iraq. Al-Thawra
newspaper, organ of the ruling Baath party in Iraq, An
official Iraqi
newspaper,condemned Turkey on Thursday for sending troops
into northern
Iraq. Al-Thawra said the Turkish incursion "exposes
U.S. lies that the
so-called 'aerial surveillance force' aims at safeguarding
the Kurds." Last
week Turkey allowed the United States and Britain to
continue using its
airbases to mount patrols over northern Iraq. France
withdrew from the
operation, earning Iraq's praise.
SADDAM AND BARZANI DRAW AUTONOMY PLANS IN THE NORTH ?
(ZNUP: Amman) Diplomatic sources say a Kurdish
faction in northern
Bet-Nahrain has been holding secret talks with Saddam's
government and has
drawn up an "autonomy" agreement giving the group expanded
self-rule in
northern Iraq. An Asian diplomat says only "a few
minor points remain to
be sorted out" between the government and a delegation
of Masoud Barzani's Kurdish
Democratic Party, or KDP. He says the agreement empowers
KDP leader Massoud
Barzani to run the Kurdish territories and collect taxes.
The source says
Barzani was offered the post of vice-president in the
central government,
but he turned it down. The London office of the KDP denied
the alleged
talks were held or that Barzani had visited Baghdad.
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S U R F S
U P !
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"I am very glad to let you know there is another Assyrian
sister on the net
in Vienna, please be so kind and send her your wonderful
assyrian
electronic newsletter...Wish you a merry christmas and
a successful New
Year."
Bernadette Miraziz
Vienna, Austria
*********************
"Correct me if I'm wrong. Is the name NAHRAIN an Assyrian
name? because we
all know the meaning of this name is Two rivers, but
in Assyrian grammar,
in order to say two of anything, we have to add the number
two ( treh
nahre), we have singular and plural, we do not have anything
in between,
but in Arabic language for one river they say (NAHR)
and for two rivers is
(NAHRAIN) which we don't have this in our Assyrian grammar,
and in Arabic
is called (MOTHANAH), and for more than two rivers is
the plural (ANHOR).
So dose this conclude that the name NAHRAIN is Arabic?
I myself like the
name, but if this is an Arabic name ( no offense to all
the assyrian women
that carries this name). Shouldn't we stop using it?"
Sargon Kanja
Chicago
[An Aramaic noun may be found in 3 states: one full
and two contracted
forms. The full form with the letter "allap" at the end
is the definite
form. The two contracted forms denote one noun's
relation to another
(mlootota). The Assyrian word "nahra" for "river"
is a regular noun which
in its plural form becomes "nah/ra/wa/te." This
plural noun forms its
contracted state by changing "awate" to "ain" as in "Nahrain".
Of course,
the word "nahrain" is now treated as a full plural form
of the noun and
does not signify any contraction. The correct form
of this noun in modern
Assyrian would probably be "Bet-Nahrawate". For
more information see
Syro-Chaldaic Grammar by Fr. Gabrial of St. Joseph, 1984.]
**********************
"THE HOPE newspaper, first issue - January 1997, came
out from the press on
December 30, 1996. 'THE HOPE' is an Assyrian monthly
newspaper, eight
pages, tabloid size, and it is distributed, free-of-charge,
in three
cities: Chicago, Detroit & Toronto. The
newspaper hit the streets of many
Canadian cities, where most of Assyrians are currently
resided: Windsor,
London-Ontario, Hamilton and Toronto, as our community
were preparing to
welcome the New Year 1997. It is expected, the
newspaper, to be in Detroit
and Chicago within 24 hour.
"The Hope" newspaper is a nationalist educational newspaper
of Bet-Nahrain
Democratic Party to help our Assyrian community enrich
cultural activities,
strengthen the continuation of preserving our Assyrian
language, preserving
our heritage, opening a channel of communication among
Assyrians by
bringing far distances to be closer, so to the dilemma
of isolation can be
minimized if not abolished, and helping in developing
our Assyrian
institutions and unity. For further information and request
to receive a
copy, please E-Mail me at ashour@ican.net."
Simon Malek
Hamilton, Ontario
Tel.(905) 318-8283
Fax (905) 573-1478
Fax (905) 279-7347
*********************
"I have a couple of questions to ask Zenda's readers,
but first I would like
to thank Zenda for the excellent work it is doing
for all of us. The two
questions that I have are as follows:
1. Is there an Assyrian to English Dictionary written?
2. I visited Isreal a month or so ago and was surprised
to find that much
of their basic vocabulary is the same as ours, they pronounce
the words the
same and the meaning is identical. Even some of
their Months are pronounced
exactly as ours. Does anyone know when and how
this happened?"
