Month: December 2008

Today.Az, Azerbaijan
Dec 30 2008

Group of Nakhchivan residents attempts to trespass Armenian border

30 December 2008 [15:37] – Today.Az

On December 27 a group of parents in Nakhchivan, claiming that their
sons were beaten in the police department, have directed to the
Armenian border to trespass it, reports Day.Az with reference to
Azadlyg radio station.

As is noted, seven young people at the age of 18-23, charged with
switching off lights on one of the New Year trees in Nakhchivan were
detained in the evening on December 26. They were beaten and shaved in
the police and they were prohibited to go out after 18:00.

As a sign of protest against this parents of these sons announced that
they are going to leave the country.

One of the parents told Azadlyg radio station that their children were
beaten in the police station due to switching off the lights on one of
the New Year trees.

"Our sons were beaten till morning, they were shaved and held in the
police station for a night. How can we live like that? Now we want to
go to another country. We want to live in Armenia. We have raised our
children with a great difficulty", said one of the parents.

The Nakhchivan police explained their actions by saying they wanted to
intimidate the young men and said that this issue was settled after a
talk with the parents.

/Day.Az/

URL:

Wales Online, United Kingdom
Dec 30 2008

Looking back …1909 brought good and bad tidings

Dec 30 2008 by Dan O’Neill, South Wales Echo

NEW Year’s Eve, 1908, Cardiff… part of a world as different and
distant to ours as the world described by Dickens.

And Dickens would have been pleased to see relief approaching at last
for those children like his immortal Oliver Twist who suffered in the
country’s workhouses. MPs would agree in February that such
institutions `were not fit places for children’.

`I said that in Oliver 70 years ago,’ his shade must have whispered to
those MPs.

Good news, too, for the nation’s over-70s. On January 1, they got
their first old age pensions ` five bob a week for single men, seven
and sixpence for couples. One old boy overcome by this largesse
dropped dead in the post office. I wonder if he collected his pension
before departing.

(Who could have guessed that exactly a century later pensioners would
outnumber under-16s?)

To pay for these pensions ` and rearmament as Germany flexed its
muscles ` David Lloyd George, Liberal Chancellor, proposed his
celebrated `People’s Budget’ in April. Just sixpence in the pound for
the 10,000 people with incomes over £10,000 a year but there
were howls of outrage from the usual suspects: `An attack on the
propertied classes,’ raged the Tory opposition. Predictably, the
budget would be thrown out by the Lords in November.

Meanwhile, that pension didn’t buy much. One survey found that in 1909
a family of five could barely exist on £1.0s 6d a week, and
then only if they ate no eggs, butter, fresh meat and `very little
tea’.

So what lay ahead for them that year when Britannia ruled the waves,
when Edward VII presided over the greatest empire ever known in what’s
so often called, by those with sepia-tinted specs, the last Golden
Age, that period of peace and content before the Great War changed the
world forever?

Not much golden for those Cardiffians who existed, rather than lived,
in the squalid little courts around the centre, in the terraced
streets of Temperance Town and what was then called Tiger Bay. But a
truly gilded life for our coal and shipping tycoons, 1909 promising
yet another great year of profits as the coal cascaded down from the
Valleys, nine million tons in Cardiff alone.

Meanwhile, it might have come as a surprise to those thousands of
coal-trimmers who kept the coal ships moving that a survey would tell
them they were better off than workers in Germany and France. But
there’d be plenty of money on offer in Germany’s shipyards ` Kaiser
Bill demanded 13 more `dreadnoughts’ in March, convincing those who
feared he wanted war that they were right. France joined the arms
race, spending £120m on new warships.

But on this New Year’s Eve, there was no thought of war as they packed
the pubs and drank to 1909 and what it would bring. Well, the Echo
would report in January that a British team led by Lieutenant Edward
Shackleton had got closer (111 miles) to the South Pole than any
previous expedition. Captain Scott was 18 months in the future, while
in April America’s Robert Peary would be first to the North Pole.

