Author: Tadevosian Garnik

KARABAKHI ISSUE ON UN AGENDA

News.am
12:21 / 08/20/2009

Karabakh issue resolution will remain on the 64th Session agenda of
the UN General Assembly, Azerbaijani Permanent Representative to the
UN Aqshin Mehdiyev stated, adding it is too early to speak of NKR
issue new draft resolution.

Mehdiyev underlined that he would put forward two resolutions at the
Session. The first is "Protracted conflicts in the GUAM area and their
consequences for the world, security and development in the world", and
the second – "The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan".

Azerbaijani side is going to propose a new resolution on information
technologies, Trend reports.

10TH ROUND’S GAMES TAKE PLACE IN JERMUK 2009 INTERNATIONAL CHESS TOURNAMENT

Noyan Tapan
Aug 20, 2009

YEREVAN, AUGUST 20, NOYAN TAPAN. 10th round’s games are taking place
in the Jermuk 2009 International Chess Tournament on August 20. Levon
Aronian (Armenia) plays with Dmitry Yakovenko (Russia) and Vladimir
Hakobian (Armenia) with Peter Leko (Hungary).

RA PRESIDENT SENDS TELEGRAM OF CONDOLENCE TO RF PRESIDENT ON OCCASION OF EXPLOSION IN NAZRAN

Noyan Tapan
Aug 19, 2009

YEREVAN, AUGUST 19, NOYAN TAPAN. On August 18, RA President Serzh
Sargsyan sent a telegram of condolence to RF President Dmitry Medvedev,
which, in particular, read: "I perceived with pain the news about
the August 17 barbaric explosion in Nazran, which caused death and
sufferings of many people. I resolutely condemn the terrorist act
that does not have and cannot have a justification."

In the letter, the text of which was provided to Noyan Tapan by the RA
President’s Press Office S. Sargsyan on behalf of the Armenian people
and personally on his behalf presented condolences to the relatives
of the victims and wished quick recovery to those who suffered from
the terrorist act.

ARMENIAN BOXERS KEEP ON FIGHTING

News.am
18:03 / 08/19/2009

Armenian eight boxers keep on competing at European Junior Boxing
Championship.

The championship will take place in Shetsin( Poland), August 16 -22,
2009. Armenian four boxers were defeated in preliminary rounds. Karen
Ayvazyan (51 kg), Harutyun Abrahamyan (69 kg), Azat Davtyan (91 kg)
and Hovhannes Ohanyan (Gyumri) will compete in the quarter finals.

DEUTSCHE WELLE: ARMENIAN-TURKISH "FOOTBALL DIPLOMACY" THREATENED

News.am
13:29 / 08/19/2009

Armenia-Turkey rapprochement encountered an obstacle in the form
of preconditions. The arrival of Armenian President to Turkey
for World Cup qualifying match is a landmark in Armenian-Turkish
relations. However the visit might be called off.

The source reminds that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated he
would go to Turkey if the Armenian-Turkish border opens or is in the
"threshold of unblocking", concluding that well-publicized "football
democracy" is threatened.

However Turkey too seems to be unready to give up on preconditions,
particularly on those connected with Armenian-Turkish relations’
settlement. One of the main preconditions is Yerevan’s refusal to
demand Turkey to recognize Genocide. The second one – Armenia should
recognize the current borders. And the crucial one – is Ankara’s
demand to Yerevan to settle Karabakh problem in favour of Baku.

Today many Armenian politicians consider that Yerevan should not refuse
preconditions so that the negotiations progress. Gideon Dewhirst,
the Deputy Head of Mission at the UK Embassy in Armenia, considers
that if Sargsyan goes to Turkey the situation will be deadlocked:
"Armenia expected prompt developments this summer, that however did not
happen. If there is no breakthrough it would be a lost opportunity,
that might lead to stagnation of bilateral relations’ settlement,"
Dewhirst said.

CSTO EXERCISES POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.08.2009 21:57 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Large-scale exercises of the Collective Rapid
Response Force of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
is postponed to a later date, a source in CSTO Secretariat informed
the News-Kazakhstan. "Military exercises of CRRF of CSTO postponed
to a later date," – he said.

LEVON ARONYAN AND VLADIMIR HAKOBYAN PLAYED THEIR SUCCESSIVE DRAWN MATCH IN JERMUK

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
17.08.2009 18:12 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian grand master Vladimir Hakobyan continues
facing failures in grand Prix tournament. Playing with white figures
in the 8th round, Hakobyan ended the match against Etienne Bacrot
in a draw. This is Armenian grand master’s sixth drawn match in the
tournament. Overall, Hakobyan has 3 points. Another drawn match was
that between Levon Aronyan and Sergey Kariakin, both having 4.5 points
after this round.

The recent match between Ernesto Inarkiev and Pavel Elianov ended in
a draw at the 15 move.

All other 8th round games are under way.

FILMMAKER ERIC NAZARIAN SCREENS THE BLUE HOUR AT THE LIBRARY

er-eric-nazarian-screens-the-blue-hour-at-the-libr ary/
Aug 17th, 2009

GLENDALE-Award-winning writer/director Eric Nazarian will discuss his
film, The Blue Hour, following a screening of the film on Saturday,
August 22, 6 pm at the Glendale Central Library Auditorium, 222
East Harvard Street in Glendale. Admission is free. The DVD will be
for sale, with sales benefitting the Friends of the Glendale Public
Library.

The Blue Hour, explores the connections between a Mexican graffiti
muralist, an Armenian camera repairman, an African- American Blues
guitarist and an English pensioner living near the Los Angeles
River. The ensemble cast includes actress Alyssa Milano. The film
was received a number of prizes when it debuted in 2007.

The Blue Hour, was recently nominated for a Voice Award, sponsored by
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Writers Guild
of America West, for "giving voice to people with mental disorders by
incorporating empathetic and accurate portrayals into their scripts,
programs and productions."

Born in Armenia, Eric Nazarian is a graduate of USC School of Cinematic
Arts. In 2008, he received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for his
original screenplay Giants. Out of 5,224 submissions to the Academy
only five screenplays were awarded the prestigious fellowship, and he
is the first Armenian in the history of the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences to be awarded the fellowship. He is currently working
on a series of feature films set in the U.S., Europe and Armenia.

Praise for The Blue Hour, "The Blue Hour reps a strong calling card
for Eric Nazarian." – Variety "Eric Nazarian’s The Blue Hour is a
beautiful and delicately constructed first film." – Atom Egoyan
"Nazarian demonstrates an uncanny affinity for the language of
cinema…this is clearly another filmmaker to watch out for in the
coming years." – Torino Film Festival.

PLASTIC CARD TRANSACTIONS TOTAL 98.2 BN DRAMS IN ARMENIA IN Q2 – 33.4% INCREASE

ARKA
Aug 14, 2009

YEREVAN, August 14. /ARKA/. Transactions by means of all kinds of
plastic cards amounted to 98.2 billion drams in Armenia in the second
quarter of this year; the number of transactions was 2,156,250. Amount
of non-cash transactions by cards totaled about 7 billion drams in
the period, the press service of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA)
reported.

The volume of card transactions grew by 15.3% (13 billion drams)
in the period as compared with the previous quarter; the number of
transactions went 20% up (by 362,787).

The amount of the transactions by cards grew by 33.4% (or 23.6 billion
drams) in the reporting period against the same period of last year.

Of the overall volume of non-cash transactions, 1.3 billion drams were
transactions via the Internet (including 0.4 billion drams through
e-commerce); card-to-card transfers were 0.9 billion drams.

Over the period under review, non-cash transactions by means of cards
constituted about 7.3% of all card transactions, which is an increase
of 10.4% (or 0.7 billion drams) as compared with the previous quarter.

Local ArCa cards were used to effect a total of 989,053 transactions
for 37.9 billion drams in the second quarter: it is a 20.4% (by
6.4 bn drams) increase in the amount of transactions and a 26.3%
(by 205,930) increase in the number of transactions as compared with
the20previous period.

Number of card transactions through VISA was 640,478 in the second
quarter with the total amount at 35.6 billion drams. As compared with
the first quarter of the year, the amount of transactions went up by
15.4% or 4.7 billion drams.

A total of 295,749 card transactions through MasterCard were affected
for a total of 15 billion drams in the period, which is an increase
of 11.9% or 1.6 billion drams compared with the first quarter.

Number of other plastic card transactions was 230,970 and the total
amount was 9.6 billion drams (an increase of 0.2 bn drams).

According to the CBA, there were a total of 502,106 cards in
circulation at the end of the second quarter – an increase of 3.9%
or 18,863 against the first quarter. Number of ArCa cards grew by
8.6% up to 238,946 over the period; number of VISA cards went 2.9%
up to 4,997 and that of MasterCard – 4.9% up to 2,448. Number of
other cards went down by 17.7% or 7,595.

As of the end of the first quarter, there were 21 commercial banks
operating on the territory of Armenia that issue and service
plastic cards. 19 commercial banks are part of ArCa payment
system. ($1=370.75drams).

RED CRESCENT ORGANIZATION COLLECTS INFORMATION ABOUT PERSONS MISSING IN KARABAKH WAR

APA
[ 14 Aug 2009 12:06 ]

Aghdam. Teymur Zahidoglu – APA. The representatives of the Red Crescent
Organization visit the families of the persons, who went missing during
Karabakh war, and collect information about them, Aghdam office of
the Red Crescent Organization told APA’s Karabakh bureau.

The representatives of the Red Crescent Organization talk to every
member of their families separately to get accurate information about
the appearance of the missing people and take their photos.

To APA’s question "Will the graves of unidentified martyrs be
analyzed?" the office said the graves will be opened, bodies exhumed,
bones and hairs analyzed and compared with the other data.

It is also planned to ask help from the international humanitarian
organizations to work jointly with the Armenian side. If joint work
is possible, the human remains in the battle fields will also be
analyzed. It will help find the persons registered as missing from
both Azerbaijan and Armenia.