Month: October 2005

Mehr News Agency, Iran
Oct 16 2005

Iranian engineers to commission 1st wind power plant in Armenia soon

TEHRAN, Oct. 16 (MNA) — The final stage of Armenia’s wind power
plant will be completed and inaugurated within two weeks. The
installation of the equipment will be implemented by Iranian
engineers within the next 7 days, managing director of SANIR Company
Alireza Kadkhodaii stated on Sunday.
This power plant is comprised of 4 units each offering 660 kW of
electricity. It is the first wind-generated electricity plant
constructed mainly by Iranian engineers and equipment outside the
country. Furthermore, it is the first one ever built in Armenia and
SANIR is expecting to hear the officials’ announcement for
inaugurating the project soon, the managing director said.

The agreement on construction of the power plant was signed by Iran’s
former energy minister and his Armenian counterpart several months
ago.

News & Observer, NC
Oct 16 2005

Freedom isn’t just academic to him
Out of Armenian jail, Duke scholar resumes his work

By JANE STANCILL, Staff Writer

DURHAM — Stuck in a jail cell that steamed to more than 100 degrees
in the daytime, the prisoner couldn’t eat the rice, cabbage soup and
boiled potatoes provided by the guards. The lights stayed on all
night, making sleep difficult. The screams of other inmates
punctuated long days of fear and worry.
The accused criminal was Yektan Turkyilmaz, 33, a soft-spoken Duke
University scholar who spent 60 days in an Armenian prison over the
summer.

The crime, apparently, was his love of books.

Turkyilmaz, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish descent, wasn’t a spy or a
drug smuggler. He was a scholar, and he learned firsthand that
scholarship can be hazardous. He will never again take academic
freedom for granted.

When the captors released Turkyilmaz in August, he walked on wobbly
legs into the sunshine, eyes squinting at the natural light he hadn’t
seen in two months. Now he is back at Duke, quietly working on his
doctoral dissertation and ready to talk about his ordeal.

Accused of smuggling books in the small country in southwestern Asia,
Turkyilmaz underwent what he described as KGB-style interrogations
and a trial that drew worldwide attention. Academics from the United
States and beyond rushed to his defense, signed petitions, created a
Web site and mounted a global campaign for his release from Armenia,
formerly part of the Soviet Union. U.S. politicians and the U.S.
embassy jumped in, exerting pressure on the Armenian government.

The subject of his dissertation is so sensitive that his work is
viewed with suspicion by historic enemies, Armenia and Turkey. And he
believes it may have landed him behind bars.

Turkyilmaz’s research is about how modern Armenian, Kurdish and
Turkish nationalism developed after a traumatic conflict in which
more than a million Armenians were killed starting in 1915. The facts
of the genocide have long been disputed from the Turkish side. It’s a
painful but important chapter in 20th-century history, and one that
Turkyilmaz is said to be uniquely qualified to dig into.

He speaks four languages — Armenian, Kurdish, Turkish and English —
and can read French. He was the first Turkish scholar allowed in the
Armenian national archives to conduct research.

“His trip was unprecedented for a Turkish citizen and also a huge
feather in his cap for his academic career,” said Charles Kurzman, an
associate professor of sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill and one of
Turkyilmaz’s advisers. “That’s high-risk, high-gain research.”

Books spark trouble

Turkyilmaz, who first traveled to Armenia in 2002, has been there
five times. He went back in April and worked for two months, while
also engaging in one of his hobbies — book collecting. He had picked
up more than 100 used books and pamphlets at a flea market in
Yerevan, the Armenian capital. Turkyilmaz already had a collection of
10,000 books, so it was not unusual for him to leave the country with
two heavy suitcases full of books.

The day he was to leave Armenia, Turkyilmaz began to notice something
odd at the airport. A strange man behind him at the security
checkpoint spoke to him in broken English, even though Turkyilmaz had
been speaking Armenian.

“I realized that something was up,” he recalled.