There were wonders to come, dramatic proof that we were entering a new
era. Colour films were being shown for the first time in the little
halls where flickering screens had shown Edward VII’s 1907 visit to
Cardiff and our own Peerless Jim beating the former world champion Joe
Bowker ` with Jim himself in the audience. In 1909 Cardiff’s first
purpose-built cinema, the 668-seat Electra opened, the Echo reporting
that America’s motion picture industry was already employing 100,000
people, among them Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, `the World’s
Sweetheart’ who would give birth in December to Doug Jr. Headline
news, but only his nearest and dearest celebrated the arrival in
January of little George Thomas ` not in Tonypandy but Port Talbot.

It was only six years since the Wright Brothers flew their
heavier-than-air machine but in 1909 London would see the first
international aircraft exhibition and you can bet that Ernest Willows,
Cardiff’s pioneer aviator (he built his first airship in 1905) would
be there to see it.

Yes, flying was here to stay: in July, 1909, Louis Bleriot would be
the first man to fly across the English Channel.

Ironically, in view of what was to come, President William Taft
announced in November that a naval base would be built at Pearl
Harbour ` `to protect America from Japanese attack’.

For some the year would bring only horror. Halfway through January
Europe’s worst ever earthquake killed 200,000 in Sicily and southern
Italy. In April we reported 300,000 Armenians massacred by Muslims. An
anti-government revolt in Spain would leave thousands dead in August.

But on the last night of 1908 all that was yet to come.

Tomorrow, the last night of 2008…

-news/2008/12/30/looking-back-1909-brought-good-an d-bad-tidings-91466-22570637/

The Messenger , Georgia
Dec 30 2008

Armenian expert concerned about crisis

By Messenger Staff
Tuesday, December 30

The Rector of the Russian-Armenian State University, Armen Darbinian,
thinks that Armenia is not undertaking serious and effective measures
to combat the effects of the world economic crisis in the country and
therefore its negative influence will continue in Armenia for a long
period.

Darbinian stated that in its first years of independence Armenia was
conducting a policy of substituting imports with a large local
production of consumer goods. The next step should therefore have been
the stimulation of export production, but this did not happen and the
country continued producing non-export compatible products.

The country’s economic growth was determined by external factors
mainly, individual transfers into the country reaching the huge total
of USD 2-5 billion. Consequently the negative balance between export
and import has reached USD 3 billion.

Discussing the prospects of the development of the country, Darbinian
stated that the measures which were intended to stabilize democracy
and create a market compatible environment have failed. Now the main
direction of the country’s development should be determined: either we
guarantee a democratic market economy or impose an authoritarian
market economy. He added that even the second option can bring some
positive results, as the example of Kazakhstan showed.

Armenia’s former Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian, commenting on the
current situation in Armenia, has stated that 10% economic growth in
Armenia was a success but due to the world crisis the most optimistic
current prognosis suggests growth could be 5% next year, whereas a
more pessimistic prognosis shows 2% decrease. Oskanian does not
exclude cutting the budget sometime in the middle of 2009. One of the
leaders of the Dashnak Tsutsun Party, Armen Rustamian, is against
developing the Armenian economy by opening the Armenia-Turkey and
Armenia-Azerbaijan borders at the expense of giving up Karabakh.

The Messenger , Georgia
Dec 30 2008

Stability platform rumours rise again

By Messenger Staff
Tuesday, December 30

In the summer when the Russian invasion was at its peak it was
announced that the Turkish leadership had suggested a new political
formula ` a platform in the Caucasus guaranteeing peace, stability and
security in the region. Now it is again reported that the document is
being discussed and getting ready to be signed. However Georgian
political analysts and journalists are emphasizing that they don’t
know the detailed text of this platform and therefore cannot comment
on the pros and cons of it.