Thomas Daniel
Turlock, California.
[Reverend Shmuil David's English-Chaldean Dictionary,
written in 1924, was
recently reprinted in Chicago. Both modern Assyrian and
Hebrew belong to a
group of languages referred to as Northwest Semitic.
While living in
captivity in Babylon, Hebrew speakers of the pre-Christian
era adopted many
proper nouns such as the months of the year from old
Assyrian (Akkadian)].
*********************
[Recently a ZENDA reader, planning a short trip to South
America, requested
the whereabouts of any Assyrian living in Argentina.
Two weeks later an
Assyrian ZENDA reader from Uruguay contacted our office
and provided us
with the name and telephone number of an Assyrian residing
in Buenos Aires.
We are eager to learn about our reader's findings
in Argentina which will
surely appear in the future issues.]
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S U R F E R S
C O R N E R
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Who is Leon Barkho?
A ZENDA reader is inquiring about Leon Barkho, a Reuters
reporter, whose
articles on Iraq, the Kurds, and the current events in
the Middle East
appear regularly in the U.S. weekly publications.
If you have more
information please contact ZENDA at zenda@ix.netcom.com
.
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N E W S
D I G E S T
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600,000 ILLEGAL IRAQI REFUGEES REMAIN IN IRAN
(ZNRU: Tehran) Iran, which suffers from an official unemployment
rate of
nearly 11 percent, is home to two million refugees- 1.4
million from
Afghanistan and 600,000 from Iraq. This makes Iran, with
a population of 58
million, the world's most important host country, according
to the United
Nations refugee agency. A deadline for Iranian employers
to fire an
estimated one million foreign workers expired on Saturday
as part of Iran's
campaign to fight high unemployment. Mostafa Musavi,
a labour ministry
official, told local press he expected about 100,000
jobs to open up within
three months after the deadline. He said 1,000 illegal
workers had been
replaced by Iranians over the last month. Iraqi refugees
living in Iran's
western provinces are mainly Assyrian and Kurd who fled
northern
Bet-Nahrain during and after the Gulf War in 1991.
MARONITE JOURNALIST
CHARGED WITH HAVING ISRAELI CONTACTS
(ZNRU: Beirut) Nasri Lahoud, a Lebanese military prosecuter
has charged
Pierre Atallah, a Maronite Christian journalist, with
having contacts with
Israel and distributing leaflets that incite military
disobedience. Atallah
of Beirut's leading conservative An-Nahar newspaper and
47 others were
detained in a recent widespread campaign which took place
in the last two
weeks. The detention campaign was sparked by an incident
in which a van
carrying Syrian workers was machine gunned in a predominantly
Christian
area, killing the driver and injuring some passengers.
Syria has 35,000
troops in Lebanon and is the country's main power broker.
If convicted with
these charges, Atallah faces up to three years in prison.
On Friday, Riad
Taliya, a Lebanese military judge ordered Atallah's release
but Mr. Lahoud
immediately appealed against the decision. The Paris-based
press freedom
watchdog group Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters Without
Borders) has
appealed to Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and
French President
Jacques Chirac for Atallah's release. Atallah was
seized during the night
by a Lebanese Army officer and an army intelligence agent
who refused to
show an arrest warrant but put guns to his head and took
him to the
defense ministry outside Beirut.
"MISSING LINK" IS WRITTEN IN STONE
(New Scientist 14 Dec 96, p. 9)
(ZNDA: France) Carvings on a series of stones unearthed
in Syria may
represent an important "missing link" in the evolution
of written
communication, claim French archaeologists. The
10,000-year-old carvings
are twice the age of Sumerian cuneiform, the world's
oldest writing. They
are pictograms, abstract symbols which convey meaning
but are not as
complex as a true written system. Danielle Stordeur of
the Institute of
Oriental Prehistory near Nimes says that the Syrian pictograms
represent an
intermediate form of communication lying between palaeolithic
cave art,
which flourished between 30,000 and 12,000 years ago,
and later forms of
writing.