Just after his passport was stamped, he was surrounded by more than
half a dozen agents from the National Security Service, which
Turkyilmaz says “loves to be called KGB.” The agents told him to
empty his pockets. They confiscated his luggage.

He tried to explain that scholars carry books. “I kept telling them I
was a historian, because if I said I am a cultural anthropologist it
doesn’t make any sense to them,” he said.

It became clear, he said, that they already knew a lot about him.

They took the books out of his suitcase one by one and spent seven
hours doing paperwork in the airport, meticulously copying the
titles. At times, Turkyilmaz helped the Russian-educated agents
translate titles that were written in old Armenian.

One of the agents started making accusations, poking a pen at his
stomach.

“He started shouting and cursing at me and said, ‘OK, you are taking
these books to Turks to be destroyed.’ I said, ‘What?'”

But Turkyilmaz and others believe the books were not important to the
Armenian authorities, who dragged them around in plastic bags or
piled them on the floor.

The agents started asking questions that had nothing to do with the
books: What are your political views? What is your family’s ethnic
background? What is your research about? Why did you come to Armenia?
Whom do you know in Armenia?

The arrest came as such a shock that Turkyilmaz said he didn’t really
have time to get scared. “I never thought that they would, like, you
know, detain me. I thought it was something silly.”

They wouldn’t let him call his parents in Turkey. His friends in
Armenia were too frightened to contact his family. For almost 24
hours, his parents didn’t know what had happened to him.

Spy accusations fly

Turkyilmaz was put in a small cell in Yerevan. For the first month,
he said, agents interrogated him almost daily. They went through his
computer files and CDs, and soon Turkyilmaz realized where they were
headed: They would accuse him of being a spy.

An espionage charge could carry a 15-year prison term, he said. One
of his interrogators, Turkyilmaz recalled, told him, “All scholars
are spies. Just tell us whom you are working for.”

On the third day after his arrest, he was charged with an obscure
violation of taking books more than 50 years old out of the country
without permission — a regulation that was unfamiliar to even the
booksellers. The charge fell under a law that also covered drug
smuggling and the transport of guns, explosives and weapons of mass
destruction. It carried a possible prison term of four to eight
years.

In his cell, Turkyilmaz ate fruit and the hazelnut spread Nutella —
items his friends could bring him. He refused food from the jailers.
He was allowed one shower a week.

He had a couple of cellmates who were accused of petty crimes and had
little contact with the outside world, though he did hear occasional
reports of his case on Radio Free Europe.

As word of Turkyilmaz’s detention spread, scholars in North Carolina
and the larger higher education community began to organize.
Turkyilmaz’s professors had initially been told he would be released
any day, but days turned into weeks.

“The nightmare scenario was that the hard-liners in the Armenian
government would try to make an example of Yektan and sentence him to
eight years,” said Kurzman, who started a Web site, ,
to raise awareness of his ordeal.

Human-rights groups, scholarly organizations and the Duke community
sent letters and petitions signed by hundreds of students and faculty
around the globe. Duke President Richard Brodhead wrote the Armenian
president, calling Turkyilmaz “a scholar of extraordinary promise.”
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, who had experience with Armenian affairs,
wrote to President Robert Kocharian and said, “Your treatment of
Yektan makes Armenia look bad — with good reason. Armenia has many
friends in the United States, but we cannot and will not defend the
indefensible.”

Officials at the Armenian embassy in Washington did not return phone
calls about the Turkyilmaz case.

As the summer wore on, Orin Starn, a professor of cultural
anthropology at Duke and primary adviser to Turkyilmaz, monitored the
case and became more concerned that a prison term was likely for his
student.

“The whole idea that you could be sentenced to years in prison for
taking used books out of the country was preposterous,” Starn said.

Refocusing on research

Starn, who attended the trial, watched as Turkyilmaz was led into the
courtroom in handcuffs. In attendance, at some risk to themselves,
were Armenian friends, including booksellers, an accountant, a
janitor and a medical student.