Any kind of agreement which guarantees peace and stability in the
region is welcome, but it is regretted that the Georgian Foreign
Ministry did not provide a timely Georgian translation of the document
and moreover, did not provide more details of it. What we do know
however is that the Turkish initiative envisages the document being
signed by Turkey, Russia and the three South Caucasus States. Even
this creates an awkward situation. Several entities who claim to have
a legitimate interest in this region, such as Iran, the EU and the
USA, appear to be excluded from the agreement and this may impact on
their attitude towards the countries that sign it and the assistance
they might be willing to give to states which thereby do not take
their interests into account.

In 1922 an agreement was signed in Kars which was controversial and
did not leave any of the South Caucasus states very happy. Today the
situation is even more complicated. Russia has introduced two puppet
states into the region by snatching Georgian territories ` the
so-called Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Of course Moscow will try to
legalize these fictions by fixing their puppet leaders’ signatures on
the document. This will not be accepted by Georgia, and we can say
this with 100 % confidence. Hopefully none of the parties to the
platform would support Moscow if it tried to take this initiative,
assuming there was only one version of the document, and everyone knew
who had signed it, which is something no one can now be sure of after
what happened with the Sarkozy-brokered ceasefire document in August.

Turkey is most likely interested in promoting its economic interests
above all by guaranteeing an uninterrupted flow of Caspian Basin
energy to the West via Turkey. It also wants to claim leadership in
the region and possibly untie the Karabakh knot and reconcile
Azerbaijan and Armenia. However Turkey understands that it cannot do
all this alone, without Russia, which is openly stating its dubious
militarily claims in the Caucasus which do not square with being part
of an agreement signed by Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and
Georgia. The Kremlin has also tried to resolve Karabakh problem
itself, without Turkey. President Medvedev organized a meeting between
the Azeri and Armenian Presidents in Moscow, though this has had no
visible results, which might demonstrate that the meeting was just an
attempt to pretend Russia is a peacemaker, as some said at the time.

Georgian journalists and political analysts hope that before any
document is signed its terms will be made public and become a matter
of expert discussion. This is too important an issue to be entrusted
to politicians alone, whose judgment on a range of issues has already
proven fallible. Nor should signing up to a platform end at the
signing ceremony. The stability of the entire region, our country and
the welfare of many nations is at stake, and bits of paper achieve
nothing unless you make them do so.

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 30 2008

Armenians most TV-watching nation
30.12.08 13:29

The analysis of TV and advertisement market in Armenia carried out by
TV MR AM representing AGB Nielsen Media Research company showed that
TV is more popular in Armenia than in other countries – Armenians
spend 316 minutes before their TV sets, reported ARKA.

Marketing Manager Vigen Gabrielyan told journalists that despite the 6
minutes’ reduction in time spent by Armenians before TV sets as
compared with 2007, still the indicator remains the highest among 80
countries where the study was conducted.

According to the results of the study, the smallest time ` 128 minutes
– is spent before TV sets by residents in some Chinese provinces. The
average time is 3 hours throughout the world.

TV MR AM company was founded in 2005 and represents AGB Nielsen Media
Research in Armenia. It conducts surveys of TV audience and provides
monitoring data to TV companies and advertisement agencies.

AGB Nielsen Media Research is a world’s biggest company engaged in TV
market reserach. It was established in 2004 through a murger of AGB
Group and Nielsen Media Research International. The company’s
headquarters are situated in Switzerland. The company has
representative offices in 28 countries.

The Messenger, Georgia
Dec 31 2008

Armenia-Azerbaijan rivalry

By Messenger Staff
Wednesday, December 31

The NABUCCO natural gas pipeline project plans are at an advanced
stage. Now all the players are actively trying to get the biggest
slice of the cake.

After the August Russian aggression Armenia became very active in
trying to persuade the NABUCCO initiators to run the pipeline through
its territory. Yerevan thinks it will thus improve its relations with
Turkey and thereby persuade Azerbaijan to make certain
concessions. Armenian PM Tigran Sarkisian, in an interview, has stated
that the country’s leadership is attentively following the development
of the NABUCCO project plans. The country suggests two possible
options which would gave it an advantage, the transit of natural gas
from Central Asia and from Iran.

