Author: Nahapetian Boris

ANTIHAIL SYSTEMS DEVELOPED BY VIASPHERE CAN BE USED IN ARTSAKH AS WELL

Noyan Tapan
Feb 2, 2010

STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The President of the Nagorno
Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakian on February 2 conducted a consultation
on the introduction of modern technologies in the NKR. Director
General of Viasphere technopark, Doctor of Technical Science Aram
Vardanian was invited to the consultation.

The main subject of discussion was the introduction of an antihail
system in Artsakh. B. Sahakian expressed a high opinion about
Viasphere’s experience in this field, noting that the antihail systems
developed by the company and installed in various places in Armenia
can be used in Artsakh as well. He attached importance to pilot
installation of several antihail stations in the NKR prior to the
season of rains.

According to the Central Information Department of the Office of
the NKR President, on the same day B. Sahakian conducted another
consultation to discuss the work done in 2009 by the Production
Infrastructure Department attached to the RA government.

Reports were made by the department head Karlen Petrosian and several
officials. B. Sahakian said that the production infrastructure
sphere is one of the most important socioeconomic directions, and
its coordinated and sustainable development is always in the center
of the authorities’ attention.

PACE CHAIRMAN MEETS TURKISH LEADERS

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.02.2010 20:43 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The new chairman of PACE, Mevlut CavuÅ~_oglu,
arrived to Ankara on February 1 to meet Turkish leaders. Chairman
CavuÅ~_oglu was first received by President Abdullah Gul. The President
said the election of a Turkish parliamentarian as the head of PACE is
of vital importance in terms of illustrating Turkey’s international
credibility and multilateral diplomacy that pursues peace and stability
in its region.

CavuÅ~_oglu was later received by Turkey’s Parliament Speaker, Mehmet
Ali Å~^ahin, where he underscored the importance of human rights.

CavuÅ~_oglu also said the Council of Europe (COE) attached utmost
importance to the improvement of civil authority and considered the
issue as one of the basic pillars of democracy, TRT reported.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: the oldest
international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition
of democratically elected members of parliament established on the
basis of an intergovernmental treaty. The Assembly is one of the two
statutory organs of the Council of Europe, which is composed of the
Committee of Ministers (the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meeting
usually at the level of their deputies) and the Assembly representing
the political forces (majority and opposition) in its member states.

The assembly has a total of 642 members – 321 principal members and
321 substitutes [1] – who are representatives of each member state.

There are also 18 delegates from the Canadian, Israeli and Mexican
observers. The size of each country determines its number of
representatives and number of votes. This is in contrast in the
committee of ministers, where each country has one vote.

Each State member selects its method of designating its representatives
to the parliamentary assembly; however, they must be chosen from among
the members of the respective Parliaments. Moreover, the political
composition of each national delegation must reflect the representation
of the different parties within the respective parliaments.

VAHE ARSEN’S "RETURN OF GREEN GODS" POEMS COLLECTION PRESENTED IN NETHERLANDS

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.02.2010 12:46 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Vahe Arsen’s "Return of Green Gods" collection of
poems was presented in the Netherlands. The translation was made by
Anna Maria Martirosjan-Mattaar. It’s the first book translated from
Armenian into Dutch during the past decades.

"Sasuntsi Davit" Armenian epos, also translated by her into Dutch,
will be published in April 2010.

During the presentation, Vahe Arsen was honored with Jambe 2010, the
annual award of young Dutch poets. The first copy of the collection
was gifted to the Armenian Consulate.

MEDIASET ITALIAN TV CHANNEL BROADCASTS DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
29.01.2010 18:03 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Since November 22, 2009, famous Italian MEDIASET
TV company has been broadcasting documentaries about Armenia every
Sunday morning.

Eight 20-minute films have been already screened during "Limits
of Soul" TV program. They include: "Armenia", "Armenia: the Story
Continues in Venice", "Armenia: what’s the Future?, "Armenia: Great
Tragedy", "Armenia: One Church, One Nation", "Armenia: Monasteries,
"Historical Accord" and "Armenia: Country of Crying Stones".

The documentaries were shot by Italian journalists.

ANOTHER TECH IPO YOU HAVEN’T BEEN WAITING FOR
by Peter Kafka

All Things Digital (blog)
January 29, 2010 at 9:12 AM PT

123Facebook is officially out of the running for a 2010 IPO, and it’s
a good bet that other sort-of candidates like Zynga are going to be
waiting for a while, too.

So if you really want to make a bet on a Webby public offering in
the near future, you’re going to have to wager on companies with
a…less impressive pedigree. Companies like FriendFinder Networks,
which runs a collection of porn sites and niche social networks,
or Vringo, which is ostensibly in the ringtone business and wants to
raise $64 million to keep going.

UPDATE: Vringo notes that it is only looking to sell $13.8 million
worth of shares and warrants in its initial offering, but that
conversion of warrants could eventually generate tens of millions more.

How can ringtones still be a business in 2010? For Vringo, they aren’t:
The company has been giving them away for free, though it hopes to
start selling them soonish.

Better hurry. Vringo has raised $17.5 million since 2006, and has
burned through almost all of that. Total revenue so far: $36,000,
generated by a partner in Armenia. PaidContent has more details from
the S-1.

LEADING INDICATORS: OFF THE RADAR NEWS ROUNDUP
Judah Grunstein

World Politics Review (blog)
28 Jan 2010

– Following up on their $20 billion nuclear reactor deal, the UAE and
South Korea reopened talks for the UAE’s $1.4 billion purchase of South
Korean supersonic trainer jets. The deal would be accompanied by closer
defense cooperation, with South Korea promising to technology transfers
for UAVs, ballistic missiles and electromagnetic pulse bombs. That’s
one bilateral relationship I’d have had trouble imagining.

– Armenia’s president said the country’s army "is an iron guarantee
that ensures our survival and is a cold, sobering shower for any
hot-headed adventurers." The remarks were construed as a warning
to Azerbaijan, but I read them more as an evocative, if ultimately
confusing mixed metaphor. "Cold, sobering shower" is an odd choice of
imagery for the army, but having gone with it, steel would have been a
more appropriate metal to serve as a complement. I would welcome more
of this kind of rhetoric in American foreign policy discourse, though.

– Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt offered an insightfully nuanced
take on Turkey’s role in the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Balkans,
and how Turkey as an EU member would benefit the union.

– France and Germany officially denied reports that the EU was
exploring ways to bail out the troubled Greek government, although
such talks are widely believed to be ongoing.

– The head of Russia’s state-run arms exporter stated that it was
"planning to supply" Russian arms to NATO countries, without offering
any further details. He also declared that Russia has no reason to
not sell weapons to Iran, a veiled reference to the tensely watched
S300 missile defense system, for which a contract has been signed
but delivery repeatedly delayed. Finally, he put the figure for
Russia’s 2009 arms sales at $7.4 billion, and forecasted similar
numbers for 2010.

– An opposition leader was sworn in as Guinea’s interim civilian
prime minister, with elections scheduled for six months from now.

Researched by Kari Lipschutz.

ARMENIA-TURKEY RAPPROCHEMENT ISSUE GETS MORE AND MORE DIFFICULT

PanARMENIAN.Net
28.01.2010 17:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Now we are approaching the moment when things get
more and more difficult, said Vigen Sargsyan, deputy chief of staff
to the Armenian president in an interview to The Wall Street Journal.

"Pressure on the Armenian president to abandon the effort is building
strongly as the next annual April 24 U.S. presidential commemoration
of the 1915 genocide approaches, creating a tight Armenian schedule
to see the protocols ratified," he stated.

Turkish officials, by contrast, talk about an open-ended process that
could last a year or more if necessary. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu also recently expressed anger at a decision by Armenia’s
constitutional court that he said in effect puts conditions on the
deal-a claim Mr. Sargsyan dismissed.

Mr. Sargsyan said that while Armenia’s government is sending
ratification papers for the deal to parliament, it is also preparing
legislation to enable the president to withdraw his signature from
treaties. "If this opportunity is lost it will push the whole region
back, not to where we started when talks began but beyond that," said
Mr. Sargsyan. He said trust between the two sides would be destroyed.

The Protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.

On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has issued the following official
statement on Armenia-Turkey Protocols: "The Constitutional Court of
the Republic of Armenia has declared its decision of constitutional
conformity on the Protocols between Turkey and Armenia signed
on 10 October 2009 with a short statement on 12 January 2010. The
Constitutional Court has recently published its grounds of decision. It
has been observed that this decision contains preconditions and
restrictive provisions which impair the letter and spirit of the
Protocols.

The said decision undermines the very reason for negotiating these
Protocols as well as their fundamental objective. This approach cannot
be accepted on our part."

YEREVAN TO HOST FORUM OF YOUTH ORGANIZATION REPRESENTATIVES

PanARMENIAN.Net
26.01.2010 17:41 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ By the initiative of WAC Association of Youth
Organizations, the National Academy of Sciences will host Wednesday
a forum of youth unions, according to Vladimir Aghayan, Vice Chair
of the Association.

"Discussion will focus on youth organization problems, particularly
those relating to the organization of events dedicated to the 95th
anniversary of Armenian Genocide," he told a news conference in
Yerevan.

The forum be attended by representatives from RA Ministries, youth
organizations, creative unions, art critics etc.

The World Armenian Congress (WAC) was founded in October 2003 as
a union for Armenian NGOs, and has since reached an international
status. The WAC objective is to strengthen relations between Armenia
and the Armenian Diaspora, contribute to Armenia’s economic development
and the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, as well as
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.

Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of
food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were
indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse
commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case
of genocide after the Holocaust.

The Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire,
denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In
recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as
genocide.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially recognized
the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars
and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also
recognized by influential media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.

ARMENIA, GEORGIA TO CONSTRUCT 400- KILOWATT ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION LINE

PanARMENIAN.Net
26.01.2010 19:40 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia and Georgia are successfully collaborating
in the energy sphere. Today, a bilateral agreement on 400- kilowatt
electricity transmission line construction was signed, Georgian
Premier Nika Gilauri said.

As he noted at the joint news conference with his Armenian counterpart
Tigran Sargsyan, the project will serve both Armenia’s and Georgia’s
interests.

Armenian Prime Minister, in turn, stated that high voltage electricity
transmission line construction is included in 2010 program of
Armenian Government and expressed confidence about efficient and fast
implementation of the project in current year.

SARGSYAN-ALIYEV-MEDVEDEV MEETING EXPECTED IN SOCHI
Anna Nazaryan

"Radiolur"
25.01.2010 13:10
Sochi

Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan, Serzh Sargsyan, Dmitry
Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev will meet in Sochi today. The issue of
peaceful settlement of the Karabakh issue is on the agenda of the
trilateral meeting.

The three Presidents and the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and
Azerbaijan will have a preliminary meeting at Russian President’s
Krasnaya Polyana residence. Later Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev are
expected to meet the Minsk Group Co-Chairs.

During the previous Sargsyan-Aliyev-Medvedev meeting the issued a
declaration on the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict known
as the Maindorf declaration.