“People love Yektan,” Starn said. “He has friends everywhere. …
People were very willing to do whatever they could to try to get him
out.”

On Aug. 16, a judge convicted Turkyilmaz but gave him a two-year
suspended sentence. After 60 days in prison, he was free but not
allowed to leave the country for two weeks.

E-mail messages and news reports announced his release, and
Turkyilmaz is now a celebrity in his field. But he also worries about
the implications. He may have difficulty traveling in that part of
the world, which could hamper his research. He now has a criminal
conviction on his record, something that could cause him trouble with
U.S. authorities when his visa expires in a few months.

Yet, he said he’s not bitter about the experience, which has cemented
his desire to pursue an academic career in the United States.

“I’m so glad to be back,” he said. “I feel so safe here, so secure. I
just want to go back to my work. That’s the only thing I want to do
with my life.”

Toronto Star, Canada
Oct 16 2005

Exposing dark side of Turkey

Writer’s ordeal a test case for Europe’s principles, says Salman
Rushdie

The work room of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus,
that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these
things, separates or unites – or, perhaps, separates and unites – the
worlds of Europe and Asia.

There could be no more appropriate setting for a novelist whose work
does much the same thing. In many books, most recently the acclaimed
novel Snow and the haunting memoir/portrait of his home town,
Istanbul: Memories and the City, Pamuk has laid claim to the title,
formerly held by Yashar Kemal, of “Greatest Turkish writer.”

He is also an outspoken man. In 1999, for example, he refused the
title of “state artist.”

“For years I have been criticizing the state for putting authors in
jail, for only trying to solve the Kurdish problem by force and for
its narrow-minded nationalism,” he said. “I don’t know why they tried
to give me the prize.”

He has described Turkey as having “two souls,” and has criticized its
human-rights abuses.

“Geographically we are part of Europe,” he says, “but politically?”

I spent some days with Pamuk in July, at a literary festival in the
pretty Brazilian seaside town of Parati. For those few days he seemed
free of his cares, even though, earlier in the year, death threats
made against him by Turkish ultranationalists – “He shouldn’t be
allowed to breathe,” one said – had forced him to spend two months
out of his country.

But the clouds were gathering. The statement he made to the Swiss
newspaper Tages Anzeiger on Feb. 6, which had been the cause of the
ultranationalists’ wrath, was about to become a serious problem once
again.

“Thirty thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in
Turkey,” he told the Swiss paper. “Almost no one dares to speak out
on this but me.”

He was referring to the killings by Ottoman forces of thousands of
Armenians between 1915 and 1917. Turkey does not contest the deaths,
but denies that they amounted to genocide. Pamuk’s reference to
“30,000” Kurdish deaths refers to those killed since 1984 in the
conflict between Turkish forces and Kurdish separatists.

On Sept. 1, Pamuk was indicted by a district prosecutor for the crime
of having “blatantly belittled Turkishness” by his remarks. If
convicted he faces up to three years in jail.

Article 301/1 of the Turkish penal code, under which Pamuk is to be
tried, states: “A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the
Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly shall be sentenced to a
penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years …
Where insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a
foreign country, the penalty shall be increased by one-third.” If
Pamuk is found guilty, he faces an additional penalty for having made
the statement abroad.

You would think Turkish authorities might have avoided so blatant an
assault on their most internationally celebrated writer’s fundamental
freedoms at the very moment their application for full membership of
the European Union – an extremely unpopular application in many EU
countries – was being considered at the EU summit.

However, in spite of being a state that has ratified both the U.N.
and European covenants on human rights, both of which see freedom of
expression as central, Turkey continues to enforce a penal code that
is clearly contrary to these same principles and has set the date for
Pamuk’s trial for Dec. 16.

The number of convictions and prison sentences under the laws that
penalize free speech in Turkey has declined in the past decade. But
International PEN’s records show that more than 50 writers,
journalists and publishers currently face trial. Turkish journalists
continue to protest against the revised penal code, and the
International Publishers Association, in a deposition to the U.N.,
has described this revised code as being “deeply flawed.”