Of course Armenia suggests that any pipeline should pass through its
territory and then on to Turkey. However Azerbaijan is one of the key
players in the NABUCCO project and it is against Armenia being
involved unless the Karabakh problem is solved.

Economist, UK
Dec 30 2008

Turkey and the Kurds: Television diplomacy

Dec 30th 2008 | ANKARA AND DIYARBAKIR
The Economist print edition

Hopes that a new channel may herald fresh reforms

ROJIN is a feisty, beautiful Kurdish bard who belts out nationalist
ballads. As a result, private Kurdish television channels that showed
her were long penalised or even taken off the air. But now she will be
a regular on Turkey’s stultified TRT state television, which this week
launched a 24-hour Kurdish channel in the main Kurdish dialect,
Kurmanji.

A contradiction, yes. But it may just suggest that the Justice and
Development (AK) party is regaining the reformist zeal that made it
one of Turkey’s most popular and progressive governments. Kurdish
hardliners scoff that the new channel is a cynical sop to the
country’s 14m-odd Kurds before local elections in March. When Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, the AK prime minister, told an audience of Kurds in
Diyarbakir in 2005 that the state had made mistakes in its treatment
of the Kurds, his party won many a Kurdish heart (and vote). But it
has lost them since he succumbed to the army’s demands to deal with
Kurdish PKK rebels by force, not negotiation.

The army has been relentlessly pounding PKK guerrilla bases in
northern Iraq. The PKK’s civilian arm, the Democratic Society Party,
which has 20 elected parliamentarians, has been consistently snubbed
by the AK government. Court cases bordering on the ludicrous continue
against its members and against Kurdish-run municipalities that name
their streets after eminent Kurds. One child in a Kurdish family from
Germany was refused entry at the Turkish border recently because he
had a Kurdish name.

Even radical Kurds express hope that the new television channel,
however wimpish, may spell a new beginning. Indeed, they hope the AK
will renew the reform promises that helped it to win re-election, with
a bigger share of the vote, in July 2007. Mr Erdogan is expected to
make a statement during the televised launch. Kurdish dissidents are
due to host some of its shows. Whether it can compete with the PKK’s
hugely popular satellite channel, Roj, is another question.

Private Kurdish television channels in Turkey are allowed to broadcast
in their mother tongue for only four hours a week. Every show is
vetted and has to have Turkish subtitles, making live programmes
impossible. But the fact that Shivan Perwer, one of the most renowned
Kurdish nationalist singers, is considering appearing on TRT’s Channel
Six is being widely hailed as a breakthrough.

In another move, some 200 Turkish intellectuals have launched an
internet petition about the massacre of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, saying that they
are sorry. The text of their apology does not use the term genocide,
favoured by Armenians. But at least 25,000 Turks, from many different
walks of life, have signed the petition, prompting calls of treason by
far-right nationalists. Mr Erdogan himself has called the petition `a
mistake’. The country’s president, Abdullah Gul, who has spearheaded
secret talks to normalise relations with Armenia, has been accused by
an opposition parliamentarian of having Armenian ancestry. He took her
to court, claiming his lineage was Turkish and Muslim to boot.

The petition’s signatories have also been assailed by many Armenians,
who dismiss it as a ploy to get Barack Obama, who has used the G-word
in the past, to drop it. Yet some are less recalcitrant. Khatchig
Mouradian, a writer in the Armenian diaspora, says that `without such
initiatives, traditional diplomacy resolves too little, late, and
risks looking like mere make-up on a deeply scarred face.’

Technology Business Journal
December 30, 2008

OPTICAL RESEARCH;
Reports outline optical research from Yerevan State University

According to recent research from Yerevan, Armenia, "Oblique
propagation of light through a planar layer of a chiral photonic
crystal (CPC) is considered. The problem is solved using
Ambartsumyan’s layer-summation method."

"Specific features of the reflection (transmission) spectra in the
presence of dielectric boundaries are studied. Apparent contradictions
of the Belyakov-Dmitrienko theory with experiments are
discussed. Possibility of the laser emission wavelength control in a
CPC layer doped with a laser dye is analyzed," wrote A.H. Gevorgyan
and colleagues, Yerevan State University.

The researchers concluded: "Characteristic features of the light
absorption at oblique incidence are investigated."

Gevorgyan and colleagues published their study in Optics and
Spectroscopy (Effects of Angle of Incidence and Polarization in the
Chiral Photonic Crystals. Optics and Spectroscopy,
2008;105(4):624-632).

For additional information, contact A.H. Gevorgyan, Yerevan State
University, Yerevan 375025, Armenia.

Publisher contact information for the journal Optics and Spectroscopy
is: Maik Nauka, Interperiodica, Springer, 233 Spring St., New York, NY
10013-1578, USA.

Science Letter
December 30, 2008

ASTROPHYSICS;
New findings from V.G. Gurzadyan and co-authors describe advances in
astrophysics

"We continue investigation of the hidden plane-mirror symmetry in the
distribution of excursion sets in cosmic microwave background (CMB)
temperature anisotropy maps, previously noticed in the three-year data
of the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (WMAP), using the WMAP 5
years maps," scientists in Yerevan, Armenia report (see also
Astrophysics).

"The symmetry is shown to have higher significance, chi(2) < 1.7, for
low multipoles l< 5, while disappearing at larger multipoles, chi(2) >
3.5 for l> 10. The study of the sum and difference maps of temperature
inhomogeneity regions, along with simulated maps, confirms its
existence," wrote V.G. Gurzadyan and colleagues.

The researchers concluded: "The properties of these mirroring
symmetries are compatible with those produced by the Sachs-Wolfe
effect in the presence of an anomalously large component of
horizon-size density perturbations, independent of one of the spatial
coordinates, and/or a slab-like spatial topology of the Universe."

Gurzadyan and colleagues published their study in Astronomy &
Astrophysics (Large scale plane-mirroring in the cosmic microwave
background WMAP5 maps. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2008;490(3):929-932).

For more information, contact V.G. Gurzadyan, Yerevan Physics
Institute, Yerevan 375036, Armenia.

Publisher contact information for the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics
is: EDP Sciences S a, 17, Avenue du Hoggar, PA Courtaboeuf, BP 112,
F-91944 les Ulis Cedex a, France.

Science Letter
December 30, 2008

PHYSICS;
Research by D.B. Saakian and colleagues in physics provides new insights

According to recent research from Yerevan, Armenia, "We introduce an
alternative way to study molecular evolution within well-established
Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, showing that for a broad class of fitness
landscapes it is possible to derive dynamics analytically within the
1/N accuracy, where N is the genome length. For a smooth and monotonic
fitness function this approach gives two dynamical phases: smooth
dynamics and discontinuous dynamics."

"The latter phase arises naturally with no explicite singular fitness
function, counterintuitively. The Hamilton-Jacobi method yields
straightforward analytical results for the models that utilize fitness
as a function of Hamming distance from a reference genome sequence,"
wrote D.B. Saakian and colleagues (see also Physics).

The researchers concluded: "We also show the way in which this method
gives dynamical phase structure for multipeak fitness."

Saakian and colleagues published their study in Physical Review E
(Dynamics of the Eigen and the Crow-Kimura models for molecular
evolution. Physical Review E, 2008;78(4 Part 1):1908).

For additional information, contact D.B. Saakian, Yerevan Physics
Institute, Alikhanian Bros St. 2, Yerevan 375036, Armenia.

Publisher contact information for the journal Physical Review E is:
American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, College Pk, MD
20740-3844, USA.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress