Author: Zakarian Garnik

TORSARKISSIAN: TWO ARMENIAN SEATS IN CABINET SHOULD BE FOR MARCH 14

NowLebanon
leDetails.aspx?ID=99008
June 17 2009
Lebanon

The two Armenian seats within the cabinet should be from the March 14
alliance, and Armenian parties other than the Tashnaq should also be
represented in the national dialogue, said MP Serge Torsarkissian,
after meeting with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir in
Bkirki on Wednesday.

"No Christian MP can approve the Palestinian naturalization in
Lebanon, no matter what," he added, noting that he supports their
right of return.

NARINEH AGHBALYAN APPOINTED NKR CULTURE MINISTER

inister/
2009/06/15 | 16:54
Nagorno Karabakh culture

On June 15, NKR President Bako Sahakyan dismissed Lernik Hakobyan as
Minister for Culture and Youth Affairs. Mr. Hakobyan had submitted
a resignation request.

President Sahakyan appointed Narineh Aghbalyan to replace
him. Mrs. Agbalyan had been working at Artsakh Public TV for many years
and was a Karabakh correspondent for Armenian Public TV as well. She
is the fourth female minister in the NKR government in addition to
the Ministries of Justice, Urban Construction and Social Insurance.

INCUBATOR ENTERPRISE FOUNDATION TO PRESENT ARMENIA AT EURASEC ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES CENTER

ARKA
June 15, 2009

YEREVAN, June 15. /ARKA/. The Incubator Enterprise Foundation (EIF)
will represent Armenia at the EurAsEC center for advanced technologies,
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan reported.

During the June 9 meeting in Moscow, the EurAsEc Intergovernmental
Council approved a concept of establishing a center for advanced
technologies.

"Agreements reached in the field of advanced technologies imply that
each member state is to choose its best company to represent the
country," Sargsyan was quoted as saying as he summed up the results
of the meeting.

EIF Director Bagrat Yengibaryan has been chosen as Armenia’s
representative in the EurAsEc center for advanced technologies.

According to Sargysan, EIF aims at boosting innovation business in
Armenia with the financial assistance of the World Bank. "We believe
the foundation and its director will present Armenia to the best
advantage," the premier concluded.

Tourism growth expected in Armenia despite global financial and
economic crisis

YEREVAN, JUNE 12, NOYAN TAPAN. Despite the global financial and
economic crisis, a growth of tourism is expected in Armenia. Head of
the Tourism and Territorial Economic Development Department of RA
Ministry of Economy Mekhak Apresian stated this at the June 12 press
conference, adding that a 2.8% growth of tourism was recorded in
Armenia in the first quarter of 2009 on the same period of 2008.

According to him, in order to withstand the crisis and maintain tourism
growth rates in Armenia, the price policy, in particular issues related
to maintaining most competitive prices in market, have been discussed
with the private sector, which expressed a willingness to cooperate on
formation of competitive prices. For example, the daily payment for a
2-person room in Tsakhkadzor’s Kecharis Hotel now makes 15 thousand
drams against the previous 30 thousand drams.

The department head said that the development of internal tourism is a
priority problem, with a number of programs being worked out in this
direction. Particularly, networks of tourist houses that offer family
packages and provide more affordable services are being fomed.

M. Apresian informed those present that in 2000-2008, the number of
tourists to Armenia grew 11-fold. 45 thousand tourists visited the
country in 2000, 558 thousand – in 2008. Since 2001, the average annual
growth of tourism made 20-25%, growth of internal tourism – 20% in
Armenia. According to studies, Diasporan Armenians made up 62% of the
total number of tourists.

By data of the World Tourism Organization, the average annual growth of
tourism in the world made 4-4.5%. In 2007 the growth amounted to 6.2%,
in 2008 it made only 3-3.5%.

CB Chairman to take part in the meeting of Netherland’s group of WB
and IMF
13.06.2009 14:19 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia’s Central Bank’s Chairman Artur Javadyan and
head of the financial department Artur Nakhshikyan left for Besichi
-Montenegro to take part in the meeting of the Netherlands’ Group of
the WB and IMF, CB press office reports.
Challenges central and Eastern Europe face, best practices of crisis
management, current developments of WB and IMF, reaction of the world
financial institutions to the current crisis in the world and
particularly in Eastern Institute.

ARMENIAN MOVIES SURPRISE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

HULIQ
June 11 2009
SC

Armenian delegation, who took three movies from Armenian to Cannes
drew attention and caused surprise in the Cannes Film Festival.

Armenia was represented in the Cannes Film Festival for the first time
from May 12-22 with an overmodest pavilion and films made during the
last 30 years. The work of our film-makers has caused more interest
than expected which as the Chairman of the National Film Center and
the head of the Armenian delegation Gevorg Gevorgyan characterizes
is the result of attention paid by Armenian filmmakers working in
different film studios all over the world.

The participation of movies from Armenia resulted in getting about
30 cooperation suggestions with film festivals of different countries.

A German company has got interested with such films as V. Chaldranyan’s
"Kurdish woman", Harutyun Khachatryan’s "The border", Albert
Lazarian’s "The dawn of the sad street". The organizers of the Asian
film festival in their turn have paid an interest to the shots of
Armenian production.

ARMENIA TO RECEIVE $670-700 MILLION FROM THE WORLD BANK IN COMING 4 YEARS

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
12.06.2009 16:09 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Country Partnership Strategy-CPS for 2009-2012 was
adopted at the sitting of the Board of Directors of the World Bank,
according to which Armenia will receive $670-700 million within coming
4 years from the WB, told Aristomene Varoudakis , head of WB Yerevan
office, to news conference today.

"Elaboration of the strategy coincides with the period, when Armenia
undergoes the crises, therefore the strategy is aimed at recovery
of the economic growth in Armenia and mitigation of the influence of
the crisis on the socially vulnerable strata of population, " he said.

According to Mr. Varudakis, CPS is also aimed at raising Armenia’s
competitiveness level, conditioned by economy’s diversification and
sustainable economic growth.

According to Mr. Varudakis, around $545 million will be directed
to specific program in health, education, rural roads construction,
institutional reforms in the tax sphere and other programs, and some
$120-160 million will be provided to credit small and medium business
development. 20 per cent of the WB funds will go to the state budget
for 2009 – 2011, the rest 80 per cent will address specific tasks.

There is an opportunity of revision of the strategy by the end of 2010,
which can result in the increased amount of the credit.

"WE WITNESSED DISGRACE"

A1+
03:57 pm | June 11, 2009

Politics

Amalia Kostanian, Chairwoman of Transparency’s Armenian affiliate,
the Center for Regional Development (CRD), thinks that the Yerevan
municipal elections were conducted with unprecedented election frauds.

"The elections cannot be compared with the previous ones. I must
confess that we witnessed a deep disgrace during the mayoral
elections."

"Technologies are improving, methods of falsification are changing but
precinct 8 in Malatia-Sebastia commune was unique with its large-scale
frauds. Surely, different technologies were applied during the election
but it was done so cynically that they didn’t even care to conceal
anything from the observers. They openly discussed the figures,
there was a vast ballot stuffing, crowding at polling stations,
threats and intimidations. We even witnessed cases of bribery.

Mrs. Kostanian says the main wrongdoers haven’t been punished yet
though a few people were arrested.

Asked whether a re-election may be announced after invalidating the
election results at precinct 8, Mrs. Kostanian said: "I think it
is needless to speak of figures. The atmosphere of the elections,
the cynicism, intimidation and immorality already speak of the
elections. If elections are rigged in one precinct we can say that
the elections are disqualified in the country.

Our readers can read the whole interview in A1+’s blog

Russia to promote Superjet 100 at Le Bourget air show

MOSCOW, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will focus on the promotion of
its new Superjet 100 passenger airliner at Le Bourget 2009 air show, a
Russian business daily said on Thursday.
The 48th Paris Air Show at Le Bourget on June 15-21, which marks 100
years of technological innovation in aeronautics and space conquest,
will be the first chance for most aviation enthusiasts to get a look
at the new plane.
Superjet 100 will be the only flying model among the Russian aircraft
displayed at the show in order to draw all public attention to the
plane, the Vedomosti newspaper cited Russian aircraft industry sources
as saying.
The plane has already landed at Le Bourget, and will be making daily
demonstration flights during the show.
The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft
developed by Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft company in cooperation
with U.S. and European aviation corporations, including Boeing,
Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
The first Superjet 100 aircraft has already made several long-distance
and 40 short-distance test flights, clocking over 100 flight hours. A
total of four planes will take part in the Russian certification
program, which should be completed in the third quarter of 2009.
International certification is expected by mid-2010.
Sukhoi, part of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), plans to
manufacture at least 700 Superjet 100s, and intends to sell 35% of
them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to
Russia and China.
The company earlier said it had about 100 solid orders for the
Superjet 100 so far and planned to sign a new deal during the Le
Bourget air show for 20 additional planes, worth an estimated $600
million.
Armenia’s national airline, Armavia, will most likely be the first
country to receive a Superjet 100, followed by Russian flagship
carrier Aeroflot.

CBA CONSIDERS RUMORS ABOUT TRANSFER OF MONEY TO KURDISTAN WORKERS’ PARTY THROUGH ARMENIAN BANKS AS FABRICATED

AZG Armenian Daily
11/06/2009

Economy

The rumors spread by Turkish sources that money is transferred to the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) through Armenian banks are fabricated
and do not correspond to reality.

"An efficient system of the fight against money laundering and
terrorism financing has been introduced in Armenia. The Republic
of Armenia has either joined or established close cooperation with
the major international organizations engaged in the fight against
money laundering and terrorism financing, as well as with all foreign
financial intelligence bodies. Until now, no inquiry or report on the
indicated facts has been received from these organizations; moreover,
such facts have never been recorded as a result of our own analysys",
the PR Service of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) said: To recap,
citing data of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, Star
newspaper (Turkey) reported that one billion euros is transferred
annually through Armenian and Cyprian banks to PKK in North Iraq.

According to the Turkish intelligence organization,
Germany-headquartered Union of Kurdish Businessmen and Employers
annually sends about a billion euros (collected from its 279 member
organizations in Europe) to PKK, with money transfers being carried
out through banks in Armenia and Cyprus, Noyan Tapan reports.