The stones were uncovered at Jerf el-Ahmar, an excavation
on the left bank
of the Euphrates River. Four of them appear to be some
sort of tool with a
large groove on one side and combinations of lines, arrows
and animal
outlines carved on the other side. Two smaller
flat oval-shaped rocks are
engraved on both sides. One depicts a large insect connected
to an owl-like
figure with circles as eyes; its other side is covered
with 34 crescent
shapes bearing dots. The second flat stone bears
arrows, zigzags, and
other shapes on one side and a grid and a snake on the
other. "Associations
of abstract signs are thought to have a meaning," Stordeur
says. "When you
put
that meaning on a stone you have a message." Just
what these ancient
messages said will probably remain a mystery, however.
Decoding the
messages would require further finds. But the researchers
have only one
more digging season before the site, which is located
2 kilometres north of
the Tichrine dam, now under construction, is flooded.
NEWS BITS...
(ZNRU)
Jordan will buy 4.5 million tonnes of crude oil and by-products
from Iraq
for 1997, a senior Jordanian official said.
Each Iraqi is currently entitled to only 2.75 lbs. of
rice, 15.4 lbs. of
flour, 1.1 lbs. of sugar, 1.6 lbs. of cooking oil and
100 grams of tea
every month.
An Iraqi newspaper said that more than 17,000 Iraqi prisoners
of war
captured during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war were still
languishing in Iranian
jails and Tehran refused for political reasons to free
them.
Iranian police have arrested a man on charges of being
an Iraqi agent and
carrying out a 1994 bombing in Tehran in which two people
died, a newspaper
said.
(ZNUP)
A joint Syrian-German archaeological team has unearthed
the remains of a
temple they say dates back to the third millennium B.C.
at an
archaeological site in Syria's northwest town of Aleppo.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's eldest son is unlikely
to recover full use
of his left leg after being wounded in an assassination
attempt last month.
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C
A L E N D A
R OF E V
E N T S
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Thru Jan 19
Bridging the Gap
Contemporary and Traditional Assyrian Art
Australian Assyrian Communities
National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
Curator: Semiramis Ziyeh
Thru Mar 10
Art & Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British
Museum
National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
Admission: $10.00
Thru Apr 6 The Ain Ghazal
Exhibit
Smithsonian Institute
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Washington D.C.
AAA of Southern CA (818) 506-7577
Jan 10
General Elections of the
Assyrian American Association of San Jose
BETA: 20000 Almaden Road, San Jose, California
8:00 pm
Jan 15
Ashur & Marduk: The State Gods of Assyria & Babylonia
Lecturer: G. Frame
Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
St. George campus
Toronto, Canada
8:00 p.m
Mar 12
Guardians of the Gate: The Assyrian Winged Colossi
Lecturer: A. Harrak
Near and Middle Eastern Civilization
University of Toronto
St. George campus
Toronto, Canada
8:00 p.m
April 9
Recent Excavations at Gordion, Turkey:
An Achaemenid Persian Imperial Town in Central Anatolia
Lecturer: T.C. Young, Jr.
Royal Ontario Museum
Toronto, Canada
8:00 p.m
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I N T E L L I G E N T S I A
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Thursdays
Nineveh Choir under the direction of Maestro Nebu Issabey
BETA: 20000 Almaden Road
San Jose, California
8:00 pm
Fridays
Assyrian Educational & Cultural Club at
Modesto Junior College
1:00 pm
Founders Hall 108
Modesto, U.S.A.
Saturdays
Nisibis School
10:30-1:30
The Church of the East
Toronto, Canada
Nisibin School
10:00-12:00 pm
BETA: Assyrian American Association of San Jose
San Jose, California
SUNDAYS
Assyrian Boy Scouts
Assyrian American Association of Southern California
Assyrian Club
5901 Cahuenga Blvd
North Hollywood, California
9:30am to 12:30pm
Contact Sargon Gewargis @ fishtale@juno.com
(818) 891-3705 after 7:30 pm
Assyrian Student Union
California State University, Northridge
Assyrian American Association of Southern California
Assyrian Club
5901 Cahuenga Blvd
North Hollywood, California
6:00pm
Contact Sargon Gewargis @ fishtale@juno.com
(818) 891-3705 after 7:30 pm
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A S
S Y R I A N S
U R F I N G P
O S T S
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Assyrian Artifacts on the Internet
Archaeology Magazine's article "Stolen Stones: The
Modern Sack Of Nineveh"
is now available on-line at the Archaeology Magazine
web site:
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/nineveh/index.php
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P U M P UP THE V O L U
M E
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This week we present a few Old Assyrian or Akkadian words
(ca 3000 BC)
which are still in use by modern speakers of Assyrian:
English Akkadian Modern Assyrian
house bitu
beta
bow
qastu qeshta
weep
ibki
bikhya, bkheta
Note: "ta" at the end of Assyrian may also be pronounced
as "tha" as
commonly spoken in northern & central Bet-Nahrain.
___________________________________________________________________________
F = Feminine M = Masculine
P = Plural
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B A C K TO THE
F U T U R E
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B.C. (1595) The Babylonian Dynasty established
by Hammurabi comes to an
end when Murshili, a Hittite conquerer, sacks Babylon.
The entire
Bet-Nahrain (Mesopotamia) plunges into a Dark Age of
a hundred years.
<< The Ancient Near East, Hallo>>
A.D. (306) St. Ephraim, the greatest literary genius among
the Syriac
writers, is born in Nisibin.
<< Syro-Chaldaic Grammar, Fr. Gabrial of St. Joseph
>>
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L I T E
R A T U
S
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ASSYRIAN KING ABGAR'S LETTER TO JESUS
And the letter was read before him (Jesus), in which the
following was
written: "Abgar the Black to Jesus, the good physician,
who has appeared a
the lace of Jerusalem. Lord, hail! I have
heard of you and of your
healing, that you do not heal by medicines and by drugs,
but by your word
you make blind men see (lit. open) and you make lame
men walk and you make
lepers clean. And you make def men hear and you
cast out spirits and
night-wandering demons (lit. roof-sons),and you heal
the miserable by your
word, and also raise dead men. When I heard these
great wonders that you
do, I came to the conclusion (lit. put in my mind) that
either you are God
who came down from heaven and did these, or you are God's
son, that you do
all these. Therefore I write and ask you (lit.
wrote, asked) that you come
to me, that I may prostate myself before you, and you
heal a certain pain
that I have, since I believe in you. Also, I have
further heard this, that
the Jews are murmuring against you and persecuting you,
and even wish to
crucify you and intend to do away with you. I have
but one small province,
but it is beautiful and for two sufficient to inhabit
it in peace."
When Jesus received the letter in the house of the high
priest of the Jews,
he said to the courier Hannan: "Go and say to your lord,
who sent you to
me: 'Blessed are you, that when you have not seen me
you believe in me!
For it is written concerning me that those who see me
will not believe in
me. And that you have written to me that I should
come to you- that for
which I have been sent here is now fulfilled, and I am
about to ascend to
my Father who sent me; and when I have ascended to him,
I will send you one
of my disciples, who will heal and cure whatever pain
you have, and all who
are with you he will lead to eternal life. And
your city will be blessed,
and no enemy in the future will ever take it over."
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T H I S W E E K
I N H I S T O R
Y
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January 11, 1842: Mar Yokhana, Bishop of Gavilanm,
Iran arrives in America
as the first Assyrian to reach the United States from
the Middle East.
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B R A
V O
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DO WE HEAR 750?
ZENDA readers did it again! On December 24 we reached
our goal of
registering 500 Assyrian online readers, in addition
to many other friends
of Assyrian culture, history, and politics. As
you may have already
suspected we like to aim high, very high indeed.
Therefore we have set a
new goal for 1997: to double our number of subscribers
and reach 500 more
Assyrian individuals and communities around the world.
Once more, we are
indebted to our readers, without whose constant support
and marvelous
networking abilities there could be no weekly newsletter
reaching Assyrian
communities in 20 countries around the world. Thank
you again.
Staff of ZENDA
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the D I R E C T O R
Y
===========================================================================
ZNAD (Assyrian Democratic Organization)
ZNAM (Archeology Magazine)
ZNAP (Associated Press International)
ZNBN (Bet-Nahrain Inc/ KBSV-TV "AssyriaVision")
ZNDA (Zenda: zenda@ix.netcom.com)
ZNMN (San Jose Mercury News)
ZNNQ (Nabu Quarterly)
ZNNV (Nineveh Magazine)
ZNRU (Reuters)
ZNSJ (San Jose Mercury News)
ZNTM (Time Magazine)
ZNUP (United Press International)
ZNUS (US News & World Report)
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W E L C O M
E T O Z E
N D A
===========================================================================
Zenda welcomes our new on-line subscribers from:
CORPORATE ACCOUNTS
Intel
Siemens
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
San Jose, California
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S A L
U T E
===========================================================================
Zenda wishes to thank the following individuals &
organizations whose
contributions appear in this issue:
Firas Jatou
Chicago, Illinois
Samiramis Ziyeh Sydney, Australia
Christoph Aktas Sunnyvale, California
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