The Turkish application is being presented, most vociferously by
Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, as a test case for the EU. To
reject it, we are told, would be a catastrophe, widening the gulf
between Islam and the West. There is an element of Blairite poppycock
in this, a disturbingly communalist willingness to sacrifice Turkish
secularism on the altar of faith-based politics.

But the Turkish application is indeed a test case for the EU: a test
of whether the EU has any principles at all. If it has, then its
leaders will insist that the charges against Pamuk be dropped at once
and further insist on rapid revisions to Turkey’s repressive penal
code.

An unprincipled Europe, which turned its back on great artists and
fighters for freedom, would continue to alienate its citizens, whose
disenchantment has already been widely demonstrated by the votes
against the proposed new constitution. So the West is being tested as
well as the East. On both sides of the Bosphorus, the Pamuk case matters.

The Observer / The Guardian, UK
Oct 16 2005

Nobel adversaries

Robert McCrum

Some years ago in transit through Bangkok, I found myself in the
airport bookshop browsing a paperback novel by a local writer with an
almost unpronounceable name. I forget the title, but the publisher’s
blend of chutzpah and wishful thinking was memorable. In large red
letters above the author’s name was the legend: ‘Shortlisted for the
Nobel Prize’.
Unlike Booker, the Nobel does not go in for a shortlist, at least in
public. The academy’s business is conducted behind closed doors and
what we are allowed to see is all very Swedish. Where Booker triggers
an avalanche of press releases, parties and book-trade promotions,
Nobel amounts to one man (the secretary of the academy) standing in a
baroque salon and uttering one name to the world’s press on a
Thursday in early October. This statement is often followed by a
chorus of: ‘Who? Who?’, but since the academy never gives interviews,
no one is really any the wiser.

This bizarre ritual is now just over 100 years old. It’s an odd,
publicity-averse moment for a prize distinguished by sometimes
wayward eccentricity. The first Nobel (1901) should have gone to Leo
Tolstoy, but in the end it was awarded to an obscure French poet,
Rene Francois Armand Sully Prudhomme. That decision established a
preference for the maverick that persisted throughout the subsequent
century.

Since then, Nobel has made some good choices – Eliot, Beckett,
Bellow, Marquez, Heaney – and some gobsmackers: Galsworthy, Pearl S
Buck, Winston Churchill and Nelly Sachs. En passant, it has
overlooked Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene. Jean-Paul
Sartre turned it down in 1964, saying he did not want to be read by
‘celebrity collectors’.

The prize has also shied away from controversy. So there were no
awards from 1940 to 1943. In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, the
academy gave it to Boris Pasternak. There was a huge row with the
Soviet Union and since then the Nobel committee has opted for a quiet
life.

Quiet and, some might say, occasionally incomprehensible. For
instance, in the last decade, the Nobel has gone to Dario Fo (near
universal dismay), Gao Xingjian (bafflement) and, in 2004, the
reclusive Elfriede Jelinek.

So much for the global picture. From an insular, British point of
view, apart from Churchill, Golding (1983), and Bertrand Russell
(1950), Nobel has generally ignored English literature.

This makes the choice of Harold Pinter all the more welcome. Here,
beyond question, is a world-class playwright whose selection almost
on the day of his 75th birthday, will be the cause of widespread
rejoicing.

While The Observer congratulates the Swedish Academy for choosing a
great writer of international stature whose work has resonance around
the world, we cannot overlook the missed opportunity inherent in this
decision.

As Pinter himself will be only too well aware, Turkey’s most
distinguished living writer is Orhan Pamuk, author of The White
Castle, My Name Is Red and Snow. Pamuk currently faces trial for
making public reference to the genocidal Armenian massacres. His case
goes to court on 16 December; and, if convicted, he faces a
three-year prison sentence.

It’s wonderful news that Pinter is our latest Nobel laureate, but the
Swedes have missed a golden opportunity to take a stand against a
shameful and trumped-up assault on a writer’s freedom. Pinter would
be the first to recognise this.

Associated Press
Oct 16 2005

Duke Scholar Free From Armenian Prison, Concentrates On Work

POSTED: 1:59 pm EDT October 16, 2005

DURHAM, N.C. — A Duke University scholar is back at work on his
doctoral dissertation after spending two months in an Armenian prison
this summer.

Yektan Turkyilmaz was detained when he tried to leave Armenia with
antique books, which is a violation of the country’s law. Supporters
said Turkyilmaz bought the books from street vendors.

Turkyilmaz was given a two-year suspended sentence in August and
eventually was allowed to leave Armenia, though the books were
confiscated.

A citizen of Turkey, Turkyilmaz is the only Turkish scholar who has
been allowed to study in Armenia. The countries have tense relations
dating back to World War I.

Turkyilmaz’s dissertation touches on that hostility, and he said he
thinks that is part of the reason he ended up in jail. He said
Armenian authorities grilled him for hours, asking questions that had
nothing to do with the books he bought.

He worries that the conviction could give him trouble with
immigration authorities in the future. But he said he was not bitter
about it, and that he was happy to be back in the United States to
continue his work.

Jordan Times, Jordan
Oct 16 2005

Revisiting Turkey’s EU membership

By Walid M. Sadi

Revisiting the issue of Turkey’s membership in the EU is tempting and
challenging to any interested party. One wonders what options Turkey
has in the face of the stiff conditions placed on it in order to
become eligible for full membership in the European club.

Ankara can, of course, tell Europe that it is no longer interested in
entering the exclusive European club as long if it is not really
wanted and its admission does not hinge on more reasonable
conditions. Why would the Turks seek to become members of a grouping
where they feel they are not welcomed with open arms? After all, they
are a people proud of their heritage, history, tradition and culture.
A proud people never imposes itself on anybody, but expects to be
invited. Yet this would be the easy way out.

Turkish national interests can be served, and served well, once it is
a full-fledged EU member. Turkey’s entry into the union would also
serve the interests of the entire Middle East. What country can
explain the pains, sufferings and woes of the Middle East region
better than Turkey?

Turkey can be the bridge between the Middle East and the Brussels,
where decision with far-reaching consequences are taken.

Considering this, the Middle Eastern countries should rally in
support of Turkey’s membership, because they stand to gain
politically, economically and culturally. But as important as all
these considerations and implications are for Turkey and the Middle
East region, Turkey’s membership must not come at any price. It would
be only fair that Turkey were not only imposed conditions but set its
own as well.

On Cyprus, Turkey must be prepared to accept the situation as long as
the interests of the Turkish minority on the island are protected.
Regarding the European conditions on democracy and human rights
issues, Turkey stands to gain by fulfilling them. On the Kurdish
minority issue, it cannot but comply with international standards on
minority rights, provided the territorial unity of the country is
preserved and protected. Concerning the Armenian issue, wherever the
truth lies on who is responsible for their massacre almost a century
ago, it cannot be the responsibility of the modern state of Turkey,
that was founded by the Mustafa Ataturk who rebelled against the old
Turkish regime that was allegedly responsible.

As for remaking the Turkish people into something other than what
they are, Turkey can and should be adamant and unyielding. Europe is
already a multicultural world, with millions of its citizens
belonging to various religions, cultures and way of life. These
people were invited into Europe and allowed to settle within its
borders.

It is now projected that by the year 2050, Muslim Europeans may
constitute about one fourth of the entire European populations if not
more. The kind of Europe that Turkey may enter by 2014 would no
longer be an exclusive club of nations belonging to a homogenous
culture or way of life. Europe stands to benefit from Turkey’s
membership for this reason as well.

PRESS RELEASE
A.R.F. Shant Student Association
104 N. Belmont Street, Suite 306 Glendale, CA 91204
Tel: 818-462-3006
Fax: 866-578-1056
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website:
Contact: Chris Minassian
October 17, 2005

CATHOLICOS ARAM I MEETS WITH COLLEGE STUDENTS IN LOS ANGELES; STRESSES
IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE, FAITH, AND IDENTITY

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, met
with Los Angeles area college students on Thursday, October 13, at
Glendale Community College (GCC). The Special Student Forum with the
Catholicos was organized by a coalition of local student organizations
chaired by the ARF Shant Student Association (ARF SSA) and comprised
of the Armenian Youth Federation and Armenian Student Associations of
University of California Los Angeles, GCC, and Loyola Marymount
University. His Holiness Aram I, who was accompanied by Archbishop
Moushegh Mardirossian, Prelate of the Western Prelacy, discussed
issues of importance to Armenian-American students in local
universities and colleges.

Opening remarks were made by Dr. Armine Hacopian, Clerk of the GCC
Board of Trustees, who greeted the Catholicos and recognized several
public figures in attendance, including Glendale Councilman Ara
Najarian and other City and College officials. ARF SSA Executive
Board Member Krikor Krikorian then made remarks in Armenian, thanking
the Catholicos for his presence and commitment to Armenian youth and
invited His Eminence Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian to the podium to
introduce the Catholicos.

The Archbishop spoke about the education, accolades, and experiences
of the Catholicos. He noted that the Catholicos, who holds multiple
masters degrees and a PhD, is not only a spiritual leader but a
tremendous intellectual. He went on to congratulate the Catholicos
for becoming the first person to be re-elected to the position of
Moderator of the World Council of Churches and welcomed the Catholicos
to the podium.

In his pontifical address to those in attendance, His Holiness Aram I
spoke of the importance of knowledge, faith, and preservation of
identity in society. He stressed the significance of the youth’s
active involvement and responsibility as not only the future leaders
but present leaders of the community. Additionally, the Catholicos
spoke about maintaining cultural characteristics and values in a world
increasingly homogenized by globalization and commercialization.

An open dialog ensued between the Catholicos and the attending
students, during which the Catholicos answered questions on a variety
of topics ranging from spirituality to materialism.

On behalf of the event’s organizing coalition, Levon Baronian, former
president of the CSUN Armenian Student Association and administrator
of the Armenian Network of Student Clubs (), thanked the
Catholicos and Prelate for helping make the event a reality. He then
introduced Dr. Levon Marashlian, Professor of Armenian Studies at GCC,
who concluded the event with his closing remarks.

Glendale News Press
Published October 15, 2005
WRITING THE RIGHT
One sneeze or two, it’s up to you
ANI AMIRKHANIAN
Armenians are superstitious people. The act of warding off evil and keeping
away bad luck is an essential part of life for the most superstitious
Armenian.
Most superstitions have to do with luck. Everyone wants to have good luck
and people take measures to achieve that luck.
I have never been very superstitious. The occasional knocking on wood or
keeping fingers crossed is as far as I’ve gone to have some luck come my
way.
In many cultures, an animal or mythical creature, is a symbol of luck. The
elephant, for example is considered to lucky in Thailand.
The Armenian people consider the “kapoot achk,” or blue eye, lucky. That
doesn’t mean whoever has blue eyes is the luckiest person in the world.
A blue eye charm is hung often on the front mirror of a car or on a chain as
a necklace. The blue eye keeps away the “evil eye” and is to prevent bad
luck from occurring.
Many people actually have more than one blue eye charm. An entire set of
stringed blue eyeballs is also common as a necklace or bracelet.
Other superstitions are a bit more abstract. When traveling, it is always
customary, well, more of a superstition again, to throw water on the path of
the traveler.
My mother is the official “water thrower” in the family. She will stand
holding a glass of water and as soon as the traveler drives away in their
car, she will throw the water after them.
Since water is symbol of life, it also represents purity, as if to say “may
your travels be righteous with God on your side.”
Another superstition has to do with sneezing. This may sound a bit absurd,
but it is one of those superstitions that many Armenians take seriously.
It is always said that two sneezes are better than one. If you sneeze once,
you should follow it with another.
Sneezing twice is particularly important when one is engaged in a
conversation about the future or an upcoming event.
Armenians believe that if you sneeze once your future goal will less likely
be achieved. But a second sneeze will take away all the ills or devastations
that may stand in the way of achieving your goals.
I have relatives who believe deeply in this superstition. They will worry,
and even be alarmed, if the second sneeze does not follow.
During a conversation, it is best to refrain from sneezing, because if one
sneezes, they are expected to have a second one on the way.
I have engaged in conversations with people who have stopped and asked me to
sneeze again.
“Sneeze again, bring another one,” is often the request. The request is
usually followed by a long pause, where they await the second sneeze.
Sneezing becomes a requirement and if one ceases to sneeze for a second
time, a stern look is often returned that translates to “you are doomed.”
So when it comes to Armenian superstitions, it’s helpful to be familiar with
them before entering into an Armenian household.
They provide a glimpse into the culture.
* ANI AMIRKHANIAN is a news assistant. She may be reached at (818) 637-3230

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Oct 10 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian <[email protected]>
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

THE PRESS RELEASE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS SERVICE

In the academic year of 2005-2006, there are 236 secondary schools
and colleges instead of the 237 of the previous year. The number of
children at schools is 21 639, having decreased by 325 or 1.5 per
cent since the previous year. This year 2339 children went to school,
having increased by 205 since the previous year. The number of pupils
in each region is: in Stepanakert 7256 (against 7332 last year), 38.2
per cent of the total number of schoolchildren, Askeran region 2657
(2719) 12.3 per cent, Hadrut region 1985 (2037) 9.2 per cent,
Martakert region 2674 (2649) 20.7 per cent, Martuni region 4018
(4105) 18.6 per cent, Shahumian region 537 (552) 2.5 per cent, Shushi
region 810 (799) 3.7 per cent, Kashatagh region 1702 (1771) 7.9 per
cent.

Harold Doan and Associates (press release), CA
Oct 13 2005

EBRD board to Georgia & Armenia

Oct. 12 2005

Press Release – European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Directors from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
are on a seven-visit to Georgia and Armenia. They are meeting senior
government officials and business leaders in the respective
countries, as well as investors and representatives of the
international and diplomatic community and civil society.

The EBRD’s board of directors represents the Bank’s 62 public
shareholders, rather than its executive arm, and approves all Bank
projects. The goal of the visit is to learn more about the state of
reforms and transition in the region as the Bank prepares its new
two-year strategy for Armenia, due before the end of 2005. Both
Georgia and Armenia participate in the Bank’s 2004 Early Transition
Countries (ETC) initiative, which aims to stimulate market activity
in the Bank’s seven lowest-income countries of operations by using a
streamlined approach to financing more and smaller projects.

The Bank’s cumulative commitments in Georgia, which is pursuing
structural reform and a large-scale privatization programme, stood at
319.6 million in August 2005. The EBRD’s main strategic orientations
for Georgia focus on the promotion of private-sector activity and
investment through support for domestic and foreign investors, small
and medium-size enterprises to build stability in the power sector
and enhance the investment climate. In Tbilisi, the seven EBRD
directors will meet President Mikheil Saakashvili, Prime Minister
Zurab Nogaideli, National Bank President Roman Gorsiridze and
Parliament Chairwoman Nino Burjanadze.

The Armenian economy continues to perform encouragingly in 2005,
recording a growth rate of 11.7 per cent in the first eight months of
the year, in line with the average of the past four years. Foreign
direct investment inflows were sharply higher in 2004, poverty on the
decline, fiscal performance improving and public debt sustainable.
Total EBRD investment in Armenia was 32.1 million in May 2005. The
EBRD delegation will meet President Robert Kocharyan, Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan and key ministers. The Bank is considering a
variety of new equity investments and cooperation with Armenia’s
strengthening banking sector to bring more financing to smaller
businesses.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress