Author: Chakhmakhchian Vatche

ARMENIAN NGO PUBLISHES REPORT ON POLITICAL, ECONOMIC SITUATION IN COUNTRY

Armenian Second TV Channel
Dec 26 2008
Armenia

[Presenter] The Civilitas foundation published today Armenia 2008:
Crisis and Opportunity report. It is the first one, and the foundation
attaches importance to this report on Armenia and the Caucasus that are
usually issued by international entities; and it believes that along
with the opinions of foreign experts, it is time to assess Armenia’s
political, economic and social developments from the Armenian point
of view.

The chairman of the foundation [former Foreign Minister] Vardan
Oskanyan; Armen Darbinyan; Armen Rustamyan [a senior member of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun] and Hovhannes
Igityan today tried to suggest honestly and impartially ways out of
three major crises that have greatly influenced our life – 1 March
[post-election disturbances in Yerevan], the Russian-Georgian war and
the global financial crisis – looking at those from inside and outside.

According to Oskanyan, the situations is not good, moreover, it
is aggravating. The speakers agreed that parliament should have
suggested ways out of this situation; it [the parliament] does not
reflect wishes of the public at present and reforms need to be carried
out immediately.

[Oskanyan, speaking at a news conference] Many things have been done
over the past years, but at the same time many things have not been
done. Today the crisis shows that those undone things are having their
negative impact on our future development. Parliament is indeed one
of our "painful" problems because it is a political platform and at
present this political platform is not being used in the best way. At
present one should not be a mathematician for us to understand simple
arithmetic that – [end of recording]

[Armen Darbinyan, rector of Slavic University, speaking at the
news conference] The working style and the essence of parliament at
present does not at all ensure political peace in the country and
does not ensure presence of political viewpoints in the political and
public fields. This is the reason this process goes onto the streets
[referring to opposition protests].

[Rustamyan, speaking at the news conference] Flawed election relations
have been shaped in Armenia – a citizen no longer attaches importance
to his or her vote. In any democratic country this is the ultimate
right so that the person does not yield his or her right, does not
sell it if he of she is made to do so; the person needs to stick to
his or her right. We do not have this situation. It took us years to
create the current situation when a question arises why any government
should change this situation – this is quite a good situation [the
government would say]; it [the government] will use these election
relations so that elections become much more controllable.

MSNBC
Dec 24 2008

Adelson, Kerkorian make list of biggest billionaire losers

KVBC-TV
updated 7:29 p.m. ET Dec. 19, 2008

Their casino empires are still intact, but the country’s economic
swoon has stripped away much of the luster from Nevada gaming moguls
Sheldon Adelson and Kirk Kerkorian.

Forbes magazine has placed both men at number one and number four,
respectively, on their list of America’s Biggest Billionaire Losers Of
2008. The rankings, which include such distinguished billionaires as
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, highlight the sinking fortunes of the
wealthiest men holding publicly traded stocks.

The Forbes article details the rapid decline of Las Vegas Sands shares
in 2007, to the point where the company needed a cash infusion from
Adelson’s personal assets just to stay afloat. In recent days Sands
stock has begun to rebound, closing at $7.49 Wednesday, up from its
52-week low of $2.89 per share.

However, those numbers are nowhere near the 52-week high of $105.38.

Kerkorian, who owns a 53 percent stake in MGM Mirage, took a
double-hit in 2008. Gaming is down and so is Kerkorian’s interest in
the Ford Motor Company. Another recent Forbes article speculates that
if Kerkorian had been patient when buying Ford stock, he would
currently own 50 percent of the company.

Jason R. Latham – Senior New Media Editor

The EU-Armenia cooperation coordinating commission met at the Office of
Government, chaired by head of commission, RA Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan.

F riday, 26 December 2008

The commission took note of the reports on the status of EU-Armenia
Action Plan under the European Neighborhood Policy, the priorities and
actions for 2009, the programs implemented under the European
Neighborhood and Partnership Facility (ENPF), the educational and
judicial reforms.

The ministries and agencies concerned were charged to submit by January
15, 2009 individual action plans and financial estimates under the
ENPF. They were also told to submit before the deadline of February 1,
2009 priority statements for discussion at the next commission session
of January 17, 2009.

SHOULD TURKEY APOLOGIZE TO THE ARMENIANS?
Asli Aydintasbas

Forbes
/2008/12/24/Turkey-Armenians-genocide-oped-cx_aa_1 226aydintasbas.html
Dec 27 2008
NY

ISTANBUL–Should we apologize to Armenians?

It’s almost a miracle, but I have somehow managed to avoid the
"Armenian issue" throughout my journalism career. I never wrote a
single column on it, even throughout the various diplomatic rows
between Turkey and Armenia on whether or not the tragic events of
1915 were genocide.

During the time I covered Washington for a Turkish paper, I stayed
a dispassionate reporter as the Armenian Diaspora tried year after
year to pass various U.S. congressional resolutions condemning the
1915 events–and Ankara lobbied hard to ward these off.

The truth was, undeniably bad things happened in the Eastern provinces
of the declining Ottoman Empire in 1915, but I had no idea whether
or not they "amounted to" genocide.

Depending on whom you believe, 500,000 or 1.5 million Armenians were
either forcibly deported or coldly massacred, either during the chaos
of a civil war or by an organized state campaign. The Armenians in turn
either killed thousands of Muslim Turks in an effort to establish an
independent homeland, or they were fighting a civil war of liberation.

I am not trying to make light of the fact that this was a horribly
painful episode, leading to the death of thousands of innocents. But
today’s discussion is largely semantic–"genocide or not?"

While most Turks are taught in schools that killing happened "on
both sides" and do not believe their Ottoman ancestors committed the
g-word, Armenians in the tiny modern Caucasus republic have built
their national identity on the pain of genocide. It is to them what
the Jewish Holocaust is to Israelis.

Comment On This Story

But the reason I have so far avoided the topic was not because of
an inability to face the past, but because I felt I never could
do justice to the mountains of books, memoirs and historic archives
arguing one side or the other. After all, plenty of Turkish, Armenian,
American and French historians dedicated lifetimes to this debate.

I, on the other hand, lacked that kind of attention span. At school,
we were taught that the "so-called genocide" charge was trumped up by
the Armenian diaspora because it was their raison d’etre. Friends and
family mostly seemed to think the Ottomans had committed some sort of
"ethnic cleansing," but that it wasn’t genocide. (Legally speaking,
"war crimes" and "ethnic cleansing" do not necessarily mean genocide,
the most heinous of all crimes against humanity.)

During the time I lived abroad, I encountered plenty of Armenian
resentment toward Turkey, but then again, I thought, "What’s
new?" After all, neighboring Greeks, Kurds, Iranians, Arabs and some
Europeans often seemed to hate Turkey, too! (Being the descendants
of an imperial people is overrated on the karmic scale.)

But not everyone in Turkey is willing to go with the type of
"strategic ignorance" I have been carefully practicing on the Armenian
issue. Recently, a group of 200 Turkish intellectuals signed an online
petition "apologizing" to Armenians for their suffering at the hands
of Ottoman forces during the First World War.

It reads: "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to
and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians
were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share,
I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I
apologize to them." The name of the Web site translated into English is
"weapologize.com."

Even with no mention of genocide, the short text hit a raw nerve
with the Turkish public. Politicians lined up to condemn the
initiative, while a group of academics and retired diplomats issued
a counter-declaration, denying charges of genocide and asking for the
Armenians to apologize for the murder of 38 Turkish diplomats in the
1970s by Armenian terrorists seeking revenge. "I find it unreasonable
to apologize when there is no crime," Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said. Spinoff Web sites are full of nationalist fervor.

In clogged Istanbul traffic, an irate driver gave me his unsolicited
view: "Excuse me, miss, but now they want to apologize to Armenians. I
am a Muslim expelled from the Balkans when the empire collapsed. My
family was annihilated. We lost all land and property and took refuge
in Turkey. Who will apologize to me?"

Another unsolicited response came over e-mail from the lady who had
recently decorated our home: "I have no idea whom else we are supposed
to apologize to. The Anzacs for the Gallipoli? The Greek, British, and
Italian soldiers for having liberated our homeland [in 1923] from their
invasion? Does anyone remember there were two sides to this conflict?"

I ran into a senior diplomat at a funeral and he told me that neither
the apology nor the counter-declaration rang the right tone. "They
are both extreme positions and would encourage extremists on both
sides." In Turkey, the apology certainly created a backlash, while in
Armenia, it is likely to encourage those who want to seek compensation
and land from Turkey.

So incendiary has the apology been that the Turkish President Abdullah
Gul had to withdraw his initial support for the statement when he
was accused of having Armenian blood. And Turkey’s military issued
a statement condemning the apology, suggesting it would torpedo any
possibility of rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia.

It is difficult to tell if the online petition has actually lifted
a taboo or reinforced it. For starters, Turks are never good at
apologizing. With no exposure to Oprah and psycho-babble, anger is
preferable to soul-searching in much of the Middle East. But even
most liberal Turks I know hate the idea of an apology to Armenians,
partly because it tacitly admits to genocide–something the majority
do not believe happened.

Of course Turkey needs to face its past and have a more open debate
on the Armenian issue. But do you begin with an apology? I fear this
would foment enough anger on both sides of the border to just about
block any meaningful dialogue.

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was assassinated by Turkish
nationalists after he labeled the 1915 events a genocide. On the
Armenian side, there are politicians who still have hopes of reclaiming
land. In both countries, there is a potential climate of violence and,
until that abates, an apology will just incite more trouble.

I wish the petition Web site said everything that it did, but
had stopped short of an apology. It would have more appeal here in
Turkey. Rome was not built in a day and bridges between nations cannot
be either.

Turks and Armenians have a long way to go in overcoming hatred,
and certainly setting history straight will have to be part of that
process. But apology is not the beginning. Friendship, something we
lacked for almost a century, is.

If I could have my own petition, I would say to Armenians, "Friends,
I feel your pain and am sorry for not recognizing it before. Let’s
leave aside semantics for now and just meet." And then wait for what
they had to tell me.

Asli Aydintasbas is an Istanbul-based journalist and former Ankara
bureau chief of the newspaper Sabah.

TOUCH OF GLITTER
Eva Friede

Canada.com
Dec 23 2008
Canada

In tough times, some will party like it’s 1929 to ring in the new
year. Others will practise restraint

There are two ways to approach ringing in the new year amid a mood
of doom, gloom and economic uncertainty.

One school will exercise restraint and denial; the other plans to
bring on the bubbly and party like it’s 1929.

And then there’s the middle ground of small indulgences: a bold new
lipstick or string of pearls (faux or real), trading down from designer
to affordable little frocks, and going for that touch of sparkle.

"The situation is a little sombre, but people still want to sparkle,"
said Anne Marineau, marketing director of Tristan, the Montreal-based
retail chain. "If anything, in times like this, they want a little
oomph," she continued, noting that red dresses and sequins sold well
and quickly.

Of course, whether you opt for a quiet night in with friends and family
or hoopla and champagne at a festive ball is dependent not only on
the tenor of the times but on your personality, lifestyle and age,
as well. Fashion follows suit.

Snowboarding in the country, but she believes this will be a big
party year.

"Because of the recession, people are going to be partying," she said,
contending that’s a way to counterbalance the bad news.

Brodeur, 28, said she’s picturing silver dresses, silver sequins and
plenty of glam for New Year’s Eve.

Glamour is certainly on Arminee Oulikian’s agenda as she heads to a
major Armenian reception with friends and family.

A makeup artist at Murale, Oulikian, 30, is "absolutely" getting
dressed up, in a charcoal dress with pinpoints of purple sparkle and
very high purple heels.

"It’s very glamorous – like an Italian wedding," Oulikian said of
the party, adding the recession isn’t worrying her.

Still, there’s no denying we’ve entered an age of austerity. Retailers
admit to dismal sales in the normally ebullient pre-Christmas period –
thus there are early and fabulous markdowns – and even professionally
upbeat marketing executives acknowledge limits.

"Nobody wants to look outright ostentatious," said Anny Kazanjian,
a public relations VP at Birks & Mayors.

On the bright side, she said, that puts more of a focus on jewellery
and accessories. "People are still gravitating toward pearls,"
she noted.

Kazanjian, formerly at Chanel, will have a house party to celebrate
the new year. "I have a little black dress," she said. "An oldie
but goodie."

Women still want dresses, said Brigitte Chartrand, owner of Old
Montreal’s Boutique Reborn. And accessories, especially jewellery,
are big, she added.

"People do try to stand out a lot for New Year’s. That’s still
happening."

She prefers a quiet celebration, at a restaurant or at a house
party. And she will likely wear a black dress, not because it’s safe
but because that’s her colour of choice, personally and for the store.

Makeup is another small indulgence for festivities.

Rita Assouline, owner-operator of the new Murale beauty store in
Place Ville

Marie, has tips on the trends for holiday and the new year:

For the eyes: false eyelashes, bold eyeliner and light shadow.

Dark lipstick from purple to berry and brown. Nail lacquer to match.

Pale skin with a matte finish and perhaps a pop of colour on the
cheeks.

Messed-up hair.

There’s one event where what you wear hardly matters – as long as
you’re all bundled up. Montreal’s annual grand ball to ring in the
new year takes place at Place Jacques Cartier, starting at 9:30
p.m. It’s free, with entertainment by BardeFou and 4 play, and with
35,000 people expected, the feeling should be all warm and fuzzy.

CHARGED

Hayots Ashkharh Daily
20 Dec 2008
Armenia

The inquest of the criminal case on the death attempt against the Major
of Stepanavan S. Gharakeshishyan is on the Investigative department
of Lory province under the General Investigation Administration of
the Police, in the framework of which S. Gharakeshishyan is also
involved as a culprit.

Based on certain proofs, S. Gharakeshishyan was charged by article
116, section 1, of the Criminal Code, for going beyond the limits of
self-protection and causing injury of average gravity.

Violent protests resume in Greece’s Athens

14:00 | 21/ 12/ 2008

ATHENS, December 21 (RIA Novosti) – Hundreds of Greek youths staged
fresh protests in Athens, clashing with police amid Greece’s worst
riots in decades sparked by the recent killing of a teenager by police,
local TV channels reported Sunday.

Students threw stones and firebombs at police in the Athens district of
Exarchia where 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos had been shot dead
on December 6, and also erected roadblocks around the nearby
Polytechnic University. The police responded with tear gas, TV channels
said.

The riots, sparked by the youth’s killing, earlier spread to other
Greek cities, leaving a trail of destruction as youths went on the
rampage looting shops and setting fire to hundreds of cars, banks and
businesses.

A recent opinion poll published by the Ethnos newspaper said 83% of
Greeks were unhappy with the methods used by the government to deal
with the violence.

Two police officers have been detained over the teenager’s killing. One
of them, Epaminondas Korkoneas, who claims he fired warning shots in
self-defense which ricocheted, was charged with murder and the illegal
use of his weapon. The second officer, Vassilios Saraliotis, was
charged with aiding and betting Korkoneas

Panorama.am

15:13 20/12/2008

LAST FIREWORK OF `ARMENIAN JAZZ 70′

The last firework of `Armenian jazz 70′ will be tomorrow by the
performance of `Shakatak’ group. The members of the group shared with
their experience in a press conference today.

`Our concerts are attended by people from 10-70 years old. Those who
come to our concerts wish to listen to the old hits but we always have
something new for them,’ said Roger Odell.

The group was in Japan lately. `We even could not imagine that there
could be such a big jazz generation there, the same we have noticed in
Armenia,’ said Jill Savard.

Source: Panorama.am

THE RADICALS BECOME ACTIVE BY THE DIRECTION OF THEIR MASTERS
Armen Tsaturyan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily
16 Dec 2008
Armenia

The end of the political passiveness of the Armenian National Congress
is conditioned by the "signals" received from the West.

During the last two months the representatives of the organizations,
member to the congress, who were disapproved of L. Ter-Petrosyan’s
indifference toward the issue of the settlement of Karabakh conflict,
hinted, in their private conversations, that the reason of the
passiveness manifested by the leader of the radicals is far not
Karabakh issue, he is waiting for "signals" from overseas. The reason
of this very tough expectation is very understandable: after March
1 neither the West nor Russia did support the political camp headed
by the first president.

The fact that during their visits to Armenia in summer and autumn
the European and American officials were not very anxious about the
tempo and the contents of the investigation of March 1 events, and
that the situation has changed during the recent times couldn’t have
been overlooked by Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters.

The visit of the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Tomas
Hammarberg to Armenia on November 20-22 during which he gave very
harsh assessments to the investigation, served as good reason for
the before mentioned.

Moreover it came clear after the warning s of the European high
ranking official that they can be repeated in the report to be made
by Tomas Hammarberg during the monitoring session of Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly, to take place on December 17, in Paris.

Because hardly had the European official left Armenia, when on December
3 the congress submitted a claim about allocating a session hall for
the conference previewed on December 3, threatening that otherwise
they will hold the conference in Georgia.

It is also noteworthy that the date of the conference of Armenian
National Congress matches with the end of PACE monitoring session in
Paris, which means they have calculated that they will be the first
to inform our people about the "historical decisions" of the session,
representing it as the "evident success of the consistent struggle
of the congress".

And finally we shouldn’t overlook the fact that OSCE American
Co-Chairman Mathew Braze has also joined the before mentioned. He
recently made an epochal "announcement" saying: "We are seriously
anxious about the detained in Armenia. There are still 67 detained
pro-oppositional activists."

Mathew Braze’s brains have become so bright that he has shifted his
controversial announcements regarding the Armenian and Azerbaijani
lands into the sphere of opposition-ruling power relations in Armenia’s
internal political domain: "People call political20prisoners those
who are detained on political charges. What we believe is that no
one should be detained for their political motivations."

A question arises here: "What is the reason of this much attention
of the American Co-Chairman towards the so-called political prisoners
in our country?"

Is it really a manifestation of true anxiety? That is why he states
that: "There should be no political prisoners in Armenia, for the sake
of Armenia." In that case why does he shift the issue into the PACE
monitoring committee on the one hand and to the agenda of the council
of directors of the corporation "Millennium Challenges" on the other,
meanwhile friendly and sincerely informs us about it.

After all if the problem is in the investigation of March 1
developments then we must underscore that this process is not new
and is not yet over. So what does Mathew Braze mean?

Moreover, the radical opposition, extremely enthusiastic about the
political and economic pressure on Armenia, not only doesn’t have
any intentions to give an answer to what they did on March 1, but
also intend to aggravate the situation.

So why are they so nervous both "outside" and "inside", when in
reality it is not yet clear what will the "case of the 7" and all
the other cases end with.

If we examine the before mentioned cause-effect relation we can
conclude that we deal with the western scenario of putting a "total
influence" on Armenia by means of making the opposition active. Which
makes the internal lever of the "total influence" break his promise
of not hindering the settlement of Karabakh issue, and the external
lever – to forget about their traditional policy of maneuvering
between the ruling power and the opposition of Armenia.

And because the participants of this performance are short of memory,
in the created situation the moment of truth has approached for
Armenia, thus there are only two options, either to refresh the
memories of some people by demonstrating the foreign levers used for
the organization of March 1 developments or based on the most powerful
"diplomatic interests" to announce general amnesty even for those
who evidently planned and used violence.

AMERIABANK (ARMENIA) TO INSURE DEPOSITS AT ROSGOSSTRAKH-ARMENIA

ARKA
Dec 16, 2008

YEREVAN, December 16. /ARKA/. Ameriabank (Armenia) will insure all
the deposits of its clients at the Rosgosstrakh-Armenia insurance
company under a contract signed with the company.

At his press conference at the Novosti international press center,
Artak Anesyan, CEO, Ameriabank reported that, under the law, the
Deposit Insurance Fund provides guarantees for deposits within 2mln
AMD, and all the deposits at Ameriabank exceeding this amount will
be insured by the Rosgosstrakh-Armenia company.

"We afford ampler opportunities to our clients – from now on, any
individual deposit in terms of any currency will be fully insured,"
Anesyan said.

He pointed out that the total amount of individual deposits exceeding
2mln AMD to be insured at Rosgosstrakh-Armenia exceeds $8mln. Anesyan
said that not only new, but all the deposits at the bank are liable
to insurance.

"Our clients can arrive at the bank to get their insurance policies,"
he said.

According to him, this is one more opportunity for clients to keep
their money at one bank with guarantees of return.

Anesyan pointed out that the bank provides guarantees for all the
deposits due to its financial leverage.

The Armenian banks’ average financial leverage index is 4, that of
Ameriabank being 1.05.

As regards the insurer, Anesyan said that not all Armenian insurance
c ompanies have necessary licenses.

"Moreover, Rosgosstrakh-Armenia is a most reliable strategic partner
of Ameriabank so the first step has been made jointly with them. The
company’s authorized capital allows the deal to be effected, and what
is more all the risks will be reinsured abroad," Anesyan said.

He added that the bank is ready to consider similar proposals of
other insurance companies. He pointed out that the Rosgosstrakh
group of companies, one of the largest insurers in the Commonwealth
of Independent States, will act as re-insurer of risks.

"We decided to insure individual deposits because they are most
vulnerable. At the same time, it will enable us to increase the total
amount of fixed deposits, bolster clients’ confidence and improve
their reliability," Anesyan said.

The Central Bank of Armenia (CBQ) registered the Rosgosstrakh-Armenia
CJSC on May 28, 2008, with an authorized capital of 500mln AMD
(about $1.6mln).

The company was founded by the Rosgosstrakh insurance group.

The Ameriabank CJSC (former Armimpexbank) was founded in July 1992
using the facilities of the Armenian branch of the USSR Vnesheconombank
(Foreign Economy Bank). On September 8, 1992, the bank received a
banking license from the CBA.

Last August, TDA Holdings limited, affiliated with Troika Dialogue,
Russia’s leading investment company, purchased the bank’s shares.

This May the bank was renamed=2 0Ameriabank.

As of September 30, 2008, the bank’s authorized capital totaled 17bln
AMD, assets 41.8bln AMD, total capital 18.8bln AMD, credit investments
23.4bln AMD. January through September, the bank’s profits reached
429.4mln AMD.