Month: October 2008

OFFICIAL ALLAYS RUBLE DEVALUATION FEARS

Cbonds. Info
21.10.2008 – RBC
Russia

The Russian government is not planning to devalue the ruble, Deputy
Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov told reporters in the Armenian
capital of Yerevan today. "No such actions are planned," Shatalov
said, dispelling rumors of the possible ruble devaluation, Echo of
Moscow radio reports.

Rumors of the coming ruble devaluation appeared last week, prompting
people to frantically buy dollars, with queues at exchange points in
Moscow and some other regions reported on the weekend.

The Central Bank of Russia interfered to stop the panic yesterday,
providing less foreign currency to banks for currency swap operations,
and thus strengthening the ruble by 1 percent against major foreign
currencies.

In the short term, the regulator’s moves should soothe traders,
experts say. Analysts polled by Vremya Novostei do not expect any
significant increase in demand for foreign currency shortly, provided
that speculative traders do not find another method against the
Central Bank. In the long term, however, the ruble is set to weaken
if oil prices continue to fall.

Capital flight from Russia, the liquidity crisis in the banking sector,
the collapsing stock market and shrinking international reserves –
all this prompted speculators to launch a new attack on the ruble in
the hopes of capitalizing on its depreciation.

Last week speculators used currency swap operations to raise the
dollar’s exchange rate. Swap operations reached $7 billion on Friday,
according to Yevgeny Nadorshin, an analyst at Trust Bank, and many
traders hoped that the Central Bank would sell the same amount of
foreign currency on Monday. On Friday evening, however, the Central
Bank said it would limit its swap operations. Indeed, on Monday the
Central Bank provided just RUB 50 billion for such transactions. As
a result, the market was short of rubles, sending overnight lending
rates to 45 percent on the interbank market. The ruble jumped RUB
0.2 in the first minutes of trading.

"As a result, swap operations immediately became very risky,"
Nadorshin said, "It turned out that betting for a strong dollar is
very unprofitable now."

"The Central Bank took effective measures to ease the speculative
pressure on the ruble," says Stanislav Yarushevichyus, at ING. "This is
an important message to traders who tried to play against the Central
bank on rumors of the ruble’s devaluation. Most likely, such traders
will close their positions over the next few days," he believes. The
liquidity situation has stabilized slightly following reports that
the Central Bank had issued RUB 387.7 billion in collateral-free
loans. "This has calmed the market, and lending rates on the interbank
market have dropped," Nadorshin said.

Speculators whose bet on the dollar did not pay off will now be playing
less aggressively against the Central Bank. In addition, tax payments
are coming due, which will only add to demand for rubles. Otherwise,
if banks continue betting on the strong dollar, using the Central
Bank’s funds, they might run short of cash for tax payments and
obligations to clients, which easily leads to license revocation.

PSCC SEEKS STUDENTS FOR STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM

Pasadena Now
Monday, October 20 | 10:53 pm
CA

The Pasadena Sister Cities'(PSCC) Armenia Sub-Committee is looking
for applicants for their Pasadena/Vanadzor mutual student exchange
program; the deadline for which this year is November 28, 2008.

PSCC’s Armenia Sub-Committee has managed past student exchanges with
positive results.

High school students from Pasadena, sixteen and over, who spend time
in Vanadzor, came back raving about the warm hospitality, family
values and the cultural heritage of Armenia.

Reciprocally, students from Armenia who visit Pasadena spend time
with teachers, intern with professionals and live with American and
locally established Armenian families, to get immersed in the local
culture. This is a volunteer program where students pay their own
travel fare but are housed and entertained by families in the host
city. The exchange is managed from Pasadena through affiliates in
Vanadzor, with a meticulous accounting of all expenses.

Exchange program students are the best ambassadors of goodwill to
propagate the benefits of mutual visits. PSCC’s Armenia Sub-Committee
calls upon schools, .residents and businesses in Pasadena, interested
in sending students over, to contact [email protected], PSCC
Student Coordinator, for information or applications.

VIOLENCE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST

Worcester Telegram
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
MA

During a visit to Worcester, scholar Donald Bloxham will take
the Holocaust out of the realm of the unique and discuss it in the
context of Europe’s history of violence in the first half of the 20th
century. Mr. Bloxham will make his presentation at 4 p.m. tomorrow in
the Rose Library at the Cohen-Lasry House at 11 Hawthorne St. on the
Clark University campus. The talk is free and open to the public. It
is sponsored by the Clark University Modern History Colloquium and The
Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Mr. Bloxham
will examine ways in which the Holocaust fits and does not fit into
broader patterns of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Mr. Bloxham is a professor of history at the University of
Edinburgh. At 34 years of age, he is the youngest full professor
in the United Kingdom. Mr. Bloxham’s 2007 book, "The Great Game
Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman
Armenians," won the Raphael Lemkin Award presented by the International
Association of Genocide Scholars.

WRAPUP 2-RUSSIA MUST USE FX RESERVES CAUTIOUSLY-KUDRIN
By Gleb Bryanski and Dmitry Sergeyev

Reuters
Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:04pm EDT

Adds Kudrin on currency, energy ministry on OPEC, Kremlin aide on
plan to rescue real estate, retailers)

MOSCOW, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Russia must be cautious in using its foreign
exchange reserves, which have already fallen by a tenth in the last
few months, and the emphasis should be put on supporting the rouble,
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday. The reserves, the
world’s third largest, are now at $530.6 billion, down $66.9 billion
since early August. Credit rating agencies have said Russia’s reserves
are a key factor in its investment grade rating.

The call on the cash pile is rising because Russia has to support
its currency, fund high social spending and finance a $210 billion
financial system rescue plan, a tough task as oil prices are tumbling.

"We need to be careful when we use this (reserves) stabilising
influence," Kudrin told fellow finance ministers from former Soviet
states. "Gold and forex reserves allow us to guarantee the currency
rate stability," he said. "Currency market speculators will be
disappointed."

Reserves have fallen mostly because of heavy intervention by the
central bank in the past few months. It has managed to keep the rouble
stable against the dollar/euro basket at around 30.40.

But as ordinary Russians track their savings through the dollar rate,
officials have had to intervene almost daily to persuade the population
that the rouble will not weaken. "No rouble devaluation is planned,"
Kudrin’s deputy Sergei Shatalov said in the Armenian capital of
Yerevan, where he was travelling with President Dmitry Medvedev.

Also in Yerevan, Russian Energy Ministry Sergei Shmatko said Moscow
would cooperate with OPEC but would not join oil output cuts despite
calls from the producers’ organisation to help it support flagging oil
prices. "We want to have the possibility of having fairly independent
policies," he told Reuters.

Russia needs high oil prices as badly as OPEC members as its budget
is balanced at $70 per barrel for this year and at $95 for next
year. This compares with $64.5 for its Urals crude on Tuesday.

BIG REFINANCING DEMAND

A broadly strong dollar rose against the rouble <RUB=> to 26.57,
its highest level since February 2007, while exchange rates on the
streets of Moscow were as high as 28.

Traders estimated the central bank’s currency sales at around $2
billion on Tuesday after no interventions on Monday and interventions
of $4-$5 billion per day last week.

The reserves are poised to fall by a total of $74 billion in the next
few weeks. Russia has earmarked $50 billion to help its companies
refinance foreign loans, another $6.7 billion to buy local stocks and
$17.3 billion in subordinated loans for the country’s largest banks.

The money will mainly flow via the state agent, Development Bank,
known in Russian as VEB. Its head, Vladimir Dmitriyev, said on Tuesday
it had already received $97 billion in refinancing applications.

Russian companies have borrowed aggressively abroad to fund growth
and acquisitions in the past gew years and are now struggling to
refinance loans as capital markets are shut.

"Banks have applied for twice as much as companies — $64 billion from
the banks and $33 billion from companies," Dmitriyev told reporters,
adding that the first 10 applications would be cleared in the near
future.

He also said the bank may start investing state funds in the stock
market this week.

Top Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich said the government was working on
a new rescue package for the real estate and retail sectors, one of the
most leveraged Russian industries. The state could go as far as to buy
unfinished buildings, but he did not say how much money could be spent.

The idea to support developers is unlikely to please Kudrin, who warned
finance chiefs of ex-Soviet republics that they would be affected by
a slowdown in Russia’s construction industry, which employs migrants
from all over the region.

"The industry is overheated and will suffer a decline in demand, and
many who only just started their projects feel it already," Kudrin
said. (Additional reporting by Denis Dyomkin and Andrei Ostroukh,
Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by David Stamp)

UNITED REFORMED CHURCH DENOUNCES AFGHAN KILLING AS "OFFENCE AGAINST GOD"
By agency reporter

Ekklesia
21 Oct 2008
UK

The United Reformed Church in Britain has condemned as "an offence
against God" the assassination of Gayle Williams, a Christian aid
worker in Kabul, and the chilling comments of those who killed her.

Taliban insurgents said "This woman came to teach Christianity to the
people of Afghanistan. Our leaders issued a decree to kill her. This
morning our people killed her".

The Rev John Marsh, Moderator of the General Assembly of the United
Reformed Church said: "It is deeply sad and sickening that Gayle
Williams has been deliberately targeted as a Christian, and gunned
down in the streets of Kabul. She had been welcomed into Afghanistan,
and was working with Serve Afghanistan, a trusted organisation,
bringing skilled assistance to people with disabilities".

He promised that the Church would pray for her family and
colleagues. "We will also pray for the families and individuals in
Kabul who delighted in and depended upon her skills, and the people
who actually killed her and those who support them explicitly or
implicitly. We pray with all Christians, Muslims and people of faith
everywhere, for whom this is an offence against God and a violation
of all that their spiritual traditions mean".

The Rev Peter Colwell, convenor of the URC’s inter-faith relations
committee said: "Like Christians, the vast majority of Muslims abhor
this kind of violence. Some Taliban factions operate far outside
mainstream views and actions. The Taliban are not a single united
entity".

When news of the killing broke, Peter Colwell was attending an
ecumenical consultation in Geneva, reflecting upon Christian attitudes
to Islam The keynote address was given by Catholicos Aram, head of
the Armenian Apostolic Church, who said that prevailing misperceptions
and polarisations between Muslims and Christians, which are hijacked
by ideological agendas, could be transformed only through a shared
life in community.

The United Reformed Church, through a series of unions over the
past 35 years, has brought together English Presbyterians, English,
Welsh and Scottish Congregationalists and members of the Churches
of Christ. One hundred thousand people make up 1600 congregations,
with more than 700 ministers, paid and unpaid.

Worldwide, more than 70 million Christians are members of the
Reformed family of churches, the largest Protestant tradition. They
call themselves Reformed because their churches began to emerge with
reform movements in the sixteenth century.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

KEENE STATE GENOCIDE AWARENESS LECTURE: "GENOCIDES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE"

Keene State College
Oct 20, 2008
U.S.A.

KEENE, N.H. 10/20/08 – Professor Donald Bloxham will give Keene
State College Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies’ 2nd Annual Genocide
Awareness Lecture: "Genocides in Comparative Perspective: Does the
Holocaust Fit?" on Monday, October 27. The lecture is free and open
to the public and will start at 7:30 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room of
Keene State College’s L. P. Young Student Center.

An expert in Holocaust and genocide studies, with focused work on
the Armenian genocide, Bloxham is professor of modern history at
the University of Edinburgh and has authored nearly 50 articles and
book chapters. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of
Genocide and serves on the editorial board of the journals Holocaust
Studies, Patterns of Prejudice, and the Journal of Genocide Research.

Professor Bloxham was the 2007-08 J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro
Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, where he completed his forthcoming book, The Final Solution:
A Genocide and Its Contexts. He is the recipient of the 2007 Raphael
Lemkin Award for genocide scholarship.

The Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies, recognized as a "center of
excellence" by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, has a strong
collection of print and media resources, holds a biennial residential
summer institute for educators, and supports a minor in Holocaust
studies at Keene State College.

One of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers, it is a
nonsectarian organization dedicated to teaching the lessons of the
Holocaust. It fulfills founder Dr. Charles Hildebrandt’s charge,
"to remember … and to teach," through annual community programming
and educational outreach activities.

For a schedule of workshops, in-service training, classroom
presentations, and individual curriculum consultations, visit
For more information, contact Margaret Barney,
[email protected], or call the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies
at 603-358-2490.

SECOND VOLUME OF COLLECTION "NAGORNO-KARABAKH IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND WORLD POLICY" TO BE ISSUED IN 2009

DeFacto Agency
2008-10-21 16:42:00
Armenia

YEREVAN, 21.10.08. DE FACTO. The second volume of a collection entitled
"Nagorno-Karabakh in the International Law and the World Policy"
will be issued in 2009, Ara Abrahamian, the head of the Union of
Armenians of Russia, stated.

To remind, the first volume of the book edited by Professor Yuri
Barseghov was issued early this year, on the initiative of the Union
of Armenians of Russia.

GEOSTEEL TO REVIVE STEEL PRODUCTION IN GEORGIA

The FINANCIAL
21/10/2008 17:12
Georgia

The FINANCIAL — The EBRD is providing a $28 million loan to the
company Geosteel LLC for the construction and operation of a mini-steel
mill in the Georgian town of Rustavi, about 35 km from Tbilisi

The plant will have a production capacity of 180,000 tonnes of a
year. To meet demand in Georgia but also in neighbouring Armenia
and Azerbaijan, the company is planning to focus on the production
of rebar which is essential for the construction industry in the
region. Geosteel plans to increase production gradually to a level
of about 180,000 tonnes in line with the development of market demand.

The EBRD financing comes under an A/B structure under which the A
loan of up to $14 million is provided by the Bank and the B loan of
up to $14 million is syndicated to State Bank of India.

"Geosteel will create a small, low-cost flexible steel mill. The
company will benefit from the strong supply of scrap metal available
on the Georgian and Armenian market. Presently, both countries are
exporting scrap metal." EBRD reports.

Geosteel is a joint venture between Georgian Steel Holding Group and
JSW Steel, one of the leading steel producers of India. JSW Steel will
bring its extensive know-how and expertise into the newly established
company which is planning to employ more than 350 people in an area
which has been severely affected by the economic downturn over the
last 2 decades.

Michael Davey, EBRD Director for the Caucasus, said the investment
will send a strong signal to other investors about the benefits of
investing in Georgia and the wider region. "The Caucasus countries
have seen strong growth in recent years, and now the priority must
be to maintain this momentum. Attracting international investors such
as Geosteel is one of the major elements for this", he added.

The EBRD has invested some â~B¬400 million in Georgia in recent
years in all major sectors of the economy. The country is part of
the Early Transition Countries Initiative, launched in April 2004
and including Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova,
Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Using a streamlined approach
to financing, the initiative is aimed at mobilising more investment,
and encouraging economic reform.

–Boundary_(ID_6VNm8ZUHHN/Ud70E4vVOEg)–

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY: REPORTS OUTLINE PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY STUDY FINDINGS FROM V.A. ATOYAN AND COLLEAGUES

Science Letter
October 7, 2008

According to recent research published in the Russian Journal of
Physical Chemistry a, "Methyl heptyl ketone was shown to obey the
law of corresponding states as concerns the velocity of sound and
adiabatic compressibility."

"An equation for the determination of the inversion temperature
depending on the number of carbon and hydrogen atoms in molecules of
liquids of this group was obtained. The inversion temperatures of
11 liquid ketones were found and used to calculate their critical
temperatures," wrote V.A. Atoyan and colleagues (see also Physical
Chemistry).

The researchers concluded: "The paper presents the adiabatic
compressibilities of these liquids over the temperature (273-473 K)
and pressure ranges (from 0.1 to 160 MPa) studied."

Atoyan and colleagues published their study in Russian Journal of
Physical Chemistry a (On the applicability of the law of corresponding
states to liquid methyl heptyl ketone. Russian Journal of Physical
Chemistry a, 2008;82(9):1605-1609).

For additional information, contact V.A. Atoyan, Armenian State
University, Stepanakert, Armenia.

The publisher’s contact information for the Russian Journal of Physical
Chemistry a is: Maik Nauka, Interperiodica, Springer, 233 Spring St.,
New York, NY 10013-1578, USA.

MICROSTRUCTURES: STUDIES FROM YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY YIELD NEW DATA ON MICROSTRUCTURES

Technology News Focus
October 8, 2008

"The effect of uniform electric and magnetic fields on binding energy
and photoionization cross-section of an off-axis hydrogen-like donor
impurity in a QWW, approximated by a cylindrical well of finite
depth, is investigated within the framework of variational approach,"
scientists writing in the journal Superlattices and Microstructures
report.

"The dependencies of the binding energy and photoionization
cross-section on electric field strength, magnetic field induction,
wire radius and impurity position are obtained," wrote V.N. Mughnetsyan
and colleagues, Yerevan State University.

The researchers concluded: "The cases when the polarization vector
of incident radiation is parallel and perpendicular to the wire axis
are both discussed."

Mughnetsyan and colleagues published their study in Superlattices
and Microstructures (Binding energy and photoionization cross section
of hydrogen-like donor impurity in quantum well-wire in electric and
magnetic fields. Superlattices and Microstructures, 2008;44(1):86-95).

Additional information can be obtained by contacting M.G. Barseghyan,
Yerevan State University, Dept. of Solid State Physics, Al Manookian 1,
Yerevan 0025, Armenia.

The publisher of the journal Superlattices and Microstructures can
be contacted at: Academic Press Ltd. Elsevier Science Ltd., 24-28
Oval Rd., London NW1 7DX, England.