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BAKU. Dec 24 (Interfax) - Ilham Amirov, deputy general director of Azerbaijani state airline AzAL, said it "cannot be ruled out" that "a terrorist act" caused Friday's crash of an An-140-100 airliner near Baku. Amirov told reporters that the plane had been in use for only about a year. Amirov said the investigation of the crash had produced some preliminary findings, but that investigators have yet to disclose them.

Did you miss this story from the Guardian (via AP)? BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) - About 10,000 opposition protesters chanted "Freedom!'' and carried pictures of President Bush as they marched across Azerbaijan's capital Saturday, urging the government of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary elections this year.... Supporters of several opposition parties chanted "Freedom!'' and "Free Elections!'' while holding placards with such slogans as "Down with robber government!'' Some carried a picture of Bush with the inscription: "We want freedom!''

BAKU, Azerbaijan - About 10,000 opposition protesters chanted "Freedom!" and carried pictures of President Bush as they marched across Azerbaijan's capital Saturday, urging the government of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary elections this year. The massive rally in Baku was the largest opposition demonstration in the former Soviet republic since October 2003, when one person died and nearly 200 were injured in clashes between police and demonstrators protesting vote-rigging in the presidential election. Tensions have been building steadily in this oil-rich Caspian Sea nation in the run-up to parliamentary elections set for November, leading some...

A new pipeline will pump Azeri oil to the mediterranean directlyTHE elegant mansions of Baku’s first boom town are crumbling and overgrown, hollow relics of the days when this port on the Caspian Sea provided half the world’s oil. The original oil barons — the Nobels and Rothschilds — abandoned them when Baku’s oil industry was nationalised after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. But almost a century later, the city stands on the brink of a second oil boom with the official opening today of a controversial pipeline built to take Caspian oil to the energy-hungry West. President Aliyev of Azerbaijan...

As growing concerns about dwindling global reserves help maintain oil prices close to the $50 a barrel mark, a major supply route linking newly developed oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea with western markets is due to be opened. The pipeline is expected to spark an economic boom in Baku Within the next few weeks, oil from the Caspian will start flowing into a 1,762 kilometres long pipeline. The pipeline will run from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, via near Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and across eastern Turkey to the port of Ceyhan, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast....

A £2bn pipeline to carry Caspian oil to Europe through Georgia risks being damaged by Chechen mercenaries or ecological saboteurs sponsored by Russian intelligence, a senior Georgian security official and sources in Moscow claim. The GRU, the sophisticated elite of Russia's military intelligence corps, has allegedly allocated money towards hiring or training eco-warriors and mercenaries to sabotage the 1,100-mile project, which is run by a consortium headed by BP and is expected to be operational by 2005. "We are aware of this threat," a Georgian cabinet member said. "The pipeline is a key strategic interest to Georgia and we are...

"Knowing that Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan is trivial. But it's good to know. You certainly would want to know that London is the capital of England, Paris, of France, and so on. You want to know facts. You want to know as much as you can. How do you know things unless they're in your memory?" "I've heard you inveigh against John Dewey and Progressive education, Maestro," said Ian, "but I read in the Spectator that the U.K. Secretary of Education is bound and determined to sweep away the old pedagogy, teachers teaching facts and subjects. As near...