Author: Chaltikian Arsine

Voice of America
April 25 2009

Turkey Objects to Obama Statement on Armenian Killings

By VOA News
25 April 2009

Turkey’s government has objected to U.S. President Barack Obama’s
statement recognizing the killings of more than a million Armenians
during the final years of the Ottoman empire.

Speaking in Bulgaria at a meeting in Sofia, Turkish President Abdullah
Gul said Saturday that the U.S. president should also have expressed
sympathy for the "hundreds of thousands of Turks and Muslims" killed
between 1915 and 1923.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry complained that certain points in
Mr. Obama’s statement were "unacceptable."

On Friday, President Obama released a statement to mark Armenian
Remembrance Day that said the mass killings of an estimated 1.5
million Armenians was one of the "great atrocities" of the 20th
century.

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama had described the Armenian
deaths as genocide, but he has not used that description since taking
office.

Mr. Obama also encouraged the Armenian and Turkish people to move
toward reconciliation by addressing the facts of the past.

Armenia considers the mass killings genocide by Turkish forces. But
Turkey has strongly rejected the genocide claim, saying the Armenian
death toll is inflated and that many Turks also were killed during the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Armenians say the early 20th century deaths were the result of an
orchestrated campaign by Ottoman Turks against their people and are
stepping up efforts to have the deaths internationally recognized as
genocide.

France, Canada and Switzerland are among the countries that have
recognized the genocide claim. Other nations, including the United
States, have not.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.

APA, Azerbaijan
April 25 2009

Azerbaijani President agrees to meet with Armenian President, official
Baku confirms

[ 25 Apr 2009 11:14 ]

Baku. Naila abdullayeva ` APA. Official Baku has confirmed that
Azerbaijan’s President agreed to meet with Armenian President in
Prague in May, Russian co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov
told journalists at the airport, APA reports.

He said that uncoordinated issues with regard to the solution to
Nagorno Karabakh would be discussed during the Prague meeting.

`We hope the meeting will produce results,’ he said.
Merzlyakov said after the presidents’ meeting in Prague the co-chairs
would visit the region again.

French co-chair Bernard Fassier compared the settlement of Nagorno
Karabakh conflict with the construction of a house.
`This is a long process. Our visits and talks mean bricking up, but we
are not yet ready to build the roof. We hope concrete and serious
improvement will be made by this year-end,’ he said.
Fassier said the meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents in
St. Petersburg in June depended on the results of the Prague
negotiations. He underlined that the normalization of Turkey-Armenia
relations would also influence the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh
conflict.

American co-chair Matthew Bryza said the meetings with Azerbaijani
officials were constructive and he was leaving Baku in a good mood.

WILL OBAMA STAND UP TO OR SMILE
by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

New Jersey Jewish Standard
t/item/will_obama_stand_up_to_or_smile/7945
April 24 2009
NJ

Truth regardless of consequences

The picture of the President of the United States smiling broadly as he
met President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela startled me. Our president is a
nice guy. Chavez is anything but. The U.S. State Department maintains
that Chavez has attacked democratic traditions and has put Venezuelan
democracy on life support with unchecked concentration of power,
political persecution, and intimidation. Foreign Affairs magazine
says that Chavez is a power-hungry dictator with autocratic and
megalomaniacal tendencies whose authoritarian vision and policies are
a serious threat to his people. In testimony before the U.S. Senate,
the South American project director for the Center for Strategic
International Studies said that Chavez’s government engages in
"arresting opposition leaders, torturing some members of the opposition
(according to human rights organizations), and encouraging, if not
directing, its squads of Bolivarian Circles to beat up members of
Congress and intimidate voters — all with impunity." In spite of
a presidential term limit of six years, Chavez has suggested that
he would like to remain in power for 25 years. Hmmm. An autocratic
dictator who abuses human rights and undermines democracy being
warmly embraced by the American president. There’s something wrong
with that picture.

Then there was the incident of Obama’s seeming to bow before King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 Summit in London. The president’s
people denied it was a bow, but it certainly was a sign of great
deference from the American president to the dictator of a country
that just six weeks ago sentenced a 75-year-old woman to 40 lashes
for having been secluded with her nephew after he delivered bread to
her home. This is the same Abdullah who, when asked why Saudi Arabia
prohibits the public practice of religions other than Islam, said,
"It is absurd to impose on an individual or a society rights that
are alien to its beliefs or principles."

Of course Obama is pursuing a renewed relationship with Cuba, a
country that engages in systematic human rights abuses, including
torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial
executions. Censorship is so extensive that Cubans face five-year
prison sentences for connecting to the Internet illegally. And not
only is emigration illegal but even discussing it carries a six-month
prison sentence.

Watching all this, I wondered what the new standards are. How
oppressive must a leader be before we determine that he has not
merited a hug by the democratic standard-bearer of the free world,
the president of the United States?

Yes, I get it. We have to speak to our enemies and America has to push
"reset" on its relationship with many of these countries. We should
try to change them through charm. But who said the president himself,
rather than a lower-level diplomat, must do so? And if Obama feels
that he has to be the one to greet a man like Chavez, must it be
with the kind of ear-to-ear grin that one might show Girl Scouts
selling cookies?

It must surely be disheartening for those who suffer oppression in
countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia to see the American
president back-slapping their oppressors when these victims have
always looked up to the United States as their champions.

In Turkey, Obama boldly declared that "The United States is not, and
never will be, at war with Islam." But the person who was at war with
Islam, Saddam Hussein, the man who killed nearly one million Muslims,
was removed by a country that has already paid with the lives of 4,500
of its service men and women. The same is true of the Taliban, another
group that the Obama administration is considering talking with, which
beat Muslim women in the streets of Afghanistan. Yet the president
seems reluctant to publicly identify these real enemies of Islam.

Like many Americans, I have watched our president and have been
awed by his capacity to draw those who hate us near. He is a man
of considerable charm and grace. But I have to admit that I am
increasingly troubled by his seeming inability to call out dictators.

While he was campaigning for the presidency Obama promised, "As
president I will recognize the Armenian genocide." But in a press
conference in Ankara with President Abdullah Gul, he refused to use
the word "genocide" when challenged by a reporter on the issue.

Yet, it was Obama’s early foreign policy adviser Samantha Power
of Harvard who wrote "A Problem from Hell," a definitive book on
the non-American intervention in repeated 20th-century genocides,
beginning with the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks that
killed 1.5 million Armenians between the years of 1915 and 1923. The
book changed my life. As a Jew who does not want the world to forget
the Holocaust, I can only imagine the pain of the Armenian community
as it struggles to have modern Turkey acknowledge the crime. And why
should modern Turkey not oblige? No one is blaming it for something
that happened 90 years ago. It is not today’s generation that is at
fault. But nations must come to terms with their own history. Could
any of us imagine what kind of country that the United States would
be if it denied that it was responsible for the abomination of
African-American slavery and segregation?

All this leads to one important question. Suppose Obama succeeds in
building friendships with Chavez, Castro, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
and the Taliban. What then? Does America still get to feel that it
stands for something? Will we still be the beacon of liberty to the
rest of the world, or will we have sold out in the name of political
expediency? And do any of us seriously believe that presidential
friendship is going to get a megalomaniac like Hugo Chavez to ease
up on the levers of power, or are we just feeding his ego by showing
him he can be a tyrant and still have a beer with the president of
the United States? Will the Iranians really stop enriching uranium
because of diplomacy rather than economic sanctions?

I know that the Bush administration made many mistakes and I am fan
of Obama precisely because of his sunny optimism. But President Bush
was not, as Chavez once called him, the devil, and it could just be
that his emphasis on America being the great champion of democracy and
freedom, a position that was most eloquently articulated by President
Kennedy in his inaugural address, is a legacy that ought to belong
to Obama as much as it did to his predecessor.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values
Network. He has just published "The Kosher Sutra: Eight Sacred Secrets
for Reigniting Desire and Restoring Passion for Life."

SUCCESSFUL FULFILLMENT OF ARMENIA’S 2008 STATE BUDGET GIVES GOVERNMENT ROOM TO RESIST CHALLENGES

/ARKA/
April 23, 2009
YEREVAN

Successful implementation of Armenia’s 2008 state budget gave the
Government room for forming reserves for resisting current challenges,
Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said at a governmental meeting
on Thursday.

At that meeting, the Government upheld Finance Ministry’s report on
fulfillment of the 2008 state budget.

The report will be sent to National Assembly before May 1.

"We have managed to save about AMD 77 billion. While using these
funds now, we take into account quite considerable impact of the
global crisis on the budget revenue", Sargsyan said.

He said that the saved funds enabled the Government to fulfill social
payments to shield citizens from the impact.

"Additional efforts should be made to avoid problems at the second
half of the year", he said.

Finance Minister Tigran Davtyan, presenting key provisions of the
budget, said that successful fulfillment of the budget revenue and
expenditure in 2008 saved funds.

"According to the annual report, revenue totaled AMD 785.3 billion,
expenses AMD 810.6 billion and deficit AMD 25.2 billion", he said.

The minister said that AMD 746 billion was planned in the 2008 initial
state budget approved by National Assembly, but after corrections
made over the year, the revenue was set at AMD 803.6 billion.

"In fact, 105% of the initial budget revenue and 97.7% of amended
budget expenditure were implemented by late 2008", he said adding
that this was due to under-received funds on grants, particularly
implied by Millennium Challenges Program.

Davtyan said that revenue indicators show considerable overfulfilment
of the budget.

"We have managed to ensure AMD 770 billion fulfillment. This exceeds
indicators of the initial budget by 8.3% and the amended budget by
0.7%", he said.

The minister said that tax and customs receipts were planned at AMD
577.1 billion in the initial and AMD 619 billion in the corrected
budgets.

He said that AMD 621 billion receipts were insured.

This amount 4% greater than that planned in the initial budget and 0.2%
greater than in the amended budget.

"Tax/GDP ratio was 17.02% in 2008 against 17% planned in the initial
budget", the minister said.

Davtyan also said that in the initial state budget, expenses were
planned to total AMD 822 billion in 2008 and fulfillment exceeded
AMD 810 billion by latte 2008.

"The money accumulated over the year is targeted for supporting
fulfillment of the 2009 state budget", he said.

The finance minister said that deficit amounted to AMD 25.2 billion
while in the initial budget it was planned at AMD 76 billion and in
the amended budget AMD 56 billion.

0D "So deficit/GDP ratio was recorded at 0.48% in 2008. This is quite
low indicator that laid favorable ground for 2009" Davtyan said. ($1 =
AMD 370.46).
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From: [email protected]
Subject: =?utf-8?Q?Successful_fulfillment_of_Armenia=E2=80= 99s_2008_state_budget_g?=
=?utf-8?Q?ives_government_room_to_resist_challenge s?=

Successful fulfillment of Armeniaâ??s 2008 state budget gives government
room to resist challenges

YEREVAN, April 23. /ARKA/. Successful implementation of Armeniaâ??s 2008
state budget gave the Government room for forming reserves for
resisting current challenges, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan
said at a governmental meeting on Thursday.

At that meeting, the Government upheld Finance Ministryâ??s report on
fulfillment of the 2008 state budget.

The report will be sent to National Assembly before May 1.

â??We have managed to save about AMD 77 billion. While using these funds
now, we take into account quite considerable impact of the global
crisis on the budget revenueâ??, Sargsyan said.

He said that the saved funds enabled the Government to fulfill social
payments to shield citizens from the impact.

â??Additional efforts should be made to avoid problems at the second half
of the yearâ??, he said.

Finance Minister Tigran Davtyan, presenting key provisions of the
budget, said that successful fulfillment of the budget revenue and
expenditure in 2008 saved funds.

â??According to the annual report, revenue totaled AMD 785.3 billion,
expenses AMD 810.6 billion and deficit AMD 25.2 billionâ??, he said.

The minister said that AMD 746 billion was planned in the 2008 initial
state budget approved by National Assembly, but after corrections made
over the year, the revenue was
set at AMD 803.6 billion.

â??In fact, 105% of the initial budget revenue and 97.7% of amended
budget expenditure were implemented by late 2008â??, he said adding that
this was due to under-received funds on grants, particularly implied by
Millennium Challenges Program.

Davtyan said that revenue indicators show considerable overfulfilment
of the budget.

â??We have managed to ensure AMD 770 billion fulfillment. This exceeds
indicators of the initial budget by 8.3% and the amended budget by
0.7%â??, he said.

The minister said that tax and customs receipts were planned at AMD
577.1 billion in the initial and AMD 619 billion in the corrected
budgets.

He said that AMD 621 billion receipts were insured.

This amount 4% greater than that planned in the initial budget and 0.2%
greater than in the amended budget.

â??Tax/GDP ratio was 17.02% in 2008 against 17% planned in the initial
budgetâ??, the minister said.

Davtyan also said that in the initial state budget, expenses were
planned to total AMD 822 billion in 2008 and fulfillment exceeded AMD
810 billion by latte 2008.

â??The money accumulated over the year is targeted for supporting
fulfillment of the 2009 state budgetâ??, he said.

The finance minister said that deficit amounted to AMD 25.2 billion
while in the initial budget it was planned at AMD 76 billion and in the
amended budget AMD 56 billion.
0D
â??So deficit/GDP ratio was recorded at 0.48% in 2008. This is quite low
indicator that laid favorable ground for 2009â?? Davtyan said. ($1 = AMD
370.46). M.V. –0–

______________________________________ __________________________________
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GOLD PLATE NUMBERS AND BODYGUARD MAKE NERVOUS

LRAGIR.AM
13:09:29 – 23/04/2009

The Armenian Chief of the Police Alik Sargsyan stated that the breaches
of the traffic rules are a very serious problem. "Some successful
or on the contrary, unsuccessful sons of famous people, breaking
the traffic rules, try to show something making people nervous. "We
are going to struggle against this phenomenon very decisively",
stated Sargsyan. The Chief of the Police said that this problem,
which is created by the cars with Georgian plate numbers or so called
"gold numbers", will be rooted out "People, who have "gold numbers"
either will have to reject them or will regret to have paid money
for them because the attention of the traffic police will be focused
right on them", stated Sargsyan.

The Chef of the Police dwelt on the question relating to the
private bodyguards, saying that today that young people stroll with
bodyguard. "Taking example of their parents they walk in the city with
3-4 cars of bodyguard. I don’t think it has any security reason. It
is some image which makes people nervous".

Note that on these days, information was spread in the media that the
Police arrested the Parliamentary members Levon Sargsyan and Ashot
Aghababyan. The reason of which was mentioned to be the actions of
their bodyguards and columns of cars.

SERZH SARGSYAN RECEIVES PRESIDENT OF ARMENIAN EVANGELICAL WORLD COUNCIL

ArmenPress
April 21 2009
Armenia

Today, President Serzh Sargsyan received Reverend Harutyun Selimian,
President of the Armenian Evangelical World Council and Rev. Renee
Levonian, Head of the Evangelical Operation in Armenia.

Presidential press service told Armenpress that the parties conversed
about the activities of the Armenian Evangelical Church in Armenia,
benevolent and development programs implemented in different areas of
Armenia’s life. Reverend Harutyun Selimian said that the activities
of the Armenian Evangelical Church were based on educating her
congregation in devotion to the Armenian and Christian values,
while its ultimate goal was to support Armenia, assist the rise and
advancement of our Motherland.

The President of Armenia stressed once again the importance of
bringing the potential of the world-spread Armenians together for the
benefit of Armenia and the Armenian people, praised the efforts of the
Armenian organizations and our compatriots directed at strengthening
Armenia-Diaspora relations and preservation of the Armenian identity.

US AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA VISITED USAID-SUPPORTED PROJECTS IN CHARENTSAVAN

armradio.am
21.04.2009 17:32

As part of her regional tour to Kotayk Marz on April 21, 2009, U.S.

Ambassador to Armenia Marie L. Yovanovitch visited the USAID-supported
Armenian EyeCare Project and Soup Kitchen in Charentsavan, accompanied
by town Mayor Hakob Shahgaldyan, U.S. Embassy and USAID/Armenia
representatives.

USAID has partnered with the Diaspora-founded Armenian EyeCare
Project (AECP) since 2004. The project’s mission is to eliminate
preventable blindness and make eye care accessible to all people in
Armenia. Ambassador Yovanovitch visited the project’s state-of-the-art
Mobile Eye Hospital, stationed at the Charentsavan hospital, and
conversed with project doctors and community members waiting for
their examination or surgical treatment.

During the last AECP visit to Charentsavan in 2007, 156 adults and 343
children were screened for eye problems, and 90 patients were then
referred to Mobile Eye Hospital for detailed eye examination. AECP
also provided 72 pairs of glasses and performed surgeries for 28
vulnerable people.

The U.S. envoy then visited the USAID-supported Charentsavan
Community Center and Soup Kitchen – one of 25 Day Centers operated
across Armenia by the Mission Armenia NGO. Operating since 2004, the
center in Charentsavan offers a broad range of services to the town’s
197 most vulnerable residents, including the el derly, the disabled,
refugees residing in temporary dwellings, families with many children
and the unemployed. The facility provides a hot meal once a day, five
days a week, social and health services (including home visits) and
arranges vocational training courses for vulnerable community members.

Ambassador Yovanovitch toured the facility, joined the elderly for
lunch and observed the eye screening and public health talk, conducted
by AECP doctors for the center’s visitors.

TROYKA DIALOG SHOWS RECORD-HIGH PROFITABILITY IN PENSION SAVINGS MANAGEMENT IN Q1 2009 – 88.74%

/ARKA/
April 20, 2009
YEREVAN

Troyka Dialog asset management company provided a record-high
profitability in management of pension savings in the first quarter of
this year – 88.74%, the press service of Armenian Ameriabank reported.

In all respects it is a phenomenal result taking into account the
company’s loss of 52.64% by the end of 2008 and if compared with
results of other management companies who have already reported
for the first quarter, said Pavel Teplukhin, Chairman of Board of
Directors of Troyka Dialog companies’ group.

In particular, Vnesheconombank recorded minus7% p.a. with its average
market profitability at 17-20%, he said.

As early as three months ago the company reported their intention to
maintain its strategy announced in 2005 – long-terms plans to invest
pension savings funds – unchanged.

"At that time, it was much more difficult to face the challenge on
the pension savings market than on the securities market, but we did
it. We believed and we still believe that pension money investments
are long-term investments and the best result will be provided in case
of investments with maximum share of the stock in portfolio," he said.

At the end of December 2008, the portfolio included municipal and
corporate bonds (Leningrad and Moscow regions, "Grajdanskiye samole
ti Sukhogo" and others), as well as most liquid shares of major
issuers in various fields of the Russian economy such as oil and gas,
telecommunication, energy, banking and transport sectors (LUKOYL,
"Rostelecom", RusHydro, Sberbank Rosiyi and others).

No "second" or "third" echelon or less liquid securities are included
in the portfolio; all the securities have been valued at their real
market value, he said.

Teplukhin also reported permanent rotations in the investment portfolio
of the company and said that only proportion of asset classes remains
unchanged (bonds, shares, funds).

"Our proportion is not aggressive – 37% of shares, and the portfolio
structure may start being adjusted along with start of pension payments
and if there is a need to correlate profitability with payments,"
he said.

Teplukhin expects that Troyka Dialog will manage to also complete the
second quarter with a record-high result – the profitability exceeds
40% for some securities in April.

In commenting the expectations that the government will allow placing
up to 80% of the pension funds in banks, Teplukhin pointed out that it
is naive to have such a hope as even now the pension funds correlate
with the banking system and may even surpass it in the near future.

"Our banking system is too small for pension money. Pension funds
should undertake the risk of the Rus sian assets – shares or
bonds. There is nothing dreadful in this risk – one should analyze
carefully and work with them professionally and gain from it,"
Teplukhin said.

Armenian-Argentine philatelic exhibition to be held in Armenia

YEREVAN, February 18. /ARKA/. An Armenian-Argentine international
philatelic exhibition, AFAREX-09, is to be held in Armenia on April
20-23, reported the press service of the Synopsis Company.

RA Minister of Transport and Communications Gurgen Sargsyan believes
that the 6th Armenian-Argentine philatelic exhibition has laid the
foundations for establishing joint production of stamps, which will
give an impetus to the two countries’ reaching a new level of cultural
cooperation.

Arman Khachaturyan, Director General of the Haypost CJSC, believes that
joint production of stamps is a graphic manifestation of the bilateral
friendly and cultural ties.

`The subject matter chosen for the stamps is the best means of
presenting our peoples’ cultural values because the dance is one of the
most beautiful and graphic manifestations of national and cultural
traditions,’ Khachaturyan said.

He expressed the confidence that the initiative will be developed and
will contribute to the development of bilateral cultural ties.

Hovik Musaelyan, Executive Director of Synopsys Armenia and President
of the Union of Philatelists of Armenia said that people worldwide
collect stamps because the language of philately is an international
lingua franca, which affords opportunities to get acquainted with
cultural and historical events as well a with the peculiarities of
different nations.0D

Stamps picturing national Armenian and Argentine dances will be
displayed at the exhibition.

Armenian-Argentine stamps will be canceled at the opening ceremony.

The exhibition has been organized by the Union of Philatelists of
Armenia and Haypost CJSC.

The State Engineering University of Armenia is general sponsor of the
exhibition. Among the sponsors are also Yerevan State University, ARKA
News Agency, Yerkir Media TV channel, Delovoy Ekspress weekly, and the
Economy Journal. `0–

‘VALLEX’ GROUP OF COMPANIES ANNOUNCES RESULTS OF TENDER FOR FULFILLMENT OF TREE-PLANTING WORK IN TEGHUT FOREST AREA

ArmInfo
2009-04-18 13:57:00

ArmInfo. During the meeting of the relevant competition commission,
‘Vallex’ Group of companies announced the results of the tender
for fulfillment of tree-planting work in Teghut forest area, the
press release received by ArmInfo from ‘Vallex’ Public Relations
Department says.

The tender results were summed up in the office of T’eghut’ CJSC in
Yerevan under chairmanship of Head of the tender commission, deputy
Director of ‘Hayantar’ (‘Armles’) Company of Armenia’s Agriculture
Ministry Ruben Petrosyan. ‘Tree Gren’ Ltd and ‘Aghavnatur’ Ltd have
been recognized the tender winners. The first of them will perform
tree-planting work at the section of 67 hectares in the territory of
Teghut and Shnokh communities of Lori region. The Company’s price
proposal made up 908,6 thsd drams per hectare. ‘Aghavnatur’ Ltd
will carry out forest plantation on 68 hectares in the territory of
Arevatsag and Mghart communities of Lori region, the price proposal
makes up 973,4 thsd drams per hectare. The relevant contracts will
be signed with the tender winners till April 30, 2009. To recall,
forest plantations are held within the frames of the ‘Programme of
compensation for the damage caused to the forestry as a result of
deforestation for fulfillment of the programme of exploitation of
Teghut mine’.

A competition commission was created within the frames of the programme
which includes representatives of the Agriculture and Ecology
Ministries and ‘Teghut’ CJSC. It is envisaged to totally perform
tree-planting work within the programme in the territory of 714 Ha,
that twice exceeds the area of deforestation, the Company message says.

To recall, it is scheduled to annually extract 25-30 thsd tons of
copper and 800 tons of molybdenum at Teghut deposit, that will assure
40-50% of the total copper mining and to 20% of molybdenum mining over
the republic in general. The license for exploitation of the deposit
was given to ACP company (Armenian Copper Programme), being part of
‘Vallex’ Group, in 2001 for 25-year period. ‘Teghut’ CJSC was created
specially for development of Teghut deposit.